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Wordsworth s Heroes Willard Spiegelman Digital Instant
Download
Author(s): Willard Spiegelman
ISBN(s): 9780520338968, 0520338960
Edition: Reprint 2019
File Details: PDF, 9.99 MB
Year: 2023
Language: english
WORDSWORTH'S
HEROES
 WORDSWORTH'S
HEROES

WILLARD SPIEGELMAN

University of California Press

Berkeley
Los Angeles
London
 University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
University of California Press, Ltd.
London, England
© 1985 by
The Regents of the University of California
Printed in the United States of America
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Spiegelman, Willard.
Wordsworth's heroes.
Includes index.
1. Wordsworth, William, 1770-1850—Characters—
Heroes. 2. Heroes in literature. I. Title.
PR5889.S64 1985 821'.7 84-28015
ISBN 0-520-05365-6
For My Parents
 Contents

Acknowledgments ix
A Note on Editions xi

Introduction:
"Character of the Happy Warrior"

1
Some Versions of Heroism 7

2
Wordsworth's Readers 23

3
Children: Prophecy and Nostalgia

4
The Necessity of Being Old 83

5
The Autobiographical Hero
in The Prelude 112

6
The Mysterious Heroic World
of The White Doe ofRylstone 166

7
The Excursion 190

Notes 223

Index 247
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My dear and good Lucie:
I have just at this moment received your letters. Words, my good darling,
are powerless to express what poignant emotions the sight of your dear
writing awakes in my heart; and, indeed, it is these sentiments of powerful
affection that this emotion awakens in me that give me the strength to wait
until the supreme day when the truth shall be made clear concerning this sad
and terrible drama.
Your letters breathe such a sentiment of confidence that they have
brought serenity to my heart, that is suffering so much for you, for our dear
children.
You tell me, poor darling, not to think, not to try to understand. Oh, try to
understand! I have never done that; it is impossible for me. But how can I
stop my thoughts? All that I can do is, as I have told you, to try to wait for
the supreme day of truth.
During the last months I wrote you long letters, in which I poured out my
over-burdened heart. What would you? For three years I have seen myself
the toy of events to which I am a stranger, having never deviated from the
absolute rule of conduct that I had imposed upon myself, that my conscience
as a loyal soldier devoted to his country had imposed upon me. Even in spite
of yourself the bitterness mounts from the heart to the lips; anger sometimes
takes you by the throat and you cry out in pain.
Formerly I swore never to speak of myself, to close my eyes to
everything, because for me, as for you, for us all, there can be but one
supreme consolation—that of truth, of unshrouded light.
But while my too long sufferings, the appalling situation, the climate,
which by its own power alone makes the brain burn—while all this
combined has not made me forget a single one of my duties, it has ended by
leaving me in a state of cerebral and nervous erethismus that is terrible. I
understand thoroughly, too, my good darling, that you cannot give me
details. In affairs like this, where grave interests are at stake, silence is
necessary, obligatory.
I chatter on to you, though I have nothing to tell you; but all this does me
good, it rests my heart and relaxes the tension of my nerves. Truly, my heart
often is shrivelled with poignant grief when I think of you, of our children;
and then I ask myself what I can have committed upon this earth that those
whom I love the most, those for whom I would give my blood, drop by drop,
should be tried by such awful agony. But even when the too full cup
overflows, it is from the dear thought of you, from the thought of the
children—the thought that makes all my being vibrate and tremble, that
exalts it to its greatest heights—from this thought that I draw the power to
rise from the depths of despair, to send out the thrilling cry of a man who has
begged for so long for himself, for those he loves, only for justice and truth
—nothing but truth.
I have summed up my resolution clearly, and I know that that
determination is your own, that of all of you, and that nothing has ever been
able to overcome it.
It is this feeling, associated with all my duties, that has made me live; it is
this feeling also that has made me ask once more for you, for you all, every
co-operation, a more powerful effort than ever on the part of all in a simple
work of justice and of reparation, by rising above all question of individuals,
above all passions.
May I still tell you of all my affection? It is needless, is it not? for you
know it; but what I wish to tell you again is this, that the other day I re-read
all your letters in order that I might pass some of the too long minutes near a
loving heart, and an immense sentiment of wonder arose in me for your
dignity and your courage. If the trial found in great misfortunes is the
touchstone of noble souls, then, oh, my darling, yours is one of the most
beautiful and the most noble souls of which it is possible to dream.
You must thank M—— for his few words; all that I can tell him is in your
heart as it is in mine.
Then, my darling, always and again, Courage! As I told you before my
departure from France a long time ago, alas! a very long time, our own
selves should be entirely secondary; our children are the future; there must
remain no spot upon their name; no cloud must hover, not even the very
smallest, over their dear heads. This thought should dominate all else.
I embrace you, as I love you, with all my strength, as also our dear and
adored children.
Your devoted
Alfred.

24 November, 1897.
 Dear Lucie:
All these months I have written you many long letters, in which my
oppressed heart has unburdened itself of all our too long-endured common
sorrow. It is impossible to disengage the mind from its ego at all times; to
rise above the sufferings of every instant. It is impossible that all my being
should not quiver, should not cry aloud with anguish at the thought of all you
suffer, at the thought of our dear children; and if when I fall I again and
again raise myself up, it is to send forth the thrilling appeal for you, for
them.
Though my body, my brain, my heart, everything, is worn out, my soul
remains intangible, ever ardent, its determination unshaken and strong in the
right of every human being to have justice and truth for himself, for those
who belong to him.
And the duty of every one is to co-operate in every effort, by every
means, toward this single object—justice and reparation; to put an end at last
to this appalling and too long-continued martyrdom of so many human
creatures.
I wish, therefore, my good darling, that our terrible tortures may soon be
ended.
I have received during the month letters from your dear parents from all
our family. I have answered them.
My best kisses to all.
And for you, for our children, all the tenderness of my heart, all my love,
all my thoughts, that never leave you for one single instant.
A thousand kisses more.
Alfred.

6 December, 1897.
My dear and good Lucie:
I cannot let the mail leave without writing to you, to repeat to you always,
it is true, the same words.
As I have told you, for long months I have lived only by an incredible
tension of the nerves, of the will; and it is when I fall under the weight of my
sufferings that the thought of you, that of the children, lifts me up quivering
with grief, with determination, before that which we hold most precious in
this world—our honor, the honor of our children, of us all. And then I send
out again the thrilling cries for help, the cries of a man who from the first
day of this sad tragedy has begged for nothing but the truth.
Here, then, is a work of justice far above all passions, a duty that
devolves upon all, and it must be accomplished. I wish, indeed, for both our
sakes, my good darling, that it may be accomplished at last; that our terrible
and too long torment may soon be ended.
I embrace you, as I love you, with all the power of my affection, and our
dear, our adored children.
Your devoted
Alfred.
My best kisses to your dear parents, to all our family.

25 December, 1897.
My dear Lucie:
More often than ever I have terrible moments, when my reason totters;
this is why I am come to talk to you now, not to speak of myself, but to give
you still, as always, counsels as to what I believe you ought to do.
In a situation as tragic as ours, when the question in point is the honor of
a family, the life of our children, you must always, my good darling, rise still
higher above all; you must put aside from the question all thought of
individuals, all irritating subjects, and you must call to your side every aid,
every kind heart.
I know better than any one that at times this will be difficult; it is
impossible not to feel our wounds; but we must do it. It is not a question of
humiliating ourselves nor abasing ourselves; but, on the other hand, we must
not throw away our energy in useless outcries; cries are not reasons.
We must simply stand fast, and will it that our right shall be yielded to us,
the right of innocence. You must assert your will, energetically, without
weakness, with dignity; you must act from your heart of a wife and mother, a
heart horribly torn and wounded.
I have suffered too much. I have too often been stunned, felled by their
sledge-hammers, to have been able to act in this way myself, although it is
the only sane and reasonable line of conduct. And it is just because often I do
not know where I am, because the hours weigh so heavily upon me, that I
long to pour out my heart to you.
All through this month I have again made numerous and passionate
appeals for you, for our children. I want to wish that this appalling
martyrdom may have an end; I want to wish that we may come out of this
terrible nightmare, in which we have lived so long; but that which I cannot
doubt, that which I have not the right to doubt, is that all co-operation is to
be given you; that this work of justice and of reparation is to be pursued and
accomplished. And now to sum it all up, my darling, what I would tell you in
a supreme effort, by which I set my own self totally aside, is that you must
sustain your rights energetically, for it is appalling to see so many human
beings suffer thus; for we must think of our unhappy children, who are
growing up; but we must not bring any passion, we must not allow any
irritating questions to enter in, any question of individuals.
I will not speak to you again of my love, when your dear image, that of
our children, rises before my eyes, and perhaps there is not a single minute
when this vision is not with me; then I feel my heart beat as if to burst, as if
it were full of tears repressed.
And a supreme cry rises from my heart in all the minutes of my long
days, of my long, sleepless nights; if it is a supreme cry that will be lifted in
my last hour, it is also an appeal to all to make one great effort for justice
and for truth; that all this ardent and devoted aid may be given you, this aid
that all men of heart and honor owe to you.
This appeal, as I have told you, I recently made again, and I cannot doubt
that it will be heard, so I will say again to you, Courage!
In these last lines I would now put all my heart, all that it enfolds of love
for you, for our children, for all; I would tell you that in my worst moments
of anguish it is these thoughts that have saved me, that have made me escape
from the tomb for which I had longed, that have made me try once more to
do my duty.
I embrace you with all my heart. I want to press you in my arms, as I love
you, to ask you to embrace most tenderly our dear and adored children, in a
long embrace, and your dear parents, all my dear brothers and sisters.
A thousand kisses more.
Alfred.
 6 January, 1898.
Dear Lucie:
I have not yet received your letters of October nor your letters of
November. The last news I had of you dates back, therefore, to September.
I shall speak to you less than ever of myself, less than ever of our
sufferings. No human word can lessen them. I wrote to you some days ago; I
was in such a state that I do not remember one word that I said to you.
But if I am totally worn out, body and mind, my soul is always ardent,
and I want to come into your presence to speak words that ought to sustain
your steadfast courage. I have put our fate, the fate of our children, the fate
of innocent creatures who, for more than three years, have been struggling
with unbelievable trials, into the hands of the President of the Republic, into
the hands of the Minister of War, asking for an end at last to our appalling
martyrdom; I have put the defence of our rights into the hands of the
Minister of War, whose duty it is to have repaired, at last, this long-enduring
and appalling error.
I am waiting impatiently. I want to wish that I may yet have a minute of
happiness upon this earth; but what I have no right to doubt for one instant is
that justice will be done, that justice will be done you and our children, that
you will have your day of supreme happiness.
I repeat to you, then, with all the strength of my soul, “Courage,
courage!” I embrace you as I love you, with all my strength, with all the
power of my affection, as I embrace our dear and adored children.
Alfred.
A thousand kisses to your dear parents, to all I love.

9 January, 1898.
After long and terrible waiting I have just received, altogether, the mails
of October and November.
I need not tell you what indescribable emotion seizes me when I read the
letters of those whom I love so much, of those for whom I would give my
blood, drop by drop; of those for whose sake I live.
Had I thought, darling, of myself alone, long ago should I have been in
my grave; it is the thought of you, the thought of our children, that sustains
me, that lifts me up when I am bowed under the weight of so much
suffering. I told you in my last letters all that I have done, of all the appeals
that I have again made for you and for our children.
If the light that we have awaited for more than three years is not shown
now, it will shine forth in a future that we know not.
As I told you in one of my letters, our children are growing; their
situation, that of us all, is terrible; the situation I am supporting only by
supreme effort is becoming absolutely impossible to bear. That is why I have
placed our lot, our children’s lot, in the hands of the Minister of War, asking
that at last an end may be made of our appalling martyrdom. That is why I
have again asked the Minister of War to restore to us our honor.
I await his answer with the greatest impatience, and I am hoping that this
appalling torment may have at last an end.
I embrace you, as I love you, with all the power of my love, with all my
tenderness, as also I embrace our adored children.
Your devoted
Alfred.
A thousand kisses to your dear parents, to all our family.

25 January, 1898.
My dear and good Lucie:
I shall not write to you at length to-day; I suffer too deeply for you and
for our children; I feel too keenly all your appalling anguish, your frightful
martyrdom. At the very thought of it my heart beats heavily, as if weighed
down by unshed tears. No human word could lessen the horror of your
anguish.
I told you in my last letters what I had done; during the last few days I
have renewed my appeals; the light we have so long waited for is not yet
seen; it will be seen only in a future that no one can foretell. The situation is
terrible, terrible for you, for the children, for all. As for me, it is needless for
me to tell you what it is.
I have asked the President of the Republic, the Minister of War, and
General de Boisdeffre for my rehabilitation, for a new trial. I have put the
fate of so many innocent victims, the fate of our children, into their hands; I
have entrusted the future of our children to General de Boisdeffre. I await
their answer with feverish impatience, with all that remains to me of my
strength.
I want to hope that there may yet be one minute of happiness for me upon
this earth; but what I have not the right to doubt is that justice shall be done,
that justice shall be done to you at least—to you, to our children. I say to
you, then, “Courage and Confidence!”
I embrace you as I love you, with all that my heart contains of deep
affection for you, for our adored children, for your dear parents, for all our
friends.
A thousand kisses more from your devoted
Alfred.

26 January, 1898.
My dear Lucie:
In the last letters that I wrote to you I told you what I had done; to whom
I had entrusted our fate, the fate of our children; what appeals I had sent
forth. It is needless to tell you with what anxiety I am awaiting an answer;
how heavy the moments have become to me. But my thoughts, day and
night, yearn so toward you, toward our children, that I want to write to you
again to give you the counsels which I ought to give you.
I have read and re-read all of your letters, and the letters from home, and I
believe that for a long time we have been living in a misconception of facts;
this misunderstanding comes from different causes (your letters were often
enigmas to me)—the absolute secrecy in which I live, the state of my brain,
the blows that have been struck me without my understanding them, acts of
stupidity that may also have been committed.
But this is the situation as I understand it, and I think that I am not far
from the truth. I believe that General de Boisdeffre has never been averse to
rendering us justice. We, deeply wounded, ask him to give us light upon this
mystery. It has been no more in his power to give us light than it was in ours
to procure it for ourselves; it will shine out in a future that no one can
foresee.
Some minds have probably been soured; it may be that awkwardnesses
have been committed, I cannot tell; all this has envenomed a situation
already so atrocious. We must go back to the beginning, and raise ourselves
above all our sufferings in order that we may look clearly into our situation.
Well, I, who have been for more than three years the greatest victim, the
victim of everything and of every one; I who am here, almost dying of
agony, I have just given you the counsels of prudence, of calmness, that I
think I ought to give you, oh, without abandoning any of my rights, without
weakness, but also without boasting.
As I have told you, it has not been in the power of General de Boisdeffre
any more than it has been in your power to throw light upon this mystery; it
will shine in a future that no one can foresee.
Therefore I have simply asked General de Boisdeffre for my
rehabilitation; to put an end to our appalling martyrdom, for it is
inadmissible that you should undergo such torture, that our children should
grow up dishonored by a crime that I could never have committed.
I await the answer to my letters with all the strength that is left to me. I
count the hours, I almost count the minutes.
I do not know if his answer will reach me soon; I know still less how I
keep alive, so extreme is my cerebral and nervous exhaustion; but if I should
succumb before that time comes, if I should faint under the atrocious burden
that I have borne so long, I leave it to you, as your absolute duty, to go
yourself to General de Boisdeffre, and, after the letters which I wrote to him,
the desire which, I am sure of it, is in the bottom of his heart to grant us
rehabilitation, when you (sic) will have realized that the discovery of the
truth is a task that will take a long time, that it is impossible to foresee when
it will be accomplished, I have no doubt that he will grant you, immediately,
a new trial; that he will at once put an end to a situation as atrocious for you
as it is for our children. I hope, too, that over my grave he will bear witness
not only to the loyalty of my past conduct, but to the absolute loyalty of my
conduct for the last three years, when, under all my sufferings, under all my
tortures, I have never forgotten what I have been—a soldier, loyal and
devoted to his country. I have accepted all, I have undergone all with closed
lips. I do not boast of it, for I have done only my duty, nothing but my duty.
I leave you with regret, for my thoughts are with you, with our children,
night and day; for this thought of you is all that keeps me yet alive, and I
should like to come and talk like this at every instant of my long days and
my long, sleepless nights.
 I can only repeat this wish: it is that all this sorrow may have at last an
end, that this infernal torture of all the minutes may soon be over; but if you
do as I have told you, as it is your duty to do, since I command it, I have no
doubt that you shall come to see the end of your appalling martyrdom, the
martyrdom of our children.
I embrace you, as I love you, with all the power of my love; I embrace
also our dear and adored children.
Your devoted
Alfred.
Kisses to your dear parents, to all.

4 February, 1898.
Dear Lucie:
I have nothing to add to the numerous letters that I have written to you
during the past two months; all this medley of confusion may be summed up
in a few words: I have appealed to the high justice of the President of the
Republic, to that of the Government, in asking for a new trial, for the life of
our children, for the end of this appalling martyrdom.
I have made an appeal to the loyalty of the men who caused me to be
condemned, to bring about this new trial. I am waiting feverishly, but with
confidence, to learn that at last our terrible suffering is to have an end.
I embrace you as I love you, as I embrace our dear children.
Your devoted
Alfred.
A thousand kisses to your dear parents, to all our friends.

7 February, 1898.
Dear Lucie:
I have just received your dear letters of December, and my heart is
breaking; it is rent by the consciousness of so much unmerited suffering. I
have told you that the thought of you, of the children, always raises me up,
quivering with anguish, with a supreme determination, from the thought of
all that we hold most precious in the world—our honor, that of our children
—to utter this cry of appeal, that grows more and more thrilling—the cry of
a man who asks nothing but justice for himself and those he loves, and who
has the right to ask it.
For the last three months, in fever and in delirium, suffering martyrdom
night and day for you, for our children, I have addressed appeal on appeal to
the Chief of the State, to the Government, to those who caused me to be
condemned, to the end that I may obtain justice after all my torment, an end
to our terrible martyrdom; and I have not been answered.
To-day I am reiterating my former appeals to the Chief of the State and to
the Government, with still more energy, if that could be; for you must be no
longer subjected to such a martyrdom; our children must not grow up
dishonored; I can no longer agonize in a black hole for an abominable crime
that I did not commit. And now I am waiting; I expect each day to hear that
the light of truth is to shine for us at last.
I embrace you, as I love you, with all the power of my love; also our dear
and adored children.
Your devoted
Alfred.
A thousand, thousand kisses to your dear parents, to all our family.

25 February, 1898.
Dear Lucie:
Our thoughts are in harmony; my thought does not leave you for one
single instant day or night; and should I listen only to my heart I should
write to you each moment, every hour.
If you are the echo of my sufferings, I am the echo of yours, of the
sufferings of you all. I doubt that human beings have ever suffered more.
The thought of you, of the children, and my longing always outstretched
toward you, toward them, still always give me the strength to compress my
bursting brain, to restrain my heart.
I have written you numerous letters in these last months; to add anything
to these letters would be superfluous. I have told you all the appeals I have
addressed since November last—appeals in which I ask for my
rehabilitation, for justice for so many innocent victims.
 In one of my last letters I told you that I had just addressed a last appeal
to the Government, an appeal more earnest, more energetic than any that I
had made before. So I am waiting, expecting day by day to learn that this
rehabilitation has taken place, that our tortures, as appalling as they were
unmerited, are to end; that the light of justice shines at last. I wish, therefore,
to-day only to embrace you with all my strength, with all my heart, as I love
you; so, also, I embrace our dear children.
Your devoted
Alfred.
A thousand, thousand kisses to your dear parents, to all our dear relations,
to all our dear brothers and sisters.

5 March, 1898.
Dear Lucie:
I have just received your dear letters of January. Your letters are always
wonderfully equal in spirit, in feeling, and in elevation of soul. I shall not
add anything to the long letters I have written to you during the last three
months; the last were perhaps nervous, overflowing with impatience, with
pain, with suffering; but all this is too appalling, and there have been
responsibilities to establish.
I will not go over and over my thoughts indefinitely. After explaining the
details of a situation as tragic as it is undeserved, a situation that has been so
long borne by so many victims, I ask and ask again my rehabilitation of the
Government, and now I am expecting each day to learn that the light of
justice is at last to shine for us.
I embrace you, as I love you, with all the power of my love, as I embrace
also our dear children.
My fondest love to all our friends.
Alfred.
 APPENDIX

ADDITIONAL LETTERS
A.—1898-99

On September 24, 1898, Dreyfus addressed a piteous letter to the

Governor of French Guiana, saying that all his appeals had met with no
response. It was at this period that he lost all hope. In early November he
received a letter from his wife which, although giving not the slightest
intimation of the stirring events in Paris, was in cheerful tone. He thought
that it referred to his letter of September 24, and at once became encouraged.
After more than two months’ silence he wrote to her again. He spoke of the
good news contained in his wife’s letter, repeated that he was waiting the
answer to his petition with confidence, and then he said:
“So when you receive this letter everything will, I think, be finished, and
your happiness will be complete. But in these days of relief and felicity
which will follow so many days of pain and suffering, I would that my
thought, my heart, all that is living in me, which has not left you during
those four terrible years, may again reach you, to add, if possible, to your joy
until we can at least resume that happy and quiet life to which your natural
qualities entitled you, and which you now deserved more than ever owing to
the greatness of your soul, to the nobility of your character, to all the most
beautiful qualities which a woman can display under such tragic
circumstances—qualities which suffering has only developed, and which
have proved to me that there was no ideal here below to which a woman’s
soul could not rise, and which she could not surpass. It is in our mutual
affection, in that of our dear and beloved children, in the satisfaction of our
consciences, and in the feeling that we have done our duty, that we shall
forget our long trials. I do not insist. Such emotion is great. I tremble at it;
but it is lovely, as it elevates. So until the decisive news of my rehabilitation
arrives I am going to live more than ever in thought with you, with all,
sharing your common joy.”

At length Dreyfus was officially informed of the first decision of the

Court of Cassation. Writing to his wife on November 25, he said:
“My dear Lucie:
“In the middle of the month I was told that the petition for the revision of
my judgment had been declared acceptable by the Court of Cassation, and
was invited to produce my means of defence. I took the necessary measures
immediately. My requests were at once transmitted to Paris, and you must
have been informed of this some days ago. Events must therefore be moving
rapidly. In thought I am night and day, as always, with you, with our
children, with all, sharing our joy at seeing the end of this fearful drama
approaching rapidly. Words become powerless to describe such deep
emotions.... According to information which I sent you in the last mail, all
will be over in the course of December. Therefore, when these lines reach
you I shall be almost on the point of starting for France.”
Here are touching passages from his letter of December 26. After telling
his “chère et bonne Lucie”—he almost invariably addresses her thus—that,
with the exception of the telegram, to which he at once replied, he had not
heard from her for two months until he got a letter a few days ago, he went
on to explain that if he had for a moment closed his correspondence, this was
because he was awaiting the reply to his petition for the revision of his
judgment, and should only have repeated himself:
“If my voice had ceased to make itself heard, this would have been
because it had forever died away. If I have lived, it has been for my honor,
which is my property and the patrimony of our children; it has been for my
duty, which I have done everywhere and always; and as it must ever be
accomplished when a man has right and justice on his side, without fear of
anything or of anybody. When one has behind one a past devoted to duty, a
life devoted to honor, when one has never known but one language, that of
truth, one is strong, I assure you, and atrocious though fate may have been,
one must have a soul lofty enough to dominate it until it bows before one.
Let us, therefore, await with confidence the decision of the Supreme Court,
as we await with confidence the decision of the new judges before whom
this decision will send me. At the same time as your letter I have received a
copy of the petition for revision, and of the decree of the Court of Cassation,
declaring it acceptable. I read with wonderful emotion the terms of your
petition, in which you expressed admirably, as I had already done in mine,
the feelings by which I am animated in asking that an end shall be put to the
punishment of an innocent man—I may add to that, of a noble woman, of
her children, of two families, of an innocent man who had always been a
loyal soldier, who has not ceased, even in the midst of the horrible sufferings
of unmerited chastisement, to declare his love for his native land.”

Always confident in the eventual result, Dreyfus wrote on February 8,

1899:
“Although I think, as I told you, that the end of our horrible martyrdom is
nigh, what does it matter if there is a little delay? The object is everything,
and until the day when I can clasp you in my arms I would have you know
my thoughts, which never leave you, which have watched night and day over
you and our children. Besides, the letter which I wrote to you on December
26 or 27 was too deep, too adequate an expression of my thoughts, of my
invincible will, and of my feelings, for me to add a single word to it.”

Pending the receipt of the news of his rehabilitation, he sends his love to
all their relatives. The latest letter, dated February 25, runs thus:
“My dear and good Lucie:
“A few lines, as I can only repeat myself, that you may still hear the same
words of firmness and dignity until the day when I am informed of the end
of this terrible judicial drama. I can well imagine, as you tell me so yourself,
what joy you feel in reading my letters. I am sure that it is equal to my
pleasure in perusing yours. It is a bit of one which reaches the other, pending
the blessed moment when we are at last reunited. My thoughts, which have
never left you a moment, which have watched night and day over you and
our children, are always with you. I very often speak mentally to you, but
they are always the same ideas and feelings of which I also find the echo in
your letters, as all this is common to us since these same thoughts and
sentiments are the common property, the innate basis of all loyal souls and of
all honest characters. It is with a reassured and confident mind that I must
leave to the high authority of the Court the care of the accomplishment of its
noble work of supreme justice. Pending the news of my rehabilitation, I
embrace you with all my strength, with all my soul, as I love you and our
dear and adored children.
Your devoted
Alfred.

It was soon after this he wrote the following letter to his little son:
“My dear Pierre:
“I have received your nice little letter. You wish me to write to you. I
shall soon do better; I shall soon press you in my arms. Pending this good
and sweet moment you will embrace your mamma for me, as well as
grandpapa, grandma, little Jeanne, the uncles and aunts, all, in fact. Hearty
kisses to you and little Jeanne, from your affectionate father.
Alfred.”
This letter, quite exceptionally, does not bear the stamp of the penal
administration.

B.—HIS OWN STATEMENT OF THE CASE

Here is a letter that was received by Maître Demange, the counsel of
Dreyfus, from his client, December 31, 1894. It was first made public when
sent to M. Sarrien, Minister of Justice, July 11, 1898. In the published copy
it was deemed necessary to suppress certain words and phrases:
“Commandant du Paty came to-day, Monday, December 31, 1894, at 5.30
P.M., after the rejection of my appeal, to ask me, on behalf of the Minister,
whether I had not, perhaps, been the victim of my imprudence, whether I had
not meant merely to lay a bait ... and had then found myself caught fatally in
the trap. I replied that I had never had relations with any agent or attaché, ...
that I had undertaken no such process as baiting, and that I was innocent. He
then said to me on his own responsibility that he was himself convinced of
my guilt, first from an examination of the handwriting of the document
brought up against me, and from the nature of the documents enumerated
therein; secondly, from information according to which the disappearance of
documents corresponded with my presence on the General Staff; that,
finally, a secret agent had declared that a Dreyfus was a spy, ... without,
however, affirming that that Dreyfus was an officer. I asked Commandant du
Paty to be confronted with this agent. He replied that it was impossible.
Commandant du Paty acknowledged that I had never been suspected before
the reception of the incriminating document.
“I then asked him why there had been no surveillance exercised over the
officers from the month of February, since Commandant Henry had affirmed
at the court-martial that he had been warned at that date that there was a
traitor among the officers. Commandant du Paty replied that he knew
nothing about that business, that it was not his affair, but Commandant
Henry’s; that it was difficult to watch all the officers of the General Staff....
Then, perceiving that he had said too much, he added: ‘We are talking
between four walls. If I am questioned on all that I shall deny everything.’ I
preserved entire calmness, for I wished to know his whole idea. To sum up,
he said that I had been condemned because there was a clue indicating that
the culprit was an officer and the seized letter came to give precision to that
clue. He added, also, that since my arrest the leakage at the Ministry had
ceased; that, perhaps, ... had left the letter about expressly to sacrifice me, in
order not to satisfy my demands.
“He then spoke to me of the remarkable expert testimony of M. Bertillon,
according to which I had traced my own handwriting and that of my brother
in order to be able in case I should be arrested with the letter on me to
protest that it was a conspiracy against me. He further intimated that my wife
and family were my accomplices—in short, the whole theory of M.
Bertillon. At this point, knowing what I wanted to discover, and not wishing
to allow him to insult my family as well, I stopped him, saying, ‘Enough; I
have only one word to say, namely, that I am innocent, and that your duty is
to continue your inquiries.’ ‘If you are really innocent,’ he exclaimed, ‘you
are undergoing the most monstrous martyrdom of all time.’ ‘I am that
martyr,’ I replied, ‘and I hope the future will prove it to you.’
“To sum up, it results from this conversation: 1. That there have been
leakages at the Ministry. 2. That ... must have heard, and must have repeated
to Commandant Henry, that there was an officer who was a traitor. I do not
think he would have invented it of his own accord. 3. That the incriminating
letter was taken at.... From all this I draw the following conclusions, the first
certain, the two others possible: First, a spy really exists ... at the French
Ministry, for documents have disappeared. Secondly, perhaps that spy
slipped in in an officer’s uniform, imitating his handwriting in order to divert
suspicion. Thirdly (here four lines and a half are blank). This hypothesis
does not exclude the fact No. 1, which seems certain. But the tenor of the
letter does not render this third hypothesis very probable. It would be
connected rather with the first fact and the second hypothesis—that is to say,
the presence of a spy at the Ministry and imitation of my handwriting by that
spy, or simply resemblance of handwriting.
“However this may be, it seems to me that if your agent is clever he
should be able to unravel this web by laying his nets as well on the ... side as
on the ... side. This will not prevent the employment of all the other methods
I have indicated, for the truth must be discovered. After the departure of
Commandant du Paty I wrote the following letter to the Minister: ‘I
received, by order, the visit of Commandant du Paty, to whom I once more
declared that I was innocent, and that I had never even committed an
imprudence. I am condemned. I have no favor to ask. But in the name of my
honor, which I hope will one day be restored to me, it is my duty to beg you
to continue your investigations. When I am gone let the search be kept up; it
is the only favor that I solicit.’ ”

FOOTNOTES:
[A] See Appendix A.
[B] See Appendix B.
[C]

“Who steals my purse steals trash; ’tis something, nothing;

’Twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands!
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him,
And makes me poor indeed.”
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