Dreyfus

By John Hall Ingham (1860–1931)

The Second Condemnation

The details of the Dreyfus case are too long to be given here. Let it suffice to say that after a five years’ imprisonment on Devil’s Island, Dreyfus was brought back to France and re-tried. His sentence, pronounced on Sept. 9, 1899, was “Guilty—with extenuating circumstances.” In French law this “with extenuating circumstances” is equivalent to our “with recommendation to mercy.” He was pardoned by the President ten days later.

O MARTYR-SOUL, the infamy they speak

Is of themselves alone, and not of thee!

They are condemned at last. Thou goest free

By the high court of Heaven. One lowly, meek,

A Jew, despised of Roman and Greek,

Hath once before turned doom to victory;

And God and Right will thwart eternally

The vengeance that these human devils seek.

The thunderbolt hath fallen! From lust to lust

France languished on her way, till her decrees,

Moulded by perjuries and forgeries,

Devote undying Justice to the dust,

Nor heed the awful writing on the wall

That she who loseth Honor loseth all!

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