Trial and Conviction of Alfred Dreyfus - Devil's Island

Devil's Island

The Iles du Salut, where Dreyfus was landed on March 15, composes a small archipelago situated twenty-seven miles (43 km) off Cayenne, opposite the mouth of the River Kuru. Notwithstanding its name ("salus," health), it was a most unhealthy region, with incessant heat, continuous rain for five months of the year, and effluvia arising from the marshy land. The smallest island of the group, Devil's Island, which had been occupied by a leper hospital until Dreyfus' arrival, was destined to be his abode. On the summit of a desolate rock, far from the few palm-trees on the shore, a small hut of four cubic yards (3 m³) was built for him. Night and day an inspector stood guard at the door with strict orders not to address a word to him. In the daytime, the prisoner was permitted to exercise until sunset in a small rectangular space of about two hundred yards (183 m) near his hut.

Madame Dreyfus had asked permission to follow her husband to his place of exile. The wording of the law seemed to give her right of doing so. However, the ministry refused, alleging that the rules to which the condemned man was subject were incompatible with her presence. Therefore, Dreyfus had no company except that of his jailers. The governor of the islands showed some humanity; but the head warder Lebars, who had received instructions from the minister to enforce harsh measures, went beyond his orders. Badly fed, especially at the beginning of his term of exile, obliged to do all sorts of dirty work, living by day among vermin and filth, and by night in a state of perpetual hallucination, Dreyfus, as was to be expected, soon fell a prey to fever. The doctor interfered and obtained an amelioration of the rules.

Dreyfus himself, clearly convinced that it was his duty to live, fought energetically to do so. To keep up his physical strength, he compelled himself to take regular exercise. To prevent his intellect from getting dulled, he had books sent to him which he read and reread. He wrote out résumés, learned English, and took up his mathematical studies again. To employ the long hours of leisure that still remained he kept a diary. He could correspond with only his own family and, even to them, might refer only to domestic matters. His letters, examined by the administration, were one long cry for justice. Sometimes he begged his wife to go, leading her children by the hand, to entreat for justice from the president of the republic. He wrote himself to the president, to Du Paty, and to General Boisdeffre without receiving any replies.

Little by little the horrible climate did its work. Fever consumed him. He almost lost the power of speech from never employing it. Even his brain wasted away. On May 5, 1896, he wrote in his diary: "I have no longer anything to say; everything is alike in its horrible cruelty." His gentleness, his resignation, and his exact observance of all rules had not failed to make an impression on his jailers. Several of them believed him innocent. No punishment for rebellion against discipline was inflicted on him. Early in September 1896, an English paper reported a false story of his escape. This rumor had been circulated by Matthew Dreyfus in the hope of shaking up the sluggishness of public opinion and to prepare the way for the pamphlet of Bernard Lazare demanding a fresh hearing of the case of 1894. Although contradicted at once, the rumor roused public opinion. Rochefort and Drumont proclaimed the existence of a syndicate to free him, published some false information about the rules that the condemned man had to obey, and affirmed that with a little money it was the easiest thing imaginable to accomplish his rescue. The colonial secretary, André Lebon, took fright. It did not matter that these tales were absolutely without foundation and that the prisoner was of irreproachable conduct. To make assurance doubly sure, he cabled instructions to the governor of Guiana to surround the outer boundary of Dreyfus' exercising-ground with a solid fence, and to post a sentinel outside Dreyfus' hut in addition to the sentinel at the door .

Until this work was finished, the prisoner was to be secured day and night in his hut. At night, until further orders, he was to be subjected to the penalty of the "double buckle": gyves in which the prisoner's feet were shackled, and which were then firmly fixed to his bedstead, so that he was condemned either to absolute immobility or to dreadful torture. This order, barbarous and illegal, was strictly carried out, to the equal astonishment of Dreyfus and his warders, for twenty-four sultry nights. For two months, he was not allowed to stir out of his disgusting and suffocating hovel. When the cabin was opened, it was encircled by a wall that hid even the sky. Behind this wall his exercise-ground, hemmed in by a wooden fence over six feet (1.8 m) high, was a sort of narrow passage from which he could no longer see the sea.

Now utterly depressed, Dreyfus stopped keeping his diary on 10 September 1896. He wrote that he could not foresee on what day his brain would burst! His family was no longer allowed to send him books. His wife's letters were forwarded to him as copies rather than in her original hand. On June 6, 1897, a sail was sighted during the night and alarm-guns were fired. Dreyfus, startled in his sleep, saw his keepers with loaded rifles ready to shoot him down if he made one suspicious movement. In August, the authorities ascertained that the heat and moisture in his stifling hut were really unbearable, and had the man transferred to a new cabin, larger than the first, but quite as dismal. A signal-tower was erected close by armed with a Hotchkiss gun. Happily for Dreyfus his moral fortitude, after a temporary eclipse, had recovered its strength. From January 1898, his wife's letters, although containing no particulars, roused his hopes by a tone of confidence, which could not be mistaken. Eventful incidents had taken place during those three awful years. In particular, his brother, Matthew Dreyfus, had worked tirelessly to prove his innocence.