to advise the president of the
republic to pardon Dreyfus. This lame conclusion did not satisfy the
accused; but his innocence had been so clearly proved, and on political
grounds there were such urgent reasons for desiring a termination of the
affair, that it was accepted without protest by the majority of moderate
men.

The rehabilitation of Dreyfus, however, did not pass without another
effort on the part of the reactionaries to turn the popular passions
excited by the case to their own advantage. After the failure of
Deroulede's attempt to overturn the republic, the various Royalist and
Boulangist leagues, with the assistance of the anti-Semites, organized
another plot. This was discovered by the government, and the leaders
were arrested. Jules Guerin, secretary of the anti-Semitic league, shut
himself up in the league offices in the rue Chabrol, Paris, which had
been fortified and garrisoned by a number of his friends, armed with
rifles. For more than a month these anti-Semites held the authorities at
bay, and some 5000 troops were employed in the siege. The conspirators
were all tried by the senate, sitting as a high court, and Guerin was
sentenced to ten years' imprisonment. The evidence showed that the
anti-Semitic organization had taken an active part in the
anti-republican plot (see the report of the Commission d'Instruction in
the _Petit Temps_, 1st November 1899).

The government now resolved to strike at the root of the mischief by
limiting the power of the religious orders, and with this view a drastic
Association bill was introduced into the chambers. This anti-clerical
move provoked the wildest passions of the reactionaries, but it found an
overwhelming support in the elections of 1902 and the bill became law.
The war thus definitely reopened soon led to a revival of the Dreyfus
controversy. The nationalists flooded the country with incendiary
defamations of "the government of national treason," and Dreyfus on his
part loudly demanded a fresh trial. It was clear that conciliation and
compromise were useless. Early in 1905 M. Jaures urged upon the chamber
that the demand of the Jewish officer should be granted if only to
tranquillize the country. The necessary _faits nouveaux_ were speedily
found by the minister of war, General Andre, and having been examined by
a special commission of revision were ordered to be transmitted to the
court of cassation for final adjudication. On the 12th of July 1906, the