Page:The Annual Register 1899.djvu/263

 1899.] France. — The Bennes Court Martial. [255

special missions. He was, however, proved to have ordered the colonels of the regiments under his inspection to make known to the officers under their command that the Superior Council of War was prepared, as soon as the Dreyfus case was finished, to force the Government to respect the Army.

The Dreyfus case was destined to become the one event of the summer. The Chambers, having expressed their confidence in the Government, were prorogued sine die a fortnight earlier than usual without a word of remonstranca All eyes and thoughts were directed towards Bennes. Dreyfus, brought back from the He du Diable (Cayenne) by the cruiser Sfax, had been secretly landed at Quiberon, and promptly conveyed (July 1) to Bennes, where his counsel, Me. Demange and Me. Labori, were at once permitted free access to the accused. The prepara- tions for the hearing were necessarily long, both sides needing careful preparation ; but at length the Council of War met (Aug. 7) in the chief school house (Lyc6e) of the Breton city. The president was Colonel Jouaust, of the artillery, and the nominal prosecutor, representing the War Department, was Major Carriere, a retired officer of the gendarmerie, whose chief defect was that he carried no weight. For more than a month the keenest interest was shown in the course of the trial, of which the sittings were held in the early morning and before the heat of the day. On behalf of the prosecution the witnesses were chiefly from the former general staff of the Army, and day after day the most exciting scenes occurred between Generals Mercier, Boget and Billot, on the one hand, and the counsel and witnesses for the defence on the other. In the midst of the proceedings one of the accused's principal counsel, Me. Labori, was treacherously shot on his way to court, the intending assassin managing to effect his escape. By something little short of a miracle Me. Labori escaped with only a serious wound, and a fortnight later heroically insisted upon resuming the defence of M. Dreyfus. The Anti- Semite and Nationalist newspapers naturally endeavoured to make light of this disgraceful incident, and at length affected to believe that the attack had been an imaginary one, and that the pistol had been loaded with a bread pellet. The general opinion was that the court acted throughout with dignity and self-possession ; but the judges could not forget that they were officers, whose regard for discipline and the Army would not allow them to rebuke the official prosecutors, General Boget and the former Minister of War, General Mercier, even when the latter openly admitted that he had acted in contravention of the code.

Whilst Dreyfus was being tried at Bennes, the Government was being attacked in Paris. Nationalists, Boyalists and Anti- Semites were watching for a moment propitious for a rising. Every day rioting and demonstration were occurring in some quarter of the city. At length, after a more than usually