Such was the verdict of the French military court. That of public opinion was different. It was the unanimous belief among other nations that the case against this unfortunate man had completely collapsed. But in order to protect the French army from the disgrace which was inseparable from a vindication of Dreyfus, he must be sacrificed.
The sentence pronounced at the conclusion of the second trial was imprisonment in a French fortress for ten years.
This sentence was remitted by President Loubet; and, with the brand of two convictions and the memory of his "degradation" and of Devil's Island burned deep into his soul, a broken man was sent forth free.
Not the least dramatic incident in this affair was the impassioned championship of M. Zola, the great novelist, who hurled defamatory charges at the court, in the hope of being placed under arrest for libel, and thus be given opportunity to establish facts repressed by the military court. By the French law, the accused must justify his defamatory words, and this was the opportunity sought.
The heroic effort was not in vain. Zola was found guilty and sentenced to a year's imprisonment, which he avoided by going into exile. But light had been thrown upon the "Affaire." And he was content.
Upon the sudden death of M. Faure in 1899, Emile Loubet, a lawyer of national reputation, was chosen to succeed him, and his administration commenced while this storm was reaching its final culmination.
With the release of Captain Dreyfus the agitation subsided. But before very long another storm-cloud appeared.
A conflict between clericalism and the Government of France is not a new thing. Indeed, it was at its height as long ago as the thirteenth century, when Philip IV. and Pope Boniface had their little unpleasantness, resulting in Philip's taking the popes into his own keeping at Avignon, and in the issuance of a "Pragmatic Sanction," which defended France from papal encroachments.
The old conflict is still going on, and will continue until the last frail thread uniting Church and State is severed.
The particular contention which agitates France to-day, inaugurated by the late Minister Waldeck-Rousseau, and continued by his successor, M. Combes, had its origin in an act called the "Law of Associations," the purpose of which was to restrict the political power of the Church by means of the suppression of religious orders of men and women upon the soil of France.