The Judge.--“We are not concerned with the Dreyfus case.”
The next witness was M. Lalance, who formerly sat in the German
reichstag representing Alsace-Lorraine, as protesting deputy.
“I would like,” said the witness, “to tell the jury something about
the origins of this affair. I was acquainted with the Sandherr and
Dreyfus families,--that is, with the family of the accuser and the
family of the accused. I have lived with them and seen them very
closely. The elder Sandherr was a Protestant who became a Catholic
and showed the intolerance of all neophytes. In 1870, the time of
the war, bands of people said to be directed by him ran through the
streets of Mulhouse, crying: ‘Down with the Prussians of the interior!’
These Prussians were the Protestants and Jews. These cries found no
echo. Protestants, Jews, and Catholics all did their duty during the
war and after it. When in 1874 the provinces were called upon to send
deputies to Berlin, it was a Jew who nominated the bishop of Metz, and
the Protestant deputies were nominated by the priests. The younger
Sandherr, the colonel, whom I knew from childhood, was a good soldier
and a brave and loyal citizen, but he had inherited his father’s
intolerance. Furthermore, in 1893 he fell a victim to the brain disease
of which he was to die three years later. In that year he was sent
to Bussang to be cured. During his stay there, there was a patriotic
ceremony,--the return of the flag to the regiment of light infantry.
All the bathers went to see it. Near them was a Jew, undoubtedly
an Alsatian, who wept with emotion. Colonel Sandherr turned to his
neighbors, and said to them: ‘I distrust those tears.’ His neighbors
asked him to explain, saying to him: ‘We know that there were Jewish
officers in the army who were patriotic and intelligent and did their
duty.’ Colonel Sandherr answered: ‘I distrust them all.’ Such was
the man, gentlemen of the jury, who proffered the accusation. It is
legitimate to suppose that he was governed by his feelings rather than
by justice. As for the Dreyfus family” ...
The Judge.--“Say nothing of Dreyfus.”