The evening times., 1898-09-01
HECHT s. COr1PANY, SIS Seventh St.

] an immediate inquiry. a court-martial
was convened shortly afterward, and
1 Comte Esterhazy was placed on trial.
/ His principal accuser was NJ. Matthew
! Dreyfus who attempted to prove that
the COmte wrote the bordereau. On the
! second day of the court-martial the pres
ident declared that 1t was the judgment
I of the court that the Comte was not
/ guilty, and consequently he was acquit-
! ted.
Meantime it transpired that the mem.
! bers of the court-martial that tried Drey-
I fus had not been unanimous in agreeing
! tuat Dreyfus was really the author of the
I borderau. and were hesitating TO con-
denim the accused man, when Gen. Mer-
! cier took them aside and, it is alleged,
/ showed them a document containing the
following words: ''Cette canaille de D.
! deviant trop exigeant' (That scoundrel
/ of a D is becoming too eXacting).
! This is the document which Col. Henry
! confessed he forged, and which, it is
4 said, convinced the court that Dreyfus
! was guilty.
! On the strength, il is said. of this forg-
! ed secret document which was not COM
municated TO the prisoners counsel the
/ government took the stand that the YER
! dict was just, and the minister of war
! declared from the tribune of the cham
ber, on his honor as soldier, that Drey-
fus was guilty. This. with the public ac-
quittal of Major EsterhaZy, closed the
case for a time but IL broke out again
with increased violence by the publica-
tion of Emile Zola's famous letter of ac-
cusations against the chiefs of the army
He charged that Gen de Boisdeffre
Gen. Gonse and even the minister of war
himself believed EsterhaZy wrote the
famous borderau but said the staff
knowing that EsterhaZy's condemnation
would lead TO a revision Of the Dreyfus
court-martial refused to reopen the case
Ihis, asserted the novelist, was the worst
of all, for Gen. Billot refused TO do ius-
tice, although he had the power. He
with Gen. Gonse and the chief of the
s,aff, knew that Dreyfus was innocent
and they kept the terrible secret and
slept, and had wives and children whom
they loved. He concluded as follows:
II accuse Lieut.. Col. du Patty de Clam
of having been the diabolical worker of a
Judicial error, unconscionably / am
ready 10 believe, and of then having de-
Tended his nefarious doings for the past
three years by the most absurd and cul-
pable Vaccinations. / accuse Gen Mer-
cier of being the accomplice. at least
through weak intelligence, in the greatest
iniquity of the century. l accuse Gen.
Billot of having in his hands certain
proofs of the innocence of Dreyfus, and
of having suppressed them, thus render
ing himself guilty of treason against hu-
manity and justice, for political reason
and in order to save the compromised
staff. i accuse Gen. de Boisdeffre and
Gen. Gonse of being the accomplices in
the same crime, the one through religious
animosity, doubtless, the other, perhaps.
through the esprit de corps" which
makes the war office that sacred and un-
assailable ark. / accuse Gen. de Pellieux
and Commandant Ravary of having made
a fiagitious investigation, whereby
mean an inquiry of the most monstrous
partiality, whereof we have in the report
of the last mentioned, an imperishable
monument of candid audacity. i accuse
the three experts in handwriting, the men
Belhomme, Verinard, and Couard, Of