identified. The context of the letter further shows that the Dreferred to could not be Dreyfus. Thus, if disclosed in full to the court - martial, it could not be of any weight against the accused: on the other hand, if only part of it was disclosed, those who used it to influence the court were

doubly corrupt. The letter, therefore, was not evidence, and its contents, if admissible, did not constitute evidence; and if they were looked at as evidence in their entirety, were not in any sense effective evidence against the accused. To defend the secret use of it, whether wholly or partially disclosed, its acceptance as competent, its contents as having any bearing on the case, are things all equally impossible upon any principle of legal rule or ordinary justice. On the other hand, to defend its being used behind the back of the accused and his advisers requires an official effrontery that cannot be described otherwise than as brazen. If such use of any document was made, the members of the court-martial acted corruptly, and are liable to criminal punishment. If they were called on to commit this criminal act by their military superiors, that may be some palliation of their offence, but any superior who so acted is a still worse criminal. This alone offers to the War Office of France a strong incentive to strain every nerve to prevent public revision. But if the facts be as stated, revision can only be refused by corruption spreading into the Supreme Court of the land.

Degradation followed on the conviction, Dreyfus at the parade loudly maintaining his innocence, and carrying his head erect. On the same day he appealed in pathetic terms to his counsel and all dear to him to continue searching for the truth. Then, at the instance of the Government, the Legislature passed a law empowering the State to subject such prisoners to more terrible punishment than the existing law permitted, and by a clause making it retroactive included the unfortunate Dreyfus in its meshes. Thus laws were broken and laws were made with the one object of ensuring condemnation and aggravating its penalties.

The Dreyfus family emulated the courage of their relative, and resolutely set themselves to search matters to the bottom. Their efforts roused the wrath of the Roman Catholic and Anti-Republican journalists,

and Anti Republican society, both Royalist and Bonapartist, the army being mainly officered from these factions. Dreyfus was a Jew, and his defence was an attack upon the General Staff, therefore a virulent press, clerical and political, entered upon a course of wild vituperation, false accusation, and incentive to violence, of which the watchwords were "A bas les Juifs!" and "Vive l'Armée!" Any one who, however calmly, asked that light should be thrown on an episode of doubtful legality and justice, was held up to public obloquy as a traitor forming one of a "Syndicate of Treason" in the pay of the foreigner, whether

German or English, or bribed by Hebrew gold. A crusade was proclaimed against all Jews, and any one who suggested that an officer of the army other than Dreyfus required to have his conduct inquired into was at once stigmatised as disloyal to the army, and as undeserving of the rights of a citizen. The Rocheforts, the Drumonts, and the Judets conducted a campaign of literary scurrility and lying such as never before disgraced journalism, and it is painful to have to record that the reading public seemed to love to have it so, for these abominable productions circulated in their hundreds of thousands all over the land. In aristocratic salons the conversation was scarcely less violent and unreasoning than were the utterances of the press.

Matters were in this condition when, a little more than two years after Dreyfus's condemnation, a spy brought to the War Office the pieces of a petit - bleu resembling one of our own letter-cards, which on being put together disclosed a letter of a suspicious character, addressed to M. le Commandant Esterhazy, 27 Rue de la Bienfaisance, Paris. Colonel Picquart, who was then the head of the department, instituted inquiries as to Esterhazy, and obtained some of his handwriting. He became suspicious from an observed resemblance to the writing of the bordereau, and with great astuteness proceeded to have some of Esterhazy's writing photographed, names and other parts which might give a clue to the writer

On show

being covered over. ing the photographs to M. Bertillon, who had given evidence as an expert against Dreyfus at his trial, Bertillon at once said, "Why, it is the same writing as the bordereau," and added, "For a year past the Jews have been keeping some one hard at work to produce the writing of the bordereau, and they have perfectly succeeded." Thus letters undoubtedly of Esterhazy were pronounced by this expert to be a successful imitation of the writing of the bordereau. Colonel du Paty de Clam on being shown the photographs said they were in the writing of Matthieu Dreyfus, the brother of Alfred, he having a theory that Alfred in writing the bordereau had blended his brother's writing with his own to disguise it. Thus two of the strongest witnesses against Dreyfus unwittingly identified Esterhazy's writing as being that of the bordereau, and conclusively demonstrated that the true hand which wrote it was the hand of Esterhazy.

or

When it became known to Colonel du Paty de Clam that Picquart was on the track of Esterhazy, it appears to have occurred to some person persons who were interested not to have the Dreyfus affair reopened, that as it seemed likely that the bordereau was about to fail as a piece of evidence, something must be done to give weight to the decision of the court - martial, SO as to maintain the chose jugée. Accordingly some one

-necessarily in the secrets of the War Office-communicated the fact to the 'Éclair' that

'falsehood was put f a Minister of "hich memStaff and

The courtJuuse, From die was irrevFor any opening nquiry must, it was demonstrate the untruth is official assertion in the islative Chamber. No one ean wonder that every nerve is strained, and every subterfuge practised, to crush out further inquiry. For the result of it is certain, if a result according to the truth is not made impossible by official resistance or judicial corruption. It seems plain that the folly of the move made in publishing the secret document was recognised immediately after the blunder had been committed, and that it was seen to be necessary to revert to the bordereau, which was the only document legally before the the court-martial. Therefore a few days before General Billot was put up to reassure the public mind by a false statement, a copy of the bordereau handed to the Matin,' and published, along with a statement that to "any one who has been able to compare the admitted writing of Dreyfus" with the document, "it will be clear that it was his hand which traced these lines." Little did those who thus indicated that the bordereau was more to be the pièce de résistance of the General Staff imagine that they were by this publication handing over to the enemy the most powerful weapon which he could wield. It has been seen how it was

was

once

demonstrated who was the true writer of the bordereau in April 1896; but in consequence of the restraint put upon Colonel Picquart, the matter remained quiet until the bordereau was published in the 'Matin,' strangely enough without any specimens of Dreyfus's handwriting with which to compare it. This latter omission is significant.

But now the time had arrived when, quite independently of Picquart, it was to be again conclusively proved that Esterhazy wrote the bordereau. Picquart had been silenced; but the fatuous move of putting the 'Matin' in a position to publish a facsimile of the bordereau bore very different fruit from what those who did it thought they were sowing the seed for. M. de Castro, a stockbroker in Paris, hearing the newsboys shouting the contents of the

Matin' on the boulevard, bought a copy, and received a startling shock. He had done business for Esterhazy, and at

the

first glance recognised Esterhazy's writing. Much perturbed, he with his brotherin-law compared letters in their possession with the facsimile, and found them them identical. Knowing that M. ScheurerKestner, the President of the Senate, had taken an interest in the matter, he went to him. On being shown the papers, M. Scheurer - Kestner retired and came back with some others, which De Castro at once identified as Esterhazy's. Thus the matter was brought to the notice of one of the most distinguished and honoured men in France, who had already

FIVE years ago an obscure artillery captain, of whom although he had a good professional record-no one outside a very limited circle had ever heard, was deported from France to the other side of the world and placed in circumstances of isolation so appalling in their suggestion of hopeless cutting off from all that a man holds dear, that the words "living death" are weak to describe them. In going to his place of despair he had to carry with him the memory of a day of torture, not indeed physical, but more unbearable to one worthy to be called a man than the rack or the boot of Middle Age cruelty. For an officer who had served his country, and gained a good repute for zeal, ability, and diligence, to be made a spectacle of degradation to his army comrades,-his insignia of rank stripped from his clothing, his sword taken off him, broken, and thrown at his feet, and the name "traitor" loudly proclaimed over him, must be an ordeal almost beyond the bounds of human endurance. It is to inflict upon him that which, whether he be guilty or not, must fill him with an anguish such as mere physical torture could never cause to wring the spirit of a man of courage. The more brave the man, the more terrible the horror of the trial, the more deep and lacerating the penetration of the iron into the soul. No one read the story of it without a shudder of

own

pain, no soldier who stood on duty when the dread sentence was executed was executed can have been unmoved. That the unspeakably wretched performer of the title-rôle in the ghastly drama was a brave man none can doubt. For, guilty or innocent, he went through his part as only a man brave beyond most of his fellow - creatures could do. One of our countrymen who was present has testified that in that scene on the Champ de Mars the degraded officer" was the single actor who behaved himself with dignity"—a dignity so marked that the spectator left the scene with a profound conviction in his heart, and full of foreboding. The memory of it all to the unfortunate sufferer must have been-must be now, and as long as what was done shall not have been officially undone a memory without alleviation. No time could weaken, far less efface, the lines cut deep into the being who had endured that awful quarter of an hour, into which everything of shame that man can inflict upon his brother man had been unsparingly meted out to the helpless and hopeless prisoner.

Picture him, then, on his barren islet in a tropical sea, with no relief from the deadly monotony of his palisaded patch of ground, exposed to a deadly climate and a burning sun, watched by silent guards, learning nothing of the world's doings, having no communi