As it began, so it went on. Clemenceau's daily articles and attacks drove the militarists, the Catholics, the anti-Semites, and the reactionaries generally, into a fury. Colonel Henry, Colonel Paty du Clam, the Jesuit Father du Lac, the editors and contributors of the _Figaro_, the _Echo de Paris_ (the special organ of the Staff), the _Gaulois_ were in a permanent conspiracy with the generals named above, and the General Staff itself, to prevent the truth from being known. It was all of no use. Picquart under lock and key was more effective than Picquart at large. Slowly but surely men of open mind became convinced that, little as they wished to believe it, something was wrong. But these were always the minority. Few could grasp the fact that an innocent man was being put in chains on the Ile du Diable, virtually because there was an agitation in favour of his re-trial in Paris. Then came Zola's terrible letter in the _Aurore_, which Clemenceau had suggested, and gave up his daily article in order to give place to. He also supplied the title "_J'Accuse_." Zola summed up the whole evidence relentlessly against the General Staff and its tools and forgers, Esterhazy, Henry, Paty du Clam and the rest of them. Such an indictment, formulated by a novelist who was universally recognised as one of the leading men of letters in Europe, quite outside of the political arena, would have attracted attention at any time. In the midst of a period when all feelings and minds were wrought up to the highest point of tension, it came as a direct and heavy blow at the whole of the military party. It is difficult to realise to-day the sensation produced. It had all the effect of a combined attack of horse, foot and artillery for which preparation had been made long before by a successful bombardment. There was no effective answer possible in words. This the military cliques and their friends at once saw and acted upon. They abandoned discussion and forced Zola and _l'Aurore_ into court on a charge of treason and libel. The action stirred all Europe and riveted attention throughout the civilised world. This was due not merely to Zola's great reputation and popularity, to the political position held by Clemenceau, to the enthralling interest of the Dreyfus affair itself, to the excitement of the life-and-death struggle between freedom and reaction, but to the fact that behind all this lay the never-dying hostility of Germany to France.