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The case arose when a French spy in the German embassy discovered a handwritten bordereau [schedule], received by Major Max von Schwartzkoppen, German military attachE in Paris, which listed secret French documents. The French army, at this time the stronghold of monarchists and Catholics and permeated by anti-Semitism, attempted to ferret out the traitor. Suspicion fell on Dreyfus, a wealthy Alsatian Jew, while the press raised accusations of Jewish treason. He was tried in camera by a French court-martial, convicted, and sentenced to degradation and deportation for life. He was sent to Devils Island, off the coast of French Guiana, for solitary confinement. Dreyfus protested his innocence, but public opinion generally applauded the conviction, and interest in the case lapsed.
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