Page:Jean Jaurès socialist and humanitarian 1917.djvu/70

 "But if it was false that the law had been violated … what prevented M. Méline from rising and saying 'No!'?

"With a single word he would have calmed honest minds. This word he did not say, and his silence was a decisive avowal."

And this same answer was not given "elsewhere." It was refused at Zola's trial by General Mercier, who had been Minister of War at the time of the Dreyfus trial. Nevertheless all came gradually to light.

Reinach refers to Jaurès' wonderful physical energy in speaking, when he describes his first interference on this subject in the French Chamber. Tumult arose from the beginning of his speech, and the interruptions were frequent, while "he boldly made his profession of faith, the same as that of all those who had been crying for months for justice.

"'Do you know from what we are all suffering,' he said, 'from what we are all dying.? I say it on my own responsibility. We are all dying since this affair began from half measures, from keeping things back, from equivocations, from lies, from cowardice. Yes, equivocations, lies, cowardice.'

"He no longer spoke, he thundered with a purple face, his arms stretched out towards the Ministers who protested, toward the Right who