Evening star., 1898-10-26
The Fetish Which All Paris Falls
Down and" " Worships.
BITTER FEELING Nc '>!9N EVERY side
Guilt or lnnoccence of Dreyfus is
QMte5oimmateriaI.
WHAT REVISION ENTAILS
-5s-&s-
Special Correspondence Of The Evening Star.

Special Correspondence Of The Evening Star
PARIS, October IA, 1893.
France is running today on her acquired
momentum"
DR.. Max Nordau, the philosopher at large
and author of the self-satisfying theory
that all men who hold other theories have
gone to seed, spoke from his throne in the
heart of cosmopolis. The throne was his
favorite chair on the corner of the side
walk, Cafe de la Paix, on the Place de
rOpera. His auditors-newspaper CORES
pondents, French, English, Germans Rus
SLAMS, ItaHansS Americans, who gather
there daily from their afternoon breakfasts
to settle how real thrones and dynasties
should be conducted-contemplate their
absinthe and beer and absorbed the wis
dom Of the oracle.
Merely acquired momentum" he repeat
ed. THE postman makes his rounds in the
morning and delivers your letters because
he has been wound up for that function
and the springs have not yet relaxed. The
policeman jabs you when you decline to
move on from sheer force of habit. But
there is no steam in the engine. Anarchy
is in the pilot house. They are waiting
drifting. wabbling, watching the weather
vane, to keep with the current of public
opinion
This franc''-he held up the ooin he was
passing to the servitor-"today it is stamp
ed Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite;' tomorrow
it may be 'Boisdeffre Empereur.'
There is only one of them now He was
pointing to the schasseur sitting his horse
like a bronze centaur before the opera the
symbol of governmental patronage of art.
I'VE will be sitting here one afternoon, it
may be tomorrow, may be next month. We
will see regiment of them fill the square.
One company will deploy down this street.
another along that one. We will buy the
Temps and read that Zola, Lemaitre Da-
man have been bundled from their beds to
Mont Naicrian. Faure will have fed, Bris-
son dropped back under the wave of for
tune ne rides for the hour. Boisdeffre will
be dining in the Elysee. We will be living
under military dictatorship.
To-day France Is within a hairs breadth
of revolution. She Is balancing razor's
edge. straw thrown on to either size of
the balance may topple her over"
Strange Sights.
Dr. Nordau may share the professional
word spinner's love for epigram. But he
epitomized what every foreigner in Paris
is talking. Moreover, there is the evidence
before ones eyes. What may be the nor
NAL life of this EUROPEAN republic In time
of peace do not Know But for one steep
ed In the atmosphere of the Real Republic
there are strange Sights here in Paris.
1t was Sunday afternoon when l rode
seven hours from sleepy, stupid, orderly
London into the middle ages. Flaming
placards covered the walls of the depot
Their prevalent headline was ''Citoyens,
in a note OF appeal headed by half a dozen
exclamation poin ts The lesser headings
carried references TO THE Traitor Dreyfus
and his friend PicduarG' and their ineVita-
BILE peroration' like the "Hoch! Hocht
Hoch" Of the kasef's orations ran. "Five la
France! Vive fArmeepyive la RepubHque"
There rushed forward b mob Of newsboys
shrieking Ia Granae) Battaile" and the
| 20 of tBh' iney Oh.
ing Bore pieture of 'B,reyfus standing. with
hands tied before H'ffE of soldiers whose
guns were leyeisd toward him, while the
devil lowered overhead TO bear off his prey
This scene was underlined The Best Re-
vision" Fences throughout the city We're
plastered with posters, some of them ex-
horting ''ctoyens" to prevent a meeting of
Dreyfusites, announced for the evening
while the shallow features of the Duke of
Orleans grinned at every corner above the
announcement that he would soon ap-
pear Here and there on. a vacant lot
squatted a company of the scrubby little
French soldiery, with their guns stack ed
ana the men gathered in groups putting
cigarettes.
Only Spark Needed.
why infantry under arms in a peaceful
city on a Sunday afternoon? The boule-
Vards answered that question They
swarmed they chartered: their thousands
were excited to the boiling point: only a
spark was needed to start the fireworks
occasionally a spark was struck small
one In a cafe. Some wfne-ft epzied you-n
shouted vfve' or "conspueez' some one
people were on their chairs in an instant
with a babel of the screams wherein the
French vocalize their emottors. the sound
of crashing glass was in the air Twenty
gendarmes sprang from the ground
emptied the cafe, dispersed the company
dropped into the earth again. Looking I'D
sae ehe % boulevard the vicinity of the Of
nee OF La Ltbre Parole appeared to
be focal point Of excitement. Across
the front Of the building stretched
a huge canvas like a campaign banner.
auhting "A Bas Les Juifs' in letters ten
1eet nigh. Several real journalists with
long hair and flowing neckties posed on the
balcony, smoking Certer of the-stage cigars
with Gillettean flourish and watching the
e1ect upon the Fopu1ace of their little dem
OnStratlon. The crowd shouted crazily
L he units of the crowd did not stop to do
their shouting, however. Whenever one cf
them halted he felt pressure from behind
silent gendarme with his arms folded
ffe said nothing, this bNsiness-like gen
darme; he used no club. 10 language no
intimidation. He simply placed himself
IN the rear Of the demonstrator and moved
lcrWard. The citizen moved also perforce
as snow moves out of the path of the
plough 1t is impossible to photograph into
words the spirit of the episode, but there
was something downright gruesome about
@AiiS SiaShI, oWlIt HldcHIIlc-ilke metnOQ OF
repression, and there was a gendarme FOR
every unit of the crowd.
EverIastingly Dreyfus.
One need not know French to grasp the
text of the trouble. "Dreyfus! Dreyfus!
Dreyfus!' Everlastingly Dreyfus. There
were ten thousand reiterations of thu name
In the frenzied chatter. of the streets. Yet
the trenchmen WIhb spoke it were thinking
no more Of thu prisoner of the Isle du Dia-
bic than the farmers who discuss the tariff
in the corner groceries, at homo have the
town of Tariffa ein mind. One of the
strangest freaks 2of history has magnifled
ths trial Of an obscure. captain for treason
into the crux of a national convulsion, and
maybe an international one. The magni-
tying factor is thsshonof of the army. The
honor of the army fs. i fetish which runs
on all fours with senatorial courtesy
beautiful tradition, that an officer cannot
lie. This fetish the staff of the French
army worshiped s'deyoutly. The skeleton
or the story Is noW plain, how. from lieu
tenant to general they hung together like
band of thieves: how in this tribunal and
that one they SWORD that Dreyfus was
guilty, and offered to stake their honor and
their regulations on his guilt, and how,