page_title: Dreyfus affair
section_title: Expertise in writing
hierarchical_section_title: Dreyfus affair / Origins of the case and the trial of 1894 / Expertise in writing
caption_attribution_description: Le colonel du Paty de Clam
context_page_description: The Dreyfus Affair was a political scandal that divided the Third French Republic from 1894 until its resolution in 1906. "L'Affaire", as it is known in French, has come to symbolise modern injustice in the Francophone world, and it remains one of the most notable examples of a complex miscarriage of justice and antisemitism. The role played by the press and public opinion proved influential in the conflict.
  The scandal began in December 1894 when Captain Alfred Dreyfus was convicted of treason. Dreyfus was a 35-year-old Alsatian French artillery officer of Jewish descent. He was sentenced to life imprisonment for allegedly communicating French military secrets to the German Embassy in Paris, and was imprisoned in Devil's Island in French Guiana, where he spent nearly five years.
  In 1896, evidence came to light—primarily through an investigation instigated by Georges Picquart, head of counter-espionage—which identified the real culprit as a French Army major named Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy. When high-ranking military officials suppressed the new evidence, a military court unanimously acquitted Esterhazy after a trial lasting only two days.
context_section_description: To condemn Dreyfus, the writing on the bordereau had to be compared to that of the Captain. There was nobody competent to analyse the writing on the General Staff. Then Major du Paty de Clam entered the scene: an eccentric man who prided himself on being an expert in graphology. On being shown some letters by Dreyfus and the bordereau on 5 October, du Paty concluded immediately who had written the two writings. After a day of additional work he provided a report that, despite some differences, the similarities were sufficient to warrant an investigation. Dreyfus was therefore "the probable author" of the bordereau in the eyes of the General Staff.
  General Mercier believed he had the guilty party, but he exaggerated the value of the affair, which took on the status of an affair of state during the week preceding the arrest of Dreyfus. The Minister did consult and inform all the authorities of the State, yet despite prudent counsel and courageous objections expressed by Gabriel Hanotaux in the Council of Ministers he decided to pursue it. Du Paty de Clam was appointed Judicial Police Officer to lead an official investigation.
  Meanwhile several parallel sources of information were opening up, some on the personality of Dreyfus, others to ensure the truth of the identity of the author of the bordereau. The expert Gobert was not convinced and found many differences. He even wrote that "the nature of the writing on the bordereau excludes disguised handwriting". Disappointed, Mercier then called in Alphonse Bertillon, the inventor of forensic anthropometry but no handwriting expert. He was initially no more positive than Gobert but he did not exclude the possibility of its being the writing of Dreyfus. Later, under pressure from the military, he argued that Dreyfus had autocopied it and developed his theory of "autoforgery".
caption: Major du Paty de Clam, head of investigation, arrested Captain Dreyfus
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