Captain Alfred Dreyfus Portrait, Oil on Canvas By Noga. circa 1935. 22" x 19". About Captain Alfred Dreyfus: Born in Mulhouse, Alsace in 1859, Dreyfus was the youngest of nine children born to Raphael and Jeannette Dreyfus (nee Libmann). Raphael Dreyfus was a prosperous, self-made Jewish textile manufacturer who had started as a peddler. Alfred was 10 years old when the Franco-Prussian War broke out in the summer of 1870, and his family moved to Paris following the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine by Germany after the war. The childhood experience of seeing his family uprooted by the war with Germany prompted Dreyfus to decide on a career in the military. Following his 18th birthday in October 1877, he enrolled in the elite Cole Poly-technique military school in Paris, where he received military training and an education in the sciences. In 1880, he graduated and was commissioned as a sub-lieutenant in the French army. From 1880 to 1882, he attended the artillery school at Fontainebleau to receive more specialized training as an artillery officer. On graduation he was assigned to the Thirty-first Artillery Regiment, which was in garrison at Le Mans. Dreyfus was subsequently transferred to a mounted artillery battery attached to the First Cavalry Division (Paris), and promoted to lieutenant in 1885. In 1889, he was made adjutant to the director of the tablissement de Bourges, a government arsenal, and promoted to captain. On 18 April 1891, the 31-year-old Dreyfus married 20-year-old Lucie Eugenie Hadamard (1870-1945). They had two children, Pierre (1891-1946) and Jeanne (1893-1981).Three days after the wedding, Dreyfus learned that he had been admitted to the Ecole Superieure de Guerre or War College. Two years later, he graduated ninth in his class with honorable mention and was immediately designated as a trainee in the French. Army's General Staff headquarters, where he would be the only Jewish officer. His father Raphael died on 13 December 1893. At the War College examination in 1892, his friends had expected him to do well. However, one of the members of the panel, General Bonnefond, felt that "Jews were not desired" on the staff, and gave Dreyfus poor marks for cote d'amour (French slang: attraction; translatable as likability). Bonnefond's assessment lowered Dreyfus's overall grade; he did the same to another Jewish candidate, Lieutenant Picard. Learning of this injustice, the two officers lodged a protest with the director of the school, General Lebelin de Dionne, who expressed his regret for what had occurred, but said he was powerless to take any steps in the matter. The protest would later count against Dreyfus. The French army of the period was relatively open to entry and advancement by talent, with an estimated 300 Jewish officers, of whom ten were generals. However, within the Fourth Bureau of the General Staff, General Bonnefond's prejudices appear to have been shared by some of the new trainee's superiors. The personal assessments received by Dreyfus during 1893/94 acknowledged his high intelligence, but were critical of aspects of his personality.