The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1899-08-14

l
abandoned you" Such were the words
of corroding poison that were poured
into his ears on that island truly termed
Devils by Christians of the close of the
nineteenth century. Your family has
| abandoned you" No wonder that the
miserable mans mind sank. dizzy
blind and sheltaress, as these awful
words were borne in upon his brain.
There is nothing in the slow agonies
of hell as described by Dante which In
subtle pognancy equals the fierce tor
ture engendered by this narrowing
message, having heard which he might
well feel disposed to give up the fight,
and say with the poet, II want to be
forgotten, even by God" But, huoyed
up by some undefinable force. which
told him that he would live to welcome
the hour of retrbution, he turned upon
the bringer Of that infamous message,
| and shouted in voice of thunder,
| You lie They have not abandoned
me-, and, wildly striking his parched
brow against the pallsade that penned
him within his narrow prison. he cried
aloud to the armament and the sun,
They lie UNANIMOUSLY. They lie shame
lesslyi My family cannot abandon
me- His faith In. his wife and family
was invincible. and while he was pro-
claiming 1t thus to the parching winds
of the tropics they in France were
making superhuman efforts to clear the
name which had become an insult and
q curse, And whenever their endeav-
ors babe fair to become successful, and
| the word revision passed from mouth to
mouth, Captain Dreyfus' jailers hesita-
ted and relaxed, but never once relent-
ed. And when revision was secuted and
| the doctrine of one man being sacrificed
| for the good of all was preached and
| approved they gathered new vigor, and
| the wretohed prisoner underwent fresh
| and fiercer ordeals
From time to time he indited long
letters to Felix Faure and to General
Bolsdeffre, putting his case clearly, elo-
quently, unanswerably, and beseeching
these lovers of truth to vehify his
statements and to clear his name
These men We're his hope. He built ev-
erything upon their Bayardlike quail
ties, not knowing that they We're stone
deaf forever to his pleadings, When
General Zurlinden became war minister
cause of revision. But President Faure,
having heard of this determination, dis
suaded him from carrying it out, and
Dreyfus, ignorant Of what was going on
in France, was then blessing the names
of his enemies whom he took to be his
friends, and praying that they might
remain in power. Their very names
were pleasant to his ears, for We're they
not his defenders and friends, eager for
the triumph of truth and justice, which
was his own sole object and aim yet
he often wondered why they We're so
slow with the work they had at heart.
He sometimes questioned his guards,
but they were silent. After time,
however, they grew communicative,
and confided to him the reason of the
slowness, and this is how they put it:
your family is to blame. They went
the wrong way about 1t, and, owing to
their blunder, revision has been reject
ed and your condemnation will be
maintained. The matter is over now"
Pity, pity such as turks even in the
savage breast, must have been delibe-
rately stihed before such an innocent
looking lie could be concocted and told.
1t was made most plausible so plausi-
BILE that the souk narrowed martyr ac-
tually accepted it. and thus gave 1t
power to rack his brain and tear the
folds of his hearts inmost cell.
That lie lived and did its work.
Dreyfus blamed his family for their
lack Of prudence. He was embittered |
against his brother, who, Titanlike, was
even then waging war against the
whole world in his defence. He feared
to think of the irrevocable results of the
plumbers" made by his family, and he |
turned from his liith and kin all the |
more trustingly, thankfully, prayerful- |
ly to President Felix Faure and Gene
raj Boisdeffre, saying, Into your hands
I place my honor, From you 1 hope
for salvation" And at last his prayers
were heard and his hopes realized. He |
was to return to France. When, there
fore, he took his place on board the
SfaX it was with a feeling of undying
attitude to President Faure and GEN
eral Boisdeffre. Convinced by his own
frequent appeals and eloquent defence,
they had insisted upon revision and
noble spirits that they were--had made
good Captain Dreyfus' sentiments and
throughout the long voyage
from Cayenne to Quiberon. No more
pathetic, no more thrillingly dramatic
can well be conceived than
that which took place In his cell at
Rennes, when his Borrowing wife,
through tears and smiles, began the sto-
ry of the revision.
stop" he exclaimed to the lady,
who thought his mind was unhinged.
You know nothing about it. How
could you? 1t was who did it all.
My letters to President Faure."
He had been kept in ignorance of ev-
erything He was not allowed to write
continuously and to keep his manu-
scripts. Every evening his jaiers took
away every line that had issued from
MS pen during the day and sent 1t to
Paris. where efforts We're made to distil
rom his writings evidence of some kind
against himself At last the ill fated
man was reduced to the mechanical
work of copying extracts from the books
lie had. This was the only way left
llm of keeping the light of his intelli-
gence from going out And even this
harmless occupation was not without
is dangers. One day he copied page
rom a book vigorously attacking Zola
If whose championship he knew moth
ng. But the people in Paris who
lneW all published that mage against ,