It seems to be fated that the Dreyfus case should,
as each new incident of it is revealed, lower the general estimate of French character. Since the return of Captain Dreyfus he has made statements to his counsel which show that he was at one period of his confinement on the Ile du Diable sub- jected to actual torture. When in 1895 he reached the island, he was left for four days at the bottom of the hold in a temperature of 113° Fehr. When in 1896 Colonel Picquart interfered for him, his cabin was surrounded with a palisade so that he could take no exercise except on the sixteen-inch path between the palisade and the hut. The doctor remon- strated, for Dreyfus was being suffocated, but the authorities refused to remove the palisade, and only raised the roof of the hut a few inches. Then, as he did not die, double irons were put on his legs which induced fever and produced sores, but the gaolers refused to remove them for two months, during which the wounds were dressed every day, and the irons every day pressed back upon the open sores. His letters from his family were also suppressed. All these tortures were illegal, but they were ordered by M. Lebon, Minister for the Colonies, in a telegram which he admits to be authentic, and carried out by the Governor of French Guiana. It is difficult not to believe that they were intended to cause the victim's death, which for all who had conspired to make him a scapegoat would have been highly convenient. At all events his death must have been to them a matter of profound indifference.
Previous page
