But literature was rarely discussed anywhere in those days, as _L’affaire_ dominated everything and excluded all other topics.
In August came the Rennes trial, and the excitement reached its climax. Galliffet was minister of war, and I heard him make his first speech in the Chamber. “Assassin!” shouted the left. “C’est moi, Messieurs,” said Galliffet, and waited till they had finished. During the month of August, he used to dine every night at the “Cercle de l’Union.” The club was quite deserted. I used often to sit at his table.
He told me that many people in the Club would probably not speak to him when they returned, for his having accepted the portfolio at such a time. “They will turn their backs on me probably,” he said. “Mais,” he added, with a chuckle, “ils ne se permetteront pas une impertinence.” He used to tell me many interesting things. He said the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in his life was Georgiana, Lady Dudley, at one of the early Paris Exhibitions, and after her, Madame de Castiglione. I never knew whether he had believed in the guilt or innocence of Dreyfus, but I knew he was determined the case should end somehow and by a verdict which should bring about an _apaisement_.
The General was a picturesque and striking figure, not tall nor imposing, but carved, as it were, in some enduring granite-like substance, with steely eyes, a quick, rather hoarse, jerky utterance, and a very direct manner, a little alarming to a newcomer, owing to its abrupt frankness, and his way of saying what he thought in the most pointed, Gallic manner. His illustrations, too, and his confessions were sometimes startling.
In conversation he leapt over all conventions, with the same gaiety and gallantry that had made him say at Sedan: “Tant que vous voudrez, Mon Général.” In the early days of the case he had been strongly in favour of revision.
When the verdict of the Court of Rennes was announced, and Dreyfus subsequently pardoned, a curious thing happened. Although the topic had been raging daily for years to the exclusion of everything else, exciting everywhere the fiercest passions, and dividing every family in France, estranging friendships, and breaking careers, the very moment the decision was made known, the topic dropped from the minds of men instantly and finally, as though it had never existed.
