Page:Jean Jaurès socialist and humanitarian 1917.djvu/73

 was noticed how "straight the canaille held himself." Upon his sentence being pronounced this account declared that he threw up his arms and shouted "I am innocent! I swear that I am innocent! Vive la France!" and directly they touched him to tear off his decorations he shouted again "I swear it on the heads of my wife and children, I am innocent! " Three times more he declared it, urging on the journalists, who met him with insults, to tell France of his innocence, and again he avowed it upon his return to prison. Then in letters written that very night, in the greatest agony of mind, he repeated it, and on every possible occasion since, Dreyfus never swerved from this position.

"Thus Dreyfus had never confessed. Always with indefatigable energy he affirmed his innocence." How then did this legend arise? The story, Jaurès tells us, comes from a certain Lebrun-Renaud who had a conversation with him on the morning of his degradation, and who stated the next day to the Minister that Dreyfus had made "half-avowals." Will it be believed that for three years Lebrun-Renaud was not asked to make a definite report, but that he was then called upon to do so, and his report quoted as if it had been given at the moment? Jaurès explains that the Commandant Paty du Clam had gone to Dreyfus four days before the degradation and had suggested to him that the Minister