There are occasional events and personages in French history that make one wonder whether the nation can ever be fully understood by a foreigner. One such is the Dreyfus affair. That a man should be falsely condemned for espionage is not in itself so strange—what country has not witnessed the miscarriage of justice? But that the people of the supposed most cultivated of nations should be so divided by the effort to rehabilitate the accused that a goodly portion of its conservative element should wish the conviction to stand even if it were proven wrong seems something that could not happen, at least in the United Kingdom or the United States. We had our Sacco and Vanzetti, but did even those furthest to the right wish to see innocent men electrocuted? If any did, they were careful not to say so. Yet in France there were many who did not hesitate to voice the opinion that the reputation of the army had to be maintained, even at the cost of injustice to one of its officers. A soldier can be asked to die for his country: should he not be willing to be disgraced for it?
Dumas père was simply impossible. He gave his son every reason to resent and despise him—and then charmed him out of his resentment.
No! is our resounding answer. Perhaps because we haven’t that
