Lieutenant Colonel Georges Picquart, appointed new chief of army's intelligence section in 1895, was convinced that Major Henry had forged a document in order to prove definitively that Alfred Dreyfus was a traitor in favor of Germany.

Thanks to the general staff's and government's support Henry was promoted Lieutenant Colonel, whereas Picquart was initially removed from office, the army, and even arrested.

This matter should have been brought before Parliament, owing to the impossibility of obtaining a revision of the legal process, but due to Cavaignac's nature he threw caution to the wind.

The day after he arrived he began to write: to his wife, "I see that except for you everyone is going to abandon me"; to his superior General Gonse, "I absolutely must speak to you"; in one cryptic comment seemingly implying his guilt he wrote "You know in whose interest I acted."

[1] While halfway through a bottle of rum and midway through another letter to his wife, Henry wrote "I am like a Madman" and proceeded to slit his throat with a shaving razor.

However, Drumont's La Libre Parole sponsored a public subscription in favour of Henry's widow, in which the donors were invited to vent all their anger against Jews.