Since the Dreyfus question has come up again, and since the discussion now begun can end only in a series of inquiries, we desire to contribute our share to the search for the causes that brought about the arrest and conviction of the prisoner of Devil’s Island. It is known that the doors were closed during the trial, and that during the preliminary incarceration nothing of what the prisoner did or said transpired. Furthermore, little was known of the motives that determined General Mercier to order the arrest of Dreyfus. It is known that the ex-captain was accused of having been in relations with a neighboring power, and of having delivered to it documents concerning the national defence. But what was the nature of these documents? No official communication has made that known; so that at the present hour it seems to be rather generally believed that it was a matter of the general mobilization time-table. Now, that is false, just as it is false in the last degree that the ex-captain was questioned by General de Boisdeffre or by General Gonse. “I stop here to make an observation that I might have made elsewhere. It has been said in many places that Dreyfus denounced to the enemy the French officers who went on a mission to Germany. It has been said that he denounced Captain Degouy. Now, Captain Degouy’s brother, M. Paul Degouy, has come to this bar to say to me: ‘My brother is not with you in this matter. He is of those who believe that his superiors could not have taken the course that they have in the absence of striking proofs. Nevertheless, I authorize you to say, in my name and in the name of my brother, that never, and for all sorts of reasons which I need not develop, has Dreyfus been suspected of having denounced him.’ I add, in passing, that there have been many other lies told as false as this one, and, when we shall have contradicted them all, you will still find, three months or three years hence, people to tell you that Dreyfus denounced Captain Degouy, etc. The only person who was ever in communication with Captain Dreyfus after his imprisonment was Major du Paty de Clam, who, after this, affair, was promoted to the office of lieutenant-colonel. The document on the strength of which Dreyfus was condemned is an unsigned _bordereau_, containing no information confidential in its significance. Furthermore, of the five experts to whom this document was submitted, only two, MM. Charavay and Bertillon, recognized the ex-officer’s handwriting, while three others, one of whom was M. Gobert, the expert of the Bank of France, did not recognize it. “This is an error. There were three experts who recognized it, and two who did not.