FRANCE. 



299 



the officers of which were tried on April 18, found 

 guilty, and subjected to a nominal penalty. The 

 secretaries of the League of the French Father- 

 land and of the League of Patriots underwent 

 the same formal condemnation. 



The criminal chamber of the Court of Cassa- 

 tion on March 3 found that Col. Picquart and 

 the lawyer Leblois should be tried by a civil 

 court for the alleged forgery of the petit bleu 

 and for using the forgery and divulging matter 

 contained in secret documents of the Dreyfus 

 case. Picquart, moreover, was found liable to 

 trial by court-martial on the charge of communi- 

 cating documents of the Ministry of War to 

 M. Leblois. The Court of Cassation met on 

 March 21 to consider the Dreyfus appeal. It 

 decided to examine the secret dossier, M. Ballot- 

 Beaupre, successor of M. Quesnay de Beaure- 

 paire as president of the civil chamber, was made 

 reporter, and in accordance with his report the 

 court decided in favor of revision of the trial of 

 1894 and the sending of Alfred Dreyfus before 

 a new court-martial. 



The Minister of Foreign Affairs had on differ- 

 ent occasions received official communications ' 

 declaring that neither Col. Von Schwarzkoppen 

 nor Col. Panizzardi had relations with Dreyfus. 

 One of the documents which had confirmed the 

 successive Ministers of War in their conviction 

 of the guilt of Dreyfus was a message sent to 

 the Italian Foreign Office after the arrest of 

 Dreyfus suggesting that if the Italian Govern- 

 ment had not been in communication with him 

 it would be well to publish an official denial, so 

 as to avert press comments. The final clause was 

 made to read in the first inaccurate translation 

 of the cipher, " Our emissary has taken his pre- 

 cautions." A key to the cipher was obtained by 

 means of a decoy message, and the War Office was 

 furnished with a copy of the correct reading. This 

 document disappeared, and Col. Henry was sent 

 to the War Office to get another. A copy was 

 given to him, but this he kept or destroyed, and 

 the document was afterward supplied from mem- 

 ory, and got into the secret dossier in this form: 

 " Dreyfus arrested ; our emissary forewarned." 

 Another of the secret documents made a cousin 

 of Dreyfus say that he believed in his guilt, 

 whereas he had declared the opposite, and there 

 was other falsified evidence of this character. 

 The inquiry of the Court of Cassation revealed 

 so much folly and credulity in the general staff 

 and such tricks and chicanery and fantastic de- 

 vices to falsify the evidence against Dreyfus, 

 to screen Esterhazy, and to hunt down Picquart, 

 that its reputation suffered, and some of the 

 foremost officers of the French army have in 

 succession lost their places, their standing, and 

 their reputation for sagacity and ability, if not 

 for probity and honor. Gen. Mercier, who sought 

 to make the Dreyfus affair a stepping-stone for 

 his political ambition, was one of the first to 

 suffer. Gen. De Pellieux and Gen. Zurlinden 

 were compromised by the latest revelations. Col. 

 Du Paty de Clam and Col. Henry, with the per- 

 mission or at the behest of their superiors, sent 

 forged telegrams to Col. Picquart in Tunis, went 

 to Esterhazy disguised in blue spectacles and 

 false beards, made various adventuresses and 

 shady characters their instruments and go-be- 

 tweens, furnished him with articles to supply 

 to newspapers, dictated or approved letters to 

 the President of the republic, in which Esterhazy 

 threatened the interposition of the Emperors of 

 Austria and Germany. A document incriminat- 

 ing Dreyfus was abstracted from the secret dos- 

 sier and handed to Esterhazy by a veiled lady 



whom he met by appointment, and he, after 

 copying the contents, delivered the original at 

 the War Office, never knowing to whom he was 

 indebted for this " liberating document." The 

 dubious character and dishonest transactions of 

 Esterhazy were known, and yet the chiefs of 

 the general staff took him under their protec- 

 tion and declared him a man of honor. They 

 compelled him to challenge Picquart and chose 

 his seconds. Later they threw him over and pun- 

 ished him by dismissing him from the army on 

 the charge of habitual misconduct. Col. Du Paty 

 de Clam was also compulsorily retired on a 

 charge of conduct unbecoming an officer. The 

 motives for all these curious intrigues could not 

 be divined, and, since men who stood at the head 

 of the French army were concerned in them, it 

 was natural to infer that these were a blind to 

 cover up darker transactions in which they were 

 involved. This dire but no doubt unfounded 

 suspicion caused a more painful interest and 

 deeper perturbation than the question of the 

 guilt or innocence of Dreyfus or the justice of 

 his trial. Gen. Gonse, Gen. De Boisdeffre, and 

 all those who were active in the prosecution of 

 Dreyfus and the defense of Esterhazy were made 

 to feel the weight of public distrust. 



A large number of forged documents and false 

 affidavits incriminating Dreyfus were sold to the 

 War Office by detectives, which were afterward 

 eliminated from the dossier, as they only served 

 to prove the stupidity and credulity of the in- 

 telligence department. Such were gossipy tales 

 of conversations overheard by cabmen and gam- 

 bling-house servants, alleged secrets revealed by 

 women of gallantry, and the like. The most 

 notable forgery was that of two letters that were 

 supposed to have been written by the German 

 Emperor to Count Miinster about Dreyfus. 

 When their existence was first mentioned in a 

 newspaper the German minister expostulated with 

 the Minister of Foreign Affairs regarding the 

 dangerous license given to the Paris press. After 

 the first Dreyfus trial, when the newspapers and 

 officials insinuated that there were grave secrets 

 involving the question of peace or war, the Ger- 

 man Emperor told his ambassador to go to Presi- 

 dent Casimir-Perier and ask him to declare that 

 the German embassy was not implicated in the 

 affair. President " Casimir-Perier told Count 

 Miinster that the incriminating document had 

 been obtained from the German embassy. Count 

 Miinster was surprised at this information, but 

 still pressed for a note exonerating the embassy, 

 which the President said could only be drawn 

 up by the minister, and could not apply to one 

 embassy alone. A note published in vague and 

 general terms closed the incident. 



On May 5 M. De Freycinet resigned his post 

 as Minister of War in consequence of attacks 

 in the Chamber which he had incurred by dis- 

 missing Georges Duruy, Professor of History at 

 the Ecole Polytechnique, who had excited the 

 anger of the students by publications in favor 

 of Dreyfus; also as the result of a dispute with 

 the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in regard to the 

 mistranslated Panizzardi telegram. M. Krantz 

 was appointed Minister of War, and he at once 

 struck from the active list Capt. Cuignet, the 

 officer who had prepared the last Dreyfus dos- 

 sier, because he had communicated to the press 

 the letters that had passed between the minis- 

 ters. The furious attacks of the Anti-Semites 

 impelled the Premier to demand a vote of confi- 

 dence, obtaining 389 votes to 64. M. Ballot- 

 Beauprg made a report in favor of revision at 

 the end of May. He was convinced that the 



