Existing comment:
The Triumph of Truth: Honor Regained:
Despite the second guilty verdict by a military tribunal, the national consensus in France had shifted in favor of Dreyfus. Ten days after the second court-martial in Rennes, a seriously ill Dreyfus was offered a pardon by French President Emile Loubet and accepted it with the proviso that he would continue to establish his complete innocence. In 1906, twelve years after the initial condemnation, the Supreme Court of Appeal declared the verdict of Rennes null and void, exonerating Dreyfus. Dreyfus was reinstated into the Army, promoted to Squadron Leader and appointed Chevalier de la Legion d'honneur at the Ecole Militaire where he had been degraded in 1894. To the cries of "Long Live Dreyfus," he replied, "Long live France, " a dramatic demonstration of his unswerving loyalty and love of his country.
The Dreyfus case remains a metaphor for good and evil. Institutions, obsessed with self-interest, can easily become corrupt; the media's power to persuade is immense; society eagerly seeks scapegoats to blame for its problems; individuals have an obligation to exhibit moral courage to change the tide of injustice. These lessons of the historic Dreyfus case are contemporary imperatives. |