Читать книгу The Times Great Events - Группа авторов - Страница 39
Оглавление10 July 1906
Pending the definite verdict of the Court of Cassation, the highest tribunal in France, on the charge of treason brought against Captain Dreyfus, public opinion is expressing a sense of relief that this famous case is shortly to be placed beyond all reach of party strife and to be made a matter of history, where it is to be classed with such great historical trials as those of the diamond necklace or of Calas. General Mercier, is making, however, one last desperate effort. In a second letter published in to-day’s papers he calls upon the Court to continue its inquiry by confronting him with the ex-President, M. Casimir-Perier, the ex-Prime Minister, M. Charles Dupuy, and M. Revoil, all of whom were present at the Elysée on the famous night when Count Munster was expected every moment bringing the result of his telegraphic negotiations with his Imperial master, upon which, according to General Mercier, depended the question of peace or war. General Mercier declares that it is of paramount importance to fix the date of this event. This pretension of General Mercier to dictate to the Court of Cassation, implying as it does his profound indifference to the results of that tribunal’s inquiry in spite of the demonstration by that Court of Dreyfus’s absolute innocence, has called forth the protests of a large number of Republican organs. On the sole point which interests the public – namely, whether the Court is to quash with reference back to a military tribunal or not, M. Cornely, writing in to-day’s Siecle, repeats what the Temps said yesterday – that it is impossible to suppose the Court capable of sending Dreyfus before new Judges. The Court, he says, can rid France of a shame and a remorse.
“If it can, it is bound to do so. If it is bound to do so it will do so.”
A duel with pistols, occasioned by the letter of Colonel Picquart impugning the value of General Gonse’s word, was “fought” to-day by those two officers. The latter fired but missed his man. Colonel Picquart reserved his fire altogether.
The Dreyfus affair, which was to scandalize and divide France for a decade, began in 1894 with the discovery by a French spy in the German embassy of a letter offering to betray military secrets. Suspicion fell on Alfred Dreyfus, an artillery officer, who was convicted of treason, publicly humiliated and imprisoned on Devil’s Island, off the coast of South America. He maintained his sanity by teaching himself to read Shakespeare in English.
Two years later, the head of France’s counter-espionage bureau, Georges Picquart, discovered that the traitor was in fact Major Ferdinand Esterhazy. Many in the French Establishment already had doubts about Dreyfus’s guilt – his stockbroker had recognized Esterhazy’s handwriting when the letter to the Germans had been printed by a newspaper – but the case exposed fault lines in society.
The Army had become a symbol of the nation and some thought it more important to protect the Army’s standing than to admit it had erred. In addition, Dreyfus was Jewish and many of his detractors ardent Catholics. Esterhazy was acquitted at trial and, having been found guilty again at a second court-martial, and then pardoned, Dreyfus was only fully exonerated in 1906.
