ata_ (_chose
jugee_) to vague charges against Esterhazy. The later called for a
vindication, he was triumphantly acquitted by a court-martial early in
January, 1898, and Picquart was put under arrest on various charges of
indiscipline in connection with the whole affair.

Few and far between as they now seemed, the lovers of justice were still
to be counted with. They consisted at first of a small number of
much-derided _intellectuels_, scholars and trained thinkers, who used
their judgment and not their prejudices. One of these was the famous
novelist Emile Zola, who, to keep the case under discussion, published
in the _Aurore_ on January 13, a few days after Esterhazy's acquittal,
his famous letter, _J'accuse_. In this article Zola denounced the guilty
machinations of Dreyfus's adversaries _seriatim_, blamed the Dreyfus
court-martial for convicting on secret evidence and the Esterhazy court
for acquitting a guilty man in obedience to orders. Zola was not in
possession of all the facts, since his precise aim was to have them
brought out, and in his charges against the Esterhazy court he was
technically and legally at fault. But he courted prosecution and got it.

On February 7 Zola was brought to trial. The crafty authorities
eliminated all references to the trial of 1894 as a _chose jugee_ and
prosecuted Zola for having declared that Esterhazy was acquitted by
order. Their tool, the presiding magistrate Delegorgue, seconded their
efforts by ruling out every question which might throw light on the
Dreyfus case, in spite of the attempts of Zola's chief lawyer Labori.
Party passion was at its height, hired gangs of men were posted about
the court-house to hoot and attack the Dreyfusites, members of the
General Staff appeared in full uniform to interrupt the trial and
bulldoze the jury by mysterious hints of war with Germany. Finally Zola
was condemned to fine and imprisonment. At this trial for the first time
mention was mysteriously but openly made of a new document, understood
to be a communication alluding to Dreyfus between the Italian and the
German military _attaches_ at Paris. Zola appealed, the higher court
broke the verdict on the ground that the prosecution should have been
instigated by the offended court-martial and not by the Government, he
was brought to trial again on a change of venue at Versailles, was
unsuccessful in interposing obstacles to an inevitable condemnation, and
so fled to England (July).