Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1898-01-22

mali oAiu 1tailau embassies, winch dlrectly
accused Dreyfus Of acts OF treachery. The
following account of this document was
s1ven-evidently from an Official source--by
the Eclair newspaper:
me military attaches at the German
embassy addressed I'm September 1894
letter written In cipher to their col
leagues at the Italian embassy. This
letter left the German embassy all right,
but before reaching the hands OF the adj
drtseees rad been carefully opened and
read and prudently photographed. 1t
was letter In cipher, in the cipher OF
the German embassy. This cipher was
known to the ministry Of war. and ii will
be understood that it's value was too great
for the fact to be made known. The let
ter was rot included amongst the docu-
ments originally laid before the court
jucges while they were In their consulting
room and IN the absence OF the defending
counsel Toward September 20 Col. Sand
herr, Dreyfus' chief. and head OF the sta
ed copy of this letter 10 Gen. Mercier. II
referred to the service of spying in Paris,
and contained this phrase: Decidedly that
beast Dreyfus IL becoming too exacting.'"
The friends of Dreyfvs denied the au-
thenticity of this report. They declared
that, first, this letter had come into the
PC session OF the ministry very early In
the year 1894. and. secondly, that the
all. but that the initial d was used in the
original to designate the person of whom
the German attaches complained. They de-
clared also that one OF the messengers In
the war Office. whose name began with
d, had been for long time under suspicion
In consequence of this document and had
been for months kept under close observa-
ton.
ReOpcning the Case.
In answer to these alleged proofs OF
Dreyfus' guilt, one of the friends OF the
prisoner, Bernard Lazare, a writer of
great distinction, published small PAM
phlet In Brussels, entitled "A judicial
Error. Truth on the Dreyfus Affair."
which was scattered broadcast over Eu-
rope and America. In this pamphlet IL
was denied that the writing Of the bor-
it was pointed out in detail that IL would
have been impossible for the prisoner to
obtain any one of the documents referred
to in the list. A second pamphlet followed
In the spring OF 1897, in which NJ. Lazare
declared most emphatically that the Ger
man embassy never had the bordereau in
It's possession, and consequently none of
the documents mentioned in IL either: that
no German attache ever wrote the alleged
letter to an Italian attache. and that both
bordereau and letter were the work of a
forger. In view of the recent endeavor on
the part OF the friends Of Alfred Dreyfus
TO establish that the act of treachery i'm
piled by the bordereau was committed by
another officer, Mai. Esterhazy, on the
ground that the writing Of the document
is Identical with his ordinary penmanship,
this statement Is, for the purposes of Drey-
fus' defense, somewhat unfortunate
Meanwhile, however, man of approved
Eonor and of some social and political
standing, NJ. Scheurer- Kestner, vice presi-
dent OF the senate. had gradually come to
disbelieve in the guilt of Alfred Dreyfus,
end, having at last reached the conviction
that terrible judicial error had been
committed, devoted himself body and soul
to its PREPARATION.
He visited the experts who had decided
against Dreyfus. and heard the opinions of
numerous other experts on the writing
OF the bordereau. At last one day some
OF the writing OF Maj. Esterhazy was
laid before him. cit appeared to be iden-
teal with that of the bordereau, and II
was apparently on the supposition that
the letters Of Esterhazy and the list of
documents had been written by one and
the same person that the senator decided
that Dreyfus must be innocent: that the
real culprit was Maj. Esterhazy. He ac-
cordingly called on the prime minister with
ms documents, and pointed out that they
clearly proved that Dreyfus was not the
author of the bordereau. NJ Meline told
him that the government had no power to
reopen the case, and that he must take his
papers and make his application to the
minister of justice. The same answer was
given him by Gen. Billot the minister of
war. Meanwhile the relatives of Alfred
Dreyfus had learned what was the conclu-
sion at which NJ. Scheurer- Kestner had
arrived and had examined the letters writ
ten by Maj. Esterhazy which were in his
possession.
Accusation of Esterha.y.
Expert evidence was taken on the sub.
Ject and the result was that on November
10 Matthew Dreyfus, the brother Of the
convict, addressed a letter, formally &C.
cusing Maj. Esterhazy OF the crime of
which his brother had been convicted, TO
the minister of war.
simultaneously with the publication of
this letter, various papers which have
espoused the cause Of the Dreyfus family
published particulars about Mai. Esterhazy
which seemed to give weight to the accu-
sation leveled against him. Amongst other
country. This was inexact for on the
morning of the day on which Matthew
Dreyfus' letter was made public the major
walked into the Office Of the Agence Havas
the Paris news agency. and handed in a
copy of the letter which he had addressed
to the minister of war on hearing of the
charges brought against him. 1t ran as
follows:
PARIS, November 10, 1897.
Monsieur lie Ministre: / read in the pa
pers OF this morning the Infamous accusa-
ton which has been brought against me.
Il beg you to institute an inquiry and
hold myself in readiness to answer each
and every charge that may be made.against
me. ESTERHAZY
Charges and Counter Charges.
Hereupon followed in the various papers
such a journalistic Walpurg:s night as can
be seen nowhere outside the limits of Paris
The widest stories were printed with all
seriousness. In an interview with one
journalist the major declared that, thanks
to a mysterious yelled woman, who had as
signed him a meeting near the trocadero,
he was in possession of a document which
established definitely that he was the desig-
lated victim of huge conspiracy organiz-
ed by the Jews to nberate their fellow
religfonary at the sacrifice of himself.
Meanwhile. to force public opinion in the
direction indicated by Matthew Dreyfus'
letter, one OF the papers which has espous-
ed the cause of Alfred Dreyfus. published,
side by side, letters from Maj. Esterhazy,
written before and after the publication of
the bordereau, the bordereau itself, and
letters written by Alfred Dreyfus. 1t was
insisted upon that there was a striking diff
ference in the writing Of the letters which
had been penned by the major, before the
bordereau was published in facsimile Chat
is to say, in 1866, and afterwards. the i'm
plication being that the major had pur-
posely changed his handwriting SO as to
avoid detection. On this followed the pub
Ecation in facsimile of a number Of let
tiers written by Maj. Esterhazy to a lady in
1884, In which he expresses himself in
terms of great hatred for the French ma