Page:Jean Jaurès socialist and humanitarian 1917.djvu/78

 first by the newspaper declarations and denunciations, the people of France had been gradually affected by the revelations, and by the work of men like Jaurès, Zola, and Scheurer-Kestner. It was the Conscience of France speaking to her, and she listened. It is one of the glories of that great nation that she knows how to repent.

The question had indeed become a far larger one than when first an anti-Jewish prejudice saw a possible victim in Dreyfus. During the campaign every force of reaction and darkness had joined together on one side, especially Nationalism, always a danger for Republican France, and Clericalism. These exploited the idea of the Army and of Patriotism to the fullest extent. On the other side were now grouped not only all the best intellectual forces, like Zola and Anatole France, not only Socialist leaders of the people like Jaurès, not only Radicals like Clemenceau, but even all those moderate men who wished honestly to see the Republic upheld. Political war was openly declared and plots to overturn the Republic itself came to light. The Socialists by joining with the Republicans secured power for the defence of the Republic, and under the Radical Ministry of Brisson, the Cabinet at last remitted to the Cour de Cassation an application for the revision of the Dreyfus trial. The Court held an elaborate inquiry and ended by quashing the old trial and ordering a new military trial at