Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1899-08-05
DREYFUS* ~ ~
~ SUFFERINGS.

" the nineteenth century. "Your family
has abandoned you. No Wonder that
the miserable mans mind sank, dizzy,
blind and shelterless, as these awful
words were borne upon his brain.
There is nothing in the slow agonies of
he'll as described by Dante which in SUBJ
Tie poignancy equals the fierce torture en-
genedered by this narrowing message,
having heard which he might feel dis
posed to give up the fight, and say with
the poet, Il want to be forgotten, even
by God But, buoyed up by some unde-
Unable force. which told him that he
would I've to welcome the hour of retri-
button, he turned upon the bringer of
that infamous message, and shouted in a
voice of thunder, You lie! They have
not abandoned me-" and, wildly striking
his Darched brow against the palisade
that penned him within his narrow prison,
he cried aloud to the armament and the
sun, They lie UNANIMOUSLY! They lie
shamelessly! My family was invincible."
and while he was proclalming it thus to
the parch.ng winds Of the tropics they in
France We're making s%uperhuman efforts
to clear the name which had become an
Insult and a curse. And whenever their
~endeavors bade fair to become successful
and the word revision passed from mouth
to mouth, Captain Dreyfus' jailers hest
tated and relaxed, but never once re-
Tented. And when revision was secuted
and the doctrine of one man being sacri-
feed for the good of all was preached and
approved they gathered new vigor, and
the wretched prisoner underwent fresh
and fiercer ordeals.
From time to time he indited long let
tiers to Felix Faure and to General Bois-
deffre, putting his case clearly, eloquent
~. unansWerably. and heseeching these
lovers of truth to verify his statements
and to clear his name. These men We're
bis hope. He built everything upon their
B~ayardlike' qualities. not knowing that
they were stone deaf forever to his plead
ings. When General Zurlinden became
minister he promised NJ. Brisson to
further the cause of revision. But Presi-
dent Faure, having heard Of this deter
mination, ~d.ssuaded 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 tri-
umph 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 a time, how
ever, they grew communicative, and con-
fided to him the reason of the slowness,
and this is how they put it: Your fam
lily is to blame. They went the wrong
about it. and, owing to their blum
der, revision has been rejected and your
condemnation will be maintained. The
matter is over now Pity, pity such as
turks even in the savage breast, must
been deliberately stifled before such
an innocent looking lie could be concocted
and told. 1t was made most plausible,
SO plausible that the soul narrowed mar
tyr actually accepted it, and thus gave it
power to rack his brain and tear the
folds of his hearts inmost cell.
That lie lived and don it's work. Drey-
fus blamed his family for their lack of
prudence. He was embittered against his
brother, who, Titanlike, was even then
waging a war against the whole world
in his defense. He feared to think of the
irrevocable results Of the ~"blunders'
made by his family, and he turned from
his kith and kin all the more trustingly,
thankfully, prayerfully to President
Felix Faure and General Boisdeffre, say
ing, Into your hands I place my honor.
From you hope for salvation." And at
last his prayers were heard and his hopes
realized. He was to return to France.
When, therefore, he took his place on
board the SfaX it was with a feeling Of
undyins gratitude to President Faure and
General Roisdeffre. Convinced by his own
frequent appeals and eloquent defence,
they had insisted upon revision and-no-
Bile spirits that they were-had made good
the blunders of his own relatives. These
were Captain Dreyfus' sentiments and
convictions throughout the long voyage
from Cayenne to Quiberon. No more pa
thetic, no more thrilling dramatic stu
alton can we'll be conceived than that
which took place in his cell at Rennes,
when his Borrowing wife, through tears
and smiles, began the story of the revi-
sion.
stop" he exclaimed to the lady, who
thought his mind was unhinged. you
know nothing about it. How could you?
1t was l who did it all. My letters to
President Faure."
He had been kept in ignorance of every
thing. He was not allowed to write con-
tinuOusly and to keep his manuscripts
Every evening his jailers took away
! every line that he had issued from his pen
during the day and sent it to Paris, where
efforts We're made to distil from his writ
ings evidence of some kind against him
self. At last the i'll fated man was reduced
to the mechanical work Of copying ex-
tracts from the books he had. This was
the only way left him Of keeping the light
of his intelligence from going out. And
even this harmless occupation was not
without its dangers. One day he copied
a page from a book vigorously attacking
lola, of whose championship he knew
nothing. But the people in Paris who
knew all published that page against lola
and gloated over it, saying that its value
lay in it's having been selected by Zola's
protege, Captain Dreyfus, who thus be-
guiled his time on the Isle du Diable.
But, cruel and cowardly as all this
seems, there was something more-I dare
not add, and worse. 1t was this. A for