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

being covered over. On showing 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 which memStaff and

e courtaise. From die was irrevFor any opening inquiry must, it was demonstrate the untruth is official assertion in the isiative Chamber. No one can 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 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 the bordereau was 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 once 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

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 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

pain, no soldier who stood on duty when the dread sentence 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 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

Own

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

cation with those dear to him except under official censorship, dragging out the best years of his manhood in silent agony, haunted ever by the bitterness of that scene which stamped him as the basest of men. Five years gone, and it may be many years still to come. Could any hell that imagination can figure be worse? Could ingenuity the most refined invent-within the permitted limits of civilised punishment-a more awful doom, surely worse than death?

Doubtless those who contributed to bring about this consigning of a disgraced man to a living tomb, whether they were honest or dishonest in their motives and actions, thought that, when all was done, the man and all that concerned him would be forgotten, that the waters of Lethe, the River of Oblivion, would close over him, and smooth themselves out from all ruffling that told of agitation. All others had, after a horror mingled with a pity that none could refuse where the expiation of crime was so shocking to every human disposition, ceased to think of one to whom, presumably, justice had been meted out, an awful justice, but scarce too awful for crime so base, made more base by the criminal being a soldier of the State. The wretch was as good as dead, save to those, his own loving ones, who had to bear their share of the shame of all the dreadful past.

Here, then, if ever there was a man who was blotted out of the world's book of life, was that man: all hope taken from him of being an influence in his day and generation, and

VOL. CLXV.-NO. MIV.

still worse, of ever enjoying the sweetness of domestic love and peace: no rôle left to him but the negative one of being a hateful example to warn others, as degraded before his race and helpless as the slave made drunk to be a spectacle of warning to the Athenian youth; loathed and incapable. Yet he has lived for these long five years, he has borne his awful punishment manfully: again the brave man among men, whether he be guilty or innocent. But what is it that has come to pass in the country that condemned him, and in the army that that degraded him? Is it oblivion? Is he in his own country as if he had never been? Outcast as he is, and transported across the seas, isolated from all social intercourse, is his country free of him? Does the State move on its even way as if he had never disturbed its peace? Is the condition of the army to which he belonged like that of one from whom a malignant growth has been excised, and to whom a healthy and strong condition has returned? Is he but a nauseous memory, which if not dead is dying, a recollection which, if it force itself into activity at all, leads to no thought that can disturb the present or cause misgivings as to the future? Has the world even outside France been able to forget all about the tragedy? Have the great affairs of State, which at intervals agitated the political waters during the last five years, washed out its traces on the sands of time?

The true answers to these questions present to mankind 3 Y