The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1898-11-06

pealed TO General Gonse and by him
reported to the minister. In reporting
them General Gonse unintentionally
isolated the words, IF | had furnished
documents they were documents with
out importance" so that they seemed
half-confession of guilt Dreyfus af
terward wrote to the minister declaring
that he had never committed any Gull
pable action or even an imprudence,
and begged for a further search for the
guilty parties
Instead of being sent to New Gale
donia and his wife being permitted to
JOIN him there, q new law was passed
to cover the case of this black traitor.
In order to prevent him from having
any communications with the outside
world, and thus obtaining a revision
he was sent to the He du Diable, on
the coast of French Guiana. There his
hut was surrounded with palisades
and walls; the six jallers in constant
attendance were not allowed to speak
to him, and since early in 1897 only
mutilated and amended copies of his
letters have been delivered to his wife.
In the spring of 1896 Col. Sandherr
was succeeded in the intelligence bu-
reau of the war department by Lieut..
Col. Picquart To him was intrusted the
Dreyfus matter. In his Instructions to
Picquart, Gen. de Boisdeffre said: "You
should take up the Dreyfus dossier;
there is not much in it." BY this he
meant that Picquart would do well to
strengthen the evidence against Drey-
fus. Col Picquart had anti-semitic
ideas and little sympathy for Dreyfus,
but he was essentially a straightfor-
ward man and had little liking for the
devious ways of the intelligence bureau
lie accepted the part with reluctance
and entered the office believing that
there must have been overwhelming
ground for condemning Dreyfus 1t is
likely that he would have avoided any
further investigation of the matter had
there not fallen in his hands a tele-
graphic card known as the petit bleu.
addressed to Commandant Esterhazy,
asking for meeting and signed with
the conventional signature of Maj. Won
SchWarzkoppen. This message had been
rescued out of a waste-paper basket,
pasted together and photographed It
mad never been stamped or dispatched.
Count Esterhazy a commandant of
infantry, had previously served in the
Austrian army, then as a Pontiffcial
later in the foreign legion Of the
French service, and finally in the
French regular army. He had beer. en-
ployed about 1878 in the intelligence
bureau, because of his knowledge of
German and Italian. In 1892 he had sus-
picious relations with the German en-
bassy. He had taken part in the attacks
OF Dreyfus, for in running him he was
protecting himself. At the time of the
discovery of the petit bleu, other re-
ports directed Col. Picquart's attention
10 Esterhazy, and he began to study
letters written by him. He was 50
struck with the resemblance between
the handwriting of the letters and thar
OF the memorandum that careful
study of the documents in the trial of
1894 led him to believe that Dreyfus had
been convicted by mistake, instead of
Esterhazy.
He kept his chiefs. Gems. de Boisdeffre
and Gonse, informed of his investiga-
Ilons, ana urged a revision of the trial.
lie was at first encouraged to ferret the
matter out, but later was stopped with
the injunction that the general staff
would be discredited by the revision.
colonel Henry, man with a pliabIe
and the enemy of Picduart
succeeded him as head of the intelli-
gence bureau.
Meantime General de Boisdefre re-
ported all that he had heard from Pic
quart TO du Patty de Clam, who in turn
communicated his information to Es
terhazy Frightened lest Esterhazy's
authorship of the memorandum should
be discovered Che has since admitted
that he was its author) Du Patty de
clam inspired an article printed in the
Eelair of September A. 1896, in which
1t was stated that the memorandum
had little weight in the condemnation
OF Dreyfus, but the judges had CON
demned him on a secret document con-
tanning the words: Get animal de
Dreyfus est yraiment trop exigeant"
In reality the words We're: "Ce canaille
de D est vraiment trop exigeant"
This was nothing more or less than an
ayowal of the illegality of the con
domination, and at once drew out re-
The Dreyfus family was
thus freed from its self-imposed duty
of keeping silent, and Nine. Dreyfus
petitioned the chamber of deputies. de-
manding the revision of her husbands
trial An advocate of Dreyfus was
found in Bernard Lazare, who wrote
his first pamphlet on The Dreyfus af-
fair" in which he described the meth
DDS employed by du Patty de Clam in
the preliminary investigation.
The new minister of war, General
Billot, was much disturbed by these
incidents, and, like General MERCER be-
fore him, was beginning to doubt Drey-
fus' guilt He therefore directed his
colleague, Scheurer- Kestner. to con
duct a private inquiry. To satisfy the
scruples of the minister. Colonel Henry
caused to be forged a communication
purporting to have passed between
NM Schwarzhoppen and Panizzardi
on the subject of the Castelin Interpret
lation. AS it explicitly named Dreyfus,
it satisfied General Billot and NJ Cav
aignac: at least, General Billot Joined
with NJ Meline in affirming the author
ity of the decision, and on November
Is the ministry and chamber accepted
the order of the day by which M. Cas-
telin invited the government Ito in
quire, if necessary into all the respon-
sibilities revealed in connection with
the traitor Dreyfus." But NJ. Melne
took care that there should never be
any need of such an inquiry.
But the Dreyfus affair could not thus
be laid on the table. 1t was gaining
greater publicity, and one by one de-
termined men We're coming forward
who wanted to know the truth. The
Matin secured a photograh of the FAM
Gus memorandum Then 1t became
easy to compare it's handwriting with
that Of Dreyfus. Bernard Lazare sent
fac-similes Of both to experts in France
and abroad who We're unanimous in
saying that the memorandum could not
be in Dreyfus' handwriting. This won
a friend from among the noblest of
France, M. Scheurer-Kestner vice
president of the senate
He began an inquiry on his own ac-
count, and at last in July. 1897, his sus-
picions, like those of Picquart fell
upon Count Esterhazy. He first secured
contemporary letter of Esterhazy's,
but the handwriting differed consider
ably from that Of the memorandum.
Suspecting that he had modified his
handwriting. he got a few words writ
ten hastily while some one was stand
ing over Esterha2y. Finding that the
correspondence was exact, he obtained
one Of the letters written in 1894 and
the identity was absolute. Unfortu-
nately instead of communicating his
information TO the Dreyfus family that
they might use it in again demanding a
revision he warned his colleagues in