THIRD REPUBLIC AND THE CHURCH

martial as to the guilt of the accused: not only was a public
trial refused, but conviction was obtained only by the handing
over to the judges of a number of " secret documents " too
secret to be shown to the defence^ and which were later proved
to be either forged for the purpose or so irrelevant as to be
valueless to any unbiased mind. Two hypotheses, and two
only, can really be accepted concerning the attitude of those
responsible for prosecution or trial: either a belief that Dreyfus
was known to an inner group to be a traitor, but that for
reasons of State the real evidence could not be brought for-
ward, or the belief that, given the state of public opinion, it
was better to condemn one individual, however innocent,
than to risk the upheaval which an acquittal would entail. Add
to this the quite sincere, however incredible, conviction of
many that a Jew must be by nature a traitor, that no Jew could
be a patriotic Frenchman, and that evidence of actual guilt
was really scarcely necessary.

Under the circumstances, acquittal under any form, how-
ever disguised, was a psychological impossibility. How indeed
could a court martial clear a Jewish junior officer at the ex-
pense of the General Staff and War Office? So Dreyfus was
sent to Devil's Island, off French Guiana, forgotten by all but
his intimate friends.

Yet not altogether forgotten: uneasy at the inadequacy of
the evidence, worried at the idea that a fresh inquiry might
one day be made, the heads of the General Staff, Generals
Boisdeffre and Gonse, instructed the new head of the
Intelligence section, Lieutenant-Colonel Picquart, to " thicken "
the affair, corser Taffaire—i.e. to try to obtain more proofs.1

1 " Des preuves! Sans doute il est bon d'avoir des preuves, mais il est
peut-etre meilleur de n'en point avoir. . . . Comme preuves, les fausses valent
mieux que les vraies, d'abord parce qu'elles ont ete faites expres, pour les
besoins de la cause, sur commande et sur mesure, et qu'elles sont enfin exactes
et justes. Elles sont prefe'rables aussi parce qu'elles transportent les esprits
dans un monde ideal, et les detournent de la r^alite qui, en ce monde, helas!
n'egt jamais sans melanges. . . . Toutefois j'aimerais peut-etre mieux que nous
n'eussions pas de preuves du tout. Vous avez souhaite des preuves et vous en
avez obtenu. Vous en possedez beaucoup, vous en possedez trop " (Anatole
France, Ulle des Pingouins).
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