THE DREYFUS CASE :U3Suddenly, in November 1897, the Affair exploded. On the 9th
Dreyfus's brother Mathieu published facsimiles of the hordereau
for sale in the streets; on the 15th he denounced Esterhazy; on the
29th Le Figaro published damning photographs of the hordereau
and of an old letter of Esterhazy to his mistress, in which he
declared his ambition to die 'as a captain of Uhlans, sabring the
French'. Clemenceau began a long series of articles in L' Aurore,
demanding revision of the Dreyfus trial; Picquart was recalled
from Tunisia under suspicion of conspiracy with the Dreyfusists;
and the gallant Esterhazy, confident of War Office support,
requested court-martial in order to clear his name. He was tried
on 10-1 I January 1898 and duly acquitted. On the 13th Picquart
was arrested and confined in the Mont-Valerien fortress; and
Zola's famous manifesto I Accuse appeared in L'Aurore. Next
morning's issue contained the first instalment of the 'petition
of the intellectuals', demanding the revision of the Dreyfus
Case.
'I was the first Dreyfusard,' Proust later claimed, with pardon-
able exaggeration and pride, 'for it was 1 who went to ask Anatole
France for his signature.' Proust and Gregh tackled France at
Mme Arman's, in his little study on the third /loor, where Mme
Arman knitted in an armchair at his side. "Are you trying to get
us all put iii prison, young man?" he remarked to the ardent
Gregh as he signed, while Mme Arman cried: "Don't do it, the
Felix Faures will never forgive us!" The two Halevy brothers,
Jacques Bizet, Robert de Flers, Leon Yeatman and Louis de la
Salle also collected signatures and signed. They had met, along
with Marcel and Robert Proust, every evening since the first day
of Esterhazy's court-martial, in the upstairs room of the Cafe des
Varietes to plan their campaign. For a whole week Dr Proust
refused to speak to his sons: he was a confirmed anti-Dreyfusist,
being a personal friend of almost every minister in the Govern-
ment, and when asked for his own signature by a medical
colleague had shown the canvasser to the door. But the 'manifesto
of the hundred and four' organised by Proust and his friends was
soon followed by half the professors in the Sorbonne, including
Proust's schoolmaster Darlu, and Paul Desjardins whose philo-
sophy lectures he had attended when studying for his licence en
droit. Several artists, such as Montesquiou's friend Galle, the
glass-maker, Mme Lemaire's guest Jules Clairin, and the great