ning of a Republican grouping
which later, during the anti-Clerical campaign, was known as _le Bloc_,
the united band of Republicans.

The Waldeck-Rousseau Ministry took up the Dreyfus case with a queer
combination of courage and weakness. Insubordinate army officers were
summarily punished for injudicious remarks, but in order to appear
neutral and to avoid criticism, the Cabinet held so much aloof that the
anti-Dreyfusites were able to bring their full forces to bear on the
court-martial. For a month at Rennes, beginning August 7, an
extraordinary trial was carried on before the eyes of an impassioned
France and angry onlooking nations. Witnesses had full latitude to
indulge in rhetorical addresses and air their prejudices; military
officers like Roget, who had had nothing to do with the original trial,
were allowed to take up the time of the court. Galliffet, though
convinced of the innocence of Dreyfus, was unwilling to exert as much
pressure as his colleagues in the Cabinet desired. It soon became
evident that, regardless of the question involved, the issue was one
between an insignificant Jewish officer on the one hand and General
Mercier, ex-Minister of War, on the other. The judges were army officers
full of caste-feeling and timorous of offending their superiors. Thus,
on September 9, Dreyfus was a second time convicted, though with
extenuating circumstances, by a vote of 5 to 2, and condemned to ten
years' detention. This verdict was a travesty of justice, and a
punishment fitting no crime of Dreyfus, since he was either innocent or
guilty of treason beyond extenuation. The Ministry, perhaps regretting
too late its excessive inertia, immediately caused the President to
pardon Dreyfus, partly on the ostensible grounds that Dreyfus by his
previous harsher condemnation had already purged his new one. This act
of clemency was, however, not a legal clearing of the victim's honor,
which was achieved only some years later.

During the turmoil of the Dreyfus affair the Cabinet was, it seemed to
many, unduly anxious over certain conspirators against the Republic. The
symptoms of insubordination in high ranks in the army, linked with the
Clerical manoeuvres, had encouraged the other foes of the Republic
(spurred on by the Royalists), whether sincere opponents of the
parliamentary regime like Paul Deroulede, or venal agitators such as the
anti-Semitic Jules Guerin. But, certainly, above all objectionable were
the proce