Investigation and The Arrest of Alfred Dreyfus - The Judicial Inquiry

The Judicial Inquiry

The judicial inquiry had been entrusted to Major Bexon d'Ormescheville, judge-advocate of the first court martial of the Seine département. Comrades of Dreyfus said that they remembered, or thought they remembered, that in his past conduct he had shown signs of excessive curiosity. One officer testified that he had lent him the "manuel de tir" for several days, but that was in July, whereas the bordereau was now believed to have been written in April. An agent named Guénée, charged by Major Henry with the task of inquiring into the question of his morals, picked up a collection of tales which represented Dreyfus as a gambler and a libertine, whose family had been obliged several times to pay his debts. Another inquiry by the Prefecture of Police showed the inanity of these allegations: Dreyfus was unknown in gambling-houses, and Guénée's informants had confused him with one of his numerous namesakes. There was no visible motive; the accusation rested solely on the disputed handwriting.

However, public opinion had already condemned him. The press claimed that Dreyfus had exposed the system of national defense. All the treachery that had remained untraced was blamed on him. People were indignant that the penalty of death for political crimes had been abolished by the constitution of 1848; even death seemed too light a punishment. The only excuse that they found for him was that his race had predisposed him to commit an act of treason, the "fatalité du type."

The yellow press also blamed the minister of war, for keeping the arrest a secret, in the hope of being able to hush up the affair; he was said to be in league with "the Jews". General Mercier now understood that the condemnation of Dreyfus was a question of his own political life or death; convinced or not, he determined to establish the man's guilt. On November 28, he declared in an interview with Le Figaro that Dreyfus' guilt was "absolutely certain." Then, aware of the defects of the evidence, he ordered that a secret dossier should be prepared by collecting from the drawers of the Intelligence Department whatever documents concerning spies could more or less be ascribed to Dreyfus. This dossier, revised and put into a sealed envelope by Mercier himself, with the cooperation of Boisdeffre and of Sandherr, was to be communicated only to the judges in the room where they held their deliberations, without either the accused or his counsel having been able to see it.

As soon as it had become known that General Mercier had decided to pursue the matter, public opinion changed in his favor. "One must be for Mercier or for Dreyfus," proclaimed General Riu. Cassagnac, who, as a personal friend of Dreyfus' lawyer, maintained some doubts as to his guilt, summed up the situation in these words: "If Dreyfus is acquitted, no punishment would be too severe for Mercier!"