Resolution of the Dreyfus affair

Then, when Bertulus had decided to send Esterhazy and his mistress before the Assize Court, the Chambre des Mises en Accusation interfered and gave them the benefit of insufficient evidence (August 12), and also declared that the complicity of Du Paty had not been sufficiently proved.

Notwithstanding a letter from General Zurlinden, military governor of Paris, recommending indulgence, Esterhazy's name was struck off the army lists by the minister of war (August 31).

The enemies of revision were overwhelmed; it took days before they had sufficiently recovered to rally round the theory of a "patriotic forgery" advanced by a contributor to the Gazette de France, Charles Maurras.

The council was reluctant to embark on these proceedings, but Zurlinden, acting as governor of Paris, presented to his successor, general Chanoine, a warrant of inquiry, which the latter signed without paying much attention to it.

The reason for this haste was that the keeper of seals had asked Picquart for a "mémoire" on the fitness of revision; the military party was therefore eager to discredit his testimony by a charge of forgery.

Now that, thanks to the manly resolution of Henri Brisson, the obstinate defenders of the miscarriage of justice of 1894 were deprived of support, their only remaining hope lay in the revolutionary action of the army, of the people, or of the Chamber of Deputies.

On the very day the Chamber of Deputies was reopened (25 October), Brisson's ministry was defeated on a motion which virtually accused the government of permitting the attacks upon the army, and it resigned forthwith.

On 24 November General Zurlinden, governor of Paris, signed the order demanding his trial before the court martial; he was charged with forging the "petit bleu," with using other forgeries, and with communicating secret documents concerning national defense.

Numerous petitions from "intellectuals" protested against these hasty measures and demanded that the judgment of Picquart should be delayed until the result of the inquiry in the Court of Cassation should have put in its true light the part he had played in all this affair.

To avoid this catastrophe at any price, the enemies of revision commenced a violent campaign in the newspapers, defaming the magistrates of the Criminal Chamber, who were represented as having been required to sell themselves to the cause of Dreyfus.

The Ligue de la Patrie Française ("League of French Patriots"), founded in January 1899, under the auspices of the academicians François Coppée and Jules Lemaitre, energetically seconded this campaign and demanded that these "disqualified" judges be discharged from the case.

Dupuy argued that the bill was a measure of pacification; it was necessary that the decision—and why did the Revisionists fear that the whole Court of Cassation would disavow the Criminal Chamber?—should have such force that nobody but "fools or rebels" would be found to contest it.

At Félix Faure's funeral (23 February) the leaders of the League of Patriots, Déroulède and Marcel Habert, tried to induce General Roget's brigade to proceed to the Elysée.

It was still engaged in studying them when the newspaper Le Figaro obtained and published, beginning on March 31, the complete reports of the proceedings of the inquiry, printed for the private use of the councilors.

Instead of the true telegram, which quite exonerated Dreyfus, the secret military dossier communicated to the Court of Cassation contained only a false version, put together "from memory" in 1898 by Colonel Henry.

In their decision, rendered June 3, they set aside the "fin de non recevoir" (refusal to consider) inferred either from the secret dossier or from the pretended confessions of Dreyfus, judged not proved and improbable.

They retained two "new facts": one, recognized by all, the fresh attribution of the bordereau; the other, the secret communication made to the judges of Dreyfus, of the document "canaille de D...," now considered by everyone as inapplicable to the prisoner.

The day before this memorable decree Esterhazy declared to a reporter of "Le Matin" that he was indeed the author of the bordereau; but he asserted that he had written it "by order," to furnish his friend, Colonel Sandherr (whose secret agent he pretended to have been), with a material proof against the traitor Dreyfus.

But after the lies, the hatred, and the insults which had accumulated during the last two years, after the work of demoralization accomplished by the press of both parties, the overexcited army had now reached the point of pinning its own honor on the shame of Dreyfus.

Du Paty de Clam was arrested on the charge of having taken part in the Henry forgery, an accusation rashly made by Major Cuignet, bound to be rejected for lack of evidence.

It found a deputy (Ribot) to declare that the ministry was encroaching upon its prerogatives, and another (Pourquery de Boisserin) to propose the postponement of any decision until the court-martial of Rennes had rendered its decree.

This last proposition rallied the majority; nobody realized that, in thus connecting Mercier's indemnity with a fresh condemnation of Dreyfus, the nature of the trial at Rennes was transformed from a legal debate to a duel between a captain and a general.

The Dupuy cabinet was finally overthrown (June 12), and the groups on the Left, facing the danger of a threatening military pronouncement, decided to uphold nothing but a ministry of "Republican defense."

For five weeks the attorneys chosen by his family, Demange and Labori, were busy acquainting him as far as possible with the remarkable events that had occurred during his absence; his attitude while the trial was progressing proved he had difficulty realizing the situation.

The generals, forming a compact group which this time worked under Mercier's personal direction, delivered regular harangues and continually interfered in the debate; the president, a mere Colonel overawed by his superior officers, exhibited as much deference to them as he showed harshness and sharpness to Dreyfus.

The most notable witnesses were Casimir-Perier, Commander Freystaetter (one of the judges of 1894)—both in violent opposition to Mercier-Charavay, who, though seriously ill, came loyally forward to acknowledge his error of 1894, and Bertillon, who repeated his claims as to the "autoforgery" of the bordereau, adding fresh complications.

This man, who was generally considered unhinged, told a confused story of how a civil official and a staff officer "of a Central European Power" had assured him that Dreyfus was a spy.

Rumor had it that the two votes for acquittal were those of Colonel Jouaust (who throughout the trial had carefully concealed his opinion) and of Lieutenant-Colonel de Bréon, a fervent Catholic, the brother of a Paris curate.

It proved difficult to induce the president of the republic to grant the pardon, and Dreyfus to accept it; for in order to avail himself of it the prisoner was forced to withdraw the appeal he had lodged against his sentence.

Waldeck-Rousseau's ministry considered that the people were tired of an "affaire" that had paralyzed the business of the country, and had brought it to the brink of a civil war; for it had become known that if Dreyfus had been acquitted the leaders of the anti-Revisionists—Déroulède, Marcel Habert, Jules Guérin—were determined to stage a coup d'état.