[11] e.g., saying that Dreyfus is innocent. Reading a newspaper—whatever it may be—is also a serious offence.
[CHAPTER I]
I have already explained that twenty years ago, when I served my time in the ranks of the French army, French military law differed from what it is now. It is true that—speaking generally—every able-bodied Frenchman was then, as now, compelled to undergo five years' active service, but for young men who had graduated at a University there was the loop-hole of escape described in the Introduction. Having no ambition to serve for five years as a private, I naturally determined to avail myself of the benefit of the law, and accordingly in the month of August 1879 I went over to the headquarters of the military division of Paris, and there, after producing all the papers required by French red-tapeism,[12] I signed a voluntary engagement for a period of one year (Engagement conditionnel).
A month later I received orders to appear before the Conseil de revision, held in the town-hall of my district. About two hundred fellows, belonging to every class of society, were waiting in the yard—most of them, indeed, being roughs from la Villette (the Whitechapel of Paris). We were called up by batches of twenty-five, and shown by gendarmes into a room, around which stood long benches with pegs above them. A red-hot stove was burning in a corner of this room, and as there was no ventilation of any kind, and more than one hundred unwashed ruffians had already undressed and dressed there, the smell was abominable. A gendarme then ordered us to strip off all our clothing, barring our socks, and when we had done so—what a sight we were!—he called each one of us in turn and placed us under a measuring gauge. He first took our height with our socks on, and then without them—except in the case of those who possessed no such garment, and who formed the majority. The gendarme who measured us was a Sergeant, and he dictated to a private the result of his measurements. When my turn came he placed me under the apparatus and then asked for my name.
"Decle," I said.
"And your Christian name?"
"Lionel."
"Lionel," he replied: "that's not a Christian name."