THE "DRAMATIS PERSON" OF THE DREYFUS TRAGEDY.*
IN the tragedy which has lately riven France in twain there is no protagonist. Such, at least, is the decision of the Courts. The affaire Dreyfus was long since closed ; the affairs Esterhazy never came into being. For a moment it seemed as if M. Zola were so deeply implicated as to give his name to a violent agitation. But the Judges closed their eyes and their ears, and the novelist was deprived of the dignity with which an open trial might have invested him. There is, in fact, no affairs Zola ; and if we may believe the supporters of the Army, a hundred reputations have been unlaced and France has been pushed to the verge of revolu- tion for a nameless myth. Nevertheless, truth is sometimes opposed to law, and besides the incessant rancour of the Press, here are three stout volumes to prove that the drama has its personages after all. And even if nobody is cast for the Prince of Denmark, Rosencrantz and his friends play parts so important, that we hardly notice the suppression of Hamlet.
The facts are graven, in one shape or another, upon the heart of France, but the three volumes recently published by Captain Paul Mann constitute a carious and valuable record, all the more valuable because their author was once the colleague of M. Drumont. How closely interwoven are the fates of Dreyfus, Esterhazy, and Picquart is proved by countless repetitions, and it is diffi- cult to consider these dramatis personse separately. Yet their parts are as different as their reception has been, and it is interesting to regard them for a moment, not as abstract virtues and vices, but as men and French officers. And first comes the unwilling cause of strife and bitterness, Alfred Dreyfus. A Jew, endowed with the zeal and energy of his race, young, rich, highly-placed, he was—in 1894—honourably entrusted with his country's secrets. Report declared him studious, and report was justified by his shortsight and the gravity of his unsympathetic face. For the rest, the name was scarcely known beyond the walls of the War Office, when some four years since he was arrested, invited to kill himself, and, on his refusal, shut up without a word of explanation
• (i.) Dreyfus. Par Capitaine Paul Mario. Paris: Librairio Illustree.— 04 Reterhary. Par Capitaine Paid Mann. Paris : Stook.—(3.) Picquart. Par Capitaine Paul Mann. Paris : Stock.
in the military prison of the Rue de Sevres. Then began the strangest instruction known in the annals of French justice. The Commandant du Paty, who may yet achieve greatness as the villain of this sinister drama, visited him daily in his cell, and attempted by threats and cunning to extract a con- fession. Failing to move his victim by these artifices, he demanded that a vivid light might be thrown suddenly on the prisoner's face, which, said he, would instantly reveal the turpitude and horror of a conscious traitor. When the governor of the prison, since degraded, declined to employ the methods of the Middle Ages, the Commandant, unabashed, completed his dossier, and the miserable Captain was tried behind closed doors, despite his advocate's angry protest. Bat meanwhile he had already been condemned not only by MM. Rochefort and Drumont, who from the beginning undertook the conduct. of the affair, but by General Mercier, the Minister of War, who had confided the secret of his guilt to an interviewer. Acquittal, then, was plainly impossible. In the first place, it would have overthrown the Government ; in the second, it would have aroused the fury of a hostile Press. Wherefore, on the testimony of four experts out of seven consulted, and with no- other document to incriminate him than the famous bordereau, Alfred Dreyfus was found guilty, and sentenced amid general rejoicings to deportation for life. The Government survived for the moment, the Jew-halters were delighted with their victim, and Dreyfus, strong in the confidence of his gaoler and his advocate, persisted in the declaration of his innocence. From this declaration he has never swerved, and it is small wonder that year by year, even. month by month, the champions of revision have grown in numbers and influence. For the closed doors availed the Army nothing. Piece by piece the story of the trial has been told, until it is certain to-day that Captain Dreyfus was informally tried and illegally condemned. His advocate knew of no document- save one ; his Judges were fortified in their opinions by a. letter revealed not even to the prisoner himself. And M... Cavaignae drove the last nail in the coffin of honour when„ forgetting the bordereau, he cited to an enthusiastic Chamber three documents, whereby said he, the guilt of Dreyfus was proved. The Minister's argument had bat one conclusion :- whether or no the Captain is guilty of the crime imputed to him, he is legally innocent, and France is disgraced among the nations until she consents to a loyal revision of an immoral sentence. Alfred Dreyfus has been imprisoned for four years; at last the time has come to try him.
The victim, then, is unsympathetic and he is a Jew. Wherefore he has been denounced, as bitterly as all those simple-minded persons who have dared to champion hia cause. The second personage in the drama has no taint upon him. He is a sabreur after France's own heart, and it is not yet proved that Hebrew blood flows in his veins. But never since the world began did a nation choose so strange a hero. His long moustache and ferocious aspect are typical of the officer who is prepared to slaughter ten thousand Jews with a ramrod, and his epistolary style need not shame a Napoleon. He seems to write with sword in hand, and Paris applauds, even though he prays he may die a Uhhua sabring the French, and though he involves the country, whose uniform he wears, in a general charge of vulgarity and cowardice. His advent in the case was brusque and unex- pected. The brother of Dreyfus charged him briefly and publicly with the authorship of the bordereau, and not evem he was prepared to deny the handwriting. But as Dreyfus was prejudged guilty, Esterhazy was prejudged innocent, and, do what he would, he could not impair his popularity. Even the objects of his bitterest insult were delighted with his. candour, and he presently became not only a martyr but the- symbol of the Army's infallibility. The War Office, which properly punishes any communication of its documents to the outside world, lent its aid with the utmost generosity, for the fiction of the Veiled Ladies deceived nobody ; and Esterhazy was fortified for the battle with papers so secret, that no other man's eye might look upon them. Maybe he is innocent ; maybe Dreyfus is guilty. But while the one is tortured on the Devil's Isle, the other enjoys the freedom of Paris. Nevertheless, if the evidence be weighed, the scale of Esterhazy is surely depressed. For the bordereau belongs more clearly to him than to Dreyfus ; and Dreyfus, at any rate, has never shown a fierce hatred of France. But the world, eager to condemn the Jew, would hear no evil of the Christian. From beginning to end Esterhazy was tried with a rare and Ominous sympathy. The Court-Martial treated, him with the consideration due to an injured hero, and though to-day his popularity begins to wane, it is likely that M. Bertalus will be degraded, because he has dared to look harshly upon a popular favourite.
But Esterhazy's sworn enemy is not so much Captain Dreyfus as Colonel Picquart, the third personage, whose part in the drama will never be forgotten. Now, Colonel Picquart is a character who may be contemplated without doubt or misgiving. Whether he be rightly or wrongly inspired, be is an honourable and unselfish gentle- man. The worst crime that a reasonable enemy might im- pute to him is excess of zeal, and this crime may be readily condoned by those who remember that the zeal was exercised in the defence of a man he believed to be wrongfully con- demned. But as the virtuous hero of melodrama is singled out for misfortune until the end of the fifth act, so Colonel Picquart has been assailed with the bitterest insults and the vilest injury. His career is ruined ; he is charged with the worst meanness and venality ; so bitter is the popular hatred, that he is scarcely safe within his own house ; and possibly he finds his second imprisonment a relief from a life of public discomfort. Yet he has committed no outrage ; he has transgressed no law. The youngest Colonel in the French Army, he looked forward to a continuance of rapid pro- motion, when in an unhappy moment he assumed an interest in the case of Alfred Dreyfus. Nor, even in this luckless -quest, did he proceed without authority. General Gonse gave him encouragement and approval, though when the question -came into Court the General instantly abandoned his zealous subordinate. But with all the documents before him Colonel Picquart was convinced that an innocent man was punished unrighteously, and completely forgetful of his own advance- ment, he staked his position, and lost. First exiled to Tanis, then hastily recalled, he was from the outset treated not as a witness, but as a criminal. The police paid mysterious visi- tations to his house, and ransacked his papers in defiance of the law. Yet, through it all, he never for a moment lost his head. He has behaved with courage and dignity in the face of insult and intimidation. His demeanour in Court was absolutely correct, and if discredit was thrown upon the Army, it was not Colonel Picquart who was the delinquent. Maybe in the last act of this monstrous drama, if, indeed, the last act ever be played, the virtuous hero, hitherto the scapegoat, will be proved glorious to the world; but nothing, save a conscious honesty, can compensate this simple-minded soldier for the injury and degradation put upon him by his -43 Aleagues.
Such, then, are the dramatis personz. Dreyfus, persistent and aggrieved; Esterhazy, fierce and blustering; Picquart, dignified and assured. Somewhere among these three lurks the truth, which as yet the world may not know. Only one thing may be said with confidence : Dreyfus still awaits his trial, and awaits it not (as he should) in Paris, but in the miserable seclusion of the Devil's Isle. Even though he were proved guilty, that would not wash out the stain from France, for guilty or innocent, he is unjustly condemned, even by M. Cavaignac's own confession; and the best excuse that even ojnicism can suggest is that the "affair" is no longer judicial but political. For the rest, no episode of history has claimed so many victims. Professors have been deprived of their chairs, Senators of their dignities; the highest Magistrate is impartial at the risk of public insult ; the first journal of Paris preferred a volte-face to ruin. Nor is it difficult to assign the responsibility. Had it not been for the ferocity of MIL Rochefort and Drumont, France might have escaped this ugly scandal. But these gentlemen have dominated the situation from the first. By some mysterious power they have been able to dictate measures and to control Ministers. That they have used their power to inflame animosities, and to kindle the hatreds of race goes without saying, and they have done it all with a lightness of heart and an oblivion e duty which suggest that France's safety lies in a censor- ship of the Press. Meanwhile they are their country's effec- tive rulers, and they have played the parts of Gertrude and the wicked uncle with sinister accomplishment. But a thunder-clap may end their reign, or some unimagined Hamlet be born to "set right" this poor disjointed world.
And then the reflections of MM. Rochefort and Drumont will be no more enviable than the remorse of General Mercier or the despair of the Commandant du Paty de Clam.
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