* Apropos of the stage, it is a curious circumstance that
    nine-tenths of ‘the profession’ in France are ardent Dreyfusards. 
    Nearly every actor and actress and vocalist of note has been
    on the same side as M. Zola from the outset.

But, of course, there was another and a brighter side to the picture.  There were men of high intellect and courage who had not hesitated to state their views and plead for truth and justice, men who, when in office, had been arbitrarily suspended and removed.  There were many who had risked their futures, many too who, after years of labour, were well entitled to rest and retirement, yet had come forward with all the ardour of youth to do battle for great principles and save their country from the shame of a cruel crime.

Adversity makes one acquainted with strange bedfellows, and M. Zola was more than once struck by the heterogeneous nature of the Revisionist army.  He found men of such varied political and social views banded together for the cause.  It all helped to remove sundry old-time prejudices of his.

For instance, he said to me one day:  ’I never cared much for the French Protestants; I regarded them as people of narrow minds, fanatics of a kind, far less tolerant and human than the great mass of the Catholics.  But they have behaved splendidly in this battle of ours, and shown themselves to be real men.’

All through the spring M. Zola eagerly followed the inquiry which the Cour de Cassation was conducting, and when M. Ballot-Beaupre was appointed reporter to the Court, there came a fresh spell of anxiety.  M. Ballot-Beaupre is a man of natural piety, and the anti-Revisionist newspapers, basing themselves on his religious views, at first made certain that he would show no mercy to the Jew Dreyfus, but would report strongly in favour of the prisoner’s guilt.  Certain Dreyfusite journals, on the other hand, bitterly attacked the learned judge for his supposed clerical leanings; and indeed so much was insinuated that M. Zola for a short time half believed it possible that M. Ballot-Beaupre might show himself hostile to revision.

When I saw M. Zola he repeatedly expressed to me his feelings of disquietude.  Then everything suddenly changed.  Certain newspapers discovered that M. Ballot-Beaupre, if pious, was by no means a fanatic, and, further, that he was a very sound lawyer, much respected by his colleagues.  This cleared the atmosphere, for it seemed impossible that any man of rectitude and judgment could pass over the damning revelations which the Cour de Cassation’s inquiry, as published in ‘Le Figaro,’ had produced.

Time went on, and at last the issue, so frequently postponed, so longingly awaited, came in sight.  The week before the public proceedings of the Cour de Cassation opened M. Zola said to me:  ’I shall have finished the last chapter of “Fecondite” by Saturday or Sunday, so I shall have my hands quite free and be able to give all my attention to what takes place at the Courts.  I am hopeful, yes, very hopeful, and yet at moments some horrid doubt will spring up to torture me.  But no! you’ll see, our cause will gain the day, revision will be granted, and justice will be done.’