Dear Master:
I have kept the promise that I had made you. An innocent man, I have faced the most frightful martyrdom that can be inflicted upon a soldier. I have felt the contempt of the crowd around me. I have suffered the most terrible torture imaginable. How much happier I should have been in the grave! There all would have been over; nothing would have reached my ears; there would have been perfect calmness, and all my sufferings would have been forgotten.
But, alas! duty forbade, as you so clearly showed me. I am forced to live, forced to undergo martyrdom for long weeks yet, in order to arrive at a discovery of the truth, at the rehabilitation of my name. Alas! when will it all be over? When shall I be happy again? I rely on you, dear master. I tremble yet at the thought of all that I have endured today, of all the sufferings that still await me. Sustain me, dear master, with your warm and eloquent words. Bring this martyrdom to an end. Let them send me as soon as possible to my place of exile, where I shall wait patiently, in company with my wife.
“You see, gentlemen, that he hoped for the company of his wife.
Let the light be shed on this mournful affair, and let my honor be restored. For the present, that is the only favor that I ask. If doubts are entertained, if any believe in my innocence, I ask but one thing,—the society of my wife; then I will wait till all who love me have found a solution of this dreadful mystery. But let it be done as quickly as possible, for my strength is nearing its end. It is really too tragic, too cruel, to be innocent, and yet to be convicted of a crime so terrible.
Pardon this disconnected style. In my physical and moral depression, I am not in full possession of my ideas. My heart has bled too much today. For God’s sake, then, dear master, let my unmerited torture be abridged. Meantime you will seek, and it is my firm conviction that you will find. Believe me always your devoted and unfortunate
A. Dreyfus.
“Well, gentlemen, for all men who have hearts, these letters have greater weight than all the declarations of a M. Lebrun-Renault.
“There is in the law an article of which there has been no mention here,—Article 377 of the code of criminal examination. It provides that in capital cases (and is not this of the nature of a capital case, when they condemn a man to an exile so absolute that his wife cannot even see his handwriting?)—it provides that those who are condemned to death can have until the last moment to make confession. The article says. ‘If the condemned man wishes to make a declaration, it shall be received by one of the judges at the place of execution, in the presence of a clerk.’
“Well, why were not such forms observed, if the confessions were to have a value?”