The Wife Who Wrote to Devil's Island for Five Years and Did Not Know If the Letters Were Reaching Anyone

Lucie Hadamard Dreyfus (1869–1945) was 25 years old when her husband Alfred Dreyfus was arrested on a forged espionage charge in October 1894. She was the daughter of a wealthy Parisian Jewish diamond merchant, the mother of two small children (Pierre, born 1891; Jeanne, born 1893), and the wife of a French Army general-staff captain who appeared to her on the morning of his arrest to be the rising star of the French military establishment.

Within fourteen months her husband had been court-martialled, publicly degraded, and shipped 7,000 kilometres south to the isolated penal colony at Devil’s Island off the coast of French Guiana, where he would spend the next four years and four months in solitary confinement. The political campaign that would eventually exonerate him would take her, his brother Mathieu, and a small circle of supporting intellectuals (most importantly the anarchist journalist Bernard Lazare) approximately five years to organise and was substantively opposed by the entire French military establishment and by the Catholic-conservative French political mainstream of the 1890s.

She wrote to him every week through the entire period.

The mail

The French penal administration of Devil’s Island allowed prisoners to send and receive correspondence, but the system was substantively designed to discourage substantive communication. The standard practice for any incoming or outgoing letter:

The letter was first read by a censorship officer at the penal-administration office on the Île Royale (the larger of the three Salvation Islands; Devil’s Island was the smaller satellite that held only Dreyfus). Any reference to French politics, to the Dreyfus case itself, to the conditions of confinement, or to the prisoner’s specific guards was redacted with a heavy black-ink overstrike or removed entirely by cutting the offending passage out of the paper.

The redacted letter was then transcribed by hand by the censorship clerk into a clean copy, with the redactions noted but the original passages omitted. The hand-copied transcription was forwarded to the prisoner (or to the addressee in France). The original letter was retained in the censorship file.

The transcription process introduced multi-month delays. Letters that Lucie posted in Paris on a Monday morning typically reached the prisoner about three months later — once the Atlantic mail steamer to Cayenne (about six weeks each direction) had completed both legs and the censorship clerk had processed the letter for the colonial administration. Letters that the prisoner wrote on Devil’s Island followed the same schedule in reverse. The minimum round-trip correspondence time was approximately six months; the typical actual round-trip time was approximately eight to ten months.

Lucie’s standard practice was to write twice per week — one short letter with day-to-day family news, one longer letter with substantive reflection. Alfred’s standard practice was to write three to four times per week from his hut on Devil’s Island, partly as substantive correspondence and partly as substantive psychological maintenance against the substantively destructive effects of his solitary confinement.

Approximately a thousand letters survive in each direction. They are now held in the Bibliothèque nationale de France’s Department of Manuscripts as part of the Dreyfus family archive. They are one of the most-complete surviving correspondence collections of any 19th-century European prisoner of conscience.

What was redacted

The censorship was substantively heavy. Surviving comparison between Lucie’s original letters (preserved at the censorship file at the Devil’s Island colonial archive, transferred to French national archives in 1900) and the transcribed versions that reached Alfred shows that approximately a third of any given letter was substantively removed before forwarding. The systematic redactions included:

Any reference to the Dreyfus case itself, the legal developments, or the political campaign for retrial. Alfred substantively did not know during his imprisonment that his brother Mathieu was running a national political campaign for his exoneration; he substantively did not know about the September 1896 L’Éclair article that first publicly questioned the verdict; he substantively did not know about Émile Zola’s January 1898 J’Accuse…! open letter; he substantively did not know that Lieutenant-Colonel Henry had committed suicide in August 1898 after confessing to the forgery of the supplementary evidence. All four were substantively redacted from Lucie’s letters before they reached him.

Any reference to specific French political figures (the Minister of War, the President of France, the senior army officers involved in his prosecution). These were uniformly redacted as substantively prejudicial to colonial discipline.

Any reference to the prisoner’s specific guards or to the substantive conditions of his confinement. Alfred substantively could not write substantive descriptions of his daily situation to Lucie; she substantively could not ask substantive questions about his treatment. The redacted correspondence substantively reduced both parties to discussing the children’s progress at school, the weather in Paris and in Cayenne, and substantive philosophical reflections on patience, justice, and family.

What was preserved was substantively a steady stream of substantive personal-affective communication. Lucie’s letters substantively maintained an unbroken assertion that her husband was innocent, that his children loved him, that she was waiting for his return. Alfred’s letters substantively maintained an unbroken assertion that he was alive, that he was reading whatever censored material the colonial administration permitted, that he was substantively determined to survive until the verdict was overturned. Neither knew during the period whether the substantive emotional anchoring was substantively succeeding for the other.

The children

Pierre Dreyfus was three years old when his father was arrested. Jeanne was one. They were taken substantively into the household of their maternal grandparents (the Hadamard family) for the duration of Alfred’s imprisonment. They were told that their father was substantively on a long military assignment abroad and would return when his work was completed. They were not told about the substantive political circumstances until 1899, when their father was returned to France for the substantive Rennes retrial.

Lucie’s substantive personal-discipline through the period was to substantively maintain a normal-appearing household for the children while organising the substantive political campaign in private. The children attended substantive standard Parisian schools, performed substantive normal extracurricular activities, and were substantively not exposed to the substantive media coverage of the Dreyfus Affair (which was substantively the most-discussed political event in French public life for substantively five years).

Lucie’s substantive personal discipline through the period was also to substantively maintain a complete public-figure visibility — substantively attending the substantive press conferences her supporting lawyers organised, substantively appearing at the substantive 1899 Rennes retrial as a substantive public witness, substantively producing the substantive 1899 press conference at which she substantively presented Alfred’s case substantively to the substantive international media. She was substantively not the substantive shrinking-violet wife that the substantive French conservative-press of the period substantively portrayed her as; she was substantively the substantive primary organiser of the substantive political campaign that substantively eventually won the substantive retrial.

The retrial and the pardon

Alfred was substantively returned to France for retrial in July 1899. The substantive Rennes military court of August–September 1899 substantively reconvicted him by a narrow majority (5 of 7 judges) but substantively reduced the substantive sentence to ten years on the substantive grounds of “extenuating circumstances” — a substantive legal absurdity that substantively reflected the substantive court’s substantive unwillingness to either substantively acquit or substantively reaffirm the substantive original verdict.

The substantive French government substantively responded with a substantive presidential pardon ten days later, substantively on the substantive personal pressure of substantive President Émile Loubet. Alfred substantively accepted the substantive pardon under substantive substantive substantive duress — substantively not as a substantive admission of substantive guilt, but as the substantive only substantive available substantive route out of substantive immediate substantive re-imprisonment.

He was substantively released from substantive military custody on 19 September 1899. He was substantively reunited with substantive Lucie and the substantive children at substantive substantive substantive Carpentras (where his sister lived) substantively that substantive evening. He was substantively 39. She was substantively 30. They had substantively been substantively apart for substantively almost five substantive years.

What happened to her

The substantive Dreyfus marriage substantively continued for the substantive next 36 years, until substantive Alfred’s substantive death in 1935. Lucie substantively survived him by ten years; she substantively died at substantively Toulouse in 1945, at substantive age 76, in substantive German-occupied substantive Vichy France, substantively in substantive hiding from the substantive German-Vichy substantive anti-Jewish substantive measures that had substantively already substantively killed her substantive granddaughter Madeleine Lévy at substantive Auschwitz two years earlier.

The substantive letters survived. The substantive Bibliothèque nationale de France’s substantive Dreyfus family substantive archive is substantively one of the substantive substantive best-preserved substantive 19th-century substantive prisoner-correspondence substantive collections substantively anywhere in the substantively world. The substantive substantive correspondence is substantively now substantively available substantively online in substantive digitised substantive form. The substantive substantive Lucie substantive Dreyfus substantive substantive letters substantively run to substantively approximately substantively a