Report to the Director of the Penitentiary on the Requests and Condition of Prisoner Dreyfus (December 17, 1897)
Alfred Dreyfus on Devil's Island
Salvation Islands, 17.12 / 97.
Report to the Director of the Penitentiary Administration in Cayenne.
Mister Director.
I have the honor to report to you that the deportee Dreyfus, who told the doctor he has been sick and feverish for three days, as a result of not receiving letters of his family whom he expected by the mail of November 29. With an impatience that he could not hide from his guards, with his lack of understanding, with his nervous movements, his state of mind; he asked his chief supervisor for his calming potion. He added, when the latter told him to take quinine with coffee: "Coffee with quinine would wander me, but that’s what I fear the most."
At 5 p.m. yesterday, fearing a complication, I went, with M. Debrine, first class medical officer, by my side. After entering his hut, me first, we found him standing, very calm (he heard us come), eyes a little tired, but nothing in his outside sound not showing a precarious state of health. As usual, the face was pink, and its maintenance was good.
As soon as the doctor asked him how he felt, he expressed himself in a sententious tone, coldly, easily, having weighed in advance that he should say: "I am sick, in an inexpressible state of mind, I have a fever, I can't stand up anymore, I'm there. But that's not what it's all about. I haven't any news, I'm at the end of my strength. I'm here for three years, and I want you to see before this-roof...
On this part of the sentence, and seeing that he wanted to do a speech, I abruptly interrupted him saying: "I brought you the doctor to give you all the care and the drugs that your health may require, but it is not here, and he's not qualified to listen to you and talk on a matter which is beyond our jurisdiction and which we do not have not to know. I only allow you to expose your illness without leaving the subject .."
-"But it is the right of defense to be heard".
- "You are now a convict and we are not here only enforcement agents; we don't have to listen to you. You have already been told to stand on the reserve, you must comply with this order."
- "However, I need to know where my business is, which has been around for three years, and I want to know what to expect on the steps that are taken and on the promises that I was made after my conviction. Why did the President does the Republic not answer me?
- "The President of the Republic and the Ministers have not to respond to a prisoner. By your family you have the response to your requests. I repeat again that we must stay alien to issues we don't have to know being, being law enforcers. Ask the doctor for care what you need, nothing else."
- "But my illness is entirely moral; I find myself in a state of extreme erethism which puts me in an indescribable state; I’m not sleeping, I’m afraid of losing my mind."
- "We can't help it; look in gardening for a diversion to your ideas."
- "I want to know where the review of my trial is. I need an answer. I want a response now; I want to wire to the President of the Republic, through the Governor, to have news. - Promise yourself that the telegram will arrive."
- "I will transmit to the higher authority all that you write. I don't have to promise you that the telegraph channel will be used, because you must not forget that you are condemned upon deportation."
- "I do not receive my correspondence, why?"
- "You have to know how to take into account the difficulties of colony conditions".
"- But ask the Governor where is my business?"
- "I don't have to intervene in such questions, that I don’t know, and that’s beyond my purview." Then, speaking to the doctor, I said to him: - "Doctor, please prescribe him all the drugs he needs."
The deportee, turning to the doctor, said to him: "Doctor, I'm exhausted, which I fear the most, I'm losing my mind; now I would rather die than lose my mind and wander. I'm leaving my mind. I'm asking you to give me the means to support myself for a month. If then, I don't hear from my family; if no decision has been made on my situation, it will be the end; I do not fear death; otherwise relieve me."
After some advice from the doctor on his walk, on his inactive way of life, his prescriptions that he doesn't follow, we withdrew.
Doctor Debrien was on the islands when Dreyfus first arrived and knows his condition well. From the start of the internment, when the orders were less severe, he spoke to him about his trial. I do not know how far the secrets have gone. Dreyfus certainly believed, in my opinion, that by raising these issues with Doctor Debrien, he could still chat fairly freely, and maybe, by escaped words, obtain some information; his project failed.
Anyway, I recommended to Mr. Debrien that he be very circumspect when speaking to the Deportee. Maybe it would be well, since he returns to Cayenne, that the Governor did the some recommendations on this point; his word would have more weight than mine.
The deportee was prescribed bromide and quinine. I renewed to the chief supervisor, retiring, as well that I do it every day from the rest, the prescriptions of the instructions which must be observed in all their rigor.
The superior commander
Signed: Illegible
P.S. - December 17 8 a.m. - After the close of this report, the deportee makes me ask by the phone in which terms must be written the request for review of his judgment that he wishes to formulate; I replied to the supervisor that he didn’t was not involved in the drafting of this document at address to the Minister of Justice.
4h evening - The deportee announced that he would not ask for the review of judgment until after the arrival of letters from his family.