The San Francisco call., 1899-08-31
Members Of the French
General Staff Now
Quarreling Among
Themselves.
ARE DIVIDING INTO
CLIQUES.
Leaders Seek to Desert
the Sinking Ship Of
the Prosecution at
RenneS.
Special Dispatch to The Call.

Special Dispatch to The Call.
II ENNES, Aug. 3O.-The air Of
- Rennes this evening is filled with
rumors of conspiracies and pre-
i L dictions of cOups de theatre, but
nothing precise can be ascer-
tained. General Mercier's attitude dur
ing the last few days has mystified his
followers in the case He is extremely
clever and the general feeling is that
he is preparing something, the existence
of which will be revealed in a few days.
1t is now accepted as beyond ques-
tion that there is a serious division of
opinion on the part of the generals.
While the case was running smoothly
against Captain Dreyfus they all pulled
together, but since the tide of evidence
began TO turn in his favor, as was not
ably the case during the testimony of
Captain Freysmetter and Colonel Cor
der, which proved much more damag-
ing TO the general staff than the latter
expected, certain dividing lines have
become manifest between the various
cliques.
General Roget, Major Lauth, Captain
Cuignet and NJ. Gribelin, the principal
keeper of the archives of the War Of
nee. for.h one cotJ1e; General Merciei
and General Gonse form another and
General Billot and General de Bois-
deffre a third. According to one report
the first two coteries intend to throw
over General de Boisdeffre. whom they
feel to be faltering. and declare that
he is responsible for all the errors and
illegalities of the court-martial of 1894.
thus making him the scapegoat. Ac-
cording to another report General Ro-
get, who was not implicated in 1894 and
who fought against Dreyfus because he
inherited from his predecessors the re-
sponsibility Tor SO doing and placed
over-confidence in the accuracy of the
matter furnished him by the general
staff, will cut himself loose from Cen
erals Mercier, Gonse and De Boisdeffre.
This is a plausible hypothesis since
Roget has assumed throughout the role
of the defender of the army, thus max
ing himself popular with the army and
with a large section Of the nation, and
he probably would not lose by separat-
ing himself from the wrOngdoers of
1894 and declaring that his opinion had
been changed by the evidence given
during the present trial. Yet another
story is that the generals are going TO
give way to the authorship of the bor-
dereau in view of the strong evidence
ana VIII dUIIill llldl T-SleI ildLN Nlplt II,
alleging, however, that Dreyfus fur
nished the information, not direct to
ESterhaZy, but to q third person, who
acted as intermediary without Dreyfus
knowing Esterhazy.
In this connection ii was asserted this
afternoon that Nine. Rastian. who was
houSekeeper for Colonel SchwarZkop-
pen, the German military attache, in
1894, and who is understood to have
acted as a French spy, has been seen
in Rennes ard will be summoned as a
witness concerning Schwarzkoppen's
espionage system.
These rumors may be without foun-
dation. but in any event they are
symptomatic of the feeling in Rennes
that something is going on under the
surface and that the complexion Of the
trial may be altered by some coup at
any moment.
In the matter of evidence, to-day was
quite a Dreyfus day, only the deposi-
ton of the last witness, General de
Love being unfavorable. The testi-
mony of NJ. Picot, a member of the in
stitute, is little likely, however, to serve
the cause of the accused materially, if
at all. because his introduction of Col
onel Schneider. the Austrian military
attache. as a champion of Dreyfus was
rather calculated to arouse resentment
and adversely to influence the judges,
especially as it was followed by Gen
eral Roget's tactful protest against
Colonel Schneider's complimentary al
lusions to French officers.
To-morrow's proceedings behind
closed doors will deal with the question
whether Captain Dreyfus was in a po-
sition to divulge the information re-
garding the artillery which was prom
ised in the bordereau. The session will
be very important and is bound to have
a tremendous influence upon the judges
one way or the other, because they are
all artillery officers and will be able
to appreciate such evidence better than
the cryptographic intricacies that have
been laid before them by the handWrit-
ing experts.
The DreyfusardS express confidence
that their artillery witnesses, Major
Hartman and Major DucrOs, will eff
fectively satisfy the judges that Drey-
fus was ignorant of the matters men
toned in the bordereau, or as an artil-
Iery officer would not have been guilty
of stating the errors which it contained
The courtroom continues crowded and
quite a number of ladies now succeed
in obtaining admission. Town loafers
are making regular business of form
ing n oueuue outside the entrance to
the public park and courtroom as early
as 2 or 8 o'clock in the morning and
selling places at from three to five
francs. according to the position. The
ordinary public arrive at or in the
morning and must purchase these
places. because only a limited number
can secure standing room.
The local papers publish the state
ment that NJ. Charles de Freycinet, on
leaving the courtroom yesterday. after