THE DREYFUS CASE 239passion for her poetry played its part in the gradual liberation of
his genius, that her friendship became important to Proust. For
the time being he preferred her quiet, shy sister, Princesse Helene
de Chimay, with her gentle, short-sighted eyes and chestnut hair,
and mistrusted, although she was an ardent Dreyfusard, the
frighteningly brilliant Comtesse Anna. Meanwhile, as we have
seen, he put her into Jean Santeail as the Vicomtesse Gaspard de
Reveillon.
The decision of the United Appeal Court on 3 June in favour
of the re-trial of Dreyfus was followed by the release of Picquart
(who had spent just under a year of the past seventeen months in
gaol), the despatch of a cruiser to bring Dreyfus back from Devil's
Island (he had been there for four years and four months), and the
fall of the Government. The new Prime Minister was Waldeck-
Rousseau, a revisionist and a moderate anti-clerical. He chose as
War Minister General de Galliffet (Charles Haas's friend and the
General de F roberville of A la Recherche), who was hated by the
Right for his revisionisml and by the Left for his massacre of
Communards in 1871. But the more decent elements in the Army
respected him for his heroic cavalry charge at Sedan ("Why, sir,
we'll charge as often as you like-so long as there's one of us left
alive, that is") and his efficiency. During the wild disorder in the
Chamber which greeted his first appearance he was observed to be
taking names, and explained: "I thought 1'd better invite these
chaps to dinner." By a narrow majority, the revisionist ministry
was allowed to survive, less for Dreyfus's sake than for fear of
revolution and civil war; but in the event it lasted for three years,
long enough not only for justice but, unfortunately, for revenge.
The new court-martial of Dreyfus began at Rennes in Brittany
on 9 August. The wretched man's hair had turned white, and he
was racked with malaria; solitary confinement had made it difficult
for him to speak or understand the speech of others; and he had
never even heard of Picquart or of the existence of Dreyfusism.
Once more he created an unfortunate impression by his dejected
manner, the toneless voice in which he exclaimed "I am
innocent!" His case was mishandled tactically by Labori, and
turned into an attack on the Army; and the judges, realising that
1 He was not a Dreyfusist, and said: "r never liked the fellow, and r know
damn all about his Case"; but for the sake of Army morale he was deter-
mined to put an end to the Affair, even at the price of seeing justice done.