THE DREYFUS CASE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 10970, 26 January 1899, Page 5

THE DREYFUS CASE.

ESTERHAZY'S EVIDENCE, By Telegraph.—Press Associatlon.-Copyi

Paris, January 21. Esteriiazy gave evidence before thfl Court of Cassation with reference to his relations with the members of the General Staff of the Army and with Colonel Schwartzkoppen, Attache of the German Embassy in Paris.

WHO IS ESTERHAZY?

[bt one wno knows ma.]

An extraordinary type. Marvollousl# supple of mind, intensely animated, de verve endiablee, as his countrymen would say, intelligent to excess, speaking and writing four languages; tall, thin, bony, laid, shaven in th»» French military fashion, tho eyes deeply sunt in their orbits, and bright and sparkling with intelligence using the pithy and picturesque language of the Paris gavroche, with a drawling nasal accent— vivacity, his memory, and his general knowledge are wonderful.

He is the perfect incarnation of tho old "Reitre," a mercenary soldier who acts only by order, knows nothing but the " consigne," swears, curses, runs down lus superiors and gives tho military salute at the same time. The struggle which for three years he tins been carrying on, surrounded on all hands by snares, seeking \a bolster up the tottering ' scaffold which supports the French general staff, and which threatens to engulf the whole military organisation of the Republic, in its fall, has in it something of romance, of tho vomlorfiil. Standing alone, lie lias gathered in his hands all the threads of the plot, forced tho colonels and the generals of tho general staff to act at his bidding, at his very caprice, laid traps and snares, escaped those prepared for him, and emerging alone from all the ruin, threatening some, entreated by others, holding the fate of all in his hands, ablo perhaps to save Dreyfus by a single word, and withholding it, hoping against the inevitable and for the impossible; hunted, in want and misery, yet refusing tho largo sums which have been offered him to speak out tlio truth —he who might work tho salvation of Dreyfus, and put the brand on the foreheads of his enemies— will not yet speak; he meditates, asks himself whether he shall avengs himself, destroy himself, or set ablaze in an awful orgy of delation and scandal all that, remains of the magistraturc and the army in' France.

Has this man any scruples? Or does he see only the aim before him, the brutal fact, and, combative to the end, prefers to busy himself in the ruins he is heaping around him, rather than clear them away? It is impossible to form an opinion. For hours I have talked to him, and lie lias told me the most extraordinary things with a good faith that was surprising, and almost naive. But lie desires to show himself above all us— what he is, in'fact—a soldier. He claims that title for himself, for his family, for Ilk race, which, since Louis XIV., has given fivo generals of his name to the French' army. Ho remembers with pride that at Fontenoy the Royal Esterhazy Regiment,.gommandod by his ancestor, wrought prodigies. It was this same ancestor to whom Louis XIV. had given 600,000f. to raise his regiment in Hungary. and who went to spend it in makng holiday at Venice, whence he wrote to tho Roi Soleil: 'Thijve neither cavaliers _ noif money to obtain them." The' King smiled. "He has a formidable appetite, this Hungarian,'' he said to his Minister. "Send him another 600.000. and let him Ibis time return, with his regiment."

The Esterbazy of to-day is of the same calibre. A Magyar noble of tlio same stuff as the Knights of Ragotski, with whom his ancestors c&mo to France. By his marriage with Mile, de Nottencourt lie made for himself a place apart in high French society. Th« Duchess do Clermont-Tonnerre, his wife's mother, opened to him the doors of the most aristocratic salons, and it is in these salons that for 20 years Esterbazy has seen file before him all whom France and Europe have looked upon as illustrious. In these salons, where intrigues are set on foot, where diplomatists lay their heads together and politicians conspire, espionage goes on on largo scale. And who was hotter placed than he to hear and see and know all? A friend of such men as Schwartzkoppen and Panizsardi, whose language he spoke, what may he not have done, what combinations may he not have effected, what may he not have reported to his chiefs, whose good faith was perhaps always put to the proof, and who, enclosed in that circle of falsehood, forgery, and fantastic conceptions, squander the money of France while believing they were serving her, and became the prey of intriguers who made them their first victims? We shall perhaps now soon know the truth, and certainly it will be welcome.