the prison, and the cell must be watched by a police agent. At the same time a mes sage was sent to Dreyfus inviting him to appear on October 15th, in civil dress, at the War office, but no intimation given as to the reason; but it was to prevent public attention towards a uniformed officer being in custody of the civil police, and the method was in accordance with a policy of mystery that tainted, from first to last, what is now known as the Dreyfus case. The entire story relating to it revives recollection of that of " The Iron Mask " of which the elder Dumas has constructed such a powerfully romantic tale. The French republic of 1898 revived for Dreyfus all the horrors of arrest and imprisonment practiced by the auto cratic monarchy of Louis XIV, when it secretly arrested and imprisoned a myster ious prisoner of State, whose identity down to date is as much in nubibus as is the author of the " Letters of Junius." Utterly unsuspicious, Captain Dreyfus obeyed the order and was arrested by the police precisely as, in the reigns of the ab solute Bourbons, men were captured under a lettre de cachet. No sworn, nor even written complaint was made against him; no par ticulars were vouchsafed to him, but he was verbally and in general terms informed that he was charged with treason. Then he was conveyed in a carriage to the assigned pris on, where according to testimony of the major commanding, and to use his words, "Dreyfus was buried alive." "He seemed a veritable madman with bloodshot eyes, while buffeting the walls and furniture and violently protesting his innocence." Finally he was quieted down, when he begged for writing material, in order to ask his military superiors for a hearing and to know some de tails of his charge. But the request was de nied; and during nine days — Dreyfus drink ing only bouillon and vin ordinaire day by day — his groans and pathetic protestations of innocence were heard all over the corri dors. At the end of the ninth day of secret
imprisonment his condition became so seri ous that the major in charge thought it ad visable to visit the Governor of Paris with in formation; who asked, " What d'ye think of him? " Whereupon I answered, testified the major afterwards, " You are on a wrong tack, for the officer by his behavior cannot be guilty." Meanwhile an officer of the army, very appropriately named M.de Clam, was visiting the distracted wife — who simply knew her husband had disappeared but knew nothing more — for the purpose of bullying her in to some acknowledgment of the captain's methods and habits. This inquisitor then went on the tenth day of imprisonment to the jail, equipped with a special permit from the minister of war entitling him to an inter view with the prisoner. He asked the keeper to allow entrance to the cell at night, noiselessly, while the dungeon was utterly dark; but the keeper carrying a dark lantern which could be suddenly flashed on the face of Dreyfus, who thrown off his guard by the surprise, could be questioned. De Clam, however, after the customary style of the French maxim in their criminal law, that every one arrested is presumed to be guilty and must affirmatively prove innocence, subjected Dreyfus to an incriminating ex amination with leading and argumentative questions; and reciting phrases from the bordereau made Dreyfus write them down so as to get comparison of hand writing. The prisoner wrote without objection. For sev eral successive days this De Clam inquisitor pursued such methods and did all he could to force confessions — much after the fashion that, as a recent New York investigation dis closed, was systematically pursued towards arrested persons under mere suspicion, in or der to force confessions, and which is slangily phrased by the detectives as " wprking the third degree." But Dreyfus protested inno cence and continually begged to know with what acts he was charged, and to see his wife. At last — the Parisian press having got
