Page:Lettres d'un innocent; the letters of Captain Dreyfus to his wife ; (IA lettresduninnoce00drey).pdf/23

 *tion, is heard the voice of the condemned man in a loud tone, crying:

"'You degrade an innocent man!'"

The prisoner is then obliged to pass before the line of soldiers. As he approaches the railing the civilian crowd gets a better view of him and yells, "Death to him!"

When he arrives before a group of reporters he pauses and says, "Tell the people of France that I am innocent."

They mock him, however, crying, "Dastard! Traitor! Judas! Vile Jew!"

He passes on and comes to a group of officers of the General Staff, his late colleagues. Here again he pauses, and says, "Gentlemen, you know I am innocent."

But they yell at him as did the reporters. He surveys them closely through his pincenez and says calmly, "You're a set of cowards." There is utter contempt in his voice. At length the direful march is ended. Dreyfus enters a van and is driven to the Prison de la Santé.

For nearly four years the world was a blank to him. Of the efforts made to rehabilitate him he knew nothing. He knew not that the real traitor had been discovered. He knew nothing of the heroic Picquart's unselfish martyrdom in the cause of truth and justice. He knew nothing of Zola's melodramatic entrance upon the scene. He knew nothing of the crimes that were committed in the name of l'honneur de l'armée. Was it to be wondered at that he should have been overwhelmed when these things were told him at Rennes?

The story of the indignities that he endured, the tor