Part 16

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_5 March, 1898._

Dear Lucie:

I have just received your dear letters of January. Your letters are always wonderfully equal in spirit, in feeling, and in elevation of soul. I shall not add anything to the long letters I have written to you during the last three months; the last were perhaps nervous, overflowing with impatience, with pain, with suffering; but all this is too appalling, and there have been responsibilities to establish.

I will not go over and over my thoughts indefinitely. After explaining the details of a situation as tragic as it is undeserved, a situation that has been so long borne by so many victims, I ask and ask again my rehabilitation of the Government, and now I am expecting each day to learn that the light of justice is at last to shine for us.

I embrace you, as I love you, with all the power of my love, as I embrace also our dear children.

My fondest love to all our friends.

ALFRED.

APPENDIX

ADDITIONAL LETTERS

A.--1898-99

On September 24, 1898, Dreyfus addressed a piteous letter to the Governor of French Guiana, saying that all his appeals had met with no response. It was at this period that he lost all hope. In early November he received a letter from his wife which, although giving not the slightest intimation of the stirring events in Paris, was in cheerful tone. He thought that it referred to his letter of September 24, and at once became encouraged. After more than two months’ silence he wrote to her again. He spoke of the good news contained in his wife’s letter, repeated that he was waiting the answer to his petition with confidence, and then he said:

“So when you receive this letter everything will, I think, be finished, and your happiness will be complete. But in these days of relief and felicity which will follow so many days of pain and suffering, I would that my thought, my heart, all that is living in me, which has not left you during those four terrible years, may again reach you, to add, if possible, to your joy until we can at least resume that happy and quiet life to which your natural qualities entitled you, and which you now deserved more than ever owing to the greatness of your soul, to the nobility of your character, to all the most beautiful qualities which a woman can display under such tragic circumstances--qualities which suffering has only developed, and which have proved to me that there was no ideal here below to which a woman’s soul could not rise, and which she could not surpass. It is in our mutual affection, in that of our dear and beloved children, in the satisfaction of our consciences, and in the feeling that we have done our duty, that we shall forget our long trials. I do not insist. Such emotion is great. I tremble at it; but it is lovely, as it elevates. So until the decisive news of my rehabilitation arrives I am going to live more than ever in thought with you, with all, sharing your common joy.”

* * * * *

At length Dreyfus was officially informed of the first decision of the Court of Cassation. Writing to his wife on November 25, he said:

“My dear Lucie:

“In the middle of the month I was told that the petition for the revision of my judgment had been declared acceptable by the Court of Cassation, and was invited to produce my means of defence. I took the necessary measures immediately. My requests were at once transmitted to Paris, and you must have been informed of this some days ago. Events must therefore be moving rapidly. In thought I am night and day, as always, with you, with our children, with all, sharing our joy at seeing the end of this fearful drama approaching rapidly. Words become powerless to describe such deep emotions.... According to information which I sent you in the last mail, all will be over in the course of December. Therefore, when these lines reach you I shall be almost on the point of starting for France.”

Here are touching passages from his letter of December 26. After telling his “_chère et bonne_ Lucie”--he almost invariably addresses her thus--that, with the exception of the telegram, to which he at once replied, he had not heard from her for two months until he got a letter a few days ago, he went on to explain that if he had for a moment closed his correspondence, this was because he was awaiting the reply to his petition for the revision of his judgment, and should only have repeated himself:

“If my voice had ceased to make itself heard, this would have been because it had forever died away. If I have lived, it has been for my honor, which is my property and the patrimony of our children; it has been for my duty, which I have done everywhere and always; and as it must ever be accomplished when a man has right and justice on his side, without fear of anything or of anybody. When one has behind one a past devoted to duty, a life devoted to honor, when one has never known but one language, that of truth, one is strong, I assure you, and atrocious though fate may have been, one must have a soul lofty enough to dominate it until it bows before one. Let us, therefore, await with confidence the decision of the Supreme Court, as we await with confidence the decision of the new judges before whom this decision will send me. At the same time as your letter I have received a copy of the petition for revision, and of the decree of the Court of Cassation, declaring it acceptable. I read with wonderful emotion the terms of your petition, in which you expressed admirably, as I had already done in mine, the feelings by which I am animated in asking that an end shall be put to the punishment of an innocent man--I may add to that, of a noble woman, of her children, of two families, of an innocent man who had always been a loyal soldier, who has not ceased, even in the midst of the horrible sufferings of unmerited chastisement, to declare his love for his native land.”

* * * * *

Always confident in the eventual result, Dreyfus wrote on February 8, 1899:

“Although I think, as I told you, that the end of our horrible martyrdom is nigh, what does it matter if there is a little delay? The object is everything, and until the day when I can clasp you in my arms I would have you know my thoughts, which never leave you, which have watched night and day over you and our children. Besides, the letter which I wrote to you on December 26 or 27 was too deep, too adequate an expression of my thoughts, of my invincible will, and of my feelings, for me to add a single word to it.”

* * * * *

Pending the receipt of the news of his rehabilitation, he sends his love to all their relatives. The latest letter, dated February 25, runs thus:

“My dear and good Lucie:

“A few lines, as I can only repeat myself, that you may still hear the same words of firmness and dignity until the day when I am informed of the end of this terrible judicial drama. I can well imagine, as you tell me so yourself, what joy you feel in reading my letters. I am sure that it is equal to my pleasure in perusing yours. It is a bit of one which reaches the other, pending the blessed moment when we are at last reunited. My thoughts, which have never left you a moment, which have watched night and day over you and our children, are always with you. I very often speak mentally to you, but they are always the same ideas and feelings of which I also find the echo in your letters, as all this is common to us since these same thoughts and sentiments are the common property, the innate basis of all loyal souls and of all honest characters. It is with a reassured and confident mind that I must leave to the high authority of the Court the care of the accomplishment of its noble work of supreme justice. Pending the news of my rehabilitation, I embrace you with all my strength, with all my soul, as I love you and our dear and adored children.

Your devoted “ALFRED.”

* * * * *

It was soon after this he wrote the following letter to his little son:

“My dear Pierre:

“I have received your nice little letter. You wish me to write to you. I shall soon do better; I shall soon press you in my arms. Pending this good and sweet moment you will embrace your mamma for me, as well as grandpapa, grandma, little Jeanne, the uncles and aunts, all, in fact. Hearty kisses to you and little Jeanne, from your affectionate father.

ALFRED.”

This letter, quite exceptionally, does not bear the stamp of the penal administration.

B.--HIS OWN STATEMENT OF THE CASE

Here is a letter that was received by Maître Demange, the counsel of Dreyfus, from his client, December 31, 1894. It was first made public when sent to M. Sarrien, Minister of Justice, July 11, 1898. In the published copy it was deemed necessary to suppress certain words and phrases:

“Commandant du Paty came to-day, Monday, December 31, 1894, at 5.30 P.M., after the rejection of my appeal, to ask me, on behalf of the Minister, whether I had not, perhaps, been the victim of my imprudence, whether I had not meant merely to lay a bait ... and had then found myself caught fatally in the trap. I replied that I had never had relations with any agent or attaché, ... that I had undertaken no such process as baiting, and that I was innocent. He then said to me on his own responsibility that he was himself convinced of my guilt, first from an examination of the handwriting of the document brought up against me, and from the nature of the documents enumerated therein; secondly, from information according to which the disappearance of documents corresponded with my presence on the General Staff; that, finally, a secret agent had declared that a Dreyfus was a spy, ... without, however, affirming that that Dreyfus was an officer. I asked Commandant du Paty to be confronted with this agent. He replied that it was impossible. Commandant du Paty acknowledged that I had never been suspected before the reception of the incriminating document.

“I then asked him why there had been no surveillance exercised over the officers from the month of February, since Commandant Henry had affirmed at the court-martial that he had been warned at that date that there was a traitor among the officers. Commandant du Paty replied that he knew nothing about that business, that it was not his affair, but Commandant Henry’s; that it was difficult to watch all the officers of the General Staff.... Then, perceiving that he had said too much, he added: ‘We are talking between four walls. If I am questioned on all that I shall deny everything.’ I preserved entire calmness, for I wished to know his whole idea. To sum up, he said that I had been condemned because there was a clue indicating that the culprit was an officer and the seized letter came to give precision to that clue. He added, also, that since my arrest the leakage at the Ministry had ceased; that, perhaps, ... had left the letter about expressly to sacrifice me, in order not to satisfy my demands.

“He then spoke to me of the remarkable expert testimony of M. Bertillon, according to which I had traced my own handwriting and that of my brother in order to be able in case I should be arrested with the letter on me to protest that it was a conspiracy against me. He further intimated that my wife and family were my accomplices--in short, the whole theory of M. Bertillon. At this point, knowing what I wanted to discover, and not wishing to allow him to insult my family as well, I stopped him, saying, ‘Enough; I have only one word to say, namely, that I am innocent, and that your duty is to continue your inquiries.’ ‘If you are really innocent,’ he exclaimed, ‘you are undergoing the most monstrous martyrdom of all time.’ ‘I am that martyr,’ I replied, ‘and I hope the future will prove it to you.’

“To sum up, it results from this conversation: 1. That there have been leakages at the Ministry. 2. That ... must have heard, and must have repeated to Commandant Henry, that there was an officer who was a traitor. I do not think he would have invented it of his own accord. 3. That the incriminating letter was taken at.... From all this I draw the following conclusions, the first certain, the two others possible: First, a spy really exists ... at the French Ministry, for documents have disappeared. Secondly, perhaps that spy slipped in in an officer’s uniform, imitating his handwriting in order to divert suspicion. Thirdly (here four lines and a half are blank). This hypothesis does not exclude the fact No. 1, which seems certain. But the tenor of the letter does not render this third hypothesis very probable. It would be connected rather with the first fact and the second hypothesis--that is to say, the presence of a spy at the Ministry and imitation of my handwriting by that spy, or simply resemblance of handwriting.

“However this may be, it seems to me that if your agent is clever he should be able to unravel this web by laying his nets as well on the ... side as on the ... side. This will not prevent the employment of all the other methods I have indicated, for the truth must be discovered. After the departure of Commandant du Paty I wrote the following letter to the Minister: ‘I received, by order, the visit of Commandant du Paty, to whom I once more declared that I was innocent, and that I had never even committed an imprudence. I am condemned. I have no favor to ask. But in the name of my honor, which I hope will one day be restored to me, it is my duty to beg you to continue your investigations. When I am gone let the search be kept up; it is the only favor that I solicit.’”

FOOTNOTES:

[A] See Appendix A.

[B] See Appendix B.

[C]

“Who steals my purse steals trash; ’tis something, nothing; ’Twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands! But he that filches from me my good name Robs me of that which not enriches him, And makes me poor indeed.”