All civilised men outside France were shocked to bear on
Saturday evening last that the Court-Martial at Rennes by a vote of five to two had found Alfred Dreyfus guilty, " with extenuating circumstances," and had condemned him to degradation and imprisonment in a. fortress for ten years. The Court has since petitioned President Loubet to remit the degradation, and it is understood that the previous sentence having been declared illegal, the term of confinement endured in Devil's Island will count as part of the entire term, which will thus be reduced to five years. The form of this verdict, which is contrary to the whole drift of the evidence, to Esterhazy's confession, and to the solemn declaration of the German Government, published officially on Friday week, that it knew nothing of Dreyfus, makes it even more outrageous. Dreyfus is declared guilty of "having in 1894 provoked machinations or carried on dealings with a foreign Power or one of its agents in order to induce it to commence hostilities or undertake war against France, or for the purpose of pro- curing it the means thereof by furnishing it with notes and documents enumerated in the bordereau" He is, in fact, found guilty of precisely the conduct of which no evidence has been produced, except the statements of Staff officers convicted during this trial of at least condoning forgeries, perjuries, and illegalities, all intended to crush Dreyfue. The verdict, in short, has been given in order to exonerate them, and thereby, as Frenchmen think, to " save the honour of the Army," and for no other reason whatever. Dreyfus has been made by men who must have known what they were doing, the scapegoat of the Staff.
