Cour de
Cassation, the petition of Dreyfus's wife for a revision of his
sentence. The first step had at last been taken. The Criminal Chamber
accepted the request and proceeded to a further detailed investigation.

The Brisson Ministry was followed by a third Cabinet of the unabashed
Dupuy. It became evident that the Criminal Chamber of the Court of
Cassation was inclining to decide on revision. Wishing to play to both
sides and, yielding in this case to the anti-revisionists, early in 1899
Dupuy brought in a bill to take the Dreyfus affair away from the
Criminal Chamber in the very midst of its deliberations and submit it to
the Court as a whole, where it was hoped a majority of judges would
reject revision. Between the dates of the passage of this bill by the
Chamber and by the Senate, President Faure died suddenly and under
mysterious circumstances on February 16, 1899. He had opposed revision
and his death, attributed to apoplexy, was a gain to the revisionists
who were accused by his friends of having caused his murder. On the
other hand, stories, which it is unnecessary to repeat here, found an
echo some years later in the scandals repeated at the sensational trial
of Madame Steinheil.

During the turmoil over the Dreyfus affair, France underwent a
humiliating experience with England. The colonial rivalry of the two
countries had of late gone on unchecked, embittered as it had been by
the ousting of France from the Suez Canal and Egypt. To many Frenchmen
"Perfidious Albion" was, far more than Germany, the secular foe. In 1896
a French expedition under Captain Marchand was sent from the Congo in
the direction of the Nile. The English afterwards argued that its
purpose was to cut their sphere of influence and hinder the
Cape-to-Cairo project; the French declared they merely wished to occupy
a post which should afford a basis for general diplomatic negotiations
for the partition of Africa. The mission was numerically insufficient;
it struggled painfully for two years through the heart of the continent,
and at last the small handful of intrepid Frenchmen established
themselves at Fashoda on the upper waters of the Nile in July, 1898. At
once General Kitchener arriving from the victory of Omdurman appeared
on the scene to occupy Fashoda for the Egyptian Government. England
assumed a viciously aggressive attitude and, under veiled threats of
war, France was obliged to recall Marchand (November 4). The outburst of
fur