). Prejudice
against the Jews as tricky financiers had been prepared and encouraged
by the sensational failure of the great bank, the Union generale, a
Catholic rival of the Rothschilds, in 1882, and by the Panama scandals
with the doings of Jacques de Reinach, Cornelius Herz, and Arton. The
_Libre Parole_ had worked against Jewish officers in the army, an
activity which culminated in some sensational duels, particularly one
between Captain Mayer and the marquis de Mores (1892), in which the Jew
was killed.

So, in the present instance, the Minister of War, General Mercier, who
had recently committed some much-criticized administrative blunders, and
who now wished to show his efficiency, caused the arrest of Dreyfus.
Then, egged on by anti-Semitic newspapers which had got hold of
Dreyfus's name, Mercier brought him before a court-martial. The trial
was held in secret, and the War Department sent to the officers
constituting the tribunal, without the knowledge of the prisoner or his
counsel Maitre Demange, a secret _dossier_, a collection of trumped-up
incriminating documents. Demange devoted himself to proving that Dreyfus
was not the author of the _bordereau_, but the members of the
court-martial, believing in the genuineness of the additional documents,
unhesitatingly convicted him of treason. Consequently, in spite of his
protestations of innocence, Dreyfus was publicly degraded on January 5,
1895, and hustled off to solitary confinement on the unhealthy Devil's
Isle, off the coast of French Guiana. Meanwhile the whole French people
sincerely believed that a vile traitor had been justly condemned and
that the secrecy of the case was due to the advisability of avoiding
diplomatic complications with Germany. With dramatic unexpectedness,
only ten days later (January 15), Casimir-Perier resigned the
Presidency.

During the whole Dreyfus affair Casimir-Perier had chafed because his
ministers had constantly acted without keeping him informed,
particularly when he was called upon by the German Government to
acknowledge that it had had nothing to do with Dreyfus. He had lost by
death the support of his friend Burdeau; he was discouraged by the
campaign of abuse against him, especially the election as Deputy in
Paris of Gerault-Richard, one of his most active vilifiers. In
particular he felt that his own Cabinet, and above all its leader Dupuy,
were false to him. A discussion in the Chamber concerning the duration
of the