CIHM Microfiche Series (IMonograplis) ICMH Collection de microfiches (monographies) Canadian Insthuta for Hiatorieal Mieroraproductiona / Inatitut Canadian da mieroraproductiona hiatoriquaa ©1994 TIM Imtitiitt hM MMmptid to otoMin «M b«t orifimi copy mmUMt fw fHwiw. Pmutw af tfiit ce^ ivMeh of tiM llMfM Ml IH0 of f iftmint, aro n !C«Mrs ICoMrt D D D |-]e-«— ./ Mi4/erl«MinMi4/ Covof litli Mlnifi|/ C9»mni piMM and/or illimntiom/ M/ott illuitritiom wi eoutoiir □ CelowMl ink (i A 0liMr Hmr Mm or MHk)/ Emt* tfi MMlMr (U. Mim «M Mmw OH iioif«l D D 0Ti#it bindinf may cmm ilMdaws or diitartiow •tonfl imarior HMrflin/ with oilMf inatarial/ ll«M mac d'autras < I tarrte pant camar da romkra ou da la di a tor ri ow la torn da la iwarta intiriaora r~n Blank loava* I I aridiintiiati dwinf lasimation nay taxt> Whanavar OMiftad from filniin^ III km d'una faitauration mail, lormua oala AttHt was W^w YInVMOT* lataRM, n'oM IZl Additional commantt:/ Pagos aholly mppHwantalrii; P»m»> in civilian dress also surprised me. Buti after remarking these singularities when I read the official note, I attached little impor- tance to them and forgot them speedily. On Sunday evening my wife and I dined as usual at the house of her parents, which we left full of gaiety, and light-hearted as we I always were after an evening passed in the family circle. 4 Five Years of My Life my.| On Monday morning I took leave of those ivasiear to me. My little son Pierre, then three ollnd a half years old, who was accustomed to i atpo with me to the door when I went out, ccompanied me that morning as usual, st jj'his circumstance became one of my keenest , llemembrances m my misfortunes. Often in go»Jy nights of agony and despair I have re- inelalled the moment when I had clasped my intlhild in my arms for the last time, and that collection seemed to endow me with re- lewed strength and will. The morning was fine and cool, the sun lad risen above the horizon, dissipating the in, light fog, and everything indicated a lendid day. As I arrived at the War Office short time in advance, 1 strolled for some oments before the building, and then went tp to the offices. Upon entering I was ceived by Commandant Picquart, who lemed to be waiting for me, and who at nee took me into his private room. I was •prised to see none of my comrades, as cers are always assembled in groups at 5 sly he he :es ar ut I Id h e e Five Years of My Life the general inspection. After a few minutes^ of trivial conversation, Commandant Pic] quart conducted me to the private office of the Chief of the General Staff. My surprise was great upon entering. Instead of meet- ing the Chief of the General Staff, I was received by Commandant du Paty de Clam m uniform. Three persons in civilian dress' who were completely unknown to me, were' also present. These three men were M Cochefert, Chief of the Secret Police, his secretary, and M. Gribelin, Keeper of the Records. Commandant du Paty came up to me and said in a trembling voice, "The general is coming ; whilst you are waiting as 1 have a letter to write and have a soref finger, will you kindly write it for me?" However singular this request, made in such ' circumstances, I at once assented. I sat, down at a little table ah-eady prepared, and i Commandant du Paty seated himself close to me, following my hand with his eye After first directing me to fill up an inspec-j tion form, he dictated to me a letter in which Five Years of My Life I certain passages recalled the letter of accu- sation, which I heard of afterwards, and I which was known by the name of the " Bor- dereau." In the course of the dictation the commandant said sharply, "You tremble." I I did not tremble. At the court-martial of 1894 he explained this brusque exclamation, saying that he had noticed that I did not tremble during the dictation, and that he had consequently thought I was playing a part, and had therefore endeavoured to 'shake my self-assurance. This vehement remark surprised me greatly, as well as the hostile attitude of Commandant du Paty. But as there was no suspicion in my mind, I supposed he was finding fault with my handwriting. My angers were cold, as the temperature outside was chilly, and I had only -been for a few moments in a warm room. I therefore replied to him, "My fingers are half frozen." As I continued to write without emotion. Commandant du Paty tried a fresh manoeuvre, and said to me violently, " Pay attention ; it 7 Five Years of My Life '» a .eriou. nutter." Though wprM .t conduct a, rude as it w„ unexpected, I ' «id nothing, and «niply endeavoured to write better. From that moment Co«. "««tant du Paty, a. he stated before the court-martial of ,8^ con«dered that I t»a all my presence of mind, and that it ms -.dew to continue the experiment «,y h.rtber. The scene of the dictation had been arranged in advance in every detail, but the result had not answered the ap^ tat'ons of those who had devised it. As soe as the dictation was Bnished Commandant du Paty rose, and, placing his hand on my shoulder, exclaimed in a loud vo.ce, '. In the name of the Uw, I grr^,, you. You are accused of the crime of high reason I" Had a thunderbolt fallen at T feet the effect produced upon me could Jt have been more violent I stammered a few nfaoous accusation which nothing i„ „» life could justify. s « my Then M. Cochefert and his secretary Five Years of My Life jshed upon me and searched me ; I did ^ot offer the slightest resistance, but cried them, "Take my keys, open everything In my house. I am innocent" Then I lidded, ** Show me at least the proofs of the infamous act which you pretend I have trommitted." " The charges are overwhelm- ing," they replied, but refused to give me my information concerning their precise lature. I was then taken to the military prison in ^he Rue du Cherche-Midi, by Commandant lenry, accompanied by an officer of the Police. On the way Commandant lenry, who was fully informed of what had |ust taken place, as he had been present lidden behind a curtain during the entire cene, asked me of what I was accused. ly reply was made the subject of a report [)f Commandant Henry, of which the false- lood was made evident by the interrogatory jtself to which I had just been subjected, and ifhich was subsequently renewed during Bveral days. On my arrival at the prison 9 Five Years of My Life ook«. upon a, y,,, „^ ,y ^^^^ fctons. , ^, p,,^ i„ ^,.^y ^^_^^_^ men t, „o communicaUon with even mv fam. y being p„n,i„ed. I had at my dl ^' neither p.,per, pen, ink, nor pen J Dunng the first days I was placed o„ Z d.e. of convicted criminals, bo, this rigorous measure was afterwards cancelled. The men who brought me my food were ah^s accompanied by the sergeant of the g-^rd and the warder, who alone possessed ^e key of my cell, and even they were for- bidden to speak to me. When 1 found myself in that gloomy ceU, under the „ro eious impression of the ordeal to which 1 ac« ^'" r"'*''*'' """ ""^ """^'^ous accusahon brought against me-when 1 thought of the dear ones 1 had left full of joy and happiness only a few hours before, 1 fell mto a state of terrible excitement, a^d wept w,th despair. , walked up and dol my dung«,n beating my head against the walls. The governor of the prison came to lO I c w P( in K< m< cr in of asl ni< wh ex: alli Five Years of My Life ee me, accompanied by the warder, and [quieted me for a short time. I am glad to be able to give expression I here to the gratitude with which Com- mandant Forzinetti, Governor of the Military Prisons, inspired me- I found in him, allied with a strict sense of a soldier's duty, the highest feelings of humanity. During the seventeen days that followed I underwent numerous interrogatories by Commandant du Paty, who was invested with the functions of officer of Judicial Police. He always came late in the even- ing, accompanied by his clerk, the Record- Keeper Gribelin He dictated to me frag- ments of sentences quoted from the in- criminating letter, showing me rapidly, I in the uncertain light, words or fractions of words taken from the same letter, asking me at the same time if I recog- nised my handwriting. Apart from that which has been recorded in my various examinations, he made all sorts of veiled allusions to facts concerning which I under- IX ki Five Years of M7 Life »tood nothing, and then withdrew with a theatncal flourish, leavng my brain fllled wth insoluble riddles. I was still in igno- rance of the basis of the accusation brought against me, notwithstanding my reit, • J demands. I could obtain no light upon the monstrous chi.rge brought against me. I was simply struggling in a vacuum. M my brain did not give way during those interminable days and nights, it was not the feu It of Commandant du Paty. I possessed neither pen nor ink with which to record my Ideas. At every instant I turned over and over in my memory the fragments of phrases which 1 dragged bom him. and *h.ch only served to increase my bewilder- ment; but however acutely I was tortured my conscience never failed to dictate to me' monitor, " you will be thought guilt, • whatever happens, you must live to shout' your innocence in the face of the world " At last, on the 6fteenlh day after" my arrest. Commandant du Paty showed me a la Five Years of My Life )hotograph of the incriminatory letter, since cnown as the ** Bordweau." I had not written this letter; I was not llts author. Ill When the examination of Commandant du |Paty was closed, the order was given by enerai Mercier, Minister of War, to open a Iregular inquiry. My conduct, however, jwas irreproachable ; nothing in my life, my jactions, or my communications with others |could be impeached. The 3rd of November, General Saussier, |Govemor of Paris, signed the order of iquiry. The conduct of the investigation was [confided to Commandant d'Ormescheville, Ijudge Advocate of No. i Court Martial of [Paris, who was unable to find any precise jffence imputed to my charge. His report |was a tissue of mendacious allusions and •3 Mill Five Years of My Life insinuations. Justice was done to tliis document at the court-martial of 1894. At\ the last hearing the Government com-i missioner terminated his mdictment by recognising that everything had disappeared except the Bordereau. The Prefecture of Police, having investigated my private lifej had made an absolutely favourable officiall report. The detective Gu^n^e, who was attached to the bureau of the War Office produced, on the other hand, an anonymous| report made up entirely of calumnious stories. This latter report was the only one, which figured in the court-martial of 1804 The official report of the Prefecture of Police, which had been placed in Com- mandant Henry's hands, had disappeared The magistrates of the Supreme Couri found the minutes of it in the dockets ofl the Prefecture, and caused the truth to bj made known in 1899. After seven weeks of inquiry, durinj which I remained as before in s .ary con- finement, the Commissary of the Govern. 14 Five Years of My Life [lent, Commandant Brisset, on December 3, proposed the indictment, " the prc- jmptions being sufficiently well founded." Is a matter of fact the presumptions in juestion were 'ounded upon the contra- lictory reports of experts in handwriting. I'wo of these, M. Gobert, expert of the Bank France, and M. Pelletier, concluded in ky favour ; two other experts, MM. Teys- jnnieres and Charavay, concluded against le, though at the same time pointing out lumerous diflferehces between the hand- ^^iting of the Bordereau and mine. M. ^ertillon, who was not an expert, pro- jounced against me for pretended scientific ^asons. It is well known that at the court- bartial at Rennes, in 1899, M. Charavay jblicly recognised his mistake. On the 4th of December, 1894, General lussier. Military Governor of Paris, signed le order of trial. I was then placed in communication rith Maitre Demange, whose devotedness jstained me in the midst of all my troubles. 15 Five Years of My Life I was stilJ refused the privilege of seeiij my wife. At last, on the 5th of DecemI i received permission to write to her open letter. •♦ Timday, ^th Decmbtr, x^\ "My dear Lucie, "At last I am able to write you I word. I have just been informed that tJ trial takes place on the 19th of this montl I am not allowed to see you. "I will not describe to you all that have suflFered; there are no terms in i\ worid strong enough in which to do so. " Do you remember when I used to to you how happy we were? AU li smiled upon us. Then suddenly came I terrible thunderclap, from which my brai IS stiU reeling. I, accused of the moi monstrous crime that a soldier could com] mit ! Even now I think I am the victir of a terrible nightmare. "The truth will come to light at las! My conscience is calm and tranquil, i] Five Years of My Life broaches me with nothing. I have always bne my duty ; 1 have never wavered. I have ben overwhelmed, prostrated in my dark rison, alone with my thoughts. I have had loments of wild madness, I have been light- feaded even, but my conscience kept watch. ^ said to me : * Lift up your head and look U world m the face. Supported by your bnscience, walk straight on and right your- llf. This is a terrible experience, but you lust submit to it.' 1 " I will not write at greater length, for 1 bnt this letter to leave this evening, r I embrace you a thousand times, for I Ive you, I adore you. "A thousand kisses to the children. I Ire not speak more to you of them ; tears |me to my eyes when I think of them. "Alfred." iThe day before the trial commenced 1 |-ote my wife the following letter; it ex- tsses all the confidence I had in the kalty and conscientiousness of the jiudge§* »7 B I. Five Years of My Life "At last I have reached the end oi mj sufferings, the end of my martyrdom. To morrow I shall appear before my judges my head held high, my soul at rest. " The experience I have just gone througk a terrible experience though it was, hJ purified my soul. I shaU return to yc| better than I used to be. I want to cons, crate all that remains to me of life to yoi to my children, to our dear relatives. "As I told you, I have gone throuf terrible crises. I have had moments real, wild madness, at the thought of beu accused »uch a monstrous crime. " I am ready to appear before soldiers a soldier who has nothing to reproach hii self with. They will see my face, they will read my soul, they will gain the convictio] of my innocence, like all those who knov me. " Devoted to my country, to which I hav-j consecrated all my strength, all my intellf gcnce, I have nothing to fear. Sleep peacd fully, then, my darling, and have no car] Five Years of My Life only of the joy which will be ours we find ourselves shortly in one Jges^her's aims, quickly forgetting these sad [sombre days. . . waiting that happy moment, a thousand "Alfred." December 19, 1894, the trial began, I was conducted with closed doors, in of the strenuous opposition of my ^sel. I earnestly desired the publicity of |>roceedings, in order that my innocence Id be proclaimed in broad daylight. ^en I entered the court, accompanied lieutenant of the Republican Guard, 1 sec nothing, hear nothing. I knew king of what wc 5 going on around me. mind was completely engrossed by the Wul nightmare that had weighed upon lor so many long weeks, the monstrous jsation of treason, the inanity, the empti- of which I was abor. to demonstrate, jcould only distinguish, at the back, 19 \ \ ' 1 1 i. : ; . . . iA I Five Years of My Life on the platform, the judges of the ecu martiaJ, officers like myself, comrades be^ whom I was at last going to comple prove my innocence. When at length I seated in front of my counsel, M. Dema.| I looked at my judges. They were passive. Behind them were the deputy juda Commandant Picquart, the Ministry of delegrite, and M Upine, the Prefect] Police. Opposite me was Commanc Brisset, the Government commissary, Valecalle, the clerk. The first incidents, the battle foughtl Demange to obtain the publicity of the ] ceedings, the violent interruptions of President of the court-martial, the cleai of the court, did not turn my mind f/L the aim towards which it was strained.] was anxious to come face to face with accusers. I was anxious to destroy miserable evidence of an infamous acci tion, and to defend my honour I heard the false and heinous deposij ao Five Years of My Life )mniandant du Paty de Clam, the lying )sition of Commandant Henry, on the |ect of the conversation between us on the from the Mmistry of War to the prison he Rue du Cherche-Midi on the day of rrest. I refuted them both energetically I calmly. But when the latter came back cond time to the bar., vhen he said that bad it from an hono rable person that )fficer of the Second Bureau was a 3r, I rose in indignation and violenUy landed that the person whose words he led should be brought forward. Then, ^ing a theatrical attitude and beating his St. he added : " When an officer has cret in his head, he does not tell it even lis cap." Then, turning to me: "And N is the traitor I » In spite of my violent testations, I could not get the meaning [these words made clear; therefore 1 Id not prove the falseness of them, [heard the contradictory reports of the f rts ; two of them gave evidence in my lur, two against me. thougli at the same 21 I Five Years of My Uk time pointing out numerous dissimilarit between the writing of the Bordereau tnjne. I attached no importance to h tillon's evidence, for it seemed to me be the ravings of a madman. All the secondary allegations were refuJ at the sittings. No incentive could I brought forward to explain such an abor«iJ able crime. At the fourth and last sitting, the Cover, ment commissary abandoned all the seco. =•« a father you have been to our poor darlings 1 All .ernble trials that are in store for yoTyou - ^^.ron« and proud in yL'^: "^sthDecmber, 1894 "I weep and weep, and then weep aeain Vourletten, alone bring me consolaHofrn »y gr^t grief; they alone sustain me and dTrT ^'^' '"««'' entreaty"; my dear fnend; gather up your strength and s^nve-we will strive together until thegjll man .s found. What will become of m.' 30 Five Years of My Life without you ? I shall have nothing to link me with the world, I should die of grief if 1 did not hope to be with you once more and to spend many happy years by your side. . . "Our children are charming. Your poor little Pierre often asks after you ; I can only answer him with tears. This very morning he asked me if you were coming back this evening. * I am worried, very worried, about my papa,' he told me. Jeanne changes enor- mously; she speak well, makes sentences, and improves very much. Takf courage, you will see them again one day; our dreams, our plans will be renewed, and we shall be able to parry them out." •* 26th December^ 1894. " I have been myself to take your thmgs to the prison oflBce ; I have been in the sad prison where you are undergoing such a horrible martyrdom. For a moment I had the feeling that I was nearer to you ; I should have liked to pull down the cold walls that mB^^ p i i Five Years of My Life "Parated us and go to you and emh™ you. Unfortunately, ,J ;, oLt7 «"ngs that the will i, powerles,^^ Pl'^^ one oOhe casesTi" "~";- physical and moral stren^u °"^' enough to conquer TT^^^ "°* ^'''"■« be allowed at las* in, *u " -h other's" J:: : ""°* °"""- -'» »«wng for ^;l"i :;--'■"<'-.«' die of srief if v^ ' ^^^"'^ for wh; u ^ *° continue a struggle for which you alone of all the worfH strengthen me." °'^'' ^" ,„ *'^7th December. ~ts..rcLnXiTi!;r':'"'"'^ Your letters do me so m I *''P- you. Continue to s;o« me ,'°^f •■.""""' --„ the toys jmioTithi:!;^:: 3a i ■ Five Years of My Life of that to make them think of you. You were so good to them that the little ones do not forget you. Pierre asks after you often, and m the morning they both come to my room to admire your photograph Poor friend, how you must suffer through not seeing them. But keep up your courage ; the day will come when we shall all be to- gether again, all happy, when you can caress and love them. " I beg you will not trouble yourself about what the crowd thinks. You know how opinions change Let it suffice you to know that all your friends, all those who know you, are on your side ; intelligent people are trying to solve the mystery." ** 2ist December, 1894. "I see that you have gathered courage agam, and you have given it to me also. Go through the sad ceremony bravely, raise your head and proclaim your innocence, your martyrdom, in the fj^ces of your executioners. 33 O ; 1 ill, Five Years of My Life " When this horrible punishment is over) I will give all my love, all my tenderness, alf my gratitude, to help you to bear the resJ When one's conscience is free, with the con] viction that one has done one's duty alwa J and through everything, and with hope i] the future, one can bear everything. " Lucie." On December 31, 1894, ^ l^^arned that the] appeal for revision had been refused. The same evening Commandant Du Patvl de Clam presented himself at the prison He came to ask me if I had not committed some act of imprudence, some act of enticement to others. I answered himf earnestly protesting my innocence. Directly after he haa left, I wrote the| following letter to the Minister of War : "Monsieur le Ministre, "I have received, by your order, thel visit of Commandant Du Paty de Clam, to whom I have again declared that I ami 34 Five Years of My Life innocent, and that I have never com- mitted even the least imprudence. I have been found guilty ; I have no favour to ask. But for the sake of my honour, which I hope will one day be restored to me, it is I my duty to beg you to be good enough to continue your researches. When I am gone, let them still continue to search ; that is the only favour I beg." I wrote afterwards to Maitre Deniange, to I inform him of this visit. I had previously informed my wife of the I rejection of the petition. 315/ December, 1894. "My dear Lucie, "The petition has been rejected, as jwas to be expected. I have just been in- ! formed of it. Ask again for permission to see me. "The cruel and disgraceful punishment is close at hand ; I shall face it with the dignity of a pure and calm conscience. If 35 A ^^^^^^' Five Years of My Life I were to say that I shall „ot suflFer, it I would be to tell an untruth; but I shall I not falter. ... ' * Alfred." My wife replied : "I sent yesterday afternoon to the Place with my request, and the answer ^vas waited for ,n vain. Perhaps permission to see you will come to me to-morrow. For what reason can they refuse now? It would only becruelty,barbarism. Poor, poor friend . . Hew I long to embrace you, console you," a.- comfort you. My heart bleeds at the thought of the tortures that you have to undergo, "To think of a beautiful soul like yours, with such lofty ideals, such unchanging good- n«B, such exalted patriotism, being tortured with such cruelty, such persistence, and having to pay the penalty-though innocent -for another who is basely hiding himself behind his villainy, a i, not possible, il 3« Five Years of My Life I there be any justice, that this traitor should not be discovered, that the truth should not I be brought to light. « Lucie." At last my wife was allowed to see me. The interview took place in the prison parlour. This is a grey room, divided in the middle by two parallel latticed gratings; my wife was on one side of one of the gratings, I was on the other side of the second one. It was under these dreary conditions that I was allowed to see my wife after all these sad weeks. I was not even allowed to em- brace her, to clasp her in my arms ; we were forced to talk from a distance. Never- theless the joy of seeing her dear face again was great ; I tried to read it, and to see the traces that suffering and grief had left on it. After she had gone I wrote to her : 37 . i ! ■ i t Five Years of My Life 1 " Wedmsday^ 5 t/cloek. "My Darling, " I want to write you these few words, so that you may find them to-morrow when you wake. "Our conversation, even through the prison bars, did me good. When going down, my legs trembled under me, but I stiffened myself, so that I might not sink to the ground with emotion. Even at the present moment my hand is not very steady ; this interview has shaken me greatly. If I did not insist upon your remaining longer, it was because my strength was exhausted ; I wanted to go and hide myself and cry a little. Do not think by this that my heart is less courageous or less strong, but my body is rather weak after three months of prison . . . " What did me most good was to feel that you are so courageous and so brave, so full of affection for me. Let us continue, my dear wife ; we will force the world's respect 38 Five Years of My Life by our attitude and our courage. As forme you must have felt that I have made up my' mmd to everything ; I want my honour and I mean to have it ; no obstacle shall stop me. '^ "Thank everybody; thank Maitre De- mange in my name for all he has done for an 'nnocentman. Tell him how grateful I am to him; I was not able to say so myself, fell h,m I count upon him in the struggle for my honour. ^ "Alfred." The first interview had taken place in the prison parlour. Events had endowed it with such a tragic character that Com- mandant Forzinetti asked and obtained permission to allow me to see my wife in his study, he being present My wife came to see me a second lime • |t was then that I made her a promise to ive and to face bravely the afHiction of the lugubrious ceremony that was awaiting me. After her visit I wrote to her : 39 I 1 f.-o . J bit y ; f'i Five Years of My Lifc^ "I am calm J the sight of you has done me good. The pleasure of embracing you openly and fully, did me an immense' amount of good. "I could hardly wait for this moment. Tha^ you for the joy you have given me. How I love you, my good darling I Let us hope that all this will come to an end some time. I must husband all my strength.' I saw for a few moments also my brother Math.eu, of whose admirable devotion I was fully conscious. On Thursday, January 3, x8<,s, , ,^^ n^ Z P""'^""^"' was to take place the next day but one. "Thursday morning. " I am told that the supreme degradation takes place the day after to-morrow. I wa^ expecting it, I was prepared ; nevertheless, the sh Five Years of My Life vile accusation which had been brought against me. I reminded those around me that I had again written to the Minister to assure him of my innocence. By distorting the words I then uttered, Captain Le-Brun Renault, with a strange lack of conscientious scruples, afterwards gave currency to the story of a so-called confession, of which I first learned even the existence only in January 1899. W I had been informed of it before my departure from France, which took place in February 1895, that is to say more than seven weeks after my public degradation had taken place, I should have endeavoured to stifle this fable at the outset. After the mterval of waiting, I was conducted by an ofiicer and four men to the centre of the square. Nine o'clock struck. General Barras, who commanded the squad of execution, gave the order to shoulder arms. I was suffering martyrdom, but I straight- ened myself and made a supreme effort to rally my strength, trying to sustain myself 43 Five Years of My Life by the remembrance of my wife and children. Immediately after the formal reading of the sentence I exclaimed to the troops : " Soldiers, an innocent man is degraded. Soldiers, an innocent man is dishonoured ! Vive la France 1 Vive I'arm^e I " An adjutant of the Republican Guard came up to me and rapidly tore the buttons from my coat, the stripes from my trousers, and the marks of my rank from my cap and coat-sleeves, and then broke my sword across his knee. ... I saw all these emblems of honour fall at my feet. Then, in the midst of my agony, but with head erect, I shouted again and again to the soldiers and the assembled people, "I am inno- cent 1 " The parade continued. I was compelled to march round the entire square. I heard the howls of a deluded mob ; I could feel the shudder with which it looked upon me in the belief that the condemned man in their presence was a traitor to his country, and I made a superhuman effort to create 43 ] i Five Years of My Life in their hearts the commiseration due to an innocent man unjustly condemned. The march round the square was at last completed, the torture was over as I thought, but in truth the agony of that memorable day had only just begun. I was handcuflFed, and was taken in the prison van to the common lock-up on the other side of the Alma bridge. . . . On reaching the end of the bridge I saw through the grated ventilator of the van the windows of the house where many pleasant years of my life had been passed, and where all my happiness was centred. My anguish at this pathetic sight was unspeakable. On arriving at the lock-up, in my torn and ragged uniform, I was dragged from room to room, searched, photographed, and mea- sured. At length, towards noon, I was taken to the Sant6 prison and locked in a convict's cell. My wife was permitted to see me twice a week, in the private office of the governor of the prison, who at all times during my stay 44 :i i Captain Dreyfus. From « Photograph taken by the French poUce ImmeOlatel, after hi. de»n«taUon. i\ ur ne nil sui air mi re! fio nal car stn po^ not tail rea u I! Five Years of My Life under his charge treated me with great kind- ness and consideration. My wife and I continued to exchange numerous letters during this period. " Prison db La SANTi, " yanmtfy i, 1895. " My Darling, "I will not tell you what I have suffered to-day ; your grief is great enough already. I will not augment it. " In promising you to try to live, in pro- mising you to struggle until my name is rehabilitated, I have made the greatest sacri- fice that a man of upright and sensitive nature, who has been robbed of his honour, can possibly make. I pray to God that my strength may not abandon me ; my mental power is unshaken ; a conscience that has nothing with which to reproach itself sus- tains me, but my patience and physical resources are nearly exhausted. " I will tell you later, when we are happy 45 ■i , m , i Five Years of My Life again, what I have undergone to-day ; how, in all my tribulations, surrounded by truly guilty men, ray heart has bled. I have asked myself what I was domg there. I seemed the victim of hallucination, but alas 1 my torn and sullied clothing brought me back rudely to the reality of my situation. The glances of scorn cast on me told me only too well why I was there. "Alasl why cannot the human heart be laid open by a knife so that the truth it contains may be read. Then all the honest, worthy people who have crossed my path would have said to themselves, 'This is a man of i?onour 1 ' But it is easy to under- stand their feelings ; in their place, I could not have restrained my contempt for an officer who, I was assured, was a traitor. But alas I that is the pity of it ; there is a traitor, but I am not the man." ** yanmry s, i8gs, 7 p.m. "I have just had a moment of terrible weakness, of tears mingled with sobs, my 46 Five Years of My Life whole body trembling with fever. It was the reaction after the terrible tortures of the day. It was to be, I felt it ; but alas 1 in- stead of being allowed to weep in your arms, to lay my head upon your breast, my sobs have echoed only in the emptiness of my prison. It is over now ; He lifted up my heart. I gather together all my energy. Strong in my conscience, pure and unsullied, I owe myself to my family and to the vindi- cation of my name. I have not the right to falter ; while there remains in me a breath of life I will struggle, hoping that light may soon make manifest the truth. And you also must not relax your efforts to penetrate the mystery. . • • **Alfred." From my wife : •• Saturday evening, January 5, 1895. "What a horrible morning; what atrocious moments 1 No, I cannot think of it ; it causes me too much suffering. I 47 i f i •-.. [i i m ■ 1 Five Years of My Life cannot realise that you, my poor friend, a man of honour, you who adore France, you whose soul is so good, whose sentiments are so noble, should suffer the most in- famous punishment that can be inflicted on mortal man. It is abominable. "You promised me that you would be courageous, and you have kept your word. I thank you for it. The dignity of your demeanour made a deep impression upon many hearts ; and when the hour of rehabili- tation comes, as it will come, the remem- brance of the sufferings that you endured on that terrible day will be graven in the memory of mankind. "I yearn to be near you, to comfort you, to give you strength. I had so fondly hoped to see you, my poor friend, and my heart bleeds to think that my permit has not yet come, and that I may still have to wait for the happiness of embracing you. "Our darlings behave well, they are so gay, so happy ; it is a consolation in our terrible misfortune that they should be so 48 Five Years of My Life young, 80 unconscious of what is passing around them. Pierre often speaks of you, and with such childlike affection that I cannot restrain my tears. ** Lucie," • Prison ob La Saht<, • Sunday, Januaiy 6, 1895, 5 p.m. " Forgive me, my loved one, if in my letters yesterday I poured out my grief and laid bare my torture. I must confide my suffer- ings to some one. What heart is better prepared than yours to receive the overflow- ing grief of mine ? It is your love that gives me courage to live. I cannot help feeling the thrill of your love close to my heart " Courage, then, my darling. Do not think too much of me; you have other duties to fulfil. You owe yourself to our dear children, to our name, which must be restored to honour. Think, then, of all the noble duties which devolve upon you ; they are onerous, but I know that you will be capable of under- taking and accomplishing them all, if you do 49 o L ■ j ! t . i * w i ■ ' i I :• ..-,!;r Five Years of My Life not permit yourself to be discouraged, and if you preserve your strength. "You must struggle, therefore, with your- self ; summon all your energy, think only of your duties. .... * Alfred." From my wife : " Sunday, Janmify 6, 1895. " I am much worried at not hearing from you. I am anxious to know how you have borne these horrible moments. "Two letters from you have just been brought to me. It is a great consolation to receive them, and I thank you. I cannot tell you how grief-stricken I am at the thought of your sufferings. O, heaven I what martyr- dom. I anticipated that a time would come when you would give way. I am sure it has done you good to weep. My poor dear, we were so happy, so tranquil, we lived only for ourselves and for our children. If only I could be near you to share your sorrow, your sufferings, stay in the same cell, and 50 Five Years of My Life live the same life as you, I would be almost happy. I should at least have the privilege to console you a little, to comfort you with my affection, and to bestow upon you the attentions which only a woman who loves can give. But I entreat you, keep up your courage. Do not be cast down." " Monday, January 7, 1895. " My first occupation this morning is to have a little chat with you, to try to send you a ray of sunshine in your dark cell. I suffer so much at the thought of your misery, which I am forbidden to solace, that everything around me which does not remind me of you seems utterly indiflFerent to me. " I think only of you, 1 will live only for you, and in the hope that we may soon be re- united. Tell me, I entreat you, all you feel, and the state of your health. I have terrible fears that you will break down ; oh, if I could only see you, if I could be with you, to try to make you forget a little your misfortune. What would I not give for such a boon I" S> t 1 ' i 1 f mi ^W ' Five Years of My Life ** January 7, tvMit$g. **What could I say to you, except that I think only of you, that I speak only of you, that my whole soul, my whole mind, are stretched out towards you. I beg, I entreat you to have courage, not to be downcast, not to let grief wear you out, and to keep up your physical strength. We must succeed in re- habilitating you ; we are doing everything, and will do everything, with that object. What is our fortune compared with the honour of a man, of children, of two families ? I shall feel happy to have devoted all that we have to this noble task " We are all convinced that the mistake will be found out some day, that the guilty person will be discovered, and that our eflforts will be crowned with success "Lucie." "La Santb Prison, " Tuesday, January 8, 1895. "... In my saddest moments, in the midst of my attacks of despair, a star 5a Five Years of My Life suddenly shines into my brain and smiles upon me. It is yourself, my darling, your loveo ^elf, whom I hope soon to see again, and by whose side I will wait patiently until I have restored to me what I hold dearest in this world, my honour, which has never been stained. . , , "Alfred." From my wife : •» Tuesday, January 8, 1895. "I was terribly anxious at not hearing from you, and passed a horrible night; but I received your dear letter this morning, and it did me good. I cannot understand at all why your letters are so long in coming ; a letter written by you on Sunday does not reach me until Tuesday. . . . " I have just received permission to see you on Monday and Wednesday, at two o'clock, in the governor's study. You may imagine my happiness 1 . . . "Lucie." S3 t _ r t T^v^i Five Years of My Life From La Sant^ Prison ; tt " Wednesday^ January 9, 1895. . Really, now that I come to think over it, I wonder how I could have had the courage to promise you to live after my conviction. That Saturday is stamped on my memory in letters of fire. I have the courage of the soldier who can look a danger in the face, but alas 1 shall I have the soul of the martyr ? . . . " I live in hope, I live in the conviction that it is impossible that the truth should not come to light that my innocence shall not be recognised and proclaimed by this dear France, my native land. . . /' ** Thursday, January 10, 1895. '* I have not slept since two o'clock thi^^ morning, for looking forward to seeing you to-day. I fancy I can already hear your beloved voice speaking to me of our dear children, of our dear relatives ... and I am not ashamed to weep, for it is indeed cruel 94 Five Years of My Life that an innocent man should suffer the martyrdom that I endure. . . , " Alfred." From my wife : " Thursday, January lo, 1895. "I received last evening your letter of Tuesday, and I have read and re-read it ; 1 cried when I was alone in my room, and again this morning when I awoke. Last night I enjoyed a little rest ; I dreamed that we were talking together. But what an awakening 1 what agony to find myself once more a prey to dark grief I If I suffer so much, it is for you, who are enduring heroic- ally the most terrible of martyrdoms, for you, who have been morally tortured in the most awful and most undeserved way. " Lucie." From La Sant6 Prison : ** Friday, January n, 1895. " Forgive me if I sometimes complain . . . but I cannot help it. My thoughts of the 55 ■ 1 i i 1 Five Years of My Life past are so bitter that I feel the need of pouring the overflow of my heart into you,^ We have always understood one another so well, my loved one, that I am snre that your strong and generous heart beats with indi,;. nation, like mine. * •• We were so happy | All life smiled upon us Do you remember when I said to you «.at we could envy nobody anything? Not a cloud in the sky . . . then an in^^Z"^^ "--^rbolt, so incredible, I am ttievcum of a horrible nightmare. I do not complain of my physical suffer- 'ng^you know that I treat such things with contempt, but to think that a terribleHn ndratr""""'""^""' '° "y "»-. and that lam mnocent. .. . Oh, not that I have endured aU these tortured, all the e nd.gn.t.es, because , am convinced ,h soon or late the truth will be discovered and justice will be done me I 56 II Five Years of My Life « I can well excuse the anger, the rage of w»s a traitor among them ... but I ZT^ to live, so that they may k„oJ that this traitor is not I "S^Uined by yourlove> by the bound- less afTechon of all our relatives, I will conquer Fate. I do not say tha I sh J never again have moments of depr s^oj even of despair. Indeed, to submit'3 complaint to such a monstrous error wo2 rcrairrr^'r '"'''''<*'-"" you to be able to bear my name, as you ;;"f "%"P '° '"e present, with hono^ r* '°^' '"" *'* 'ove, because, i„ a word ^AX" sr foi r t''^r "-^ inWmi • '^^ ^^^^'^ without intermission or rest ... "Alfred." 57 ^ Five Years of My Life From my wife : ** Friday, January ii, 1895. "How pleased I was to spend a few moments with you, and how short they seemed. I was so overcome by emotion that I could not speak to you or exhort you to courage ; poor friend, how I should have liked to tell you what I think of you, how much I admire you, how I love you,' and how grateful I am for the immense sacrifice that you have made for me and for our children. I regretted that I had not spoken to you more of the hope we had of discovering the truth ; we are absolutely convinced of doing so. It is impossible to say how long it will be ; but you must have patience and not despair. As I told you then, we have only one thought, from morning till evening, and all night we are racking our brains to find a clue, some thread to help us to find the villain, the infamous wretch who has destroyed our honour. Five Years of My Life " We are uniting intelligence and all our will ; and with all the elements and the perseverance which we add to them, it is im- possible that we should fail to vindicate you. . "Do not woriy yourself about the children • they have both brave little hearts. ..." ' • Saturday, January la, 1895. " I am still shaken by yesterday's inter- view; I was terribly upset at seeing and talking to you ; it gave me such pleasure that I could not close my eyes all night. It is splendid of you, in spite of all your suflferings, to keep such a valiant heart such noble and lofty ideals. Yes, we must indeed hope that the day will come when the darkness will break, when your inno- cence will be recognised, when France will rectify her error and see in you one of her bravest, most noble sons. You will be happy once more ; we will spend joyful years together; yoa, who made so many plans, who meant to make a man of your son, will still have that joy. Your litUe 59 Five Years of My Life Pierre is very good, and his sister is equally 80. I used to be very strict with them, you remember, but I confess that now, although always exacting obedience from them, I am often inclined to spoil them. Let the poor children have some pleasure before learning the sadness of life. • • • ** Sunday, TantiMy 13, iSg^. "What patience, what self-denial, what courage you must have to bear this long humiliation I I cannot express the profound admiration I have for you. The dignity and the willingness with which you accept martyrdom, for my sake and the sake of our children, are superhuman ; I am proud of bearing your name, and when the children are old enough to understand, they will be grateful to you for the suflferings that you have endured for them. . . ." " Monday, January 14, 1895. ** How sad it is that the short and longed- fOr moments of our interview have already 60 Five Years of My Life passed. How long moments of sadness are, and how quickly moments of happiness pass I Again this interview passed like a dream ; I arrived at the prison happy, and returned from it overwhelmed by sadness. The sight of you did me good ; I could not take my eyes from you, or cease to listen to you, but I suffered horribly at leaving you alone in that gloomy prison, a prey to your grief, to horrible moral torture, to unmerited suffer- ing i» • • • "Lucie." My wife, worn out by this uninterrupted succession of agitating events, was obliged to take to her bed. '* Friday, January i8, 1895. "What a sad day I am spending-worse than the others, if possible, for the only shadow of happiness which was granted us was refused to-day. I have been able to get up, but I am not yet strong enough to 6z Five Years of My Life go out ; the doctor, in spite of my intense desire to see you and embrace you, feared that I should catch a chill ; he wants me to keep my room until to-morrow. This grieved me very much, and I must confess that I was not very reasonable ; I hid myself and cried. " Lucie." This letter reached me only at the lie de R* ; my wife did not yet know of my departure. VI I left the Sant6 prison on January 17, 1895. As usual in the evening, I had put my cell in order and lowered my couch, and I went to bed at the regular hour, nothing having transpired to give me the slightest hint of my impending removal. I had even been told during the day that my wife had received permission to see me two days later, ! ' t Five Years of My Life as she had not been able to come for nearly a week. Between ten and eleven o'clock at night I was suddenly awakened and told to prepare at once for my departure. I had only time to dress myself hastily. The delegate of the Mmister of the Interior, who, with three warders, had charge of the transfer, showed revolting brutality. He had me hurriedly handcuffed while I was scarcely dressed, and gave me no time even to pick up my eye- glasses. The cold that night was terrible. 1 was taken to the Orleans railway station in a prison van, and then brought in a round- about way to the freight entrance, where were waiting the cars built specially for the transportation of convicts on their way to the penal colonies of Guiana or New Cale- donia. The cars are divided into narrow cells, each barely accommodating a man in sitting posture, and when the door is closed It is impossible to stretch one's legs. I was locked up in one of these cells, my wrists handcuffed, and with irons on my ankles. 63 :l J ill Five Years of My Life The night was horribly long ; all my limbs were benumbed. The next morning I was trembling with fever, and able to obtain only, after many demands, a little black coffee with some bread and cheese. At last, towards noon, the train arrived at La Rochelle. Our departure from Paris was not publicly known, and if on arriving the authorities had embarked me at once for the He de R6, I should have passed unrecog- nised. But there were at the station a few loungers who were in the habit of coming to see the arrival of the convicts on their way to the ile de R6. The warders thought it best to wait until the onlookers had gon<*. But every few minutes the chief warder was called away from the train by the dele- gate of the Ministry of the Interior, and then would return to give mysterious orders to the other guards. Each of these warders went out in his turn and came back bustlingly, now closing one grating and now another, and whispering II ;•'! '! Five Years of My Life in each other's ears. It was clear that this smgularmanauvring would end byattract- mgU.e attention of the curious, who w^uTd «y. There must be an important prisoner ."the van, and as he has not been talcen out, let us wait and see him." Then once the warders and delegate lost their heads. It -cmed that some one had been indiscreet, that my name was pronounced. The news spread abroad and the crowd increased "P'dly. i had to remain all the afternoon m^hecar, hearing the crowd outside. Which „7 becoming more turbulent as time wen. on. At last at nightfall, I was taken from , •="' '«'' =« soon as I appeared the a'iT "'°:'''' ""' "'"^ '«" - and around me. The crowd made sudden and angry rushes. I stood impassive in the Jdst of .hi3 throng, for a moment e^n almost alone, ready to deliver up my body to the fury of the mob. But my soul wa^ "y own, and I understood only too well the on «ged feelings of these poor deluded People. I should have wished only, in \\ i Five Years of My Life leaving my body to their mercy, to have cried out to them their pitiful error. I pushed away the warders who came to my assistance, but they answered that they were responsible for me. How heavy, then, is the responsibility weighing on those others, who, torturing a man, have also abused the con- fidence of an entire nation. At last I got to the carriage which was to take me away, and after an exciting journey we came to the port of La Palice, where I was embarked in a longboat. The intense cold had continued and my body was benumbed, my head on fire, and my hands and ankles bruised by the irons. The trip lasted an hour. On my arrival at the lie de R€ in the black night, 1 was marched through the snow to the prison, where I was received brutally by the governor. At the bureau of registry they stripped and searched me. Finally, towards nine o'clock, crushed in body and soul, I was led to the cell which 1 was to occupy. A guard-room adjoined my 66 Five Years of My Life cell with which it communicated by means of a large grated transom opening above my bed. N.ght and day, two warders, relieved evenr two houn., were on guard at this window, and had .strict orders not to lose sight of my slightest movement The governor of the prison notified me the same evening that when I had inter- jws ^th my ,^fe they would take place at he bureau of registry. i„ his presence that he would be placed between my ^fe and myself, separating one from the other and that , should not have the righr o embn,ce her, nor even to approach her. Each day during my stay at the fie de Ri ^rthewalk. was allowed to take in the yard adjommg my cell, I was stripped and -arched. A high wall completely'™' the yard from the buildings and courtyards occupied by convicts. ^ walk, al the guards were stationed L sentries along its walls. The letters exchanged between my wife 6/ 1PI Five Years of My Life and myself convey our impressions of this period. The following are a few extracts : "Ilb db Rb, ** January 19, 1895. "On Thursday evening I was roused from my sleep to set out for this place, where 1 only arrived last evening. I will not tell you about my journey for fear of breaking your heart ; suffice it to say that I have heard the justifiable cries of a nation against one whom it thinks a traitor, that is to say, the basest of the base. I no longer know whether I have a heart. . . . " Will you be good enough to ask, or gti some one to ask, the Minister for the follow- ing favours, which he alone can grant : (i) the permission to write to all the members of my family, father, mother, brothers, and sisters; (2) permission to write and work in my cell. . . . "Ai the present moment I have neither pen, nik, nor paper 1 They give me the 68 Five Years of My Life single sheet of paper on which I write to you, and then thev tak^ ,,., ink. **y "y P«n and "I do not advise you to come until you are perfectly well. The climate i v^ severe, and you need all your trength fo^ our dear ch Idren in the «,.=. • . for ♦!„ I.- ™^ instance, and or the object you have in view in ,he bidden to speak of it. "I remind you again that before comine "ere you must furnish yourself with "^ necessary permits to see me, you must I for permission to embrace me, &c . . " "Ilk 01 R^ ^ R'-'heile, I wanted to escape from mv soul uh ,, ■ ^° "°' '"*"» "e; my '""' """"you think I amguihy, 69 "' '^H^H^^^K. . ,.-, j i 1 ^ ■ i i -i j '1 Five Years of My Life come, take my body, I give it up to you without regret.' Then, perhaps, when under the stinging bite of physical pain, I had cried 'Vive la France!' they might have believed in my innocence ! "But what am I asking for night and day ? Justice I justice 1 Is this the nine- teenth century, or have we gone back some hundred years ? Is it possible that inno- cence is not recognised m an age of en- lightenment and truth ? Let them search. I ask no favour, but I ask the justice that is the right of every hun an being. Let them continue to search ; let those who possess powerful means of investigation use them towards this object ; it is for them a sacred duty of humanity and justice. It is impossible then that light should not be thrown upon this mysterious and tragic affair. . . . " I have only two happy moments in the day, but they are so short ! The first is when they bring me this sheet of paper that I may write to you; then I spend a 70 Five Years of My Life few moments talking to you. The second •s when they bring me your daily letter.... I dare not speak of our children. When look at their photogmphs, when I see their sweet, gentle eyes, sobs rise from my heart to my lipa. » ^ • • • ** January 23, X895. " I receive your letters every day, but 1 have not yet received one from any member of the family; and I, on my side, have not received permission to write to them. I have written to you every day since Saturday • I hope you have received my letters. "When I think of what I was only a few months ago, and compare my present miserable condition with ii, I confess that i falter, I give way to fierce tirades against he injustice of fate. As a matter of fact I am the victim of the most terrible mistake' of our time. At times my reason refuses to believe it; I feel I am the plaything of a horrible hallucination, that it will all 71 III I! Five Years of My Life vanish . . . but, alas I the reality is all around me. . . . "Alfred." From my wife : "PAHIt, "January ao^ 1895. "I am in a stupor of terror at not yet having news from you. I suffer horribly ; it seems to me that as they go on torturing you they tear pieces out of my flesh. It is atrocious. " How I wish I could be near you now, to sustain you with the depth of my affection, to speak some gentle words that might warm again a little your poor heart ..." « Paris, "January 1895. *. . . . Very fortunately I had not read the newspapers yesterday morning ; my people had tried to conceal from me the knowledge of the ignoble scene at La Rochelle, otherwise I should have gone ;'• i' Five Years of My Life mad with despair. . . . What unspeakable anguish you must have endured. ... But the conduct of the mob does not astonish me ; it is the result of reading those wicked journals which live only by defamation scandal, and which have published so and many lies But be assured, among people who reason, a great change has taken place. " Lucie." "Pakis, " January 22j iBgs. " Still no letter from you ; since Thursday I am without news. If I had not been reassured as to your health I should be bitterly anxious. . . . " I think of you unceasingly ; not a second passes without my suffering with you, and my suffering is so much the more terrible that I am far away from you without news and that to this torture of every moment there' •s added such poignant anxiety. It seems as " 1 could not wait for the permit to rejoin n { -1 il If Five Years of My Life you and hold you in my arms. How many things I shal) have to say to you. First the news of us all, of our poor children, of the whole family; then the superhuman efforts we are making to discover the key of the enigma. • • •'Lucie." tt •• Paum, "7«HWfy 23,1895. " I have just telegraphed to the director of the prison to request news of you, for I can no longer control my anxiety. I have not received a single letter from you since you left Paris ; I do not understand at all what has happened, and I am so dreadfully worried. I feel sure you must have written me each day, but if so, what is the reason of this delay ? I am unable to find an answer. If only you have received my letters, so ihat you shall not be uneasy about us. It is fearful to be so far from each other and to be deprived of news. I should iike to know that you are strong and coura- geous, to be reassured about your health, 74 Five Years of My Life and to know that you arc less rigorously treated. ' " LuciB." From the lie deR«: "After your letter dated Tuesday, you will have received none from me. How you must be suffering, my poor darling I What homble martyrdom for us both 1 . . ,•• " tLE DX R«, "Januofy 33, J893. " Your letter of yesterday has crushed me • grief was written in every word. ..." " I do not know on whom or what to fix my ideas. When I review the past, anger rushes to my brain ; it seems so impossible that 1 should have been bereft of everything- ^Wien I think of the present my situation!; miserable that I look upon death as on the I turn towards the future that I have a moment of consolation. ... 7$ MICROCOPY KISOIUTION TIST CHART (ANSI and ISO TEST CHART No. 2) 1.0 lift |3j2 Up 2^ 2.2 2.0 1.8 f A /APPLIED IM/OE Inc 1653 Ea*t Main Strwt Rochmtar. Nm York U609 USA (716) ♦82 - 0300 - Phoiw (716) 2M- 5989 -Fox Five Years of My Life "Just now I was looking for several moments at the portraits of our dear chil- dren, but I could not bear the sight of them for long ; sobs almost choked me. Yes, my darling, I must live, I must endure my mar- tyrdom until the end, for the sake of the name that the dear little ones bear. They must learn one day that that name is worthy to be honoured, to be respected ; they must know that if I esteem the honour of many people below mine, I set none above it. . . . " Henceforth I shall only be able to write to you twict; a week." " fLB DE Rb, " January 28, iSgs. "This is one of the happy days of my sad life, for I may spend half an hour with you, chatting and talking. . . , " Every time they bring me a letter from you, a gleam of joy penetrates my deeply- wounded heart. " I can no longer look back. Tears over- come me when I think of our past happiness. 76 P» Five Years of My Life I can only look forward, with the supreme hope that soon the great day of light and truth will dawn," " Ilb de Re, "Januaty 31, 1895. "Here at last is another happy day, when I can write to you. I count them, alas 1 as happy days I I have received no letters from you since the one that was handed to me on Sunday last. What overpowering suffering 1 Up to now I had every day one moment of happiness-when I received your letter. It was an echo of all of you, an echo of all your sympathies to warm my poor frozen heart. I read over your letter four or five times, I drank in every word ; little by little the written words transformed themselves into spoken words; I soon seemed to hear you speaking to me, quite close to me. Oh I delicious music that went to my soul ! Then, for the last four days, nothing more, gloomy sadness, over- powering solitude " 77 ', ill Five Years of My Life From my wife : " Paris, •• January 24, 1895. "At last I have received a letter from you. It reached me only this morning. I was wildly anxious. Oh, the tears I have shed over this poor little letter, which comes to me after so many days of misery I Even now the news I receive is only from the 19th, the day after your arrival, and this does not reach me till five days later. How little pity they must have to thus maltreat and torture two poor beings who adore each other, and who have in their hearts only upright and honourable feelings, with but one aim and one dream — ^to find the guilty one, and thus to vindicate their name, the name of their children, which has been un- justly dishonoured. . . ." ^ ! : -i (r$ " Paris, ** January 37, 1895. *' This morning I received your dear, kind letter ; it gave me a moment's joy. Forgive 78 ■,c Five Years of My Life me my first letters, which were so despairing I was discouraged for an instant, it is true I was without news of you and ill with anxiety. "That time is past, my will has regained •ts sway once more. I am strong again for the fight. We must both of us live, we must strive for your rehabilitation ; the light must oreak forth irresistibly. We shall only have the right to die when our task is accom- phshed, when our name has been cleared of this stain. Then happy days will return • I shall love you so much; your grateJul children will love you so tenderly, that all your sufferings, frightful as they may have been, will be forgotten. " I know that all these letters do not alleviate the fearful sufferings of the present, but you have a noble soul, a will of iron and a conscience absolutely pure. Wifh such safeguards you must resist, we must both resist together. " Pierre employed himself this morning in looking at all my photographs of you, on 79 M Five Years of My Life horseback, on your travels, at Bourges. He was happy at showing them to his little sister and prattling about everything that entered his mind. Jeanne listened to him with grave attention. "Lucie." f-f ** Paris, "January 31, 1895. " No news this morning, as I had hoped. Oh, what a life from day to day, in the hope of a brighter to-morrow. " Lucie." From the lie de R6 : " February 3, 1895 "I have just spent a horrible week. I have been without news from you since Sunday last, that is to say, for eight days. I have imagined that you were ill, theu that one of the children was ... I have had all sorts of ideas in my fevered brain ... 1 have invented all sorts of chimeras. 80 Five Years of My Life suffered, all that 1 still suffer. I„ „„ '*"'"r^»»«^»"geas,heyarei„com- P^Wble have placed „e. I had at leas, ft^«^eco„soIatio„-that your hear, was T- ;,' ""« '" '"•'''°" *ift mine, slanng all my tortures. . • • • "flE oi R£, "i='»»fMr,7, 1895. " ' have been without news of you for ten day. « is impossible to say hoJlsu^;^ As to you, you must keep up all you,- coun^e and aU your strength. faskT" «^ name of our deep love, for you must be ^ere to wash from my name the stain that has been put „po„ it, you must be there children. You must be there to tell them one day that their father, a bn.ve and 5 sold-er, was crushed beneath an overwhelm ■ng fatality. »erwneim- " Shall 1 have news of you to-day ? When 81 I Five Years of My Life shall I hear that I may have the pleasure and joy of embracing you ? Every day I hope to do so, and nothing comes to break my horrible martyrdom. " Take courage, my darling ; you will have need of much, much ; you will all need it, both our families. You have not the right to allow yourself to be cast down, for you have a great mission to fulfil, no matter what becomes of me. "Alfred." From my wife : " Paris, " February 3, 1895. "Every morning I suffer a fresh disap- pointment, for the post brings me nothing. What am I to think ? At times 1 ask myself if you are ill, what is happening to you. I fancy to myself everything dreadful, and during the long nights I am a prey to terrible dreams. If I could only be near you 10 console you and care for you, to help you lo get back your strength. ... I Five Years of My Life have not yet obtained permission to come and see you. It is so long ; it will soon be three weeks since you left for the lie de R6 without any one of your family being allowed to embrace you. " Lucie." " Paris, ••February 4, X895. "I have had the happiness of receiving your kind letter. Think a little how happy I am to have news of you, although it has been so long coming, and is dated a week ago Monday. A long week for your gentle words to come to me. . • " Paris, *• Febrmry 6, iSgs. "... I feel such sorrow when I look at our poor children, to think what happiness would be yours to have them near you, and to see them grow up, to watch over their education, and I cannot sometimes keen back the tears that fill my eyes. «3 n Five Years of My Life " It is now nearly four months since you saw the poor darlings, and they have greatly changed. . . . "Lucie." • 1 .;* ■ n Ml' m ** Paris, •• February 7, 1895. "Yourlastletter was dated January 28. It took eight days to reach me, and since then I h?"*» had no news. It is very hard. I hoped with all my heart to be able to speak with you, if not by word of mouth, at least by letter. And now the scanty bits of news, which take so long a time to come, seem to reach me more and more seldom. " I am still waiting impatiently for my permit to visit you, and hope to have it soon. I feel the greatest impatience to see you and embrace you, and to read in your eyes your courage, your patience, and your admirable self-denial and devotion to our children. . . . " Lucie." Five Years of My Life " Paws, ** February g, tSg^ "This morning I received you- letter of January 31. Your sufferings break my heart. I have wept and wept long hours, with my aching head between my hands,' and the caresses of my little Pierre were needful to bring back a smile to my lips ; and yet my sufferings are as nothing com- pared with yours. . . . "Do not be anxious when you receive no letters from me. I write to you every day. It is the only good hour I have. I would not for worlds deprive myself of it. " Lucie." ;l " Paris, " February 10, 1895. " I felt all the glee of a child yesterday evening when at last I received permission to see you twice a week. " At last the time is coming when I shall have the joy of pressing you to my heart 85 ■^ - "* Five Years of My Life and giving you new strength by my pre sence. " I am distressed at your not receiving my letters ; I have not failed a single day in writing to you. 1 cannot understand the reason of this harsh treatment ; my letters expressed nothing but honourable and natural feelings— bitter grief for a situation so frightfully unjust, and hope that the wrong may soon be redressed. "Lucie." My wife had been authorised to see me twice a week, for one hour at a time, on two consecutive days. I saw her the first time on January 13, without having been notified of her arrival. I was brought into the register office of the prison, which was a few steps from the door leading out to the court- yard. The office is a small, long, narrow room, whitewashed and almost bare. My wife was seated at one end, and the governor of the prison in the centre of the apartment, midway between my wife and myself, I Five Years ot My Life was required to remain near the door, at the opposite end of the room. In front of the door outside were posted several warders. The governor notified us that we were forbidden to speak of anything concerning my trial. Cruelly wounded as we were by the igno- minious conditions under which we were allowed to see each other, and anxious as we were at feeling the minutes slip by with dizzy speed, we still experienced great inward joy at being again together. Our greatest comfort was to feel acutely that our two souls henceforth were but one, that the intelligence and will of both would henceforth be directed towards the accom- plishment of a single purpose— the detection of the truth and of the guilty one. My wife came back to see me the follow- ing day, the 14th of February, and then returned to Paris. The 2oth of February she came again to the He de Re j our last two interviews took place on February 20 and 21. 87 i^si:, Five Years of My Life From my wife after her return to Paris : " Paris, "February i6, 1895. " What emotion, what a fearful shock we both felt at seeing each other again, especially you, my poor, beloved husband. You must have been terribly shaken, not having been warned of my arrival .... The conditions under which they allowed me to see you were really too heartrending. Now that we have been separated so cruelly for four months to have the right to speak to each other only at a distance is atrocious. How I longed to press you to my heart, to clasp your hands in mme, to be able to console you with my love, poor, dear, lonely one 1 My soul was rent asunder when I left Saint Martin, goinij away from you " Lucie." ••tLE DE Re, " February 14, 1895. "The few moments I passed with you were full of joy to me, though it was 88 Five Years of My Life impossible to tell you all that was in mv heart. ^ "I spent the time in gazing at you. in fiUmg my mind wit], the remembrance of your face, and in aslting myself through what unheard^f fatality I „as thus separated from you." From tie de R6, after having seen my Wife : ^ " Jle de Re, /ri ^ ^ "^''*''«ary2i, 1895. (r** day of my departure, though I did not know it.) "When I see you, the time is so short, I am so anxious for an hour to pass rapidly (which is now so strange to me, for all other hours seem to me so horribly long), that I forget to tell you half of what I had mtended " I wanted to ask you whether the voyage atigued you, and if the sea had been smooth I wanted to tell you all the admiration I iet\ for your noble character, for your admirable 89 "M Five Years of My Life devotion I More than one woman would have lost her reason under the repeated attacks of a fate so cruel and so unmerited. " I wanted to speak to you at length of the children "As I told you, I will do my best to still the beating of my wounded heart, to bear this horrible and long martyrdom, that I may witness with you the happy day of my rehabilitation. " Alfred." My wife, at the second interview, begged in vain that they should tie her hands behind her back and let her approach me and kiss me ; the governor returned a rude refusal. On February 21 I saw my wife for the last time. After the interview, which was from two to three o'clock, without either of us having been informed, I was suddenly told that I must get ready for my departure. The preparations consisted in making a bundle of my clothing. Before the departure I was again stripped 90 Five Years of My Life and searched, and then led between six warders to the dock. There I was embarked on a steam-launch which brought me in the evening to the roadstead of Rochefort. I was taken directly from the launch to the transport SainUNazaire. Not a word had been spoken to me. Not a hint had been given as to the place to which I was to be transported. As soon as I reached the Saint- Nazaire they placed me in a condemned prisoner's cell, closed by a simple grating, and situated on the fore deck ; the part of the deck in front of the convict cells was uncovered. The night was dark and the cold fearful, nearly fourteen degrees Centi- grade (about seven degrees Fahrenheit). But only a hammock was given to me, and I was left without food. The remembrance of my wife, whom I had left a few hours before in complete ignorance of my departure, and whom I had not even been permitted to embrace, the remembrance of my children and all the dear friends whom I had left behind me in sorrow and 91 Five Years of My Life despair, my uncertainty as to the place whither they were taking me, the situation in which I found myself^all these reflections plunged me into a state which cannot be described ; I could only fling myself upon the floor in a corner of my cell and weep through the dark, cold night. The next d-^ the SainUNazaire weighed anchor. VII The first days of the voyage were very stormy; the cold in my open cell was frightful, and sleep in the hammock was well-nigh impossible. For food I had the rations of condemned prisoners handed me in old preserved-meat cans. I was watched by one warder during the day, and at night by two, having their revolvers beside them and being absolutely forbidden to speak to me. After the fifth day, I was allowed to go 92 Five Years of My Life on deck one hour each day, accompanied by two warders. After the eighth day the weather grew gradually warmer, and then became torrid. I comprehended that we were nearing the equator ; but I remained in ignorance of the place of my transportation. After fifteen days of this terrible voyage we arrived, on March 12, 189.5, in the roadstead of the lies du Salut. I had a hint of the place from bits of conver- sation among the warders, when speaking among themselves of places to which they might be sent ; the names of the posts I re- cognised as belonging to localities in Guiana. I hoped that I should be landed at once, but I had to wait nearly four days without going upon deck in this tropical heat and shut close in my cell. In fact nothing had been prepared for receiving me, and every- thing had to be hurried. On March 15 I was landed and locked in a cell in the prison of the lie Royale • this strictly close confinement lasted nearly 93 Five Years of My Life a month. On April 13 I was taken to the He du Diable, a barren rock used previously for the isolation of lepers. The lies du Salut form a group of three / «2/vt«x*e J my rations are half a loaf of bread a day two-thirds of a pound of meat three times a week, and on other days tinned bacon or spiced meats. To drink I have water. What a terrible existence of constant suspicion, of ceaseless vigilance, endured bv a man who cherishes his honour as dearly as does any man in the world I And still I never receive any news of my wife and children, though I have learnt that smce March 9, nearly three weeks ago, there 105 Five Years of My Life have been letters for me at Cayenne. I have asked that telegrams may be sent to Cayenne and to France for news of my dear ones. There is no answer. Oh, how I long to live until the day of rehabilitation, to let the world know my suflFerings and give peace to my aching heart Shall I bear up until that day dawns ? I often have doubts, my heart is so broken and my health so shaken. M Sunday night, April 14-15, 1895. It is impossible for me to sleep. This cage, before which the guard walks up and down like a phantom in my dreams, the ♦orment of the vermin which infest me, the smouldering in my heart that I, who have always and everywhere done my duty, should be in this horrible place—all this excites and agitates my nerves, which are already shattered, and drives away sleep. When shall I again pass a calm and tranquil night ? Perhaps not until I am in the grave, 106 Five Years of My Life when I shall sleep the sleep that is ever- lasting. How sweet it will be to think no longer of human viieness and cowardice ! The ocean, which I hear moaning beneath my little window, has always for me a strange fascination. It soothes my thoughts as it did before, but now they are very bitter and sombre. It recalls dear memories to mind, the happy days I have passed at the sea-side,' with my wife and darling children. I have again the violent sensation which I felt on the ship, of being drawn almost irre- sistibly towards the sea, whose murmuring waves seem to call to me, like some great comforter. This mysterious influence of the sea over me is powerful ; on the voyage from France I had to close my eyes and call up the image of my wife to avoid yield- ing to it. Where are the bright dreams of my youth and the ambitions of my manhood ? Nothing longer lives within me ; my brain wanders under the stress of my thoughts. What is the . hidden mystery of this drama ? Even now 107 r Five Years of My Life I comprehend nothing of what has passed To be condemned without palpable proof on the strength of a forged scrap of hand' wntmg 1 Whatever the soul and conscience of a man may be, is there not more than enough here to dem-ralise him ? The sensitiveness of my nerves, after all this torture, has become so acute that each new impression, even from without, produces on me the effect of a deep wound. L't The same night. I have just tried to sleep, but after dozing for a few minutes I awoke with burning fever ; and it has been so every night for six months. How has my body been able to resist such a combination of torments, phy- sical as well as moral ? It seems to me that a clear conscience, assured of itself, must impart invincible strength. I open the blind which closes my little Window and look again upon the sea. The sky .s full of great clouds, but the moonlight io8 Five Years of My Life filters through, tinging certain portions of the sea with silver. The waves break power- less at the foot of the rocks which define the form of the island. There is a constant lapping of the water as it plays on the beach, with a rude staccato rhythm that soothes my wounded soul. And in this night, in the deep calm, there come back to my memory the dear images of my wife and children. How my poor Lucie must suffer from so undeserved a fate, after having possessed everything to make her happy I And happy she so well deserves to be, by her noble uprightness and loftiness of character, by her tender and devoted heart. Poor, poor dear wife! I cannot think of her and of my children without being stirred in every fibre of my being. I can only sob. My thoughts of them also inspire me to do my duty. I am going to try to study English. Per- haps the work will help me to forget awhile my sorrows. X09 f; m- Five Years of My Life Monday, April 15, 1895. There was a deluge of rain this morning. No breakfast was sent me. The warders took pity on me and gave me a little black coffee and bread. When there was an interval in the storm, I made the round of the small portion of the little island which is reserved to me. It is a barren place ; there are a few banana-trees and cocoa-palms, and dry soil from which basaltic rocks emerge everywhere. At ten o'clocl^ ^ zy bring me my day's food ; a bit of canned bacon, a few grains of rice, a few green coffee berries, and a little brown sugar. I throw it all into the sea * and then try to make a fire. After several fruitless efforts I succeed. I heat water for my tea. My luncheon consists of bread and tea. ♦ I threw tt all into the sea because the canned bacon was not eatable, the rice, which was brought to me in a filthy state, was ofiFensive, and I had nothing with which to roast the coffee berries, which, in bitter derision, wer^ given me raw. no Five Years of My Life WVat endless agony I am compelled to endure I What a sacrifice I have made in consenting to live I Nothing will be spared me, neither moral torture nor physical suffering. Oh, that restless ocean, which is always muttering and howling at my feet I What an echo to my soul I The foam of the waves which break upon the rocks is so milky white that I could roll myself away with it and be lulled to rest. Monday, April 15, evening, I narrowly escaped having once more only a scrap of bread for my dinner, and I was fainting. The warders, seeing my bodily weakness, pass* d in to me a bowl of their broth. Then I smoked, smoked to calm both my brain and the gnawing of my stomach. I again sent to ask the Governor of Guiana, as I had already done a fortnight ago, that I might live at my own expense, obtaining xzi t '; • II II u Five Years of My Life canned food from Cayenne, as the law allows me to do. Dear wife, at this very moment perhaps your thoughts echo my own. Have you any conception of the horrible martyrdom I am undergoing ? Yes, you must feel all that I suffer from such a lamentable misfortune. How the thought cuts me to the heart, that I have been condemned for so hateful a crime without comprehending anything about it ! If there is justice in the world, my honour must be given back to me and the guilty wretch, the monster, must suffer the punish- ment that his crime deserves. Tuesday, April i6, 1895. At last I have been able to sleep, thanks to extreme exhaustion. My first thought as I woke was of you, my dear and beloved wife. I asked myself what you were doing at the same moment. You must have been occupied with our darling children. May they be your solace and 113 Five Years of My Life inspire you with your duty if | give way before the end. I have been out to cut firewood. After two hours of effort, I succeeded in getting together enough for my needs. At eight o'clock they bring me a piece of raw meat and a hitle bread. I kindle my fire, but the smoke is blown in my fa-^e by the sea-breeze and my eyes are smai .ng. As soon as I have embers enough I put the meat on a few bits of iron which I have gathered together here and there, and cook it as well as I can I breakfast a little better than yesterday, but tl-e meat is tough and dry. As to my bill of fare for dinner, it was very simple-bread and water. The labours of the day have worn out my strength. Friday, April 19, 1895. I have not written anything for some days All my time has been spent in the struggle for hfe, for I will resist to the las dTop of my blood, no matter what punishments they irflict on me. The diet has not 113 . I Five Years of My Life changed ; they tell me they are still waiting for orders. To-day I boiled my meat with salt, and flavoured it with the wild peppers I had found in the island. This lasted three hours, during which my eyes suffered atrociously. How miserable 1 And still I am kept without any news from my wife and my dear ones. Are the letters intentionally withheld from me ? Exhausted as I feel, it occurs to me that I may quiet my nerves by splitting the wood for to-morrow. I go to look for the hatchet in the kitchen. "You cannot enter the kitchen 1 " shouts the guard. And I turn back silently, but with head erect. Oh, if I could only live in my hut without ever leav- ing it 1 But I am compelled to take some food or die of starvation. From time to time I try to study English, to write translations, and to forget myself in my work. But my brain is so utterly shaken that it refuses to labour ; after a quarter of an hour I am forced to give up the task. XZ4 n Five Years of My Life And then what appears to me 8o unheard- of and inhuman is that they intercept all my correspondence. I am fully aware that they are enjoined to take every possible and ima- ginable precaution to prevent any escape ; that is the right, and I will even say the strict duty of the prison administration. But that they should thus bury me alive, prevent any communication, even by open letter, with my faniily ihat is contrary to all justice. One might imagine the world had gone back to the Middle Ages I For six months I am kept in close confinement, without the power of assisting those who are working for the vin- dication of my honour. Saturday, April 20, 1895 » II o'clock in the morning. I have finished my cooking for the day. This morning I cut my portion of meat in two ; one piece is to boil, the other is for a steak. To cook the latter I have manufactured a grill with an old piece of sheet iron which I "5 Five Years of My Life picked up in the island. For drink I have water. And all my kitchen utensils are pots of old rusty iron without anything to clean them wit'i, and without plates. I must summon i ■ my courage to live under such conditions, with the further drawback of acute mental torture. Utterly exhausted, I am going to seek rest on my miserable pallet. Next day / 2 o'clock a.m. To think that in the nineteenth century, in a country like France, imbued with ideas of justice and truth, such incredible wrongs can be inflicted 1 1 have written to the President of the Republic, I have written to the Ministers, always asking them to search for the truth. They have not the right thus to allow the honour of an officer and his family to be overthrown with no other proof of culpability than a bit of hand- writing, when the Government possesses the means of investigation necessary to elicit 116 Five Years of My Life the truth. It is justice that I demand aloud, in the name of my honour. I was so hungry this afternoon that, to stifle the gnawings of my appetite, I de- voured, raw, ten tomatoes which I found in the island.* Night of the Saturday to Sunday, April 25, 1895. The night wis feverish. I dreamed of you, dear Lucie, and of our dear children, as I do every night. How you must suffer, my poor love I Happily, our children are still too young to know, else what an apprenticeship to life would be theirs I As for me, no matter what my martyrdom, my duty is to go to the end of my strength without faltering. I shall not fail. I have just written to Commandant Du Paty to remind him of the two promises he * The lepers had cultivated the island a little, and there are still traces of their work. The tomatoes, which now grow wild, were very numerous. "7 % \ Five Yeaf s of My Life made me after sentence was pronounced t (i) In the name of the Minister to contmue the investigations ; (2) in his own person- ality to inform me as sgon as there should be new leakages at the Ministry. The wretched man who is the real author of the crime is on a fatal downward path, and will not be able to pause. Sunday, April 21, 1895. The chief commandant of the islands was kind enough to send me, this morning, along with my meat, two tins of condensed milk. Each tin holds about three quarts ; by drink- ing a quart and a half a day, I shall have enough milk for four days. I stop boiling the meat, which I could not make eatable. This morning I have cut it into two slices, and shall broil one of them for the morning meal, and one for the evening. In the intervals of providing for my living, I continually think of my darling wife and 1x8 Five Years of My Life all my dear ones, and of all they must sufiFer 1 Will the day of justice soon dawn ? The days are long, and so are the minutes of each hour. I am incapable of any serious physical work ; moreover, from ten o'clock in the morning until three o'clock in the afternoon, the heat is so great that it is not possible to go out. I cannot work at English the whole day ; my head will not allow of it. And I have nothing to read. I am always alone with my thoughts ! I was in the midst of lighting a fire to make my tea. The boat arrives from the He Royale ; I have to retire into my hut ; these are my instructions. Are they afraid I shall communicate with the convicts ? Monday, April 22, 1895. I rose at daybreak, to wash my linen, and to dry my cloth garments immediately after- wards in the sun. Everything here becomes damp, owing to the mixture of humidity and 119 Five Years of My Life heat. We have continual short torrential rain storms, followed by tropical heat. Yesterday I asked the commandant of the islands for one or two plates, no matter of what sort ; he replied that he had none. I am obliged to tax my ingenuity to find some- thing to eat from; sometimes it is paper, sometimes it is old pieces of sheet iron, picked up on the island. The amount of filth I cat in this way is incredible. But I always make an effort to bear up against everything, for the sake of my wife and my children. And always alone, thrown back upon myself, with my thoughts. What martyrdom for an innocent man ; certainly greater than that of any of the Christian martyrs. Still no news of my family, in spite of my repeated requests ; 1 have been without letters for two months. Just now I received some dried vegetables in some old preserved-meat tins. In making use of these tins, in washing them and trying to turn them into plates, I cut my fingers. I20 Five Years of My Life I have just been informed, too, that I shall have to wash my linen myself. Now, I have nothing to do this with. I worked at that for two hours, but the result is not very satisfactory. The linen will always have to be soaked in water. I am worn out. Shall I be able to sleep ? I fear not. I am such a mixture of physical weakness and extreme nervousness that when I am in bed my nerves get the upper hand of me, and my anxious thoughts turn to my family. Tuesday, April 23, 1895. Still the same struggle for life. I have never perspired so much as I did this morning, when I was out cutting wood. I have simplified my meals still more. This morning I made a kind of stew with beef and white beans; I ate half of it this morning; the rest is for this evening. Thus, I shall have to cook only once a day. But this food, cooked in old rusty iron I2Z (,a m n ■■ Five Years of My Life utensils, gives me violent pains in the stomach. Wedpesday, April 24, 1895. To-day canned bacon ; I threw it away. I am going to make myself a stew of dried peas ; this will be my food for the day. Internal pains almost continually. Thursday, April 25, 1895 They dole me out boxes of matches one by one — I cannot understand why, as they are safety-matches — and I have always to return the empty box. This morning I could not find the empty box ; a scene and threats ensued. I found it at last in one of my pockets. Night of Thursday-Friday. These sleepless nights are awful. I get through the days somehow, with the help of my thousand domestic duties. I am, as a matter of* fact, obliged to clean out my 122 Five Years of My Life hut, do my cooking, look for and cut up wood, and wash my linen. But as soon as I lie down, however ex- hausted I may be, my nerves get the upper hand of me, and my brain begins to work. I think of my wife, of the sufferings that she must be enduring; I think of my dear children, of their gay and thoughtless prattling. Fnday, April 26, 1895. To-day, canned bacon : I threw it away. The commandant of the islands came after- waids and brought me some tobacco and tea. I should have preferred condensed milk to tea ; I had applied for it, too, from Cayenne, for the internal pains are con- tinuous. They have lent me four flat plates, two deep ones, and two saucepans, but nothing to put in them. They brought me, too, some reviews, sent ly wife. But still no letters; it is ) inhuman. really I am writing to my wife; this is one of "3 P ft IS . m' Five Years of My Life mv rare tranquil moments. I always exhort her to courage, to energy ; for it must be made apparent to all the world, without exception, that our honour is, as it has always been, pure and stainless. This terrible heat saps all one's strength and physical energy. Saturday, April 27, 1895. On account of the great heat at ten o'clock m the morning, I have planned out my time differently. I rise at daybreak (5.30) ; I light a fire to make my coffee or tea. Then I put the dried vegetables on the fire ; afterwards I make my bed, clean my room, and begin dressing. At eight o'clock they bring me my rations for the day. I finish cooking the dried vegetables j on meat days I cook the meat. In this way all my cooking is done by ten o'clock, for I eat cold in the evening what is left of the morning meal, as I do not care to sper.d another three hours in front of the fire in the afternoon. 124 Five Years of My Life At ten o'clock I breakfast. I read, I work, I dream, and, above all, I suffer, until three o'clock. Then I complete my toilet. When the hottest part of the day is over, that is to say, about five o'clock, I go out and cut wood, draw water from the well, wash my linen, &c. At six o'clock I eat cold what remains from breakfast. Then I am locked up. This is when time hangs most heavily. I have not been able to per- suade them to let me have a lamp in my hut. Of course the warders have a watch- lamp, but its light is not strong enough for me to be able to work by it for long. So there is nothing left for me but to go to bed; and then it is that my brain begins to work, that all my thoughts turn towards Ihe fright- ful drama of which I am the victim, and to my wife and children, and all who are dear to me. How they must be suffering also I Sunday, April 28, 1895. It is blowing a hurricane. Squalls come up one after the other, and make a loi»d, i«5 Five Years of My Life sonorous noise, things collide and dash against one another I How like my state of mind in its attacks of violence I I should like to be strong and powerful like the wind which is shaking the trees and tearing them up by the roots, that I might hurl from my path all the obstacles which bar the way to truth. I want to fling aside all my suflferings, to cry aloud all the rebellion that is in my heart against the ignominy which has been heaped upon an innocent man and his family I Ah ! what punishment does not the man deserve who has committed this crime 1 Guilty to- wards his country, towards an innocent man, towards a whole ibmily given over to despair — that man must be unlike anything in nature. I learned to-day how to wash cooking utensils. Hitherto I have been cleaning them simply with hot water, using my hand- kerchiefs for dish-cloths. In spite of all my efforts, they remained dirty and greasy. 1 thought of ashes, which contain a large pro- X26 Five Years of My Life portion of potash. This succeeded admirably, but what a state my hands and my handker- chiefs are in I I have just been told that, until further orders, my linen will be washed at the in- firmary. This is a good thing, for I perspire so freely that my flannels are completely saturated and want a thorough cleansing. Let us hope that this temporary order will become final. Same day, 7 o'clock in the evening, I have been thinking much of you, my dear wife, and of our children. We used to spend the whole of Sunday together. The time has passed slowly, very slowly, my thoughts darkening in proportion as the day advanced. Monday, April 29, 10 a.m. Never have I been so tired as I was this morning. I have had to make several jour- neys for wood and water. In addition to this, the breakfast that is waiting for me W7 f# Si i rill 1*^ Five Years of My Life consists of stale beans, which have already been on the fire for four hours, and refuse to cook, a little tinned beef, and water for drink. In spite of all my mental energy, my physical strength will give way if this regimen continues much longer, especially in a climate which is so enervating in itself. ii I Midday. I have been trying to sleep a little, but in vai ' I am worn out with fatigue, but as soon as I lie down the remembrance of all my troubles comes back to me, all the bitterness of so unmerited a fate rises from my heart to my lips. My nerves are too tightly strained for nie to be able to enjoy a refreshing sleep. In addition to this, the weather is stormy, the sky is overcast, the heat heavy and stifling. I should like to see the rain come down and refresh this everlastingly humid climate. The sea is of a glaucous green, the waves seem heavy and massive, as if concentrating ia8 Five Years of My Life themselves for a great upheaval. How pre- ferable death would be to this slow agony, this never-ceasing moral martyrdom. But this is denied me ; for the sake of Lucie and my children I am obliged to struggle on to the end of my strength. Wedne. iay, May i, 1895. Ah, these dreadful nights! Nevertheless I rose yesterday morning as usual at half-past five, I worked hard all day, I took no siesta, towards evening I sawed wood for nearly an hour, until my arms and legs were trembling, and in spite of all this I did not fall asleep until midnight. If I could only read or work in the evening, but they lock me up without a light, about six or half-past ; my hut is simply and insuf- ficiently lighted by the warders' watch-light, yet when I am in bed even this is too much. Thursday, May 2, 11 o'clock. The post from Cayenne arrived last even- ing. Has it brought me letters, news of my 129 I i Five Years of My Life family ? This is the question I have been asking myself the whole morning. But I have been so often deceived during these last months, I have learnt so many things about the human conscience, that I doubt every- thing and everybody except my own family. I have great hope, I am sure, that they will clear up the mystery, such high ideals of honour have they; they will take neither truce nor rest until their object has been attained. I wonder, too, whether my letters reach my wife. What a sad and terrible martyrdom is this for both of us, for all of us 1 But I must be strong ; I must have my honour, and that of my children. My isolation is so complete that it often seems to me that I have been buried alive. ! Same day, 5 p.m. The boat is in sight, coming from the lie Royale. My heart beats as if it would break. Is it bringing me at last the letters from my 130 Five Years of My Life wife that have been at Cayenne for more than a month ? Shall I at last read her deai thoughts, shall I receive the echo of her a£fection ? I experienced an overwhelming joy on being told there were letters for me at last which was followed immediately by a cruel' homble reaction, on finding out that they were letters addressed to the lie de R6, and previous to my leaving France. Can they be intercepting the letters that are sent to me here ? Or are they sent back to France, that they may be read first ? Could they not at least inform my family, if this were so, so that they might take the letters straight to the Ministry ? Nevertheless, I sobbed bitterly over these letters dated more than two months and a half ago. Is it possible to imagine a parallel case ? All night I shall dream of Lucie, of tny beloved children, for whom I must live. No news, either, of the things I ordered trom Cayenne, such as cooking utensils or food; nothing has reached me. 13X Five Years of My Life Saturday, May 4, 1895. How long the days are, spent all by myself, without news of any of my people. All day long I £^k myself what they are doing, how they are getting on, what is the state of their health, how are the researches progressing ? The date of the last letter I received was February 18. The mornings slip away, so busy am I with the struggle for existence, from half-past five in the morning until ten o'clock. But the food I take does little towards keeping up my strength. To-day, canned bacon. I breakfasted on dried peas and bread. Menu of dinner, the same. I jot down here and there the petty worries of my daily life, but they disappear very quickly before a far greater trouble- that of my honour. I suffer not only from my personal tor- tures, but on Lucie's account and that of my family. If they only get my letters I How 132 Five Years of My Life anxious they must be on my account, in addition to all their other worries. Same day, evening. In the silence which reigns around me, broken only by the beating of the waves' against the rocks, I recollected the letters that I wrote to Lucie when first I cume here, in which I described all my sufferings to her. And my poor wife must be suffering enough from this terrible state of affairs without my breaking her heart with my complaints. I must overcome my feelings by sheer force of will ; by my example I must give my wife the strength necessary for her to accomplish her mission. Monday, May 6, 1895. Always alone with my thoughts, without news of my family. And I must live with my troubles, and I must endure my horrible martyrdom with dignity, to inspire my wife, all my family, with courage, for assuredly ^33 ¥ 1 Hi Five Years of My Life they are su£Fering as much as I am. Accept your fate until the day of light shall dawn ; you must, for the sake of your children. I try in vain to quiet my nerves by physical work, but neither the climate nor my strength allow me to do so. Tuesday, May 7, 1895. A torrential downpour since yesterday. In the intervals, a hot and oppressive damp- ness. Wednesday, May 8, 1895. I have been so unnerved to day by this deathlike silence, and being without news of my family for nearly three months, that I tried to quiet my nerves by sawing and chopping wood for nearly two hours. By sheer dint of will I forced myself to work at my English again ; I do so for two or three hours a day. Thursday, May 9, 1895. This morning, after rising as usual at day- break and making my coffee, 1 had a fainting 134 Five Years of My Life fit, followed by a profuse perspiration. I had to lie down on my bed. I must struggle against my weakness ; I must not break down until my honour had been restored. Then only shall I have the right to have fainting fits. In spite of all my resolutions I had a violent attack of weeping when I thought of my wife and my children. Oh I the day must come, my honour must be restc td to us 1 Otherwise I would rather know that both my children had died. A terrible day. An attack of weeping, an attack of nerves ; nothing was wanting. But the mind must dominate the body. Friday, May lo, 1895. A violent fever last night. The portable medicine-chest given to me by my wife has not been sent to me. Saturday, May 11, Sunday, 12, Monday, 13. Bad days. Fever, gastric troubles, disgust of everything. What is going on in France 135 ■i Five Years of My Life all this time ? How are the researches pro- gressing ? Thursday, May i6, 1895. Continued fever. A worse attack yester- day evening, followed by congestion of the brain. I got them to send for the doctor, for I mjust not lose ground in this way. Friday, May 17, 1895. The doctor came yesterday evening. He ordered me forty centigrammes of quinine a day, and is going to send me twelve boxes of condensed milk and some bicarbonate of soda. So I shall be able to put myself on a milk diet, and shall not have to eat the food that is so repugnant to me that I have taken nothing for four days. I should never have believed that the human body had such power of resistance. Saturday, May 18, 1895. The boxes of condensed milk from the infirmary are not very fresh, but at any rate 126 Five Years of My Life they are better than nothing. A few minutes ago I took forty centigrammes of quinine. Sunday, May 19, 1895. A wretched day. Unintermittent tropical rain. The fever has abated, thanks to the quinine. That I may have them always under my eyes, I have placed the portraits of my wife and my children on my table. I must use all my energy, all my will, in their behalf. Monday, May 27, 1895. One day is like another, dull and mono- tonous. I have just written to my wife to tell her that my moral energy is greater than ever, I must, I will, have the broad light of day thrown upon this miserable business. Ah, my children 1 I resemble a wild animal, over whose dead body the hunter must pass in order to reach its young. 137 .1 . Five Years of My Life Wednesday, May 29, 1895. The rain continues ; the weather is heavy, stifling, enervating. Oh, my nerves I how I suffer with them. And to think that I cannot even expend my tremendous energy, my will-power, in vegetating, to say nothing of living. But every dog has his day I The wretch who committed this infamous crime will be unmasked. Oh, if I only had him here for five minutes, I would make him undergo all the torments that he has been the means of making me suffer; I would tear out his heart and his entrails without pity. Saturday, June i, 1895. The mail from Cayenne has just passed under my eyes. Shall I get recent news of my wife and my children ? Since I left France, that is, since February 20, I have had no news of my family. Ah 1 I shall soon have run the whole gamut of suffering and torture. t38 Five Years of My Life Sunday, June 2, 1895. Nothing, nothing 1 Neither letters nor instructions on my behalf; always the silence of the tomb. But I will bear up, supported by my con- science and the knowledge that I am right. Monday, June 3, 1895. The mail, on its way to France, has just passed. My heart palpitated and beat as if it would break. The mail is carrying you my last letters, my dear Lucie, in which I always entreat you to have courage, courage. The whole of France must learn that I am a victim and not a culprit A traitor I At the mere word, my blood rushes to my brain, my whole being trembles with rage and indignation. A traitor I the basest of scoundrels 1 Ah, no 1 I must live, I must conquer my sufferings, that I may witness the day of triumph when my inno- cence shall be fully recognised 1 139 "i , \ ■ ! ■ ! b i il Five Years of My Life How long the hours are I No more paper on which to write, to work, in spite of my repeated requests for the last three weeks ; nothing to read ; no means of escaping from my thoughts. No news of my family for three months and a half. Fnday, June 7, 1895. I have just received some paper and some reviews. It is pouring in torrents to-day. My brain pains me terribly as soon as I begin to think. Sunday, June 9, 1895. My heart is so bruised that everything wounds me. Death would be a deliver- ance ; but I must not think of that. Still no news of my dear ones. 140 Five Years of My Life Wednesday, June 12, 1895. At last I have received letters from my wife and family. They are some that arrived at the end of March ; they have most certainly been sent back to France. It takes more than three months, then, for letters to reach me. How clearly I can see sorrow, the over- whelming sorrow of them all, in every line. I reproach myself more than ever for writ- ing, when first I came here, those harrowing letters to my wife. I should have borne my sufferings alone, without allowing others, who have troubles enough of their own to bear, to share my cruel torments. Then there is always this constant, un- heard-of, incomprehensible suspicion, which adds still more to the wounds of my already lacerated heart. When he brought my letters, the com- mandant of the islands said to me : " They ask at Parlj whether you and your 141 III i^fS Five Years of My Life family have not agreed on a secret corre- spondence code." " Search for it," I said. " What else do they think?" "Oh I" he replied, "they do not appear to believe in your innocence." ** Ah I I hope to live long enough to answer all the infamous calumnies which have sprung from the imagination of people blinded by hate, passion, and prejudice." So, for aU of us, the light must be com- plete and dazzling, not only concerning my condemnation, but also in reference to every- thing that has been said and done since. I have received my kitchen utensils, and, for the first time, canned food from Cayenne. Material life is indifferent to me, but in sustaining it with care I shall be better able to keep up my strength. The convict labourers are to come in a few days to do some work on the island. So I am locked in my hut for fear that I shall communicate with them. Oh, the repulsiveness of mankind I 14a Five Years of My Life Here I interrupt my diary to give a few extracts from my wife's letters, which I received June 12. These letters had really reached Cayenne at the end of March, and had then been sent back to France to be read at the Colonial Ministry, as well as at the Ministry of War. Later on, my wife was told that she would have to deposit at the Colonial Ministry, on the 25th of each month, the letters which she wished forwarded to me. She was forbidden to write about my case or of events relating to it, and which were well known, even in public. Her letters were read, studied, passed through many hands, and often did not reach me at all. Of course they could have no feature of privacy. At last, on account of the surveillance of which she was the object, she had to refrain from mentioning any of the efforts made to discover the truth, for fear that those who were interested in our ruin and in smother- ing the facts should take advantage of them. Hi i a •lilii It Five Years of My Life * My dear Alfred, •• Paris, " February 23, 1895. " I was deeply moved when I learned, diredly after I returned, that you had left the He de R6. You were very far from me, it is true, and yet I could see you every week, and I waited longingly for those meetings. I read your fearful suflferings in your eyes, and dreamed only of lessening them for you a little. Now I have only a single hope, one desire, to come to join you and exhort you to patience, and, by dint of my aflfection and tenderness, to make you await calmly the hour of rehabilitation. This is now the final stage of your suffer- ings ; I hope, at least, that on the ship, during the long voyage, you met humane persons, touched at the spectacle of an innocent man and a martyr. . . , "Not a second passes, my adored husband, without my thoughts being with you. My days and nights drag on in continual 144 Five Years of My Life anxiety for your health and your strength of will. Only think 1 I am in total ignorance about you, and shall know nothing until you arrive 1 . . ." .'3, ** February 96, i8gi. " Day and night I think of you, I share your sufferings ; my anxiety is dreadful at feeling that you are going so far away, sailing on the sea, where storms may come to add to your moral torture by physical suflFering. What fatality is it that we should be so cruelly tried ? " I am filled with yearning to be near you, and, by my affection and tenderness, to be able to calm your immense sorrow a little. I have asked the Colonial Minister for per^ mission to rejoin you, and as the law allows the wives and children of those who are transported to accompany them, I do not see what objection there can be urged to this. So I am waiting for the answer with feverish impatience, . . ." »45 K ' • Five Years of My Life " Paris, "Ftbruary 28, 1895. "I cannot tell you the sadness and the grief I feel while you are going farther and farther away ; my days pass in anxious thoughts, my nights in frightful dreams ; only tlie children, with their pretty ways and the pure innocence of their souls, succeed in reminding me of the one compelling duty I must fulfil, and that I have no right to give way; so I gather strength and put my whole heart into bringing them up as you always desired, following your good counsels, and endeavouring to make them noble in heart, so that, when you come back, you shall find your children worthy of their father, and as you would have moulded them." "Paris, •• March 5, 1895. " With my last letter I forwarded to you a packet of reviews of every kind that may interest you, and which will help you, as far Ij6 Five Years of My Life as possible, to make the hours a little less long while waiting for the good tidings of the discovery of the guilty one. " Provided, O God 1 that the existence awaiting you there be not too terrible, that you may not be deprived of what is abso- lutely necessary, and that you may be able to endure the rigorous treatment inflicted on you. ... "Since your departure from France my suffering is doubled ; nothing can equal the fearful anxiety which tortures me. I should be a thousand times less wretched if I could be with you. I should at least know how you arc, the state of your health and your energy, and on this score my anxiety would be at rest " Lucie." continuation op my diary Saturday, June 15, 1895. The whole week I have been locked up in my hut on account of the presence of the X47 !■ '^Ut^^BS^!:- \h. Five Years of My Life convicts who came to work at the warders' quarters. Nothing but suffering. Wednesday, June 19, 1895. Dry heat ; the rainy season is near its end. I am covered with sores from the stings of mosquitoes and other insects. But all this is nothing I What are my physical sufferings as compared with the horrible tortures ot the soul ? Only infinitesimal. It is the aching head and heart which cry aloud with grief. When will the guilty one be discovered, when shall I know at last the truth of this tragic history ? Shall I live until then ? Sometimes I doubt it, I do so feel my whole being dissolving in terrible despair. And my poor, dear Lucie and my children I No ; I will not abandon them. I will cling to my dear ones with all the energy of my being so long as I have a shadow of vitality. I must recover all my honour and all the honour of my children. 148 Five Years of My Life Saturday, June 22, 1 1 p.m. Impossible to sleep. I have been shut up since half-past six in the evening, my hut lighted only by the lantern of the guard- room. Besides, I cannot work at English all night, and the few Reviews which reach me are quickly read. Then all night long there is a constant going and coming in ihe guard-room, a ceaseless noise of door£ roughly opened and then bolted. First the guard is relieved every two hours ; besides this, the warder who makes the round comes to sign the book at the guard-room every hour. These constant movements, this rattling of locks, have come to be part of my nightmares. When will tlie end come to so painful and undeserved a martyrdom ? Tuesday f June 25, 1895. Again the convicts have come to work on the island, and I am shut up in my hut. 149 H ill m Five Years of My Life Friday, June 28, 1895. Still shut in because the convicts are here. By sheer force of will and straining my nerves, I succeed in studying English three or four hours a day ; but the rest of the time my thoughts are continually going back to the horrible tragedy. It often seems that my heart and brain must burst. Saturday, June 29, 1895. I have just seen the mail boat for France sailing by. How the thought of France thrills through my soul I To think that my country, to which I had devoted all my strength and all my intelligence, can believe me to be so vile 1 Ah 1 my burden is some- times too heavy for human shoulders to bear. Thursday, July 4, 1895. I have not had strength enough to write for some days past ; I have been so agitated by receiving, at last, after long days of 150 Five Years of My Life waiting, fairly recent letters from my wife and the entire family. The latest letters were dated the 25th of May. The authori- ties have at last notified my family that all letters must pass through the hands of the officials. There is nothing new ; the guilty man has not been discovered. I suffer on account of my family's distress, as if it were all my own. I do not speak of my thousand and one daily miseries, which are like so many wounds to a lacerated heart. But I will not give up ; I must communi- cate my own energy to my wife ; I will succeed in vindicating the honour of my name and my children's. Here are a few extracts from the letters which came recently from my wife. " Paris, ** March 2$, 1895. " I hope this letter will find you in good health For my part, I am waiting 151 " Five Years of My Life with the greatest impatience for news of your arr.»al.Itcanno.belongdelayed,foritis three weeks smce you sailed. What a Caivan, you have endured, and what awful moments z,T ■""• "^ '^'- - '"-veri Mattueu cannot make up his mind ,o ^ve toe. I know how much you always ^^.m. and how you admire his nob]! "P«i., "Jfm* zj, ,895. "My heart is rent asunder when I think of ■n ex le, having not one soul near that can uphold you and give you hope and cou,age nongso much to be near you, to share your' gr^and to assuage itahttlebymyprJnce. I^a«ureyou„y thoughts are n.uch oftener n the lies de Salut than here; I picture o myself that . am there with you, iCto Jook upon you in that forlorn island and to imagine to myself your life. Five Years of My Life "Paris, "April 6, 189s. " I read this morning, not without emotion, the story of your arrival at the Isles du Salut ; according to the newspapers, the He dJ Diable has been allotted to you alone. But although the news of your arrival has reached France, I have so far received abso- lutely nothing from you. I cannot tell you what my sufferings are, thus separated com- pletely from the husband whom I so love, totally deprived of news, and not knowing how you are bearing up. "Your wonderful self-sacrifice, your heroic courage, and the energy of your soul give us strength to persevere in the task which is incumbent on us ; that we shall accomplish it successfully I feel certain. . . ." ' fi- •• Paris, ** April 12, 1895. " Still no news from you ; it is terrible. It will soon be two months since I last saw »53 I » Five Years of My Life you, and there has been nothing, absolutely nothing. Not a line of your hand-writing, to bring me something of yourself. It is very hard 1 . . . ** It is terrible to think of your misery ; my heart, my whole being, is tortured by the thought of it • • • "Pakis, -il/rttai. 1895. "The aist April I This date reminds me of pleasant memories. Five years ago to- day we were happy ; four years and a half of a perfectly contented and peaceful existence had gone by and we had known only happi- ness. Then all at once the thunderbolt fell and shattered all our hopes. I often told you, did I not, that I had nothing to wish for, that I possessed all ? And now I can only ask one boon. It is a supplication, a constant prayer that I address to God, that this year may bring our happiness back to us, that our dearly prized honour, which has been taken away from us, may be restored, 154 Five Years of My Life and that you may find once more, joy, happiness, and strength of health. 1* • • • "PAUt, "April 24, 1895. "So far I have received nothing from you, and I am broken-hearted. Each morning I hope and wait. Each evening I lie down filled with the same disappointment Ah 1 my poor heart, how it is tortured. . , ,*' •i I " Pa«is, •M/n7a5. 1895. *•...! have just passed the most terrible day of my life. A newspaper hac announced that you were ill. The torments I endured after reading this are beyond all description. To feel that you were far away, ill and alone, not to have even the comfort of nursing you and of doing you good, it was atrocious ! My heart, my whole being, gave me acute pain. I, who had entreated you to live, who had but one hope, that of seeing you happy »55 Five Years of My Life again and of contributing to your happiness —every gloomy idea passed through my head. Distracted as I was, 1 appealed to the Ministry of the Colonies. The news was false. . . . When will your first letter reach me? I wait for it with childish im- patience. . . •" "Paws, **Af0>5, 1895. "The letter I am expecting from you with such great impatience ever since your arrival has not yet come. Ever since I have known that the French mail arrived a fortnight ago (the 23rd April), my heart beats each time the postman comes, and each time I meet with disappointment. It is the same thing as regards the permission I have asked for to join you ; the Minister of the Colonies has not yet answered my two successive appli- cations, which date from the month of February. What am I to do, what to think? " Your little Pierre every morning lisps an 156 '- Five Years of My Life ardent prayer for your prompt return. The poor little fellow is accustomed to have everything in life smile on him ; he does not understand why his wishes are not heanl ; he repeats his prayer twice, for fear that he has not said it well enough. • • • " Pa«i«, " May 9, 1895. "At last I have received a letter from you. I cannot tell you what joy I felt, and how ray heart beat at seeing your dear hand- writing, and reading the first lines which have reached me from you since your arrival, two months ago. I share you suffer- ing and your anguish. . . . " Lucie." CONTINUATION OP MY DIARY Saturday, July 6, 1895. Still, still this atrocious life of suspicion, of continual surveillance, of a thousand daily pin-pricks I My blood boils with anger and 157 Five Years of My Life indignation, and I am obliged, for my own sake, for the sake of my dignity, to conceal my feelings. Sunday, July 7, 1895. ^ The convicts have finished their work at last. So yesterday and to-^lay I have washed my towels, cleaned my dishes with hot water, and mended my linen, which was in a pitiable state. Wednesday, July 10, 1895. Every kind of vexation is again inflicted on me. I am no longer allowed to walk around my hut ; I cannot sit down behind it, in front of the sea—the only place where it was a Uttle cool and where there was shade. Finally, I am put on convict's diet, that is to say, I am deprived of cofifee and sugar ; a ration of bread of inferior quality is given me every day, and twice a week half a pound of meat ; the other days, pre- served beef or tinned bacon. Possibly this new regimen will also bring with it the 158 < Five Years of My Life suppression of the canned provisions I received from Cayenne. I shall no longer leave my hut; I shall live on bread and water; let this state of thinga last as long as it may. Friday, June 12, 1895. It seems that it is not the convicts' rations which are given me, but special rations for myself. Nor does this new arrangement entail the suppression of the tinned pro- ^ visions which I receive from Cayenne. But all this amounts to little. It is my nerves, my brain, my heart that su£Fer I I am debarred from going to sit in the only place where there was a little shade in the day, where the sea-breeze fanned my face, and seemed to echo the vibrations of my souL Same day ; evening. I have just received my tinned provisions from Cayenne. But what does the food of the body matter ? the martyrdom they make 159 ^mm. vt\ Five Years of My Life me endure is so fearful. It is their duty to guard me, to prevent my escaping — if so be that I have ever shown the intention, for the only thing I seek and wish is the restoration of my honour— but I am followed every- ^^here; all I do is closely watched and a subject of suspicion. When I walk too fast, they say I am tiring out the guard, who must accompany me; and when I answer that I will no longer leave my hut, they threaten to punish me 1 But the day of light will end by coming 1 Sunday, July 14, iSps.* I have gazed at the tricolour flag fioatint; everywhere on the island, the flag I have served with honour and loyalty. My grief is so great that my pen falls from my fingers; there are feelings that cannot be expressed in words. nil * This is the Ffite day of the Republic, llie French national holiday. 160 \' Five Years of My Life Tuesday, July i6, 1895. The heat is becoming terrible. The part of the island reserved to me is completely bare. The cocoa-palms grow only in the other portion. I pass the greater part of my days in my hut. And nothing to read ! Last month's Reviews have not reached me. During this time, what is becoming of my wife and children ? And this silence of the tomb ever around me! Saturday, July 20, 1895. The days pass by terribly monotonously, and I am ever anxiously waiting for a better morrow. My sole occupation is to work a little at English. This is the tomb, to which is added the pain of having a living heart. Torrents of rain in the afternoon, followed by a hot, stifling mist. I am very feverish. i6z (, n m im liflj! ii' jiii^ Five Years of My Life Sunday, July 21, 1895. I had fever all last night, with a constant inclination to vomit. The guards seem to be as much depressed as myself by the climate. Tuesday, July 23, 1895. Again a bad night. Rheumatic, or rather nervous pains, constantly shifting about, sometimes between my ribs, and sometimes across my shoulders. But I shall struggle also against my body ; I wish to live and see the end. Wednesday, July 24, 1895. Spleen takes hold of me also. I never see a pleasant face ; I can never open my mouth to speak to any human being ; night and day I must suppress heart and brain in an eternal silence. Sunday f July 28, 1895. The mail from France has just come. But my letters go first to Cayenne, and then Z69 , Five Years of My Life come back here, although they have already been read and countersigned in France. Monday, July 29, 1895. Always the same thing, alas I Days and nights pass in struggling with myself, in trying to quench the boiling of my brain, in stifling my heart's impatience, in rising above all the wretchedness of my life. Evening, A heavy, stifling day, irritating to the nerves in the highest degree. My nerves are stretched like vioUn strings. It is the dry season, and may last until January. Let us hope that all will be over by that time. Tuesday, July 30, 1895. A warder has just left, worn out by the fevers of the place. This is the second man who has been forced to leave since I have been here. I am sorry he is gone, for he was an honest man, fulfilling strictly the 163 I'li'i :*■ If' 111!- ^ i 11' i!'"i Five Years of My Life duties confided to him, but loyally, with tact and moderation. Wednesday, July 31, 1895. All last night I dreamed of you, my dear Lucie, and of our children. I wait with feverish impatience for the mail that is coming from Cayenne. I hope it will bring me my letters. Can the news be good ? Are they at last on the track of the wretch who committed the infamous deed ? Thursday, August i ; noon. The mail coming from Cayenne arrived this morning at a quarter past seven. Does it bring any letters, and what news ? Up to now I have received nothing. Half-past four o'clock. Still nothing. Torible hours of waiting. Nine o'clock in the evening. Nothing has come. What a bitter disap- pointment ! 164 Five Years of My Life Friday, August 2, i^S' Morning, What a terrible night I have passed I And I must struggle on, always and ever. I have sometimes a mad desire to sob, sob aloud, my sorrow is so overwhelming ; but I must swallow my tears ; I should be ashamed of my weakness before the warders who guard me night and day. Not even for an instant am I alone with my grief. These shocks wear me out, and to-day I am broken in body and soul. But I am going to write to Lucie, hiding my condition from her, to tell her to have courage. Our children must enter life holding their heads high and proudly, whatever happens to me. * i? Seven o'clock; evening My letters had come ; they have only now brought them to me. No new developments as yet. But I shall have the necessary patience; the machinations of which I am 165 l'i|.:r ill I'il iiil Ml 11 i! iM^th^ Five Years of My Life the victim must be traced to their source. It must be so. I must bear my sufferings till then 1 Here are a few extracts from my wife's letters, which I received the 2nd August, in the evening. " Paris, •«Ji«m6, 1895. " I am waiting with the keenest anxiety for some kind letters from you, to reassure me about your health, of which I hope you are taking care. The mail steamer arrived on May 23 ; to-day is the 6th of June, and your letters have not yet reached me. Each time the postman comes gives me a new hope, doomed to disappointment. My thoughts are all for you, my life for you. . . ." "Paris, ** June 7, iSqS' "While writing you, I have just been interrupted by the arrival of your dear letters. . . . From your energy I imbibe 166 M 'W- Five Years of My Life renewed strength. It is you who sustain me. ... On the other hand, if I can live thus separated from you and tortured by cruel suffering, it is because my faith is boundless and my confidence in the future absolute. But I suffer so much from being separated from you that I have made another appeal to go and share your exile. I shall at least have the happiness of living the same life as you, of being near you, and showing you how much I love you. "I pass hours in reading and re-reading your dear letters ; they are my consolation while waiting for the happiness of meeting you again. . . • " LUCIB." When I realised the rigours of my life at the lies du Saiut, I had no illusion as to the answer which would be given to my wife's requests to be permitted to come and join me. I knew they \tcJild be steadfastly refused. K Five Years of My Life CONTINUATION OF MY DIARY Saturday, August 3, 1895. I did not close my eyes all night All these em6tions exhaust me. To see so many sorows accumulated so unjustly round one, and to be unable to do anything to mitigate them I Sunday, August 4, 1895. I have just passed two hours, from half- past five to half-past seven, in washing my clothes, towels, and dishes. The work fatigues me greatly, but it does me good all the same. Ah I I struggle as much as I can against the climate and against my tortures. For, before giving up, I must know that my honour has been restored. But how long the days and nights are I I have received no Reviews for two months; I have nothing to read. x68 Five Years of My Life I never open my mouth ; I am more silent than a Trappist.* I sent to Cayenne to ask for a box of carpenter's tools, that I might occupy myself a little in manual labour. This has been refused me. Why ? Another riddle which I wiU not try to solve. For nine months I find myself face to face with so many enigmas which upset my reason, that I prefer to rest my weary brain and live unconsciously. Monday^ August 5, 1895. The heat is becoming terrific, and I feel utterly crushed and exhausted by these nine months of frightful martyrdom that 1 have endured. Saturday f August 10, 1895. I do not know how far I can go, my heart and brain make me suffer so much, and this lamentable tragedy disturbs my reason so * The Trappists are an order of monks who have taken a vow of strict saence.— J, M. i6g MKROCOTY RBOUITION TBT CHAIT (ANSI and ISO TEST CHART No. 2) 1.25 |^|Z8 |2^ J3j0 ^^^^ ■^ Itt 1^ ■ 2.2 U Ub ■■■ 12.0 u HH £.S ^ /APPLIED IIVMGE inc m 1653 East Main SIrMt Roehjrtw. Nm Yofk 14609 USA (716) 4«2 - 0300 - Phoiw (716) 288 - 9989 - Fox if Five Years of My Life much. All my faith in human justice, honesty, and righteousness have so completely crumbled in face of the horrible facts I If, then, I succumb, and these lines ever reach you, my dear Lucie, I beg you to believe that I have done all that was humanly possible to bear up so long. . . , Be courageous and strong; may oui children become your comfort; may they inspire you with the strength to do your duty. When a man's conscience assures him that he has at all times and in all places done his duty, he can bear himself with head erect and claim his birthright, which is honour. Monday f September 2, 1895. For a long time I have added nothing to my diary. What is the use of it ? I struggle to live, no matter how atrocious my situation, how lacerated my heart, because I wish, in the 170 Five Years of My Life midst of my cherished ones, to witness that day when our honour shall be restored to us. Let us hope the time will soon come. I am so utterly weary. Yesterday I had a fainting fit; my heart all at once seemed to cease to beat, and I felt myself unconsciously drifting away without pain. What it was exactly I am not able to explain. I am wailing for my letters. Fridayt September 6, 1895. Still I have no letters. Are there words to express the torture of such suspense ? Happy are the dead 1 And to be compelled to live on, so long as the heart shall beat i Saturday^ September 7, 1895. My letters have this moment come. The guilty one has not yet been discovered. 171 Five Years of My Life A few extracts from my ^^'s Im, received at this time : *"*'"^' lllif III " Paris, "T^y 8, 1895. "Your letters of Mav anrf «* t voice .'.::2:;;tr?r„r""^ yourself had come to meTLf ^"^ °' -0 beauwul .hough.":! ^'^;':f"°'"« intense happiness that you hid l""* ^r;-£.l:— oT^r-us "I was touched to the denth« J^ bv th*. !-♦♦ aepths of my soul by the letter you wrote to our Pierre • h" was enchanted, and his child's face 7.M h up when I read your lines to hf u ^ ^^ thembyheart/whel:^;^":;^^^^^^^ is all aflame/' '^ °^ ^^^ ^^^ m 173 Five Years of My Life •• Pa«i«, •*>/y 10, 1895. " I come again to urge courage and patience to you; witJi one unflagging purpose we shall overcome aJl difliculties and soon grasp the key of the lamentable mystery of which we are the unhappy victims. It is my aim, my sole desire and fixed idea, the idea of Mathieu, of all of us, to give you the supreme happiness of beholding your inno- cence blazoned forth to the world in the light of day. I am resolved to succeed in unmasking those who have been guilty of so unexampled and monstrous an iniquity. If we were not ourselves the victims of this homble crime, I would not admit that there could exist men so base, cowardly, and per- verse as to snatch from a family its pride in Its stainless name, and to allow an officer without reproach to be condemned without their consciences dragging from them at the final moment a cry of confession. "Lucie." '73 Five Years of My Life tl ■fe' " CONTINUATION OF MY DIARY September 22, 1895. I had palpitation of the heart all last night. Consequently I am very tired this morning. Truly the mind is in a sea of perplexity in face of such deeds. Condemned on the sole evidence of hand- writing, it will soon be a year since T asked for justice; and the justice I demand is nof a dispute about the handwriting, bi;t the search for and discovery of the wretch who wrote the infamous letter. The Government possesses every means for such a search We are not in the presence of a common- place crime, of which we know neither the particulars nor the ramifications. The sources in this case are known, and thus the truth can be discovered whenever they choose to search for it. However, the means matters nothing to me. What my mind and reason stand 174 Five Years of My Life bewildered before is that they have not as yet succeeded in clearing up this horrible tragedy. Ah I the justice which I ask I must have, for my children and my family; and no matter how horrible my sufferings may be, I shall demand it with my last breath. But what a life for a man who esteemed no one's integrity to be above his own I Death certainly would have been a blessing and I have not even the right to think of it I September 27, 1895. Such a martyrdom ends by going beyond the bounds of human strength. It renews each day the poignancy of the agony. It compels an innocent man to go down living into the tomb. Ah I I leave their own consciences to judge the men who have condemned me on the sole evidence of a suspected hand- writing, without any tangible proofs, without X75 m li'.' Ill'i Five Years of My Life witnesses, without a motive to make so in- famous an act conceivable. If even, after my condemnation, as they promised me in the name of the Minister of War, they had resolutely and actively followed up the steps taken to unmask the guilty one ! And then, there is a way, through diplo- matic channels ! A government possesses all the machinery necessary to penetrate such a mystery ; and to do so is its strict and positive duty. Oh, humanity with its passions and hatreds, with its moral ugliness I Oh, men with their own selfish interests alone to guide them I To such, all the rest matters but little 1 Justice ? it is a good thing when you have the time, when it does not bother you nor injure others I Sometimes I am so disheartened, so worn out, that I long to stretch myself out, let myself go, and thus passively finish with life. I cannot do anything active to that end ; for I have not, I shall never have, that right. 176 I li |l!':' Five Years of My Life My misery is becoming unbearable. There must be an end to ail this. My Wife must make her voice heard-the voice of the innocent ones crying out for justice. If I had only my own life to struggle for I should certainly not struggle any longer ; but It IS for honour that I live, and I shall struggle inch by inch to the end. Bodily pains are nothing, the heart-ache IS the one terrible thing. September 29, 1895. I had violent palpitations of the heart this morning. I was suffocating. The machine struggles; how long has it still to run ? Last night also I had a fearful nightmare m which I called out to you for help, my poor, dear Lucie. Ah I if there were only myself, my disgust for men and things is so deep that I should look forward only to the great rest, to eternal repose. «77 tt t ' 'i ».T Five Years of My Life October i, 1895. I no lon|;er know how to write down my feelings ; the hours seem centuries to me. October 5, 1895. I have received letters from home. Still nothing done I From all these letters there rises such a cry of suffering that my whole being is shaken to its depths. I have just written the following letter to the President of the Republic : "Accused and then found guilty on the sole evidence of handwriting, of the most infamous crime which a soldier can commit, I have declared, and I declare once again, that I did not write the letter which was im- puted to me, and that I have never forfeited my honour. " For a year I have been struggling alone, with a clear conscience, against the most terrible calamity which can befall a man. "I do not speak of physical sufferings; 178 Ip !.i Five Years of My Lif- they are nothing ; the sorrows of the heart are everything. "To suffer thus is dreadful in itself, but to feel those who are dear to me suffering with me is horrible. It is the agony of a whole family, expiating an abominable crime which I never committed. " I do not beg for pardon, or favours, or compassion ; I only ask, I beg, that light full and complete may be shed upon this machination of which my family and I are the unhappy and miserable victims. " If I have lived on, M. le President, and if I still continue to live, it is because the sacred duty which I have to fulfil towards my family fills my soul and governs it ; otherwise I should long since have suc- cumbed under a burden too heavy for human strength to bear. "In the name of my honour, torn from me by an appalling error, in the name of my wife, in the name of my children— oh ! M. le President, at this last thought alone my father's heart, as a Frenchii?an and an 179 kt Five Years of My Life honest man, cries out in its anguish !— I ask justice from you ; and this justice, which I beg of you with all my soul, with all the strength of my heart, with hands joined in supreme prayer, is to probe the mystery of this tragic history, and thus to put an end to the martyrdom of a soldier and of a family to whom their honour is their all." I am writing also to Lucie to act with energy and resolution, for this cruelty will end by prostrating us all. They tell me that I think more of the suflFerings of others than of my own. Ah, yes, assuredly; for if I were alone in the' worid, if I allowed myself to think only of myself, long since the tomb would have closed over me. It is the one thought of Lucie and my children that gives me strength. Ah, my darling children, to die is of little matter to me. But before I die, 1 wish to know that our name has been cleared from this stain. t8o i Five Years of My Life A few extracts from my wife's letters received by me in October ; " Pa«h, **Augusi4, 1895. " I have not the patience to wait for your letters before writing you ; 1 feel the need of communing a little with you, to draw near to your noble soul, so tried, and to acquire from you new stores of strength and courage." " Pa«I8. "August 12, 1895. "At last I have received your letters; I devour them, read and re-read them with a never-satisfied greediness. "When will my solicitude and affection efface from your mind the remembrance of the atrocious days of this direful year, which has left in our hearts so deep a wound ? I wish 1 possessed triple the power to hasten the time so anxiously awaited and to show to the whole world that we are pure, in spite of the mud of infamy they have thrown in our taces. . . ." I8t Five Years of My Life .iHB^ ill! ' I III y li I' I, r " PARI8, '* August 19, 1895. "When I endeavour to lessen a little the nervous anxiety of waiting and diminish the fever of my impatience, to get back my calm and renew my strength, I come to you. "What breaks my heart is to think that you are alone, far from all those who love you with all their hearts, and that you are a prey to this awful suspense, torturing your mind to clear up the mystery, while your poor heart and your upright conscience cannot realise the existence of such infamy. "Lucie." continuation of my diary October 6, 1895. Awful heat. The hours are leaden. fill I Liitl October 14, 1895. Violent wind. Impossible to go out. The day is of terrible length. 182 Five Years of My Life October 26, 1895, I no longer know how I live. My brain is crushed. Ah 1 to say that I do not suffer beyond all expression, that often I do not long for eternal rest, that this struggle between my deep disgust for men and things and my duty is not terrible— to say this would be a lie. But whenever I feel that I am giving way, in my long nights or in my solitary days; whenever my mind, enfeebled by so many shocks, prompts me to ask how, after a life of toil and honour, it is possible that I should have come to such a pass as this; when I feel tempted to shut my eyes that I may hear and think and suffer no more, then it is that I summon all my fortitude, exclaim- ing to myself ; " You are not alone, you are a father, you must stand up for the good name of your wife and children." And I begin again with new strength, to fall back, alas ! a little later, and then begin again. This is my daily life. •83 f " HilllU. Five Years of My Life October 30, 1805. Violent heart spasms. The sultry atmosphere takes a^vay all ener©.. This is the changeable weather preceding the rainy season, the worst period of the year here in Guiana. Will it finally overthrow me ? Night from November 2-3, 1895. The mail-boat is in from Cayenne, but there are no letters. It is impossible to express the keen dis- appointment one experiences when, after anxiously waiting during a long month for news of dear ones, nothing comes. But so many sorrows have entered into my soul for more than a year that I can no heaT" "*'''''" ^""^ '"^ '^°""'' °^ ^^ Yet this agitation, with which I should be famihar, since it is renewed so often, has so upse me that, although I rose this morning at half-past five and have walked for at leasl T84 r -^T Five Years of My Life six hours to master my nerves, it is impossible for me to sleep. How much longer will this torment endure ? November ^f 1895. Terrific heat ; over 45'* (I13* Fahrenheit). Nothing is so depressing, nothing so exhausts the energy of heart and mind as these long agonising silences, never hearing human speech, seeing no friendly face, nor even one that shows sympathy. m November jf 1895. What has become of the letters which have been sent me ? Where has the mail stopped ? Has it been detained in Paris or at Cayenne? These are the disquieting questions which I ask myself every hour of the day. I constantly wonder if I am awake or if I dream, so incredible, unimaginable, is every- thing which has befallen me during the year. i8s m r ;l iliii! Five Years of My Life To have left my native land, Alsace; to have given up an independent situation among my own people ; to have served my country with my whole soul, only to find my^lf one fine day accused and then conie; med for a crime as contemptible as it is hateful, on the evidence of the hand- writing of a doubtful scrap of paper — is this not enough to demoralise a man for ever ? But I must still struggle against Fate, for the sake of my dear Lucie and my children. November 9, 1895. This is a terribly long day. The first rain having commenced, I am obliged to shut myself in my hut. Nothing to read. The books announced in the letter of August have not yet reached me. November 15, 1895. I have at last received my letters. The guilty one is not yet discovered. I shall hold out to the end of my strength, z86 «■! Five Years of My Life which is declining daily : it is a ceaseless struggle to be able to withstand complete isolation, this perpetual silence, in a climate which destroys all energy, and having nothing to do and nothing to read, ever alone with my sad thoughts. A few extracts from my wife's letters, which I received on November 15, 1895 : " Paris, *' September St 1S95. "What long hours and weary days we have passed since the hour when our frightful misfortune struck us down at a blow 1 Let us hope that we have at last climbed up the steepest part of our Calvary ; that we have passed through the bitterest of our anguish. It is in our conscience alone that we have found the strength to endure the agony of our martyrdom. God, who has so sorely tried us, will give us the strength to fulfil our duty to the end. ... I understand your heartache and share it ; like you, there J87 4: ^ : \l ret Ml ,1 |» I 51 lii»n Five Years of My Life are moments when I lose all patience, finding the time so long and the hours of waiting too cruel. But then I think of you, of the noble example of courage which you show me,' and I draw strength from your love. . . ." "Paris, "This is the last letter I write you by this mail. I ardently hope that it may find you in good health and still strong and coura- geous. I cannot come to join you ; I have not yet obtained permission. For me the waiting is cruel, and it is one more bitter disappointment to add to so many others. • . . "Lucie." At the foot of this letter were the following lines from my brother Mathieu :— " I have received your kind letter, my dear brother, and it is a great consolation and a great comfort to me to know you are so strong and courageous. It is not 'hope' iSS Five Years of My Life that I say to you, but 'have faith, have con- fidence' ; it is impossible that the innocent should suflfer for the guilty. " There is no day that I am not with you in mind and in heart "Mathiec." CONTINUATION OP MY DIARY November 30, 1895. I wUl not speak of my daily petty annoy- ances, for I despise them. It only needs for me to ask the chief warder for any insignificant thing of common necessity to have my request abruptly and instantly refused. Accordingly, I never repeat a request, pre- ferring to go without everything rather than humiliate myself. But my reason will end by giving way under this inconceivable treatment. December 3, 1895, I have not yet received the mail of the month of October. This is a gloomy day, 189 ^* t •t f -" i 1 4" If 1 Five Years of My Life with ceaseless rain. My head is bursting, my heart is broken. The air is thick and heavy, the sky black as ink. A genuine day of death and burial. How often there recurs to my mind that exclamation of Schopenhauer, at the spectacle of human iniquity : " If God created the world, I would not be God." The mail from Cayenne has come, it seems, but has not brought my letters. How many more sorrows ? Not -ng to read, no avenue of escape from my thoughts. Neither books nor Reviews come to me any more. I walk in the daytime until my strength is gone, to calm my brain and exhaust my nerves. Decembers, 1895. In truth, I ask myself, what sort of con- sciences have people nowadays ? To think- there are men who call themselves honest, igo Five Years of My Life like the man Bertillon, who had dared to swear without any restriction that, since the handwriting of that infamous letter slightly resembles mine, therefore only I could have penned it I As to moral or other proofs, they were of little matter to such as he. If there remains any remnant of heart in such men, I hope that on the day when the real culprit shall be unmasked they will lodge a pistol ball in their heads, to expiate the misery they have inflicted on an entire family. December y, 1895. How often I feel it beyond my power to support this life of constant suspicion and uninterrupted watching by day and by night, caged like a wild beast and treated like the vilest of criminals. December 8, 1895. I have a violent attack of neuralgia in the head, which increases every day and makes me suffer more and more. What a martyr- dom of every hour, every minute ! X9X I f ^ I mm Five Years of My Life And always this silence of the tomb, with never the sound of a human voice. A word of sympathy, a friendly look, may mmister a soothing balm to cruel wounds and assuage for a time the acutest grief Hei^e there is nothing. Decemherg, 1897. Never any letters. They have probably been detained at Cayenne, where they lie about for a fortnight. The mail-boat coming from France passed here before my eyes on November 29. and the letters must have been at Cayenne ever since. The same day ; 6 o'clock evening. The second post received from Cayenne smce the arrival of the last mail from France came in to-day at one o'clock. Does it this time bring me my letters ? and what is the news? December 11, 6 o'clock evening. No letters ! My heart is furrowed and torn I ^99 i^^nn^n th Is f. Five Years of My Life December 12, 1895 J morning. My letters really did not arrive. Where have they stopped ? I have requested them to telegraph to Cayenne and find out Same day; evening. My letters were stopped in France I My heart makes me suffer as if they were tearing it apart with a dagger. Oh, the ceaseless moaning of the sea ! What an echo to my sorrowing soul 1 Such wild, fierce anger sometimes fills my heart against all human iniquity, that I could wish to tear my flesh, so as to forget, in physical pain, this horrible mental torture. December 13, 1895. They will certainly end by killing me through repeated sufferings, or by forcing me to commit suicide to escape from insanity. The opprobrium of my death will be on the Commandant du Paty, Bertillon, and all those who have had a share in this iniquity. X93 u I' 'I H|^m> r'i Five Years of My Life Each night I dream of my wife and children. But what fearful awakenings I When I open my eyes and find myself in this wretched hut, I have a moment of such anguish that I could close my eyes for ever, nev^ to see or think again. Eptning, I have violent heart-spasms, with a frequent feeling of suffocation. December 14, 1895. I ask for the bath which I have been authorised to take by order of the doctor. No, is the answer the chief warder sends. A few minutes Uter he goes and takes one him- self. I do not know why I should abase myself to ask anything whatever of him. Until now I have repeated none of my requests ; and from now on I shaU make no new ones. December 16, 1895. From ten o'clock to three, the hours are terrible, and I have nothing to distract my miserable thoughts. 194 Five Years of My Life December i8, 1895. D«ar little Pierre I dear little Jeanne I dear Lttoe-Aow well I .ee you in my mind', AltuU -^ 4C^ /^ ht^ \ WMMOiOM Ot A QUOTATIOK WC HAM«T WlTTtK W CAPTAIN OUTFVS Of mg OIAIY eye! How t^e remembrance of you all nerves me to submit to every ill | December 20, 1895. No aflfront is spared me. When I receive my hnen, which is washed at the he Royale they unfold it, search through it in every' possible way, and then toss it to me as to some vile creature. Every time I look upon the ocean there comes back to me the remembrance of the sweet and happy 195 il Five Years of My Life moments I have passed upon its shores, with my wife and children. I see myself taking my little Pierre along the beach, where he plays and gambols, while I dream of a happy future for him. Then my present situation comes back to me, the disgrace cast upon my name and upon that of my children ; my eyes grow dim, the blood rushes to my head, my heart t:.robs as if it were about to break; indigna- tion fills my whole being. The light must dispel this darkness, the truth must be dis- covered, no matter what our sufferings may bel December 22, 1895. Still no news from my dear onesl The silence of the grave! What a fearful night I have just passed ! The goings and comings of the warders, the lights that pass and repass add to my nightmares. December 25, 1895. Alas I always the same thing. No letters. The English mail passed two days ago. 196 Five Years of My Life My tette^ cannot have arrived, for otherwise Ittunk they would have sent them to me. Whattothmkl what to believe I The rain falls all the time. During a lighter spell, I went out to stretch mj^elf a little. A few rain^ops only were faUmg. The chief-warder came up and said to the guard accompanying me : "You must not stay out when it rains." Whence could emanate such instructions? But I disdained to reply, ignoring aU these petty meannesses. Nightf December 26-27, 1895. Impossible to sleep. In what nightmare have I lived for nearly fifteen months, and when will it cease ? December 28, 1895. Intense weariness I My brain is crushed What is happening? Why have the letters of the month of October not reached me? 197 Five Years of My Life Oh, my Lucie, if you read these lines, if I succumb to this anguish, you wUl be abl- *-> imagine all I have suffered 1 In the frequent moments when my disgust for all around me makes my senses reel, three names, which I murmur low, reawaken my energy and ever give me new strength- Lucie, Pierre, Jeanne I Same day; ii o'clock morning. I have just seen the mail-boat from France passing. But alas I my letters go on first to Cayenne. At any rate, I hope the first post from Cayenne will bring them to me, that I shall at last have news of home, that I shall know if the riddle of this monstrous affair has been solved, and if I may begin to see an end to this torture. Sunday, December 29, 1895. What happy days I used to pass on Sundays in the midst of my family, playing with my children ! ^ ^ 198 Five Years of My Life My little Pierre is now nearly five years old. Heisalmc tabigboy. I used to wait with impatience for the time to come when I could take him with me and talk with him ; instruct his young mind, and instil within him the love of beauty and truth ; and thus develop in him so lofty a soul that the seamy side of life could not defile it. Where are those dreams now— and that eternal "Why?" December 30, 1895. My blood bums and fever devours me. When wiU aU this end ? Same day ; evening. My nerves trouble me so that I am afraid to lie down. This unbroken silence, with no news of my dear ones for three months, with nothing to read, crushes and overwhelms me. I must rally all my strength to resist always and yet again ; I must murmur low those 199 I Five Years of My Life three words which are my talisman : Lucie, Pierre, Jeanne I December $1, 1895. What a frightful night 1 Strange dreams, absurd nightmares, followed by copious per- spiration. To-day, at dawn, I saw the arrival of the boat from Cayenne. Ever since, I have been in a strange state of anxiety, asking myself each moment if at last I am to have news from home. And my heart beats wildly in the anguish of this suspense. January i, 1896. At last, yesterday evening, I received my letters of October and November. Still no progress ; the truth is not yet discovered. But, also, what grief have I caused Lucie by my last letters ; how I torture he y my impatience; and yet hers is as great as my own. i Five Years of My Life A few extracts from my wife's letters f©- ceived by me on January i, 1896: "Paus, **Oetobtrio,t99S, " This mail, my dear husband, has brought only a single letter from you— that which you wrote me on August 5 has not reached me. The dear lines written by your hand, the only sign I have of your existence, still comfort me ; your courage revives my own ; your energy gives me strength to con- tinue the struggle. . , ,*• "PAWt. "Octeftwis, 1895. "This date recalls such painful remem- brances to me that I cannot help turning to you for a moment. It makes me feel better, and seems to be doing you some good also. I no longer wish to speak of the calamitous days we have endured ; each of us suffering far away from the other ; it is best to think of all this no more ; the wound is yet bleed- ing, and it is useless to make it deeper still. MI >§ Five Years of My Life »nd hope we are, and that our strenuous J^na.ion„HHHu„phoveranobs^.: -e|d.ed men who have conunitted this t cruelv' r*,! "' '°"« '*'" °"« ^-ff''^ so °^elly . ■«. like those that went before, it will J™«r7''«°"'ope,„dtheechoofru; boundless affection "It is tedious and mournful to wait • but cou^tonus. Your patience wiilnoT^et "Parh I read and re-read the sole letter from JliSrT^"""^"^"'''-'-'^" bnef, but lam only too happy to have thZ 3oa Five Years of My Life door, inadequate echo of your beloved self. I doubt not that you often try to chat with me, painful as it may be to you to write, beins able to say nothing, and refraining from pour! ■ngout your heart for fear of doing me harm. Why do they not give me the letters, which are my only consolation ? Why do •hey render yet more painful the situation of wo beings already so miserable? Our l.«e Pierre and Jeanne are always good and well-behaved children, kind-hearted, and amiable towards every one. They are both looking well and growing daily taller and stronger. What pleasure it will be for you when at last we shall have made the truth' known^ to hold in your arms these dear little beings whom you loved so much, for whom you are sulfering, and who, by their affection, wdl make your life happy and sweet." "^ "Paris, ** November 25, 1895 ; fnidmght. "I have to send my letters to-morrow n^ornmg, in order that they may catch ih^ aoj Ir. #■ i ^i^Hi Five Ycarg of My Life steamer of December 9, and i„ spifc of the hte hour of the night, I cannot help com munmg ^,, ,„„ „„^ ,^^ ^^ . P^ J_ commonplace and cold, which are so far from corresponding with my thoughts, my tenderness, and my affection. 1 ^^Z ^r«swhatIfeelforyou,thes.ntimen too deep for me to describe ; but it seems .0 ae that I am now only a part of myself-my »ul, my heart are far away in those islands! near you, my well-beloved husband. Ho„ ^hour m- thoughts are with you ; it is to nie a com.. : and a solace. " Ldcie." COmiNDATION OP MY DIARY. Januan 8, 1896. Days and nights pass by, depressingly monotonous; they seem to stretch out i„,o >nfin.te length. By day I await with im- pahence the coming of the night, hoping ,0 find some re.t m sleep. By night I Lt, ao4 Five Years of My Life with impatience no whit lessened, for the day, hoping to calm my nerves with a little exercise. As I read over and over again the letters brought by the last mail, I realise what a terrible shock to my dear ones my death wonld be, and that, whatever may happen, it IS my duty to fight on to my last breatli. yanuary 12, 1891. The reply of the President of the Republic to the petition I addressed to him on October 5, 1895 : " Rejected without commentary." January 24, 1866. I have nothing to add ; all hours are tfce same in the anguish of depressing suspense, waiting for a better morrow. January 27, 1896. At last, after long months, I have received a good parcel of books. aos Five Years of My Life By forcing my thoughts to fix themselves on the pages, I succeed in giving my brain a few moments of rest ; but alas I I can no longer read for any length of time, I am so utterly broken down. * February 2, 1896. The mail from Cayenne has arrived. There are no letters for me. February 12, 1896. I have only just received my letters. There is still no good news, and I must struggle on and wait. . . , A few extracts from my wife's letters received on this date : " Paris, " December g^ 1895. "As always, your letters, awaited with such keen anxiety, have caused me deep emotion ; a ray of happiness, the only moments of relaxation and joy which I have known during these months of weary 206 Five Years of My Life and depressing days. Whe.i I read youi words, breathing so much energy and determination, I feel that all your being thrills with mine ; your strong will inspires me with a strength which seems doubled by the force of your example. . , ." "Parh, D$c$mber ig, 1896. "Last year, at this time, we hoped to have nearly reached the end of our Calvary. We had placed all our confience in justice. Then the abominable blunder of the court- martial stupefied us. An entire year of suffering has since elapsed, suffering intensi- fied by the unmerited cruelty of the wound mflicted on us and by the misery of the fate to which you are physically and morally condemned. ..." "Pa«I8, '*Dtember25, 1895. " I cannot refrain from coming, before the mail leaves, to talk to you again. It is always the same things I say over and over «>7 i-r Five Years of My Life again ; but what does it matter 1 I speak to you, I come near to you lor a moment, and it docs me good. . . . " I have scarcely written of the chUdren, and yet it is they who bind us to life ; it is for these poor little ones we endure this intolerable situation, and, thank God, they have no knowledge of it. For them all is joy ; they sing and laugh and chatter, and lend life to the house. . . . "Lucie." CONTINUATION OP MY DIARY. February 28, 1896. Nothing new to read. Days, nights, are all alike. I never open my mouth, I no longer ask for anything. My speech was limited to asking if my letters had come or not But 1 am now forbidden to ask even that; or (which is the same thing) the warders are forbidden to answer the most commonplace questions. S08 Five Years of My Life I only wid, to live until the day of the discovery of the truth, that I may cry aloud my grief and the torments they inflict on me. March 3, six o'clock ; evening. The mail from Cayenne came this morn '""^ at nine o'clock. Have I any letters ? No letters. Alas I alas I March 4, 1896. March 8, 1896. Gloomy days. Everything is forbidden me ; I am always alone with my thoughts. March 9, 1896. This morning, very early, I saw arriving the launch of the Commandant of the Prison. Was there at last something for me ? No; there was nothing. Only an inspec tion of my hut. ao9 o \l \\ -, i ii. Five Years of My Life I no longer live except by a supreme tension of the nerves, while anxiously av/aiting the end of these unspeakable torments. March i2, 1896. I have at last received my letters. They still contain nothing as to the discovery of the truth. Extracts from my wife's letters received at this date : " Paris, "January i, 1896. "This ist of January is to me longer and more painful than the preceding days. Why? I ask myself. The reasons for suffering are the same. So long as your innocence is not recognised, the oppression of our burden is too crushing for us to take any part in the life around us, or to make any diflFerence between the days, whatever they may be. And yet to-day we seem to labour under a more poignantly sad im- 3ZO Five Years of My Lift pression than even before. No doubt this those who love each other tenderly, are days of greater happiness, while we, who are so wretched, so cruelly wounded S more keenly yet the desire of ^^ ^r ogeu,.,, of affectionately sustai'J «ach other with all our strength." 'yawry 7, ,896. I have just received your letters. As "-er, they stir me to the depths of mysou^ My emotion is intense When 1 catch sUTS your beloved writing, when I enter into your thoughts "^ "Your letters show the same undaunted en«^.bu., fee. your impatience in e^ l.ne and I understand it. How could it Z rireHh r' '^ ""'^'■■^' "-■"« '° un^vel the mfamy which has made and is making us so unhappy, ,or„ from yo„ I! It SII Five Years of My Life supremely happy home — the situation is certainly the most tragic ihp': could exist. " Lucie." To the last letter of the month were joined the following lines from my brother : "My Dear Brother, " Yes ; as you say in your letter of November 20, all the forces of my being are directed towards a single aim — the discovery of the truth — and we shall succeed in the task. '* I can only repeat the same words until the day when I shall be able to say to you : 'The truth is known at last' But you must live until that day ; you must summon to your aid the strength to hold out against moral and physical torture; such a task is not above your courage. . . . " Mathieu." •It Five Years of My Life CONTINUATION OP MY DIARY. March 15, 1896, 4 o'clock A.II. Impossible to sleep. My head is horribly fatigued by the absence of physical and in- tellectual activity. The parcels of books which Lucie announced to me in her last three letters have not yet reached me. More- over, my brain, is .so tired and agitated that it is impossible for me to read for any length of time. However, the few instants in which I can escape from my thoughts bring a slight alleviation. March 27, 1896. I have just now received the books which were sent on November 25, 1895. Apnl 5, 1896. The mail of the month of February has just come. The guilty person has not yet been unmasked. Whatever my sufferings may be, light will ai3 m* Five Years of My Life come at last, lamentation. A truce then to fruitless Extracts from my wife's letters received April 5 : -Parib, ** February u, 1896. " I have not yet received your letters of the ; month of December. I will not complain of the agony which this delay makes me en- dure It IS useless ; no one can understand how keen are my sufferings caused by this anxiety; there is nothing more atrocious tiian to be deprived of the news of one whom I know to be most unhappy, and whose life is a hundred times dearer to me than my own. . . . " Often, in ray calmer hours, I ask myself why we are so tried, for what reason we are forced to endure torments compared with which death would be sweet . . ." "Paris, ''February 18, 1896. " I am still without news from you. Yet I know that the letters you have written me 314 JSS Five Years of My Life have been at the Ministry for more than three weeks. I am very impatient to have them and to receive at last my month's consolation. Each delay of the post causes me great anxiety. ..." " Paris, "February 9^ lSg6. "At the very instant when I am closingmy last letter for the next mail, they bring me your letters. Thanks, with all my heart, for your admirable firmness and for the reassur- ing words that you have written to me. "Lucie." CONTINUATION OF MY DIARY. ^^y 5» 1896. I have nothing more to say. All is alike in Its atrociousness. What a horrible life 1 Not a moment of rest by day or night. Up to these last days the warders remained during the night in their room, and I was awakened only every hour. Now they have to march ai5 s a" Five Years of My Life about unceasingly; most of them weai wooden shoes ! Here my diary was suspended for more than two months. The days were equally sad and anxious as they crawled along, but I maintained the firm resolution to struggle on and not to allow myself to be beaten down by the tortures inflicted on me. More- over, in June I had serious attacks of fever which even caused congestion of the brain. Here arc a few extracts from my wife's letters received in May and June, 1896. "Paris, ** February 29, 1896. " When I received your December letters, mine were all ready to go; the few J'nes I was able to add could not express sufficiently the happiness and uplifting that your letters created in me. Your words of affection moved me deeply. When one is very un- ai6 Five Years of My Life happy, the heart broken, and the soul sad, nothing is sweeter than to feel in the midst of all sorrows a true affection, an intense devotion, whose vital force and strong will imbue one with moral courage to meet disaster with a bold and determined front . . . "PARI8, ** March 30, 1896. " You cr .1 imagine the anxiety I feel when I see the second fortnight of the month coming; it means for me the departure of the mail. So long as this moment is r ot near, I hope up to the last minute to be able to tell you of the end of your suffering and of our own sorrow. And then my letters go ; they are always devoid of news, and I am heart-broken at the thought of the disap- pointment you will feel. . . ." " Paris, ** April I, 1896. " I was very sad when the last mail left ; up to the last moment I had hoped that 1 217 i \ ''■\ ! [ I I m Five Years of My Life might send you some comforting word But, courage ! I ask it of you with all the strength and all the supplications of the woman who adores you ; in the name of your beloved children, who love you ah-eady witli all their little hearts, and who will feel mfinite gratitude towards you when they shall understand the greatness of the sacrifice you have made for them. As for me, I cannot express my admiration for you. With what tenderness my thoughts accompany you night and day. Your sorrow and grief, and all the feelings which torment you find an echo in my heart. Nothing can console me for not being able to be with you, near at hand to help you. In this frightful mis- fortune, it would have been a great solace to me to be able to be with you and to make you feel every instant that a loving and devoted soul was watching beside you, always ready to bear your troubles, and to' receive the outpourings of your grief and pain. Well, this affection which I so much wished to give you in the midst of your ai8 Five Years of My Life sorrows is increased yet more, if that is possible, by the anguish inflicted on me because of the distance which separates us, the absence of news from you, the sadness and the isolation of the life to which you are condemned. I must give up describing to you all these impressions of mine ; they arc too melancholy for you to read, too intense and too deep to confide to this cold and commonplace sheet of paper. "Lucie." CONTINUATION OP MY DIARY. fuly 26, 1896. It is very long since I have added any- thing to my diary. My thoughts, my feelings, my sadness are the same; but while my weakness of body and brain grows more pronounced daily, my will remains as strong as ever. This month I have received no letters from my wife. 319 Five Years of My Life Ai^usl 2, 1896. At last the mails of May and June have "nved There is never any of ,he news I •eek. It matters nothing; I shall strueele agamst my body, against my brain, agat, my heart, «, long as a shadow of strength is left me. Unli! they have put me under the ground, 1 mu»t see the end of thfe dark tragedy. I hope, for the sake of all of us, that that end may not be long delayed. Extracts from my wife's letters, received August 2, 1896 ; "Paris, **JUfU I, 1896. "I write you, still troubled by your dear kind letters, which I have just received At the first moments of seeing your beloved handwritmg, when I read the lines which bring me your thoughts-the only news I have for a long month-I am mad with grief, my poor head comprehends nothin^^ 220 Five Yeara of My Life more, and I weep hot fears. Then I summon all my firmness, and I am mortified at having allowed myself to be cast down, and ashamed of my weakness. From your firmness and energy, and from my own strong affection I draw now fresh store, of courage. Nevertheless, these letters of yours do me a world of good; and if emotion crushes me, I yet have the happi- ness of reading your words and the illusion of iBtemng for a few moments to your dear voice. ..." ' ■Paus, "I add a few lines to my lettei, before the mail leaves, to tell you that I am strong, «^t my purpo« shall never be shaken, that I shall succeed in having your honour vindi- "led ; and I beseech you ,0 have with me "^finn hope in the future, this faith which makes us accept the most cruel fate, in order that we may bequeath to our children a stainless and respected name "Lucie." 331 It t fe Five Years of My Life I;'"' ¥jii CONTINDATtOM OF MY DtAKY. August 30, 1896. Again the period which so irritate, my nerves; when I am waiting for the m^l . -■7'-''n.yse.rwhatda?it^?eom; have had I F.rst, the lefter which I wrote h« a. the beginning o„uiy,i„ .he mid"! the fever I had for ten days, and When I was not receiving any news from home. « was ^oub,«^,cou,d not contain myself, ana •a I again wrote to her my distress and r.J».fshe did not alreadysutrer enough, To^M .•"'""" '° ""«' "» end of this homWe tragedy were not as great as m nl My poor, dear Lucie 1 her ;?fe.daym"s^ have passed very sorrowfully. , .ho^J" ^impossible to endure greater su,rfri„; yet ttat day was worse than the others. I I had not restrained myself with fierce will, Five Years of My Life checking my heart, ™pr«,i„g ^^ be.na, rf.o„,d have shrieked wi.h'p.ri acute and violent was my grief Through space, dearest Lucie, I send you ::«? mrrtndir '*~^."-'^" ^w^UesaL-JdSfa^^tlr courage and again courage I un!l!lt" "• T"" °' "" ""J'''* '" view-the un^ng o, a.e whole truth, the complete ^ffermgs, nameless tortures, all else mus d'»ppear, all else must be obliterated! September, i, 1896. Day horribly long, p^s^ ;„ sskmg also what news they bring me. I am petrified, as it were in m. . obliffed fn L . ' ^ **"■"*; ' »m thinkll ■""*" *" "y '''«"g«' to ininjc and see no more ness, and loyalty I ' "Pnght- 933 il pi U° Five Years of My Life Wednesday, September 2, 1896, 10 A.M. My nerves have made me suffer horribly all night ; I should have liked to quiet them a little this morning by walking, but the rain falls in torrents, a rare thing at this time of year, for this is the dry season. Once more, I have nothing to read. None of all the parcels of books sent me by my dear Lucie since the month of March have reached me. I have nothing to kill the terribly slow time. I asked long ago for some sort of manual labour, no matter what, with which to occupy myself a little ; they have not even answered me. I study the horizon through the grating of my little window, to see if I cannot catch sight of the smoke which announces the coming of the mail-boat from Cayenne. Same day ; noon. On the horizon, in the direction of Cayenne, I discover a wreath of smoke. It must be the mail-boat. i: Five Years of My Life Same day; j p.m. Theboatarrived atoneo'dock in theafter- noon ; I have not had my leHe«,and I think •t did not bring them. What infernal tor- ment I But above all soars immutable the defence of our honour ; that is the aim, never ^ng, no matter what our troubles may Thursday, September 3, six ,/clock km. I have had a homble night of fever and deltnum. ifine o'clock a.u. The lart boat has not brought my letters ! 1 r^* "''y '"veremained inCayenne, where they have been detained since the 28th of last month. ff^doy, S^tember 4, 1896. Yesterday evening I finally received the aad. ami there^ only a single one of the fed that with aU at home there is wild des- »»5 > i Five Years of My Life pair at being unable as yet to inform me of the discovery of the guilty man, the end of our sufferings. In reading the letters from my family, sweat rolled down my forehead, and my limbs trembled under me. * Is it possible that human beings can suffer thus, and so undeservedly ? In such a situation, words have no longer any value : one even suffers no longer, one becomes so dazed. Oh, my poor Lucie I oh my poor little ones I Ah 1 on the day when justice shall be done and the guilty one unmasked, may the burden of all these nameless tortures recoil on those who have persecuted the innocent man and his whole family 1 Saturday, September 5, 1896. I have just written three long letters, suc- cessively, to my dear Lucie, to tell her not to allow herself to be cast down, but to continue her efforts, appealing to every source of help. Five Years of My Life Such a situation as ours, endured for so long becomes too ovcwhelming, too atrocious! It » a question of the honour of our name, of U.e future of our children. In view of Jhat consideration, everything that rebels in our hearts or dethrones our minds, or makes b.ttern«s rise up from the heart to the lips, should be repressed. I no longer speak of my days and nights ; they resemble one another in misery. Sunday, September 6, 1896. I have just been warned that I must no longer walk in the part of the isle which had l>een reserved to me j I can henceforth only walk around my hut. How long shall I stiU hold out ? I cannot knowl I wish this inhuman treatment would soon end, otherwise I can only bequeath my children to France, to that beloved countn, of mme which I have always served de- votedly, loyally, beseeching from the bottom of my soul all those who are at the head of affau^ to have the fullest light shed on this S37 » :, Five Years of My Life shocking enigma. And on that day it will be for them to realise at last what atrocious and undeserved torment human beings sometimes suffer, and to extend to my poor children all the pity which such a misfortune as theirs sg justly deserves. Same day; two o'clock, night. How my head throbs I How sweet death would be to me ! Oh, my dear Lucie 1 my poor children ! all my dear ones ! What have I done on earth to be doomed to suffer thus ? Monday, September 7, 1896. Yesterday evening 1 was put in irons! Why, I know not Since I have been here, I have always strictly followed the line traced out for me, and I have scrupulously observed the orders given me. How is it I did not go mad during the long fearful night ? What wonderful strength 338 ft Five Years of My Life a dear conscience and the feeling of duty to be fulfilled toward one's chUdren gives onci As an innocent man, my imperious duty is to go on to the end of my strength ; so long as they have not kiUed me outright, I wiU ever perform my duty. As to those who thus constitute themselves my executioners, ah ! I leave their own con- sciences to judge them when the truth shall be revealed. Everything in life comes to light sooner or later. Same day. All that I suffer is horrible, yet I no longer feel anger against those who thus torture an innocent man ; I only have a great pity for them. Tuesday, September 8, 1896. These nights in irons I I do not even speak of the physical suflFering, but what moral ignominy I And without any explan- li II H ■ Five Years of Mjr Life ation, without knowing why or for what reason I In what an atrocious nightmare have I been living for nearly two years 1 In any case, my duty is to go to the limit pi my strength; I shall fulfil it to the end. Yet the moral agony thus inflicted on an innocent man surpasses all his mere physical sufferings. And in what deep distress of all my being I send you again my aflfection and my love, my dear Lucie, my darling children I Same day, two o'clock A.M. My brain has been so shocked, so upset by all that has happened to me for nearly two years that I can do no more. Everything foils in me. It is really too much for human shoulders to bear. Why am I not in the tomb ? Oh, everlast- ing rest 1 930 Five Years of My Life Once again, if I do not survive, I bequeath my children to France, to my beloved country. My dear Httle Pierre, my dear Uttle Jeanne, my dear Lucie, all of you, whom I love from the depths of my heart and with all the ardour of my soul, believe me, if these lines reach you, that I have done everything which it is humanly possible to do to stand firm. Wednesday, September 9, 1896. The Commandant of the Islands came yes- terday evening.* He told me that the recent measure which had been taken, in reference to putting me in irons, was not a punishment, but "a measure of precaution," for the prison administration had no complaint to make againt me. Putting in irons a measure of precaution I * The Commandant, who always bore himself correctly, and whose name 1 have never known, was shortly afterwards replaced by Deniel. U^' ■ if' m. Five Years of My Life When I am already guarded like a wild b^t, night and day, by a warder armed with nfle and revolver I No; the truth should be told : that it is a measure of hatred and torture, ordered from Paris by those who, not bemg able to strike a family, strike an mhocent man, because neither he nor his famUy will or should bow their heads, and thus submit to the most frightful judicial error which has ever been made. Who is it that thus constiti'^es himself my executioner and the executioner of my dear ones ? I know not One easily divines that the local adminis- tration (except the chief-warder, who has been specially sent from Paris) feels a horror of such arbitrary and inhuman measures but IS compelled to apply them to me. It has no choice but to carry out the orders which are imposed on it. No; the responsibility for them is of higher source ; it rests entirely with the author or authors of these inhuman orders. In any case, no matter what the suflferings, 33a Five Years of My Life Uie phj^iol and moral tortu™, they may inflict on me, my duty and that of my famUv remams always the same. As I keep thinking of aU this, I no longer tor to become even angry; I have an immense p.ty for those who thus torture human bemgs I What remorse they are pre- W for themselves, when everything shall <»°»e to hght; for history mimasks aU secrets. I am overwhehned with sadness; my heart is so torn, my brain is so shattered, that I can scarcely collect my thoughts; it is indeed the acme of suffering, and still I have this crushing enigma to face. I Thursday, September lo, 1896. I am so worn out, so broken in body and soul, that I am bringing my diary to a close tc-day, not knowing how long my strength will keep up or how soon my brain will give way under the strain of so much misery, US K rii Five Years of My Life I will close it with this last prayer to the President of the Republic, in case I should succumb before seeing the curtain fall on this horrible drama: ^'Monsieur le President, ** I take the liberty of asking you to allow this diary, which has been written day by day, to be sent to my wife. "It may perhaps contain, Monsieur le President, expressions of anger and disgust relative to the most terrible conviction that has ever been pronounced against a human being, and a human being who has never forfeited his honour. I do not feel equal to the task of re-reading, of going over the horrible recital again. •*I now reproach nobody; every one has acted within his faculties, and as his conscience dictated. "I simply declare once more that I am innocent of this abominable crime, and still ask for one thing, the same thing, that search «34 m Five Years of My Life may be made for the true culprit, the author of this abominable deed. "And on the day when the Ught breaks, I beg that my dear wife and my dear children may receive all the pity that such a great misfortune should inspire." WD OP MY DIARY. ns If 'i _ i ft VIII The days pasaed thus, sadly and gloomily, during the first period of my captivity on the lies du Salut. Every three months I received some books, which were forwarded to me by my wife, but I had no physical occupation ; the nights especially, which in this climate are ahnost always twelve houis long, were abominably dreary. During the month of m i895» I made a request to be allowed to purchase some carpenter's tools; the head warder categorically refused me permission to do so, under the pretext that the tools might constitute a means of escape I wonder how I could have escaped from a barren island where I was closely watched night and day I In the autumn of 1896, the ateady severe a36 Five Years of My Life routine to which I was subjected became more rigorous still. On September 4, 1896, the prison adminis- tration received instructions from M. Andr6 Lebon, the Colonial Minister, to keep me ocked-up in my hut night and day until further orders, and to be locked and bolted in at night He was to put up a solid palisade round the outer edge of my «^c«e yard and to post a sentinel in it, in addition to the warders who were watching my hut. In addition to tiiis, my letters and any parcels that might be addressed to me ^ to be intercepted ; and henceforth only a copy of my correspondence was to forwarded. In conformity with these instructions, I was locked up in my hut night and day, without even a moment's exercise. This absolute confinement lasted the whole of the time they were bringing the wood and putting up the palisade, that is to say, about two months and a half. The heat of this year was particularly tropical ; it was so •37 Five Years of My Life great in the hut that the warders on duty made complaint after complaint, declaring that they felt their heads bursting ; in answer to their appeals, they were allowed to water the inside of the adjoining lobby in which they sat every day. As for myself, I was literally melting. Dating from September 6, 1 was put under double lock at night, and this punishment, which lasted nearly two months, consisted of the following measures : two bars of iron, in the shape of U (AA), were fixed by their lower extremities to the sides of my bed. Into these irons another iron bar (B) was fastened, to which two rings (CC) were attached. At the extreme end of this bar, on one side was a solid terminal (D) and on the other a padlock (E), arranged in in such a way that the bar was fixed to the irons AA, and consequently to the bed. Of course, when my feet were fixed in the two rings, there was no possibility of my moving; I was invariably fastened down to my bed! The torture was horrible, especially on these 838 I^nt \ ^M«4t» 4 fr. •I it rf r r r* - d' ■ Five Years of My Life sultry nights. Very soon these rings, tightly The hut was surrounded by a palisade, about seven feet high and about five teet » distant from the hut This palisade was much higher than the littie barred windows of the hut, which were not quite four feet above the ground, consequently I had neither light nor air in the interior of the hut. Beyond this first palisade, which was completely closed, and which was a palisade of defence, a second palisade was built, also completely closed and of the same height and which, like the first one, hid everything outside it from my sight. After about three months of the strictest confinement, I received permission to walk between these two imlisades, which thus formed a narrow walk, during the day, under a burning sun, with no trace of shade, and always accom- panied by a warder. Up t^i September 4, 1896, I had occi*. pied m, iMit only during the night and mi 440 I •im Five Years of My Life the hottest hours of the day. In addition to the time I spent in walking about the portion of the island reserved to me, I used often to sit in the shadow of the hut, opposite tiie sea ; and if my thoughts were «5ad and anxious, or if I happened to be ill with fever, as was often the case, I at any rate had the consolation, in my extreme misery, of looking at the sea, of gazing at the waves, and, on stormy days, of feeling my soul rise in sympathy with the angry billows. But with September 4 this came to an end ; the sight of the sea was forbidden me ; I stifled in my hut, where there was neither air nor light. The only alternative was the exercise walk between the two palisades during the day, under the blazing sun, with no shade at all. During the month oi June 1896, I had had several severe attacks of fever, foUowed by congestion of the brain. During one of these terrible nights of wretchedness and fever, I tried to rise ; I feU like a log on the floor of the hut and lay there in a swoon. 343 Five Years of My Life The warder on duty picked me up ^. conscous and covered with blood. D„n^c "Si.^r;rve'"^'-r- --.™,andrur„:zrort^: 4th of September came into force Z, t -^e this an additional trial. rlZ^^, "ade me think that the end had^^ however strong may be the will and eH; and I had now reached the end of «i„r£ dosed my dianr. with the object Of seLn^ '* '° "f '^^ B«'des. a few days after -rds,aU my papers were seized; Xr Jl" ' ™- only aUowed a limited quanti *" r^'aT^r^'tT^'^-''''''*^^- waH^Lt'^turi^ui^r''"" more. " "•="»« »ny But during one of these long nights of agony, ,«ed to my bed and wit'h slC/^ from my eyes, I sought my guiding staj the «-PT.ng hght of my moments of'supri «43 Five Years of My Life resolution. Suddenly I saw it gleam out brilliantly before me, dictating my duty: "Now less than ever have you a right to desert your post, less than ever have you the right to shorten by a single day your sad and wi^tched life. Whatever punishments they inflict on you, you must keep on, as long as your life shall last; you must stand erect before your murderers, as long as you have a shadow of strength, a living wreck, keeping yourself before their eyes, through the in- domitable energy of your soul." From that moment I made up my mind to struggle on more earnestly than ever. During the period immediately succeeding this, from September 1896, to August 1897, the watch kept over me became daily more rigorous. At first the number of warders, exclusive of the head warder, had been five ; this was raised to six and afterwards to ten warders, in the course of the year 1897. Later it was augmented still more. Until 1896, 1 received, every three months, books sent by my wife. M4 Five Years of My Life Dating from September 1896, these parcek were intercepted. I was informed, it is true, that I could order twenty books every three months, which would be bought at my own expense ; I sent in a first application, which was not complied with until several months later ; a second was still longer in reaching me ; then a third, which was never attended to at all. After this I had to subsist upon the stock I already had. This stock consisted of, besides a certain number of scientific and literary reviews, a few books of current literature ; "Studies in Ck)ntemporary History" by Scherer, Lanson's "History of Uterature," some of Bakac's works, the "M6moires" of Barras, the "Lesser Criticism" of Janin, a history of painting, the "History of the Francs," Augustin Thierry's "Account of the Mero- vingian Times," volumes VII. and VIII. of Lavisse and Rambaud's "General History, from the Fourth Century to the Pfesent Day," Montaigne's "Essays," and, above all, Shakespeare's works. I never understood 845 i- . f . Five Years of My Life this great writer so well as during thi« * • period ; I read hm, ^ *' ^S*^ science again and no* k *^^ "P boo*. i^o"irj:rK ""^^ thee which usually abl^r^r*^'^"" gnawed them, and JaiH ♦h.- . "' v-.r«, • "'®"" «ggs in them. Water had been scarce for fh. -.. . formed a Chain ,erosr;r'/l*%r J ;*' when the chain was complete L ^ '-one Side .o the oC::^;^^-^ «40 Five Years of My Life The most Uresome msec «as ft. .pider. crab, and ,„ j.^, ^ »p.der Altogether i, i, about as large ° - man's hand. I kUIed many of them ,„ „„ aperture between the roof and the walls. In a few words, after the crushing events pure and loftyabove all things. In October I wrote to my wife: •iLBi DO SUOT, "I have not yet received my lettera for August Nevertheless I want to send you a few words to assure you of my intense affection. "I wrote to you last month and opened my heart to you, telling you all my thoughts. 347 Ill I Five Years of My Life I have nothing to add now. I hope they will give you the assistance you have the right to demand. I only wish for one thing ; and that is that I may soon learn that light has been thrown upon this horrible business. And I want to tell you, too, that you must not let the intense' poignancy of our sufferings corrupt our hearts. Our name, we ourselves, must come out of this horrible affiur in the ■ame state in which we entered it " But in the face of such misery, our courage must increase^ not to recriminate or to complain, but to demand, to throw light upon this terrible drama, to search out those whose victims we are. "If I ^«rrite to you often and at such length, it is because there is one thing that I want to express better than I do; and that Is, supported by our consciences, we must rise superior to all, never flinching, never complaining, like people of spirit suffering martyrdom and may be sinking under it ; we must simply do our duty, and that duty Is, as far as I am concerned, to bear up as Five Years of My Life long as I can ; for you, for all of you, to try to throw light on this miserable affair, by appealing to all quarters for help, for I verily doubt whether human beings have ever suffered more deeply than we have." ''thn ou Salot, " I have just this moment received your dear kind letter of August, as well as those of the family, and I write to you under the profound influence, not only of the suffer- ings that we are all enduring, but of that of the misery of which I told you in my letter of July 6. " Ah I dear Lucie, how weak is human nature, how cowardly and selfish it some- times is ! As I think I told you, I was at that time suffering from a fever which con- sumed me, body and brain— and my spirit is so broken, my torments so great. And then, in the profound misery of all my being, when I longed so intensely for a friendly hand, a sympathetic face, when I was deli- a49 ^V'- iiij - r I 1 Five Years of My Life riouf with fever and grief at receiving no letter from you, I felt I must pour out my woes, which I could not give vent to else- where. ** I have gained control over myself now ; I am once more what I was, and I will remain so until my last breath. " As I told you in my letter of the day before yesterday, we must, sustained by our consciences, rise superior to all, but with the firm resolve to prove my innocence before the whole of France. " Our nathe must issue from this horrible affair as pure as it was when it was crushed by it; our children must enter upon life with their heads erect and proud. " As to any advice which I can give you, anything which I may have mentioned in my last letters, you must, of course, under- stand that any counsel I may oflFer is merely what is dictated by my heart. You yourself all of you, are in a better position, and better advised, better able to judge what is best to be done. «5o Five Years of My Life " I unite with you in hoping that this dreadful business will soon be cleared up that the sufferings of all of us will soon be' over. Whatever happens, we must go on hoping ; hope will lessen our agony, over- come our misery, and help us to restore a stainless and respected name to our children. "Alfred." The letter from my wife which I received on October 5, 1896, was one dated August 13, the only one of all the letters written to me by her during this month which reached me. I quote this simple passage from it : ^ ^AHuti 13, X896. " I have just received your letter of July 6, and my eyes are still swollen with tears as I write. My poor, poor dear husband, what a Calvary is yours, to what a martyrdom you are submitting. It is so awful, so overwhelm- asx Five Years of My Life ing, that the mere thought of it drives me mad. "Lucie." In November I did not receive a single letter from my wife written by her in Sep- tember ; these never reached me. In December I received, out of all the letters written me by my wife in October, a single one, from which the following is an extract : "Farm, '^October lo^ 1896. " I am awaiting letters from you with the keenest anxiety. Only think 1 I have had no news from you since August 9, that is to say, for two months and a half very nearly. They are long anxious weeks that pass between the posts, and each day's delay brings me fresh suffering. "Lucie." On January 4, 1897, I wrote to my wife : ' ! Five Years of My Life "fx.Bs ou Salot, ** January^ 1897. "I have just received your letters of November, together with those of the family. The profound emotion which they caused me is always the same : indescribable. "Like you, my dear Lucie, my thoughts are always with you, with our beloved chil- dren, and with you all ; and when my heart is overwhelmed, when its strength is ex- hausted with striving against this martyrdom, which crushes it like grain between the mill- stones, which tears the most noble, the purest, the most elevated sentiments out of it, and snaps all the springs of the soul, I always repeat the same words to myself : 'However dire your agony may be, still struggle on that you may die happy, knowing that yoii leave your children an honoured and respected name.' " My heart, as you know, has not changed. It is that of a soldier, indifferent to all physi- cal sufferings, setting honour before, above 353 m ;^ '! Five Years of My Life all, who has lived through and resisted this overpowering, incredible calamity ; it is the heart of a Frenchman, of a man who only lives because he is a father, and because he has made up his mind that honour shall be restored to the name borne by his children. " I have written to you at length, ah-eady; I have tried to sum up lucidly, to explain why I had such perfect confidence and faith in you all ; for, believe me, you may have absolute faith in the appeal I have made in the name of our children ; I have made of it a duty which right-minded men will never neglect ; besides, I know too well the senti- ments which animate you all ever to think that any of you will relax your eflForts so long as the truth has not been elicited. "Therefore, let all your hearts and energies converge towards the one great object, and strive until it has been attained : the discovery of the author or authors of this villainous crime. But alas I although, as I have just said, my confidence is abso- lute, the energy of heart and brain have 254 Five Years of My Life their limits, especially under such grievous conditions and borne so long. I know also that you are suffering, and that is awful. "Besides, it is not in your power to shorten my (our) martyrdom. The Govern- ment alone possesses means of investigation powerful enough, decisive enough, to do so, and will use them, unless it wishes that a Frenchman who asks nothing from his country but to have justice, light, and truth brought to bear on this sad drama, who asks nothing from life but to see the honour of his name restored to his dear little ones, should succumb to a situation so over- whelming, under the odium of a crime that he has never committed. " So that I hope that the Government will lend you its aid. I can only repeat with all the strength of my soul that, no matter what hap- pens to me, you must always be courageous and strong ; and that I embrace you with all my heart and all my strength, and that I love you and our dearly-beloved children. "Alfred." «55 ihi- , ii Five Years of My Life I extract the following passages from the letters I received from my wife at this date: "Parib, **Novtmber la, 1896. " I have just received your dear letters of October 3 and 5. I am still quite moved and happy from the sweet emotion caused by your words. I entreat you, my dearly- beloved husband, not to think of my grief ; I can bear my suflferings. As I have already told you, my own personality takes a secondary place, and I should be broken- hearted to think that, by my complaints, I was adding one sorrow more to your burden. Do not think of me ; you need all your strength, all your courage, to bear up agamst this moral contest, stem and hard as it is ; that you may not be depressed by physical fatigue, the climate, by the priva- tions of all kinds that are imposed upon you." •0 Five Years of My Life '*Novtmber24, 1896. " I should like to be able to chat with you every day. ... But what is the good of constantly repeating the same things ? I know quite well that my letters resemble each other, that the same idea pervades them all, the one idea that dominates all of us, that on which our lives, those of our children, and the whole family depend. Like yourself, I can think of but one thing —your rehabilitation ; I pursue but one aim, that of restoring your honour. Beyond this fixed idea, which continually haunts me, nothing interests me, nothing touches me. . . . "Lucie." Then in February : ** Paris, ** December i^ iSgd. " I was in hopes of receiving this month again a few kind letters from you ; I took 857 R m f !i l! (I < Five Years of My Life pleasure in thinking of our good talk together, but I have received nothing; so I have taken up your letters of the month of October and read and re-read them." ^Dtetmber^St 1896. "Once again I am going to send off my letters to you, with bitter chagrin to be unable to give you the news you desire and which we all await anxiously. I know this prolongation of your sufferings will be for you a new disappointment; that is why I am doubly distressed. . . . Poor friend! I suffer frightful anguish, and my heart is torn at the thought of your distress, which all our exer- tions, so far, have not been able to shorten. "Lucie." In the month of March 1897, they made me wait until the 28th of the month before delivering my wife's letters of the month of January. For the first time, the copies only of her letters were handed to me. How far 358 Five Years of My Life did this reproduction, written out by an unknown hand, represent the original? It is a question which I cannot answer.* I felt keenly this new outrage, coming after so many others; it wounded me to the depths of my soul, but nothing could weaken my will. I wrote to my wife : "Ilbs du Salut, "March aS, 1897. "After a long and anxious waiting, I have just received a copy of two letters from you, written in January. You complain that I do not write you more at length. I wrote you * Since I wrote these lines, I have applied to the Ministry of the Colonies for the originals of my wife's letters, both those which never reached me, and those which I received only in copy, and also all my own writings during my stay in the fie du Diable, of which each sheet of paper, numbered and signed, page by page, was taken away as soon as finished, before a fresh supply of paper was given me. All that was written by me at the lie du Diable has been found and returned. But of the numerous 9$9 ■'II .1 V III Five Years of My Life numerous letters towards the end of January, perhaps by this time they have reached you. "And then, the sentiments that are in our hearts, and that rule our souls, we know them. Moreover, we have, both of us, drained the cup of all suflFering. "You ask me again, dear Lucie, to speak to you at length about my own self. Alas! I cannot. When one 8u£Fers so atrociously, when one has to bear such misery of soul, it is impossible to know at night where one will be on the morrow. "You will forgive me if I have not always been a stoic; if often I have made you share my bitter grief, you who had already so much to bear. But sometimes it was too much ; and I was absolutely alone. " But to-day, darling, as yesterday, let us avoid all complaints, all recriminations. Life is nothing! You must triumph over all letters of my wife, which did not reach me, or reached me only in copies, only four have been given back, all the others having been destroyed by the order of U. Ldl>on, then Minister of the Colonies. 360 Five Years of My Life griefs, whatever they may be ; over all suffer- ings, like a pure, exalted human soul that hag a sacred duty to fulfil. "Be invincibly strong and valiant j keep your eyes fixed straight before you, looking to the end— looking neither to the right noi to the left. "Ah 1 I know weU that you too are only a human being but when grief becomes too great, when the trials that the future has m store for you are too hard to bear, then iook into the faces of our children, and say to yourself that you must live, that you must be there to sustain them, until the day when our country shall recognise what I have been what I am. . . . ' " But what I wish to repeat to you with all the force of my soul, with a voice that you should always hear, is 'Courage, courage I' Your patience, your resolution, that of aU of us, should never tire until the truth, full and absolute, shall have been revealed and recog- nised. " I cannot fill my letters full enough of all 36z St Si ill liiil'l L,':i'|i! Five Years of My Life the love that my heart contains for you, foi you all. " If I have been able to resist until now so much agony of soul, so much mental misery and trial, it is because I have drawn strength from the tlioughtof you and of the children. » "Alfred." Of the two letters from my wife, copied by some derk and received only on the 28th of March, I give the following passage : **3faiMuuy I, 2897. "To-day, more particularly still, I need to come and draw near to you and to talk to you of our sorrows as well as of our hopes. This day is all the sadder that ii recalls to me happy remembrances now so far away ; I wish to pass it enth-ely in talking to you; it will seem to me less long and less bitter. I will not express again wishes repeated so often. I pray with all my strength for that long-delayed moment when we shall at lai't 363 Five Years of My Life be able to Uve in peace, when I can give back to you an honoured name and fold you in my arms. ... Let us hope this new year will bring us the realisation of our hopes. . . "In this continual suspense in which I live, your letters are my only relief. They are something of yourself, a fragment of your thoughts, which comes to seek me and con- sole me during a long month. . . . ''LUCIB." I was not able, from the few copied letters I received, to comprehend the events passing at this time in France; I recall them briefly : Articles in the £clair, September 15, 1896, disclosing the communication in Court, but only to the Judges, of a secret document. The courageous initiative of Bernard Lazare who, in November 1896, published his pamphlet "A Judicial Error." Publication by the Matin, November 10, 1896, of the facsimile of the Bordereau. 363 MIOMCOPY RMOUinON TBT OMIT (ANSI and ISO TEST CHAUT No. 2) 1.1 Iti \2S \32 IM UP 1-25 Hu HI.6 J& -d ^^PPLED IM/GE inc ieS3 Eotl Main StrMt Rochnlw. N«w Yof* 14609 (716) 482 - 0300 - PhonT^ (716) 2M-S8M-Fa« USA lit m Five Years of My Life The Castelin interpellation, November 18, in the Chamber of Deputies. I learned of these events only on my return, in 1899. Neither my wife nor any one outside of the Ministry of War then knew of the dis- covery of the real traitor, by Lieutenant- Colonel Picquart, nor of the heroic conduct of this admirable officer, and the criminal manoeuvres which prevented him from bringing to an issue his work on behalf of truth and justice. The original letters now begin. In April, I received but one letter from my wife, that of February 20, of which the following is an extract. I learned from it that she received only copies of my letters to her. " Paris, ''February 20, 1897. " I have had the joy of receiving a kind, new letter from you ; I am still happy be- cause of it, although it is but a copy of your original. It was always a great satisfaction 264 Five Years of My Life for me to see your handwriting ; it seemed to me in that way I had something of you. A copy takes from a letter all semblance of privacy, and deprives one of that im- pression which only the physical and quite personal handiwork accompanying thought can give. The lack of this impression is one of the most painful things to me among all the minor annoyances I have to endure. . . . " Lucie." In May I wrote to my wife : **1les du Salut, ''May 4, 1897. "I have just received your letters of March, with those of the family, and it is always with the same poignant emotion, with the same sorrow, that I read your words, the letters from you all, so deeply wounded are all our hearts, so torn by all our sufferings. " I have already written to you, some days ago, when I was waiting for your dear 265 t^.' Five Years of My Life letters, and I told you that I did not wish to know or to understand why I had been thus crushed by every species of torture. " But if, in the strength of my conscience, in the consciousness of my duty, I have been enabled to raise myself above every- thing, ever and always to stifle my heart, to choke down every revolt of my being, it does not follow that my heart has not deeply suffered, that it is not, alas 1 torn to shreds. But I told you, too, that never has the temptation to yield to discouragement entered my soul, nor should it ever again enter into yours, nor into the soul of any one of you. Yes; it is atrocious to suffer thus; yes, all this is appalling, and it is enough to shake every belief in all that makes life noble and beautiful ... but to- day there can be no consolation for any one of us other than the discovery of the truth, the full light. "Whatever, then, may be your pain, how- ever bitter the grief of every one of you, say to yourselves that you have a sacred duty to 266 Five Years of My Life accomplish, and that nothing must turn you from it ; and this duty is to re-establish a name in all its integrity in the eyes of all France. "Now, to tell you all that my heart con- tains for you, for our children, for you all, is unnecessary, isn't it ? " In happiness, we do not begin to per- ceive all the depth, all the powerful tender- ness that the recesses of the heart hold for the beloved. We need misfortune, the sense of the sufferings endured by those foi whom we would give our last drop of blood, to understand its force, to grasp its tremen- dous power. If you knew how often, in the moments of my anguish, I have called to my assistance the thought of you, of our children, to force me to live on, to accept what I should never have accepted but for the thought of duty. "And this always brings me back to it, my darling ; do your duty heroically, in- vincibly, as a human soul, exalted and very proud ; as a mother who is determined that «67 il i m. 1 li Five Years of My Life the name she bears, the name her children bear, shall be cleansed of this horrible stain. " Say to yourself, then, as to every one, always and again, ' Courage, courage 1 ' " Alfred." A few extracts from my wife's letters received at this time : •* Paris, "AfarcA 5, 1897. " Before having a talk with you, I wished to await the arrival of the mail ; but I can- not restrain my impatience ; I am unable to impose such a sacrifice on myself, for so long a time ; I need to relax myself by coming to you to warm my heart at yours, and to forget for a moment the maddening thought of this interminable separation. At least, when writing to you, I have a few moments of illusion ; my pen, my imagination, and the tension of my will bring me near to you, by your side, where I wish to be, comfort- ing, consoling, and reassuring you in regard to the future, and bringing you all the un- 268 Five Years of My Life quenchable hope that fills my heart; and that I long to infuse into yours. "It is only a fugitive instant, but it gives me the happiness of being close to you, and I feel that I live again. . . . ** Lucie," "Paris, "March i6, 1897. " I had come for a talk with you a few days ago, when full of anxiety and waiting for news ; I now have the dear letters I so ardently desired. Ever since, I have been drinking in your words, never weary of re-reading them. " As was the case last month, I am de- prived of the happiness of seeing your hand- writing ; only a copy is given me. You can imagine how my heart bleeds at the loss of the only comfort which, until the summer, had not been denied me. What a path of bitterness and grief we have to tread 1 These are only trifles to be passed over in silence, if we compare them to the greatness of our 369 Five Years of My Life task ; but for sensitive natures all wounds are painful. " If it must be so, let us think no more of it ; and as we are called upon to fulfil a sacred duty for our name's sake and for that of our children, let us rise to the height of our mission, not stoop tc notice these lesser miseries. " If we are crushed by grief, at least let us have the satisfaction of duty done, let us stand strong and erect in tranquillity of conscience, maintaining our energy to achieve the triumph of our cause. . . "Lucie." On June 6, 1897, there was a night alarm, which might have had dire consequences. Orders had been issued that, on the least sign from me of any attempt to escape, or of any evidence of outside interference, I should be in danger of my life. The warder on duty had instructions to prevent an abduction or escape, by the most decisive means. It may well be understood, with 270 f# Five Years of My Life such orders, how dangerous for me would be any alarm given to my keepers. Such measures were shameful, for how could I be held responsible for any attempt from the outside ? If any had been made, I should necessarily have been utterly ignorant of the fact. On that day, towards nine o'clock in the evening, a rocket was sent up from the lie Royale. It was pretended that a schooner had been seen in the gulf formed by the lie Saint Joseph and the ile du Diable. The prison commandant gave orders to fire a blank cartridge at it and to prepare for combat. He came himself with a supple- mentary guard to reinforce the detachment at the he du Diable. I was lying down in my hut, the warder on duty being with me as usual every night. I was suddenly awakened by cannon-shots, followed by rifle-shots, ana I saw the warder on guard, with his weapons drawn, looking at me with fixed attention. I asked "What is the matter?" He made no answer. But a9 1 37Z Five Years of My Life paid no attention to incidents passing around me, all my thoughts being fixed in one direction, I made no further observatior or movement. This, no doubt, was fortu- nate, for the orders to the guards were strict, and it is probable I should have been instantly shot if I had manifested surprise at these unwonted noises, and jumped from my bed. On the loth of August, 1897, ^ wrote to my wife : "I have this instant received your three letters of the month of June and all the letters from the family. It is under the im- pression, always keen, always poignant, that so many sweet remembrances evoke in me, so many appalling su£Ferings also, that I will answer. '•I will tell you once more, first of my pro- found affection, of my immense tenderness, my admiration for your noble character; then 1 will open all my soul to you, ana 1 wiU teU you your duty, your right, thai you 27a Five Years of My Life should renounce only with your life. And this right, this duty, that is equally impre- scriptible for my country as for vou, is to resolve that the light shall shine 'full and entire upon this horrible drama ; it is to resolve without weakening, without bo'>.gt- ing, but with indomitable enerf^y, that our name, the name that our dear children bear, shall be cleansed of this horrible stain. "And this object, this and you, Lucie you all should attain, like good and valiant French men and women who are suffering martyrdom, but not one of whom, no matter what bitter outrages he has suffered, has ever forgotten his duty to his country, for one single instant. And the day when the light shall shine, when the whole truth shall be revealed-as it must be, for neither time, patience, or effort should be counted in working for such an end~ah, well I if I am no longer with you, it will be for you to rescue my name from this new outrage, so undeserved, that nothing has ever justified ; a73 s r^ Five Years of My Life and I repeat it, whatever may have been n sufferings, however atrocious may ha^ been the tortures inflicted upon me— tc tures that 1 cannot forget, tortures that c be excused only by the passions that »om times lead men astray, I have nev forgotten that far above men, far abo their passions, far above their errors, is o country. It is she who will be my fir judge. "To be an honest man does not who consist in being incapable of stealing hundred sous from the pocket of a neif bour ; to be an honest man, I say, is to able always to see one's reflection in tl mirror that forgets nothing, that sees eve thing, that knows everything. ... I woi impress upon you that nothing should shs your will ; that high above my life hov the one supreme care — the honour of ; name, of the name you bear, the nam* < children bear. "I embrace you with the ardent afl tion that animates my soul, the affect Five Years of My Life that it to be extinguished only with my life. •'ALPREa" After the erection of the palisades round my hut, it became utterly uninhabitable; it was a living death! From that moment there was neither air nor light, and the heat was torrid, stifling, during the dry season. In the rainy season it was a wretchedly damp lodging-place, in a country where humidity is the great scourge of the European. I was completely prostrated from lack of exercise, and by the pernicious influence of the climate. At ihe suggestion of the doctor, it was decided to build me a new hut. And so, during the month of August 1897, while one of the palisades around my walk was being removed, to be used for the palisade of the new hut, I was again kept in close confinement; m 1 i I On August 25, 1897, I was taken to m new quarters, built on a little knoll betwee the dock and the camp formerly used for th lepers. This lodging was divided in halve by a solid iron grating across its whole width I was on one side of this grating, the warde was on the other, so that he could never los( sight of me for an instant. Grated windows too high to be reached, let in the light and i little air. I^ter on, to the iron bars then was added a screen of iron wire, which kep out the air still more; and then, to com pletely prevent me from approaching th( window, the only place where I coulc breathe a little fresh air during these stifling days and nights in Guiana, they set up in the hut, before each window, two panels thai formed, in conjunction with the window, a triangular prism. One of the panels was of sheet-iron, and the other a lattice-work di iron bars. The hut was surrounded by a Five Years of My Life wooden palisade over nine feet high, with sharp pointed spikes resting on a stone wall about seven feet in height. The view of everything outside the hut, of all the sea, as well as the island itself, was completely cut off. In spite of all this, the hut was higher, more spacious, and altogether preferable to the old one; moreover, on one side, the palisade had been set up farther away from the hut, and there was now but one single palisade. But the wet was still there; very often, dunng the heavy rains, there were several inches of water in my hut. And from this date the vexations inflicted on me were more frequent and exasperating than ever. The demeanour of my jailors towards me varied with the changes in the state of affairs in France, of which I was in complete igno- rance. Fresh steps were taken to isolate me still more, if such a thing were possible. More than ever, I was obliged to maintain a haughty bearing, to prevent advantage being taken of me. Snares were often laid. ■'ill,.,;, fl ''I ' Five Years of My Life and the warders were directed to ask m insidious questions. During my nights c nervous irritation, when I was a prey t< nightmare, the warder on duty would dra\ near to my bed and try to catch the word which escaped from my lips. During thi period the prison governor, Deniel, instea( of confining himself to the strict duties o his office, exercised the low and wretchec trade of a spy; he evidently thought that ir this way he would curry favours for himseli with the administration. The following extract from the general orders of transportation to the lie du Diable was posted up in my hut : "Article 22.— The convict will see to the cleanliness of his hut and the surrounding space allotted to him, and will prepare his own food. "Article 23.— Regular rations are delivered to him, and he is authorised to better these by receiving provisions and liquids in reason- able measure, the regulation of which rests with the prison administration. 278 «i Five Years of My Life "All articles intended for the use of the convict shall be given to him only after minute examination, and in accordance with his daily needs. 'Mrtjcfe 24.— The convict shall hand to the chief warder all letters and papers written by him. "Article 26. — Requests or complaints which the convict may desire to make canbereceived only by the chief warder. "Article 27.— During the day, the doors of the hut are to remain open and, until night, the convict has the right to go about inside the space enclosed by the palisade. ''Any communication with the outside is forbidden him. " In case that, contrary to the provisions of Article 4, the exigencies of service on the island should necessitate the presence of warders or convicts, other than those belong- ing to the ordinary service, the convict is to be confined in the hut until the departure of the other warders and convicts. "Article 28. — During the night, the place S79 Five Years of My Life occupied by the convict shall be lightet inside and occupied, as during the day, by ; warder." lilM, I have since learned that, from this time on, my guards also received instructions tc report all Aiy :novements and even the changes of expression on my features I II may be imagined how these orders were executed I But what is graver still is, that all the gestures and manifestations of my grief and sometimes of my impatience, were inter- preted by Deniel with low, hateful malice. With a mind as il'-balanced as it was full of vanity, this functionary attached immense importance to the least incidents; the lightest puff of smoke, breaking the monotony of the sky at the horizon, was to him a certain sign of a possible rescue and was the excuse for more rigorous measures and fresh precau- tions. It may easily be seen how a watch, interpreted in this way, with its malignant intensity, necessarily reflected in the conduct of the subordinates, was calculated to im- aSo Five Years of My Life raensely aggravate the rigours of my imprison- ment. Moreover, I know no torture more maddening to the nerves and more insulting to a man's pride than that which I suffered during five years— to have two eyes, full of enmity, levelled at me day and night, every instant and under every condition, and never to be able to escape or def^ tliem ; without one moment's respite. On September 4, 1897, I wrote to my wife: " I have just received your letters of July. You tell me again that you have the cer- tainty that the full light of day is soon to shine ; this certainty is in my soul ; it is inspired by the right that every man has to demand it, to resolve that he shall have it, when he demands but one thing— the truth. " As long as I have the strength to live in a situation as inhuman as it is undeserved, I shall continue to write to you, to inspire you by my indomitable will. "Indeed, the last letters I wrote to you are my moral will and testament I spoke 381 K'X Five Years of My Life to you in them first of all of our love. I confessed to you also my physical and cerebral breakdown ; but I spoke to you no less energetically of your duty, the duty of you all. * This grandeur of soul that you all have shown equally — let there he no illusion about it — this grandeur of soul should be accom- panied neither by weakness nor by boasting. On the contrary, it should ally itself to a determination each day more resolute, a determination that grows stronger each hour of the day— to march on towards the goal — the discovery of the truth, the v hole truth, for all France. " Truly this wound sometimes bleeds too painfully, and my heart rises in revolt. Worn out as I am, I often shrink under the blows of the sledge-hammer, and then 1 am no more than a poor human being, full of agony and suffering; but my indomitable soul lifts me up, quivering with pain, with energy, with implacable longing for that which is most precious in this world — our 389 Five Years of My Life honour, the honour of our children, the honour of us all. And then I brace myself anew and cry out to all the world the thrill- ing appeal of a man who asks, who wants only justice. And then I come to kindle in you all the ardent fire that burns in my soul, that shall be extinguished only with my life. " As for me, I live only by my fever ; for a long time I have lived on from day to day, proud when I have been able to hold out through a long day of twenty-four hours. I am subjected to the stupid and useless fate of the Man in the Iron Mask, because there is always that same afterthought lingering in the mind. I told you so frankly in one of my last letters. " As for you, you must not pay any atten- tion either to what any one says, or to what any one thinks. You have your duty to do unflinchingly, and it is incumbent upon you to resolve, not less unflinchingly, to have your right, the right of justice and of truth. Yes ; the light must break forth. I put my thought clearly. . . . •«3 1 1 t ., f t i#M; Five Years of My Life " I can, then, but hope for both of us, for all, that our martyrdom is soon to have an end. " Now, what can I say further to express my profound, my immense love for you, for our children ,; to express my affection for your dear parents, for all our brothers and sisters, for all who suffer this appalling, this long-drawn-out martyrdom ? " To speak at length of myself, of all my little affairs, is useless. I do it sometimes in spite of myself, for .he heart has irresistible revolts ; bitterness, do what 1 will, wells up from my heart to my lips, when I see that everything is misunderstood, everything that goes to make life noble and beautiful ; and, truly, were it a question of my own self only, long ago I would have gone to search in the peace of the tomb for forgetfulness of all that I hav ; seen, of all that I have heard, of all that I see each day. " I have lived in order to sustain you, to sustain you all, with my indomitable will ; for it is no longer a question of my life, it is a84 Five Years of My Life a question of my honour, of the honour of us all, of the life of our children. " I have borne everything without flinch- ing, without lowering my head; I have stifled my heart j I curb each day the revolts of my being, urging you all again and again to demand the truth, without lassitude as without boasting. " But I hope for us both, my poor beloved, for us all, that the efforts, either of one or of another, may soon bring about their just result ; that the day of justice may at last dawn for us all, who have waited for it so long. " Each time I write to you, I can hardly lay down my pen— not that I have anything to tell you . . . but because I am again about to leave you for long days, living only in my thoughts of you, of the children, of you all. " So I will end by embracing you and my dear children, your dear parents, all of our dear brothers and sisters ; clasping you in my arms with all my strength, and repeating 385 fl ^n i ■ H ^^^^HH« ' 1 Si f!l; 1 f 1*1 .S 'n ft 1 Ml Five Years of My Life with an energy that nothing can weaken s< long as the breath of life is in my body ' Courage, courage and determination ! ' "Alfred." In the mail of the month of July 1897, arriving on September 4, I received a letter, from which the following extract remained an enigma for me. The letter of July 1 to which it refers never reached me. "Paris, "yufy 15, 1897. "You must have derived a better impres- sion from the letter I wrote you on July i than from those which preceded it. I was less distressed, and the future at last appeared to me under less sombre colours. . . . " We have made an immense step forward towards the truth ; unhappily, I cannot tell you more. . • • "Lucie." II 'r hd u |[ ^■Ki 1 1 1 iWi r In October came another letter, from which the following is an extract : 386 Five Years of My Life ** August X5, 1897. " I am filled with anxiety at not having news from you ; for nearly seven weeks there have come no letters, and the weeks count triply when passed in disquietude ; I hope it is only a delay and that I shall receive a good mail. AU my joy is in reading the lines so full of courage which you send me, while waiting for something better; waiting that you may be given back tome, and that I may live in calm happiness at your side, and be com- forted. • • . *' Try not to think, nor to make your poor brain work. Do not wear yourself out in useless conjectures. Think only of the end and aim. Give rest to your poor head, wearied by so many shocks. "Lucie." Then in November : "Paris, ** Stfttembtr i, 1897. "With joy I write to confirm again the news which I gave you in my letters of last 387 Five Years of My Life month. I am indeed happy to say that we are entering on the true path. I can only repeat to you to have confidence, not to grieve any more, and to be very certain that we shall attain our ends. . . ." II " Parii, " S*pt$mber 35, 1897. "I will add but one word to my long letters of this month * I am very happy to think that they have given you immense hope and the strength needed to await your rehabilitation. I cannot say more to you about it than I have written in my last letters. . . . "Lucie." I answered these letters : ** November ^ 1897. " I have just this moment received your letters. Words, niy own darling, are power- less to express what poignant emotions the * The letter of September i, and that of the 35th were the only ones of this month which reached me. 288 t» Five Years of My Life fight of your dear writing awake, in „. h^; and indeed i.i, these «„,i„e„t.°f ^t^ection that thi. emotion awaken l» made clear concerning thii «d and terrible drama. « "■» sad and "Your letter, breathe ,uch a feeling of «.nfidence that they have brought ,e«nij to my heart. .utTering so much for you. for our dear children. ' noZT ? ""' ^' """""a "»' to tt'ink, suninr""'"*'"''- ""''^•o under, standi have never done that; it i, to. possible for me. But how can I arrest my bought. ? All that I can do i., a. TCl told you, to try to wait for »hl day of truth. "^ •" "»'"«""'• '"Prerne yoiifonTf,!"' '''' '°°"""' ' "»»« written you long letters, m which I poured out my overburdened heart. What would you ? Z three years. I have seen myself the toy o events to which i o«, \. ^^y oi never h1 T^ 1 * '^'■^"^^^' having never deviated from the absolute rule oi •«9 , V' Five Years of My Life conduct that I had imposed upon myself that my conscience, as a loyal soldier devotee to his country, had imposed upon me. Ever in spite of oneself, the bitterness mount: from the heart to the lips ; anger sometime: takes one by the throat, and one is forced tc cry out in pain. " Formerly, I swore never to speak of my self, to close my eyes to everything, because for me, as for you, for us all, there can b( but one sunreme consolation — that of truth of complete light. "But my too prolonged sufferings, m^ appalling situation, the climate, which alon( makes the brain burn — if all this combinec has not made me forget a single one of m] duties, it has ended by leaving me in a stat< of cerebral and nervous prostration that i: terrible. "I chatter on to you, though I hav( nothing to tell you ; but all this does m< good, it rests my heart and relaxes th< tension of my nerves. Truly, my heart oftei is shrivelled with poignant grief when I thinl 990 ■ Five Years of My Life of you, of our children ; and then I ask my- self what wrong I can have done upon this earth, that those whom I love the most, those for whom I would give my blood drop by drop, should be tried by such awful agony. But even when the too fuU cup overflows, it is from the dear thought of you, from the thought of the children— the thought that makes all my being vibrate and tremble, that exalts it to its greatest heights-it is from this thought that I draw the strength to rise from the depths of despair, to utter the thrilling cry of a man who has begged so long for himself, for those he loves, only for justice and truth— nothing but truth and justice. "I have summed up my resolution clearly and I know that that determination is your own, that of aU of you, and that nothing has ever been able to overcome it. "It is this feeling, associated with all my duties, that has made me live ; it is this feel- ing also that has made me ask once more for you, for you all, every co-operation, a more powerful effort than ever on the part of all, agz Five Years of My Life in a simple labour of justice and of repara- tion, by rising above all question of in- dividuals, above all passions. '' Shall I still tell you of my affection ? It is needless, is it not ? for y:>u know it. But what I wish to tell you again is this ;> that the other day I re-read all your letters, in order that I might pass some of the too long minutes near a loving heart, and an immense sentiment of wonder arose in me, at this spectacle of your dignity and your courage. If great misfortunes are the touchstone of noble souls, then, oh, my darling, yours is one of the most beautiful and noble souls of which It is possible to dream. "Alfred." The month of November passed by and then the month of December 1897, without letters. At last, on January 9, 1898, after this long and nnxious waiting, there came, together, my mail of October and November, from which I extract the following pas- sages : 292 il!M> Five Years of My Life " Paris, "October 6, 189;. " I did not succeed in expressing to you in my last letter and r::rticularly, as I think in communicating in its full truth the great confidence we all have, which has grown even stronger since, in the return of our happmess. I should like to tell you the joy I feel at seeing the horizon clearing and at havmg come nearly to the end of our suf- fenngs. I feel myself wholly incapable of making you share my feelings, since for you poor exiled one, there is always added to the' distress of waiting the ignorance of all that we are doing. Vague sentences, the stringing together of words, give you little more than the assurance of our deep aflFection and our often-renewed promise that we shall succeed m rehabilitating you. If, like me, you could realise the progress we have made and the distance we have traversed through the depth of darkness towards the full light, how brightened and comforted you would feel ! 293 t i Five Years of My Life It breaks my heart not to be able to tell you all that stirs me so deeply and gives me such hope. I suffer from the idea that you are undergoing a martyrdom which, though it must be prolonged physically until the wrong which has bjsen done has been officially admitted, is at least morally useless, and that while I feel more reassured and tranquil, you are passing through alternatives of anguish and hope that might be spared you. . . . " Pabis, ** November 17, 1897. **I am uneasy at having no letter from jou. Your last, dated September 4, reached iiS in the first days of October, and since then I am absolutely without news of you. I have never wasted my breath in complaints, and I shall certainly not begin now; and yet God knows how keenly I have suffered, re- maining for weeks and weeks in the madden- ing distress which a total absence of news from you hai. caused me. From day to day, 204 Five Years of My Life I think my torments are about to cease, that I am to be reassured so far as I can be while you are still suflfering. But hope on, with all your strength I How can I tell you of my hope in the future and yet confine myself to the limits permitted to me ? It is indeed diflScuIt; and I can only pledge you my word that within a time, very, very near, your name shall be cleared. Ah I if I could opeak to you openly and teli you aU the incidents of this frightful drama I . . . " When this letter arrives in Guiana, I hope you will have received the good news for which you have been waiting these three iong yean. ** Lucie." When these letters reached me, in January, 1898, at the He du Diable, not only I had not received the good news which they heralded, but the petty annoyances inflicted on me had redoubled in intensity, and the watch kept over me was more rigorous than ever. From ten warders, the number had been increased m m h ^.-i'- Five Years of My Life to thirteen ; sentinels had been placed aroun ay hut, the atmosphere of fear and suspido reigned about me ; I felt it in the attitude c my jailors. At this time, also, a tower was built highe than the warders' be. racks, and on its plat form a Hotchiiiss cannon wasplacedto defenc the approaches to the island. Once again I addressed to the President of the Republic and the members of the Government a renewal of the appeals I had made before. In the first days of the month of February 1898, there arrived two letters from my wife dated December 4 and 26, 1897. These two letters were partial copies of the originals. I have since become aware that my wife had, in guarded language, given me to under- stand, in her letters of August or September 1897, that a member of the Senate had taken my cause in hand ; this passage, of course was suppressed, and I heard of the admirable mitiative taken by M. Scheurer-Kestner only on my return to France, in 1899, as I also 396 Five Years of My Life learned only at that date of the events which had previously taken place in France. One of the extracts transmitted to me from my wife's letter of December 4, 1807 was particularly sad : " I have received two letters from you. Although you say nothing to me of your sufferings, and these letters, like the others are fiUed with noble dignity and admirable' courage, I have divined in them your grief with such acuteness that I feel the need of oflFering you some comfort-of letting you hear a few words of affection from a loving heart whose tenderness and attachment are as you know, as deep as they are unchange-' able. "But how many days have passed since you wrote those letters, and how much time must still elapse before these few lines come to remind you that -ly thouglits, day and night, are with you, and that every hour and every, minute of your long agony, my heart and soul and all that throbs within me, thrills «97 Five Years of My Life in sympathy with you. I feel myself echo of your cruel suflferings, and woi give my life to shorten your torture, you knew what sorrow I feel at not bei there, near you, and with what joy I woi have accejpted the harshest and bitter existence, to share your exile, to encir you with my affection, and heal yc wounds as best I might. " But it was ordained that we should t haveeven the consolation of suffering togethi that we should drink our cup of bitterness the last drop. . . ." Then followed a few vague sentences the hope which had been renewed so oftei In reply to this letter, I wrote to n wife : February 7, 1898. " I have just received your dear letters December, and my heart is breaking ; it rent by the consciousness of so much u merited suffering. I have told you that f} thought of you, of the children, always rais< 398 /self the d would ture. If ot being 1 would bitterest encircle al your >uld not ogether, srness to ;nces of 3 often. to my 1898. itters of g ; it is uch un- hat the s raises Five Years of My Life me up, quivering with anguish, with a supreme determination, in view of all that we hold most precious in the world— our honour, that of our children— to utter this cry of appeal that grows more and more thrilling— the cry of a man who demands nothing but justice for himself and those he loves, and who has the ight to demand it. " For the last three months, through fever and delirium, suffering martyrdom night and day for you, for our children, I have ad- dressed appeal on appeal to the Chief of the State, to the Government, to those who caused me to be condemned, to thi end that I may obtain justice, and I have not been answered 1 "To-day I am reiterating my former appeals to the Chief of the State and to the Government, with still more energy, if that could be ; for you must be no longer sub- jected to such a martyrdom, our = hildren must not grow up dishonoured. I can no longer writhe in agony, in a black hole for an abominable crime that I did not 299 i' 1^^- Five Years of Mjr Life commit And now I am waiting ; I a each day to hear that the Ught of truth ■hine for ut at last. "Alfrbe In the course of the month of Febru rigorous measures were yet more stroi emphasised; and, as I had received reply to my previous appeals to the C Magistrate of the State and to the meml of the Government, I addressed the follow letter to the President of the Chamtxjr Deputies and to the Deputies : "Ilbb do Salot, " February aS^ t$gt "Monsieur lr PRfeiDENXDE la Chaiib DEs Deputes, " Messieurs les Depute *' From the day after my condemn tion, that is, more than three years ago, wh< Commandant du Paty de Clam came to m in the name of the Minister of War, to as 300 Five Years of My Life me, after they had had me sentenced for an abominable crime which I had not com- mitted, if I was innocent or guilty, I declared that not only I was innocent, but that I had demanded the fullest light on the matter, and also begged that investi^'ations might be made through all the customary channels, either by inquiry through the military attache*;, or by other means open to the Government " The reply was then made to me that higher interests than my own, owing to the origin of this dark and tragic affair and to the origin of the Bordereau, prevented re- course to the ordinary means of investigation, but that researches would be continued. " I have waited three years, in the most frightful situation that could be imagined, suflfering continually and without cause, and these researches have come to no result. "If, therefore, interests higher than my own must still prevent the adoption of the only means of investigation which can finally put an end to the martyrdom of so 301 m Five Years of My Life many human beings, and which alon< fully unravel this sad and tragic aflfair, s?me interests cannot exact that a wife children should be sacrificed to them, deem otherwise would be to take us bai the darkest ages of our history, when 1 and light were deliberately stiHed suppressed. "Already, several months ago, I set 1 all the tragic and undeserved horror of situation to the high sense of justice of Cabinet Ministers ; I now submit it alsi the impartial consideration of the depu asking justice for me and mine, the lift my children, and that the martyrdom oi many human beings shall cease." A similar letter, written in identical ter was addressed at the same date to President and members of the Sen; These appeals were renewed shortly afl wards. M. M61ine, who was then Premi suppressed my appeals and retained th letters ; they never reached their destinatit 303 Five Years of My Life And these letters arrived at the very moment when the author of the crime was glorified, while I, ignorant of all the events taking place in France, was chained to my rock, crying aloud my innocence to those in power, multiplying appeals to those whose duty it is to seek out the truth and see justice done! In March, I received my wife's letters ol the beginning of January, still expressed in vague words, with the same hope, but with- out her being able to tell me exactly on what she founded her hope. Then, in April, there was a new and deep silence. The letters written by my wife in the last days of January and during February, 1898, never reached me. As to the letters which I wrote from this time on, to my wife, she never received the origmals, -nd we have only portions of them, copied and mutilated. Here are a few extracts from the frag- mentary copies of my wife's letters, received during this period : 303 Five Years of My Life "Although my letter are very com, place and desperately monotonous, I ca help coiping to talk to you. "There are moments when my heart ull when your sufferings re^ho in soul w,U, such force and so painfully, th can no longer restrain myself ; the separa^ we.ghs too heavily on me-it is too on man outburst of my whole being I stre ou my arms to you. With a suprLe efi I sfr.ve to reach you. Then I believe m« to be near you, I speak sofUy of hope a ©ve you courage. All too soon, I awakened from my dream and brought b^ sharply .o reality by a child's voice, by s^ ncse from without. Then I finH again alone, so sad, face To face ti^: your suffenngs. How unhappy vou m.. iit'-°'^r'"'^°'='""-ras"y wrote memyour letter of the 6th of Ja„„a„ Five Years of My Life Do not forget, when you receive no letter, from me, that I am with you in thought. U^at I abandon you neither night nor day and that, ,f words cannot convey to you the ea^ression of the depths of my love, no otetacle can hinder the union of our h;arts and thoughts." "Pmw, "I have just received your letter of March 5. It brings news comparatively recent to us who are accustomed to suffer ZT^t^'J""'" '"* '"'S"'»^'*y of the mails, . and I had an agreeable surprise at finding so ^te a date. How misfortunes change one I With what resignation we are obliged to accept things which it seemed impossible to endure^ . When I say, hat I am resigned, ■t .snot the exact truth. I do not complain because, until your fuU innocence is recog. msed I must live and suffer as I do; but fn the depths of my heart there is revolt and 'nd.gnat.on, and the impatience which has I iliSl 1 V \ It I -' 1 m III V i!! i Five Years of My Life been repressed during these long y« waiting overflows to the full. . . . "Parh "7««« 5, 1 "Here I am once more, leaning or table, and lost in my sad thoughts ; I just written to you and, as happens U twenty times a day, I abandon myself long reverie. I fly to you thus e moment, I give my nerves the relaxa of escaping from myself; and my thou accompany my heart, which is always ^ you in your far-off exile. I visit you of very often, and since I have not yet I allowed to go and join you, I bring you s can of myself, my spiritual personality, thought and will, and energy, and especi; my love-all intangible things, and which human power can imprison. . . ." "Paris, **yttfy 26, 189I When I feel too sad, and the burden life becomes too heavy to endure, I tn 306 Five Years of My Life aw..y from the present, call up my remem- brances, and find new strength to continue tlie struggle. . . . "Lucie." This was her only July letter which reached me ; after that time, no more copies but the original letters were again given to me. For me the days passed by in extreme im- patience, since I was in ignorance of what was gomg on concerning me. As to the appeals I had addressed to the chief magis- trate of the Republic, the answer invariably made to me was : - Your appeals have been transmitted to the members of the Govern- ment, through the constitutional channels." There was nothing more, and I kept wait- mg always for the outcome of my demand for a revision of my trial. I was absolutely Ignorant of the law, and particularly of the new law concerning revision, which dates from 1895, when I was already in captivity. 307 Five Years of My Life A request to be supplied with a telegra correspondence-code was refused. In the month of August 1898, I wrot my wife : I "Iles du Salut, " August y, i8( "Although I wrote you two long letten the !^st mail, I will not allow this one to without sending you an echo of myimmc aflFection, or without again reiterating making you hear always the same wo whose object is to sustain your invinci courage. "The clear consciousness of our d must make us stoical as regards all e Terrible as our destiny may be, we m have souls lofty enough to defy fate until yields to us. "The words I have been repeating to y for so long a time are and remain unchan^ able. My honour is my own possession; is the patrimony of our children and it mi be restored to them. This honour I ha 308 Five Years of My Life demanded back from my country. I can only hope that our harrowing martyrdom may at last come to an end. " In my former letters I spoke at length of our children, and of their sensitiveness, of which you complained, although I am sure you are bringing up the dear little ones admirably. If I speak of them, it is because m our days of happiness they were the one object and aim of our thoughts; in the un- happiness which has undeservedly fallen to our lot, they are our best reason for desiring to live. Sensibility, that which belongs to the mind and heart, is the great spring of education. What hold can one have on a careless or insensible nature ? "We must act especially by moral in- fluence, both in the education and in the development of the intelligence ; and such influence can be exercised only over a sensitive being. I am not an advocate of corporal punishment, although it may some- times be necessary for children of rebellious nature. A soul ruled by fear always remains 309 m i| III • I, '1 I 111 ill, .'ill III Five Years of My Life enfeebled in consequence of that sentim A sorrowful look and severe manner sufficient to make a sensitive child un( stand his fault. " It always does me good to come to and talk of our children, a subject wh when we were happy, was the theme of familiar conversation. It is now our rea for living. " If I listened only to my heart, I she write you oftener, for it seems to me know it is tlie merest illusion, but it comfi me — that at the same time and minute may feel, across the space which separ; us, the beating of a heart that lives only you and our children, a heart that lo you. . . , "But above everything else rises worship of honour, in the strictest se of the word. We must detach oursel from the passions occasioned by grief i from the depression resulting from exter causes. That honour, which is my o possession, is the patrimony and the 310 Five Years of My Life itself of our children ; and, without impati- ence, but also without weakness, we must strive courageously and indefatigably to attain it " Alfred." At this same time, 1 inquired by letter and telegram what measures had finally been taken in answer to my request for a revision of my trial, to which I had always received the same enigmatic reply : "Your appeal to the President of the Republic has been tor- warded to the members of the Government through the channels provided by the con- stitution." But silence, silence alone, was the only answer I obtained. I was ignorant of the events which had occurred and were still taking place in France. At last, trusting that I might obtain a reply by the use of ex- treme means, I made the declaration, in September 1898, that I should cease my correspondence until I had an answer to my demands for revision. This declaration was incorrectly transmitted by cable to my wife, 311 -If Five Years of My Life , »nd if win be seen later on to what incit It gave rise. In October, I received my wife's le written in August ; in them she still expre the same hope which, unhappily, it was possible for her, in her letters, carel revised 4nd often supprr«ed, to strenKt by precise facts. I again renewed my request for a reph my petition, for revision. On October' 1898, while I was still in ignorance of petition for revision made by my wife - of the fact that her appeal had been iri mmed to the Court of Cassation to adjudicated upon by that supreme tribur 1 was at last informed that I was about receive a final answer to the requests ( revision, which I had addressed to the ch magistrate of the nation. I immediately wrote the following letter my wife *— 319 Five Years of My Life "tLlt DO SaLUT, "Orto6#r 37, 1898. "I write you a few lines to send you the echo of my immense affection and the expression of all my tenderness. I have just been informed that I shall receive a final answer to my demands for revision. I am awaiting it calmly and with confi- dence, never doubting that the reply will be my rehabilitation. . • , "Alfred." A few days later, in the first days of November, I received my September mail, in which my wife announced to me that grave events had taken place, which I should learn about later, and that she had made an application for revision, which had been granted by the Government. This news thus coincided with the reply which had been given me on October 27. I at once wrote to my wife : 313 Five Years of My Life "Ilbi du Salot, **Ncvemb*r 5, i( ** I have just received your letters oi month of September, in which you giv< such good news. "In my letter of October 27 last, I you that I was already informed that I shi receive a final answer to my demands f( revision. I said to you then that I waiting with confidence, never doub 1 -at this answer would at last bring rehabilitation. • . , "Alfred I was still in ignorance of the fact \ the petition for revision had been tra mitted by the Government to the Court Cassation, and that the hearing had aire; begun. On November 16, 1898, I received a U gram worded as follows : 314 Five Years of My Life "Catsnnb, "Novtmbtr 16, 1898. "Governor to Convict Dreyfus, through the oflBcer in command at the ties du Salut : "Informs you that Criminal Chamber of Court of Cassation has declared receivable the application for a revision of your sen- tence, and has ordered that you shall be notified of this decision, and be requested to produce your means of defence." I realised that my application had been formally declared receivable by the Court, and that the hearing on the merits of the case was about to begin. I expressed my wish to be put into communication with Maitre Demange, my defender of 1894. Of course I knew nothing of what had been going on during all this time; I still thought the Bordereau to be the one document in the case. I had nothing to add for myself to what I had already said before the first court-martial, and nothing to change in the discussion concerning the Bordereau. I 315 > t' v . m Five Years of My Life was ignorant that the date when the B dereau was received had been altered s modified in consequence of the suppositi( put forth during the first trial as to di£Ferent documents enumerated in the B dereau. I therefore thought the affair a V( simple one, limited, as at the first cot martial, to a discussion concerning 1 handwriting. On November 28, 1898, I was authorii to take exercise from seven o'clock eleven in the morning, and from two five in the evening, within the grour of the fortified camp. They called by tl name the space, comprised within a U stone wall, occupied by the warders' barrac near my hut. So my walk really consist of a narrow passage around' the barracks a; out-buildings. But I saw again in the fi glare of the sun, the sea, which I had not se for more than two years. I saw once mc the stunted verdure of the island. My ej could rest on something else than the fo walls of the prison hut 1 3x6 ' li,i ii ! Five Years of My Life In December no letters came from my wi/e. None of the letters which she wrote me m the course of October 1898, evei reached me. I grew impatient and asked for explanations. I inquired when the hear- ing on the merits of the case would open before the Court of Cassation. (I did not know that the hearing had taken place on October 27, 28, and 29.) No answer was given me. On December 28, 1898, I received the foUowing letter from my wife : "ATw^miwaa, 1898. " I do not know if you have received my letters of last month • in which I described to you in their general outlines the efforts which we have made before being able to formally present our petition for a revision of your trial, the procedure adopted, and finally, the admission of the application' Each new success, although it made me * None of these letters ever reached me. 3«7 I ll" #:; Five Years of My Life very happy, was poisoned by the thoi that you, poor sufferer, arc in ignoranc the facts, and doubtless are beginning despair. "Finally, last week, I had the great jo; being informed that the Government sent a cable to advise you of the admiss of our appUcation for a revision of case. "Fifteen days ago, I was madeacquain with a letter from you, in which, so it see. you had declared your resolution of writ no more, not even to me. . . , "Lucie; Exasperated at so false an interpretati of my thought, I at once wrote to I Governor of Guiana a letter, couched vt nearly as follows: "By the letter which I have just receiv from Madame Dreyfus, I learn that she h been made only partially acquainted with letter which I addressed to you last Septemb< declaring to you that I should cease n 3«8 Five Years of My Life correspondence, while awaiting the answer to the application for revision which I had addressed to the Chief Magistrate of the nation. By communicating to Madame Dreyfus only an extract of my letter, an interpretation has been given to that extract which must have been more than painful to my dear wife. It is, therefore, the bounden duty of the person— who it is I do not know and do not wish to know— whc has committed this deed to make reparation for it. " I learned that the message which had been made known to my wife was a trans- mission by cable of my letter, and that the letter had been cabled in a garbled form. " At the same time, I wrote my wife the following letter : '*lut DO Salut, ^Duemhtr aft, 1898. "I had had no letters from you for two months. A few days ago, I received your letter of November 22. If I refrained from 319 11 ill I ll ii f .1 in I'll ■ ,i :PI 'ifii Is' 1 Five Years of My Life writing for a time, it was because 1 waiting for the answer to my applicatic revision, and could do nothing more repeat myself. Since then, you should received numerous letters from me. " If my voice had ceased to be hea would have been because it was for silenced ; for if I have continued to li has been in the firm resolve to defem honour, which is my own property an patrimony of my children ; in the det nation to fulfil my duty as I have fulfil everywhere and always, and as it always be fulfilled, without fear of any or any one, when a man has right justice on his side. "Alfre The news which I had received di these last months brought me imn relief. I had never despaired, I had i lost faith in the future, convinced as I from the first that the truth wouk known, that it was impossible that a c 3W Five Years of My Life so odious, and to which I was so utter a stranger, could remain unpunished. But, as I knew nothing of events occurring in . France, and, on the other hand, saw my situation becoming daily more terrible ; per- secuted ceaselessly and causelessly, obliged to struggle night and day against the elements, the climate, and against mankind, I had begun to doubt that I should myself ever live to see the end of this terrible drama. My will was not weakened; it remained as inflexible as ever ; bv* I had moments of savage despair, for my dear wife and my darling children, when I thought of the situation in which they were placed. At last, the horizon cleared; I had glimpses of the end of my own and my loved ones' martyrdom. It seemed to me that my heart was freed from an immense weight ; 1 breathed more freely. At the end of December, I received a copy of the introductory speech of the prose- cution, as presented by the public prosecutor at the Court of Cassation, on October 15, 321 X Mil i| I' 1 I.' ' iim • t Ji!i fi'l Five Years of My Life 1898. I read it with profound am; ment I learned of the accusation, brought my brother against Major Esterhazy, wl I did not know; of his acquittal, of forgery of Henry, and of his confession ; suicide. But the significance of man> these incidents was an enigma to me. On January 5, 1899, I was examined the President of the Court of Appeal Cayenne, commissioned by the Supn Court My astonishment was great hearing, for the first time, of my pretem confessions ,* of that abominable distort of the words I cried out on the day the degradation, and which were, on contrary, a protestation, a vehement declj tion of my innocence. Then days and months slipped by, with my receiving any definite news, ignorani the result of the Court's investigation. Ev month, my wife, in letters which, as usi reached me often after considerable de and in telegrams, spoke of her hope that 323 Five Years of My Life end of our sufferings would soon come , and this I did not see approaching. In the last days of February, 1 handed, as ^ my custom, to the Prison Commandant Deniel, my request for provisions and neces- saor objects for the following month. I received nothing. I had taken a strict reso- InUoD from which I never departed, not to complain nor to discuss the application of the penalty, for this would have been to acknowledge the principle of it-s. principle I had never admitted ; So I said nothing, and went without everything, during the month of March. At the end of the month, Deniel came to tell me that he had mislaid my list and desired me to draw up another. If he had really mislaid it, he would have known of It when the boat which brought provisions from Cayenne came back. Such an act coincided too exactly with the passage of the Uw of Dispossession for me not to beUeve that this fact was the cause of it. At that time I did not know the dirty work which this man had undertaken, and I learned it 3»3 M P -;" Five Years of My Life only on my return to France. I beli him to be a simple tool-all the more he always took pains to tell me i " I am an executive agent "-and I know that are to be found for every kind of work, day, I have every reason to think that m of his measures were taken on his own ii ative,and that the harsh treatment of cer warders was due to him. As for me, I did not know of the Lav Dispossession, and could not comprehi the length of the investigation. The c seemed to me very simple, since I kn only of the Bordereau. Several time* asked for information ; it is almost useless say that it was never given me. While my will did not weaken throughc these eight long months, in which I n looking daily and hourly for the decision the Court of Cassation, my physical ai cerebral exhaustion, on the other hand, grc more pronounced during this period of di tressing, maddening suspense. 3«4 ON Monday, June 8, .g,,^ ti>U an hour after noon, the chief warder entered my hut precipitately and handed me the following "Be good enough to let Captain Dreyfus know immediately of the order of the Court of Cassation. The Court quashes and annuU the sentence pronounced on Decern- ber 22, 1894, against Alfred Dreyfus by the first court-martial of the Military Govern- ment of Paris, and orders that the accused shall be tried before a court-martial at Rennes, &c. 4c. "The present decision is to be printed and transcribed in the Book of Records of the first court-martial of the Military Government of Paris, on the margin of the annulled sentence. In vi«ue of this decision. Captam Dreyfus ceases to be subjected to the convict regimen; he becomes a simple prisoner under arrest, and is r^tored to 3*S Five Years of My Life his rank and allowed to again we; uniform. " See that the prison authorities ( the commitment and withdraw the mi guard from the lie du Diable. At the time, have the prisoner taken into custo the commandant of the troops and re the guards by a squad of gendarmes, will do guard duty on the he du Di according to the regulations of mil prisons. " '^^^ cruiser S/ax leaves Port-de-Fr to^ay, with orders to take the prisoner f ttie He du Diable and bring him bad France. " Communicate to Captain Dreyfus details of the decision and the departur, the5/a*." ^ My joy was boundless, unutterable. ast, I was escaping from the rack to wh I had been bound for five years, suffer martyrdom for the sake of my dear on for my children. Happiness succeeded i horror of that inexpressible anguish. T 326 n wear his Five Years of My Life dayof jurtice wa, a. last dawning for me. After the Court's decision, I thought that everything was going to be terminated speedily ; that (here was no further question of anything but mere formality. Of my own story I knew nothing. As I -d I was still back in 1894. with the Bordereau a, the only document in my case, with he sentence of the court-martial, the terrible parade of degradation, and its attend- ant cries of death from a deluded people I believed in the loyalty of General de Bois-" deffre; I believed in the head of the State. Felix taure ; I thought both eager for justic^ and truth. After that, a veil had been inter- posed before my eyes, and had become more impenetrable every day. The few facts I had gleaned during the last month remained incomprehensible to me. I had learnt the name of Esterhazy. the forgery of Lieutenant- Colonel Henry, and his suicide. I had only had official relations with the heroic Lieu- tenant-Colonel Picquart. The grand struggle undertaken by a few great minds, full of the 327 •4 ■ i 9& Five Years of My Life love of truth, was utterly unknown me. In the Court's decision I had come to i conclusion that my innocence was acknc ledged, and that nothing more remained 1 /or the court-martial, before which I was be sent, to have the honour of making repa tion for a deplorable judicial error. That same afternoon of June 5, 1 sent aw the following despatch to be forwarded my wife : " My heart and soul are with you, with n children, with all of you. I leave Friday, await with immense joy the moment supreme happiness to hold you in my arm A thousand kisses." That evening the squad of gendarme arrived from Cayenne. I saw the warders g away ; I seemed to walk in a dream, to h awaking from a long and frightful nighi mare. I waited with anxiety for the arrival of th S/ax, Thursday evening, I saw, far away, th smoke of a steamer, and soon recognised ; 3^8 Five Years of My Life warship. But it was too late for me to embark. Thanks to the kindness of the Mayor of Cayenne, I was able to have a suit of clothes, a hat, a little linen—in a word, the attire strictly necessary for my return to France. Friday morning, June 9, at seven o'clock, the prison boat came for me at the lie du Diable. At last I was to leave that accursed island, where I had suffered so terribly. The S/ax, as it drew too much water, was anchored far away. The prison boat took me near to her, but I had to wait for two hours before they would receive me on board. The sea was heavy, the small boat, a real cockle-shell, danced on the great waves of the Atlantic. I was sick, like every one else in the boat. About ten o'clock, the order came for me to go alongside. I went on board the S/ax, where I was received by the second officer, who took me to a non-commissioned officer's cabin, which had been specially fitted up for me. The window of the cabin 339 Five Years of My Life W been grated (I thi„k it was this) ton which occasioned my long wait,, board the prison boat). The glass doc g^ded by an armed sentinel. 1, evening, j understood from the mov« of tte ship that the S/<« had wc anchor and was getting into motion My treatment on board was that < officer under strict arrest. I had one m the morning and one hour in the eve to wait on deck. The «st of my time 1 shut up m my cabin. During my sta board I behaved naturally, as I had froir begmnmg, from a feeling of personal dig, and because I considered myself the e. of aU. Beyond the needs of service. I sr to no one. ' On Sunday, June i8, we reached the C Verde Ishnds, where the S/*» took in co we left on Tuesday, the 20th. !!,« ,^ sailed slowly, from eight to nine knob hour. On June 30, we were in sight of i French coast. After five years of martj 330 Life i this opera- waiting on ss door was 1- In the movement d weighed on. that of an • one hour he evening time I was ny stay on i from the al dignity, the equal Ci I spoke the Cape in coal ; rhe ship knots an of the martyr- Opta.. d„„„, o. „,s w.v B,ck „om D,v„..s Uu... *l| X- w Five Years of My Life dom, I was coming back to seek justice. The horrible nightmare had its end. I believed that men had acknowledged their error ; I expected to find my dear ones, and behind them my comrades, who would await me with open arms and tears in theii eyes. That very day I had my first deception, my first sad impression. During the morning of the 30th, the S/ax stopped. I was informed that a boat would come to take me ashore, without any one being willing to tell me where the landing would take place. A first boat appeared ; it merely l»-ought the order to keep manceuvr- ing in the open sea. The landing was postponed. ' All these precautions, all these mysterious goings and comings made a painful impression on me. I had a vague intuition of the facts behind them. In the afternoon, the SfaXf having moved on again slowly along the coast, stopped towards seven o'clock. It was a dark night ; the atmosphere foggy, and rain fell in gusts. 331 -m :■ >i M Five Years of My Lii 1 was notified that a steam-launch come for m« a little later. At nine o'clock, I was told that a b< at the foot of the Sfi^s ladder, to tak, the steam-launch, which had arrived I unable to come nearer, on account stormy weather. The sea had becon rough, the wind blew a gale, and then heavily. The boat, tossed bv the wav. dancing below the ladder. I jumped i and struck violently against the rail, h myself rather severely. The boat i away. Discomposed quite a. much b^ a disembarkation as by the cold and trating humidity, I was seized with a vi fit of fever, and my teeth began chatt. With a strong effort, however, I contr myself, and, after tossing about on thef, mg waves, reached the steam-launch, w adder I could scarcely climb, suffering i the mjury which I had received in the when I jumped into the small boat. I silent, as always. The lau«ch went on, t stopped; I was in total ignorance a, aunch would at a boat was to take me to "ived but was count of the become very ' the rain fell e waves, was nped into it, rail, hurting ^at pulled Jch by such and pene- A a violent chattering. controlled 1 thefoam- ich, whose ering from n the legs t. I kept 't on, then nee as to Five Years of My Life where I was, or where I was going. Not a word had been spoken to me. After waiting an hour or two, I was requested to step into the small boat belonging to the launch. The night was still completely dark, the rain kept on pouring, but the sea was now more calm. I divined that we must be in a port. At a quarter past two in the morning, we landed at a place which I afterwards knew was Port Houliguen. There I was placed in a carriage, with a captain of gendarmes and two gendarmes. Between two ranks of soldiers, the carriage brought me to a station. At the station, still accompanied by the gendarmes, and without a word having been exchanged between us, I got into a train which, after a journey of two or three hours' brought me to another station, where I alighted. There I found another carriage waiting, which conveyed me rapidly to a town, and finally entered a courtyard. I got out, and, looking about me, perceived that I was in 333 Five Years of My Lifi the military prison at Rennes. It was «« o'clock in the morning. " is easy to imagine what had b, succession my surprise, sadness, a, treme pain at returning i„ such a way to my naUve land. There, where I h ^"^.•"'"••"••''"nited in common of justice and truth, anxious to dispel > sorrow caused by a frightful judicial e, found only perturbed faces, minute pr t-on^ . night-Ianding through the ,«v a stormy sea, with physical suffe added to my affliction of soul Hat dunng the long weaor months of my tmty, I had been able to nerve myself t, "wnense capacity for resistance. We had reached July I. At nine o'cl » the morning, I was notified that I she ~emywi,einafewminutes,inaroom Imv r *" °'=™''y'"8- This ro. hkemy own, was shut off by a close woo. gratmg, which did not allow one to look i, the courtyard. The apartment was furnish '^th a Uble and chairs. All «y i„,eS 334 Five Years of My Life with my friends and my defenders took place here. Strong as I was, violent trembling siezed me, my tears flowed-tears which I had not known for so long a time j but I was soon able to control myself again. It is impossible for words to describe the deep emotion which my wife and I both felt at seeing each other once more. In our meeting were mingled feelings of joy and gnef; we sought to read in each other's faces the traces of our suflFerings ; we longed to tell each other all that throbbed in our hearts, all the emotions suppressed and stifled during these long years; and the words died away upon our lips. We re- mained content to look at each other, con- centrating in this interchange of looks all the strength of our affection and of our deter- mination. The presence of a lieutenant of mfantry, who was ordered to be present at the interview, prevented us, however, from giving way to our feelings. On the other hand, I knew nothing of the events which had occurred during the previous five years, 335 u i I Sir!,'!! Five Years of My Life and had returned to France full of confi in the speedy reparation of my wrongs, though this confidence had been i shaken by the varied events of the n had just passed, I did not dare to qu my dear wife, for fear of giving her grief, and she too preferred leaving t lawyers the task of informing me of all had happened. My wife was authorised to see me day for an hour. I also saw in succe all the members of our family ; and no could equal the joy of our meeting afti many painful years. On July 3, Maitre Demange and W Labori came to see me. I threw myseM Maitre Demange's arms, and was then sented to Maitre Labori.. My confiden Maitre Demange, in his admirable devo had remained unchanged. I felt at ona keenest friendship for Maitre Labori, had been so eloquently and couragec the advocate of the truth : to him I expre my deep gratitude. Then Maitre Dem« 136 Five Years of My Life Affair I l,„e„ed, breathless, and in «y mmd, little by litOe, all the links of this extraordinary drama were put together. This first recital was completed by Maitre Ubori. ITOS informed of the long series of mis- deeds and disgraceful crimes proved against h»e who had plotted to destroy me. I was told 01 the heroic acts and supreme efforts ■°»de in my behalf by so many noble minds -of the defiant struggle undertaken by a handful of men of the highest chamcter. a^nst numerous coalitions of falsehood and iniquity. For me. who had never doubted that justice would be done, what a shattering of all my beliefs I My illusions with regard to some of my former chiefs faded away, one by one ; my soul was fiUed with anguish I was moved with profound pity and sorrow for that Army which I so loved. In the afternoon, I saw my dear brother Mathieu, who had been devoted to me from the very first day, who, remaining in the breech during these five years, with such S37 V ^1 I> Five Years of My Life courage, wisdom, and admiraole stren purpose, had shown the noblest escamp l»x>ther'8 unselfish affection. The next day, July 4, my lawyers h me the reports of the trials of 189 investigation of the Criminal Cham] the Court of Cassation, and the final he before the United Chambers of the Court. The next night, I read the trial, without being able to tear myself from it. I saw how Zola had been demned for having penetrated and s the truth ; I read of General de Boisd testimony, under oath, to the authenti< the Henry forgery. But as my sa increased on reading of all these ( committed against innocence, and rea how men are led astray by their passic deep feeling of gratitude and admi welled up in my heart for the coura men, learned or ignorant, great or hu who had thrown themselves valianth the arena, and had fought for the ma ance of the principles which are the he 33fi Life i strength of example of a yers handed f 1898, the [Chamber of nal hearini^s I the same d the Zola myself away i been con- and spoken Boisdeffre's thenticity of my sadness [lese crimes id realising passions, a admiration courageous or humble, iliantly into te mainten- the heritage Five Ywrs of My Life of humanity— the vindication of justice and truth. And history will record that the honour of France was mirrored in this rising up of men of every class, of scholars hitherto absorbed in the silent toil of labora- tory or study, of workmen engrossed in their hard daily toU, of political person ""t" ' »' '°':««^ " inelevant docun and the conviracy to nve the guilty „ I^«. received during thi. time tho» of lette« from known or unknown fri iTorr '""* °' "'""^ <" «" and of the rest of the world. I hav, •^en able to thank all these friends on one, but I desire to «iy here how m, I melted within me rt these touching nar totions«)f sjrmpathy. What good they 1 ^mS.r°"'^ •'""«•- ""-dcr I had been v«y susceptible to the cha t,-^*'- ''«"«>'»'«Uy cold, and. obhged to clothe myself warmly, altho, ^ »« in the midst of summer. ,„ fast day, of the month of July I ^tal wth volent fits of fever, followed by a geston of the liver. I was obliged to t, to bed, but, thank, to vigorous treata.e was soon on my feet again. I then beg to l.ve on a diet of milk and egg,, Z nothing else, and Uved strictly on it « lo, MO Life first court. documents, "Ity man. I thousands •^n friends, >f Europe, I have not tds one by ^ my heart g manifes- they have ve derived >e change 2nd was although In the i^ taken by con- d to take eatment, •n began !gs, and as long Gerachel Phot Captain Dreyfus and his Family. Five Years of My Life as I remained at Rennes. During the trial however, I added kola to it, so as to be able to withstand the strain and remain on my feet, throughout the long and interminable sittings. The opening of the trial was fixed for August 9. I kept a tight rein over my feel- ings, though, for the sake of my dear wife, who was evidently terribly 'exhausted by her continual emotions, as well as for my own sake, I was anxious to reach the end of this frightful situation. I was most impatient to again embrace my dear, beloved children, who were still in ignorance of everything' and to be able, restored to my wife and little ones, to tranquilly forget all the sorrows of the past, and live again once more. 541 XI M 1 SHALL not recount here the sittings < Rennes court-martial. In spite of the clearest evidence, a all justice and aU equity, I was conden And the verdict was pronounced extenuating circumstances." Since have there been extenuating circums for the crime of u-eason ? Two votes, however, were given f< Two consciences were able to rise party spirit, to bend before the highei and to look only at the inalienable r man — ^justice. As to the sentence which five judg the hardihood to pronounce, 1 d accept it I signed my demand for a new tr day after the sentence. An appeal fr verdict of a court-martial can be h only before the Military Court of . which decides questions purely of U 34a tings of the nee, against ondemned. need "with Jince when rcumstances ven for me. » rise above higher ideal, able right of > judges had , 1 do not lew trial, the peal from the be brought ft of Appeal, ^ of form. I Five Years of My Life knew what had already passed after the court-martial of 1894, and founded, there- fore, no hope on such an appeal. My aim was to again go before the Court of Cassation, and give it the opportunity of completing the work of justice it had begun. But at that time I had no means to accomplish this, for, in military jurisprudence, in order to appear before the Court of Cassation, it is necessary, according to the terms of the law of 1895, to bnng forward a new fact, or else the proof that false evidence has been given. My demand for revision before the mili- tary courts thus permitted me merely to gain time. I had signed my demand for a revision on September 9. On September 12, at six o'clock in the morning, my brother Mathieu was in my cell, authorised by General de Galliffet, Minister of War, to see me without witnesses. A pardon was oflFered me, but in order that it might be signed it was necessary that I should withdraw my demand for 343 Five Years of My Life revision. Although I expected nothin, my demand, I stUI hesitated to withd, for I had no wish for pardon. I thirste just.ce. But, on the other hand, my b told me that my health, already c shaken, left little hope that I should b • to resist much longer under the cond m which I should be placed ; that my li woiUd allow me more easily to pros the reparation of the atrocious judicial of which I was still the victim, since it , give me time, to obtain which was the reason of my appeal to the Military Trih of Revision, Mathieu added that the , drawal of my demand was counselled approved by the men who had been, in Press and before the world, the c defenders of my cause. Finally, I thot of the sufferings of my wife and famil, ae children I had not yet seen, and thought of whom haunted me ever since return to Fiance. Accordingly I agreed withdraw my appeal, but I did so wl declaring very clearly my absolute a 344 Life lothing from withdraw it, thirsted after my brother »dy greatly >uld be able conditions t my liberty > prosecute dicial error ce it would s the only y Tribunal ' the with- selled and ■en, in the the chief I thought family, of and the since my »greed to so while ute and Five Years of My Life unchangeable intention to pursue the legal revision of the sentence of Rennes. a Jor'I'f ' ^' n,y liberation. I published a Note which expressed my thought and my unconquerable purpose. It was as follows : "The Government of the Republic gives -e back my Hberty. It is valueless to' m wuhout honour. From this day, I shTl nghtful judicial error of which I am still the victim. " I am resolved that all France shall be eonvmced. by a final judgmeni, that I am ■nnocent. My heart will not be appeased unhl there shall be not one Frenchman who ■mputes to me the abominable crime com- mitted by another." THE END.