300 



FRANCE. 



bordereau was in Esterhazy's handwriting, adopt- 

 in^ the conviction of experts who had first at- 

 tributed it to Dreyfus, but changed their opin- 

 ion after seeing the writing of Esterhazy. Ine 

 submission of secret documents to the judges 

 at the court-martial was an irregularity that 

 would justify annullment of the verdict, but not 

 revision, which was the question before the 

 Court of Cassation. It would not be admissible 

 to quash the verdict because the bordereau was 

 a fact showing that a crime had been committed. 

 The interpretations in favor of the innocence of 

 Dreyfus since given to documents supposed to 

 have been submitted and the forgery and sui- 

 cide of Henry were not new facts warranting 

 a retrial, neither was the discovery of the simi- 

 larity of Esterhazy's handwriting to the bor- 

 dereau such a new "fact: on the other hand, the 

 alleged confession of Dreyfus was not incon- 

 sistent with his innocence, because Capt. Lebrun- 

 Renaud perhaps misunderstood his words, and 

 he may have said that Major Du Paty de Clam 

 asked 'him if he had not given up documents to 

 obtain more serious ones in exchange. A new 

 fact in the opinion of M. Ballot-Beaupre had 

 been found, and this was that the same peculiar 

 tracing paper on which the bordereau was writ- 

 ten obtainable in London, but not on sale in 

 Paris had been used previously by Esterhazy 

 in his correspondence, although he declared in 

 1897 that he never wrote on such paper. On 

 the other hand, every effort to find this kind of 

 paper in the possession of Dreyfus or his friends 

 had failed. The Court of Cassation on June 3 

 gave judgment decreeing that Alfred Dreyfus 

 should be tried afresh by a court-martial at 

 Kennes. Ex-President Casimir-Perier had testi- 

 fied that Gen. Mercier had told him that the 

 document containing the words " canaille de D." 

 was submitted to the court-martial; Gen. Mer- 

 cier and Gen. De Boisdeffre refused to affirm or 

 to deny this statement. The Court of Cassation 

 found the evidence sufficient that this document 

 was illegally communicated to the military 

 judges, and found this illegality thus established 

 to be a new fact justifying revision. Another 

 new fact was the discovery of Esterhazy's let- 

 ters written on tracing paper like the bordereau. 

 The specific issue to be tried by the new court- 

 martial was whether Dreyfus furnished a for- 

 eign power with the notes and documents enu- 

 merated in the bordereau. On the day the judg- 

 ment was unanimously rendered a fashionable 

 mob of Royalists and Anti-Semites made a dis- 

 orderly demonstration against President Loubet 

 at the Auteuil races; Baron Christiani even 

 struck at him with a walking stick, and 130 ar- 

 rests were made. M. Deroulede had been ac- 

 quitted after turning his trial into a political 

 demonstration. At the suggestion of M. Dupuy 

 the Chamber considered the question of prose- 

 cuting Gen. Mercier, the ex-Minister of War, for 

 placing the secret documents before the first 

 court-martial, but by another vote the Chamber 

 decided to await the Rennes court-martial. The 

 Chamber passed a bill extending to prisoners 

 before courts-martial the right to immediate in- 

 terrogation and to the presence of counsel. Col. 

 Du Paty de Clam was arrested on suspicion of 

 complicity in the Henry forgeries, but was set 

 free after* a few days. Col. Picquart was released 

 from custody. When -the decision of the Court 

 of Cassation was given Esterhazy, then in Eng- 

 land, made a statement to a newspaper corre- 

 spondent that he wrote the bordereau, and that 

 he did so by order of Col. Sandherr; that the 

 object was to supply false evidence for the con- 



viction of Dreyfus, whose treason was known 

 from German officers in the pay of France. 



Dreyfus arrived in France on July 1 and was 

 taken to the jail^at Rennes. The solitary con- 

 finement on the lie du Diable had not broken 

 his physical or mental vigor, although he was 

 not allowed LO speak to the sentinel, and since 

 1890 a palisade was built around the hut in which 

 he was confined. This was in order to prevent 

 his being rescued, a story having been printed 

 of his escape on an American yacht, and for 

 two months before it was finished he was chained 

 to the floor at night. After the high fence was 

 erected he was nearly suffocated until the floor 

 of his cabin was raised. A forged letter ad- 

 dressed to him, interlined in sympathetic ink, 

 suggested the precaution of copying all letters 

 from his family and friends and giving him only 

 tne copies to read. Various traps and devices 

 were used to induce him to reveal his accom- 

 plices in treason, if there were any. 



Before the new trial of Dreyfus began the 

 Government instructed the commissary to insist 

 on confining the proceedings within the limits 

 of the complaint defined by the Court of Cassa- 

 tion. Gen. De Gallifet became Minister of War 

 at the grave juncture produced by the decision 

 of the Supreme Court to grant a retrial, and he 

 made important changes in the staff and the 

 military commands to insure the discipline of 

 the army in the event of civil disturbances. Gen. 

 De Pellieux, who had conducted the Esterhazy 

 prosecution, was removed from the command of 

 Paris. Gen. de Negrier was dismissed from the 

 Council of War and the post of inspector general 

 because he issued an order announcing that when 

 the Rennes court-martial was over the Supreme 

 Council of War would call upon the Government 

 to punish those who attacked the army, and if 

 the Government refused to act the generals 

 w T ould act. 



The court-martial began on Aug. 7. Ex-Presi- 

 dent Casimir-Perier, Gen. Mercier, the Minister 

 of War who had ordered the first trial and sent the 

 secret dossier to the court, other ex-ministers, 

 members of the first court-martial, the generals 

 of the staff, all who from the beginning had 

 anything to do with the affair, were called as 

 witnesses. The trial had proceeded a week when 

 a political assassin, who was never found, wound- 

 ed Maitre Labori, the leading counsel for Dreyfus, 

 with a pistol shot, so that he was incapacitated 

 for many days. Paul DeroulMe, who had been 

 triumphantly acquitted by a sympathetic judge 

 and jury, had renewed with his lieutenants his 

 seditious agitation in Paris for a plebiscitary 

 republic, in which President and Senators, as 

 well as Deputies, should be elected by universal 

 suffrage. When disturbances began he was 

 again arrested. Jules Guerin, an Anti-Semitic 

 leader, when threatened with arrest, provisioned, 

 armed, and barricaded his house, in which he had 

 collected a band of adherents, and bade defiance 

 to the authorities, who, instead of forcing th6 

 building, placed a guard of soldiers in front of it. 

 One of the documents that had disappeared 

 since the first court-martial was Col. Du Paty 

 de Clam's commentary on the documents of the 

 dossier, and this Gen. Mercier confessed that he 

 had destroyed. Gen. Billot, though at times his 

 belief had been shaken, M. Cavaignac, in spite 

 of his having been duped by the Henry forgery, 

 Gen. Zurlinden also, and Gen. Chanoine, the suc- 

 cessive Ministers of War after Gen. Mercier, were 

 as convinced as he was that Dreyfus was guilty. 

 M. Cavaignac especially, who had taken office 

 with no bias against the prisoner, and had 



