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Dreyfus, L'affaire

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Dreyse, Nicholaus von

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On 23rd December 1894, Alfred Dreyfus, an Alsatian Jew, captain of French Artillery; was by court-martial found guilty of revealing to a foreign power secrets of national defence, and sentenced to degradation and perpetual imprisonment; he constantly maintained his innocence, and, in time, the belief that he had been unjustly condemned became prevalent, and a revision of the trial being at length ordered, principally through the exertions of Colonel Picquart and Zola, the well-known author, Dreyfus was brought back from Cayenne, where he had been kept a close prisoner and cruelly treated, and a fresh trial at Rennes began on 6th August 1899, and lasted till 9th September; the proceedings, marked by scandalous "scenes," and by an attempt to assassinate one of prisoner's counsel—disclosed an alarmingly corrupt condition of affairs in some lines of French public life under the Republic of the time, and terminated in a majority verdict of "guilty"; M. Dreyfus was set at liberty on 20th September, the sentence of ten years' imprisonment being remitted; b . 1860.