1898] Zola Condemned in Dreyfus Case 289 



" In Paris Zola has been condemned to a year's imprisonment for 

 bringing forward the Dreyfus case. This is an event of great sig- 

 nificance, for it means that in France as in Germany and Russia, mili- 

 tarism reigns supreme. It will be so in England, too, before many 

 years are over, and then good-bye to liberty of any kind. If the 

 nations of Europe will only cut each other's throats in a Thirty Years' 

 War there might be some hope for the world, but they are too cow- 

 ardly for that. All they dare do is to swagger hideously, and talk 

 about their honour. It will be with them as it is with the Spaniards 

 who are ruled by military pronunciamentos. With regard to the Drey- 

 fus case, when I was at Gros Bois last autumn, I asked Wagram the 

 truth of it. He told me that it was to please the Austrian Govern- 

 ment that the case had been tried privately, that justly or unjustly 

 condemned, Dreyfus was an affreux canaille, and had made some con- 

 fession of guilt, but I see little difference in point of canailledom 

 between these wretched military spies and their wretched military su- 

 periors, who employ and pay them. Spying, whether by a paid agent 

 or a paying agent, demoralises those that indulge in it, and the military 

 code of to-day recognizes every treachery and every baseness as law- 

 ful. What nonsense to talk about military honour! There is no 

 such thing. Can one conceive any greater blackguard than the soi- 

 disant Esterhazy unless it be his military backers, Pellieux and the 

 rest? On our side the Channel, too, we have some pretty blackguards 

 to show lately. 



" gth March. — Left for England. Mohammed Abdu came to wish 

 me good-bye. I was suffering with great pain so that I felt almost 

 dying. Two years ago under like circumstances I should have made 

 him my profession of faith, but to-day no, though I was moved at 

 parting with him as though I were saying last words to a dearest 

 friend, but I feel now there is no reality in it all. The Moslems of 

 to-day who believe are mere wild beasts like the men of Siwah, the 

 rest have lost their faith. Still less does Christianity appeal to me. 

 I do not wish to live again. I only wish for the extinction of the 

 grave. I am going home alone, Anne staying on for another six 

 weeks in Egypt. I have telegraphed to my servant, David, to meet 

 me at Venice and see me slowly home. My sole idea now is to be for 

 a week with George in Mount Street, and then to be nursed by Cowie at 

 Newbuildings. It was fortunately quite calm weather on my voyage up 

 the Adriatic, and at Venice I found an invitation waiting me from 

 Lady Paget at Bellosguardo in Florence where I stayed two nights, 

 and then on, arriving in London on the 23rd March, where I found 

 George Wyndham established in my rooms in Mount Street, which I had 

 lent him ; there was room for us both there, and his cheerful influence 

 did me good. 



