George-Gabriel de Pellieux entered the military college of Saint Cyr when he was seventeen, and in 1861 became a sub-lieutenant in the infantry.

[2] In January 1895 Alfred Dreyfus, an army officer, was found guilty of authoring an anonymous note (bordereau) to the military attaché of the German embassy in Paris, and was exiled for life to Devil's Island off the coast of French Guiana.

Later Lieutenant-Colonel Georges Picquart, head of the Intelligence Service, found evidence that Major Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy had written the bordereau, not Dreyfus.

[3] In November 1897 de Pellieux was ordered by General Billot to conduct an inquiry into the allegations against Esterhazy.

[4] He issued a report after three days in which he stated Esterhazy was not guilty and the Dreyfus case should not be reopened.

[4] To close the matter, on 9 January 1898 Esterhazy was arrested, tried and acquitted in two days in a conspicuously biased trial.

[7] The well-known writer Émile Zola became involved in a campaign to exonerate Dreyfus, and wrote a passionate attack on his persecutors in J'Accuse…!, published on 13 January 1898.

[13] After the news of Henry's confession and suicide became public, de Pellieux resigned from his positions with a very harsh letter, claiming that the General Staff had been "fooled by people without honor" and was "no longer able to count on the confidence of subordinates without which command is impossible" and he himself was "unable to trust those of my chiefs who made me work on forgeries".

[18] Before the trial began de Pellieux stood before a council of inquiry to answer charges of collusion with Esterhazy.

Dreyfus received a Presidential pardon on 19 September 1899, but was denied the right to clear his name in a trial (he was eventually rehabilitated by the Court of Cassation in 1906 and reinstated in the Army).