Luxer says, ‘Is it possible that you have made a mistake about the dates, Colonel Henry?’
Henry makes a pantomime of thinking this over, weighing his head from side to side. ‘Yes, I suppose it’s possible. It could have been sooner than that. Or perhaps it could have been later.’
‘Or it could have been never at all,’ I say, ‘because I didn’t take possession of the secret file until August, as Monsieur Gribelin can attest: it was he who retrieved it for me from Henry’s desk. And in October, General Gonse over there’ – I point to him – ‘took the file away from me again. So this entire incident simply could not have happened.’
For the first time Henry stumbles, looks flustered. ‘Well, I’m not sure . . . I can only repeat what I saw . . .’
Pellieux comes to his rescue. ‘If I might make an observation, Monsieur President, at more than a year’s distance it is quite difficult to give a precise date . . .’
Luxer agrees. The session moves on. At lunchtime I am allowed to stand down.
Esterhazy’s lawyer takes five hours to make his closing speech. The hearing continues until eight o’clock at night. At one point during his advocate’s monologue Esterhazy seems to nod off, the bald cranium tilting back. When at last the judges rise to consider their verdict, he is led away past me, and gives me a stiff salute containing more than a hint of mockery. Mathieu Dreyfus, who has returned for the verdict and is sitting next to me, mutters, ‘What a rogue!’ I get up with Louis to stretch my legs. I assume we will have several hours to wait. But less than five minutes later comes the cry of ‘Present arms!’ and the doors reopen. The judges troop back in and the clerk reads out the verdict. ‘In the name of the people of France . . . the council declares unanimously . . . the accused is innocent . . . he leaves the court without a stain upon his honour . . .’
The rest of his words are lost in the volley of applause that cannonades around the stone walls. My brother officers stamp their feet. They clap. They cheer: ‘Vive l’armée!’ ‘Vive la France!’ and even ‘Death to the Jews!’ The outcome was predetermined. I should not be shocked. And yet there are limits to how well the imagination can prepare one for disaster. As Mathieu and I make our way out of the courtroom, pursued by jeers and insults – ‘Death to the syndicate!’ ‘Death to Picquart!’ – I feel as if I have tumbled deep into some mineshaft from which it will be impossible to clamber back. All is darkness – indeed, Dreyfus is actually worse off than he was six months ago, for he has now been doubly condemned. It is impossible to imagine the army holding a third hearing.
Outside, beyond the murkily lit courtyard, a crowd of more than a thousand has gathered, despite the cold. They are clapping rhythmically and chanting their hero’s name: ‘Es-ter-hazy! Es-ter-hazy!’ All I want to do is get away. I walk towards the gate, but Louis and Mathieu restrain me. Louis says, ‘You mustn’t go out there yet, Georges. Your picture has been in the papers. You’ll be lynched.’
At that moment Esterhazy comes out of the court building, escorted by his lawyer, Henry and du Paty and followed by an applauding retinue of black-uniformed soldiers. Esterhazy’s face is transfigured, almost luminous with triumph. He wears a cape which he sweeps up on to his shoulder in a gesture of imperial magnificence, then steps out into the street. A terrific cheer goes up. Hands stretch out to pat his back. Someone shouts, ‘Hats off to the martyr of the Jews!’
Mathieu touches me on the arm. ‘Now we should go.’ He takes off his overcoat and helps me put it on over my distinctive tunic. With my head down and with him on one side of me and Louis on the other, I push my way out into the rue Cherche-Midi and turn in the opposite direction to Esterhazy, moving quickly along the wet pavement towards the distant traffic.
The next day is the funeral of Louis’s father, Georges-Louis Leblois. A Lutheran pastor, a believer in scientific progress, a radical thinker who denied the divinity of Christ, the old man wished to be cremated. However, no such facilities exist in Strasbourg, therefore the ceremony has to take place in Paris at the new crematorium of Père-Lachaise. The silence of the immense cemetery, with its shaded alleys, and the grey city in the plain below reaching towards the blue hills on the horizon make a profound impression on me. The mourners come up to me to commiserate on the previous day’s verdict, shaking my hand and speaking in low tones, so that it almost feels as if I am the one who has died and I am attending my own obsequies.
While this is going on, I discover later, General Billot is signing my arrest warrant, and when I return to my apartment I find a notification that I will be taken into custody the next day.
They come for me just before dawn. I am already dressed in civilian clothes, my suitcase packed. An elderly colonel, accompanied by a private soldier, knocks on my door and shows me a copy of the warrant from General Billot: Colonel Picquart has been investigated for a serious breach of professional duties. He has committed grave errors in his service, contrary to army discipline. Therefore I have decided that he is to be held under arrest in the fortress of Mont-Valérien, until further orders.
The colonel says, ‘Sorry to call so early, but we thought we’d try to avoid these ghastly newspaper people. May I take your service revolver, please?’
The manager of the building, Monsieur Reigneau, who lives several doors along the street, comes to see what all the noise is about. I pass him with my escort on the stairs. Afterwards he reveals to Le Figaro my parting words: ‘You see what is happening to me. But I am quite calm. You will have read in the papers all that they say about me. Continue to believe that I am an honest man.’
Drawn up outside is a large military carriage harnessed to two white horses. There has been a hard frost overnight. It is still dark. A red lamp from the building works opposite gleams faintly on the frozen puddles. The private takes my suitcase and clambers up next to the driver while the colonel politely opens the door and allows me to go first into the carriage. Nobody is in the street to witness my disgrace, apart from Reigneau. We turn left into the rue Copernic and head towards the place Victor Hugo. There are a few early risers queuing to buy newspapers on the corner of the roundabout, and even more further along at the kiosk on the place de l’Étoile. As we pass I catch a glimpse of a huge banner headline, ‘J’Accuse . . .!’ and I say to the colonel, ‘If a condemned man is allowed a final request, do you think we might stop for a newspaper?’
‘A newspaper?’ The colonel looks at me as if I am mad. ‘Well, I suppose so, if you must.’
He calls up to the driver to pull over. I get out and walk back towards the vendor. The private soldier trails behind me at a discreet distance; ahead the sky is just beginning to lighten above the avenue du Bois de Boulogne, silhouetting the bare tops of the trees. The paper everyone is queuing to buy is Clemenceau’s L’Aurore, and the headline, spread across the top of all six columns, is:
J’ACCUSE . . .!
LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC
By Émile Zola
I join the queue to buy a copy and walk slowly back towards the carriage. There is just enough light from the street lamps for me to make it out. The piece takes up the entire front page, thousands of words of polemic, cast in the form of a letter to President Fauré (Knowing your integrity, I am convinced that you are unaware of the truth . . .). I skim it with increasing astonishment.
Can you believe that for the last year General Billot, Generals Gonse and Boisdeffre have known that Dreyfus is innocent, and they have kept this terrible knowledge to themselves? And these people sleep at night, and have wives and children they love!
Colonel Picquart carried out his duty as an honest man. He kept insisting to his superiors in the name of justice. He even begged them, telling them how impolitic it was to temporise in the face of the terrible storm that was brewing and that would break when the truth became known. But no! The crime had been committed and the General Staff could no longer admit to it. And so Colonel Picquart was sent away on official duty. He got sent further and further away until he landed in Tunis
ia, where they tried eventually to reward his courage with an assignment that would certainly have seen him massacred.
I come to a halt in the middle of the pavement.
And the astounding outcome of this appalling situation was that the one decent man involved, Colonel Picquart, who alone had done his duty, was to become the victim, the one who got ridiculed and punished. O justice, what horrible despair grips our hearts? It was even claimed that he himself was the forger, that he had fabricated the letter-telegram in order to destroy Esterhazy. Yes! We have before us the ignoble spectacle of men who are sunken in debts and crimes being hailed as innocent, whereas the honour of a man whose life is spotless is being vilely attacked. A society that sinks to that level has fallen into decay.
Behind me the soldier says, ‘We really ought to be going, Colonel, if you don’t mind.’
‘Yes, of course. Just let me finish this.’
I flick through to the end.
I accuse Colonel du Paty de Clam of being the diabolical creator of this miscarriage of justice . . .
I accuse General Mercier of complicity, at least by mental weakness, in one of the greatest inequities of the century.
I accuse General Billot of having held in his hands absolute proof of Dreyfus’s innocence and concealing it, thereby making himself guilty of crimes against mankind and justice . . .
I accuse General Boisdeffre and General Gonse of complicity in the same crime . . .
I accuse General Pellieux of conducting a fraudulent inquiry . . .
I accuse the three handwriting experts . . .
I accuse the Ministry of War . . .
I accuse the first court martial of violating the law by convicting the accused on the basis of evidence that was kept secret, and I accuse the second court martial of knowingly acquitting a guilty man in obedience to orders . . .
In making these accusations I am aware that I am making myself liable to a punishable offence of libel . . .
Let them dare to bring me before a court of law and investigate in the full light of day!
I am waiting.
With my deepest respect, Monsieur President,
Émile Zola
I fold up the paper and clamber back into the carriage.
The elderly colonel says, ‘Anything interesting?’ Without waiting for my reply he adds: ‘I didn’t think so. There never is.’ He thumps the roof of the carriage. ‘Drive on!’
20
MONT-VALÉRIEN IS A huge square-fronted fortress on the western edge of the city, part of the ring of defensive garrisons around Paris. I am escorted up a winding staircase to the third floor of a wing reserved for officers. I am the only prisoner. Day or night there is little to hear in winter except the wind moaning around the battlements. My door is kept locked at all times; a sentry guards the foot of the stairs. I have a small sitting room, a bedroom and a lavatory. The barred windows offer panoramic views across the Seine and the Bois de Boulogne to the Eiffel Tower, eight kilometres to the east.
If my enemies on the General Staff imagine that this represents some kind of hardship for me, they are mistaken. I have a bed and a chair, pen and paper, and plenty of books – Goethe, Heine, Ibsen. Proust kindly sends me his collected writings, Les Plaisirs et les Jours; my sister a new French–Russian dictionary. What more does a man want? I am imprisoned and I am liberated. The solitary burden of secrecy that I have carried all these months has been lifted.
Two days after my arrival the government is obliged to accept the challenge that Zola has thrown down to it, and lodges a charge against him of criminal libel. This will have to be heard not in secret, in some poky chamber controlled by the army, but in public in the Court of Assize inside the Palace of Justice. The case is pushed to the top of the waiting list so that the trial can start as soon as possible. The fortress commander refuses to allow visits from anyone who is not a serving officer, but even he can’t prevent me from seeing my lawyer. Louis brings me the subpoena. I am summoned to give evidence on Friday 11 February.
I study it. ‘What will happen if Zola is found guilty?’
We are sitting in the visitors’ room: bars on the windows, two plain wooden chairs and a wooden table; a guard stands outside the door and pretends not to listen.
Louis says, ‘He’ll go to prison for a year.’
‘It was a brave thing he did.’
‘It was a damned brave thing,’ agrees Louis. ‘I only wish he’d tempered his bravery with a little prudence. But he got carried away and couldn’t resist putting in this sentence at the end about the Esterhazy court martial – “I accuse them of knowingly acquitting a guilty man in obedience to orders” – and it’s for that the government are going after him.’
‘Not for his accusations against Boisdeffre and the others?’
‘No, all that they ignore. Their intention is to restrict the trial to this one tiny issue on which they can be certain of winning. It also means that anything to do with Dreyfus will be ruled inadmissible unless it relates strictly to the Esterhazy court martial.’
‘So we’ll lose again?’
‘There are occasions when losing is a victory, so long as there is a fight.’
In the Ministry of War they are clearly nervous about what I might say. A few days before the trial an old comrade of mine, Colonel Bailloud, comes out to Mont-Valérien to ‘try to talk some sense’ into me. He waits until we are in the yard, where I am allowed to take exercise for two hours each day, before delivering his message.
‘I am empowered to tell you,’ he says pompously, ‘on the highest authority, that if you show some discretion, your career will not suffer.’
‘If I keep my mouth shut, you mean?’
‘“Discretion” was the word that was used.’
My first response is to laugh. ‘This is from Gonse, I take it?’
‘I prefer not to say.’
‘Well, you can tell him from me that I haven’t forgotten I’m still a soldier and that I’ll do my best to reconcile my duty of confidentiality with my obligations as a witness. Is that sufficient? Now clear off back to Paris, there’s a good fellow, and let me walk in peace.’
On the appointed day I am taken by military carriage to the Palace of Justice on the Île de la Cité, wearing my uniform as a Tunisian rifleman. I have given my word that I won’t attempt to leave the precincts of the palace and will return to Mont-Valérien with my gaolers at the end of the day’s session. As a quid pro quo I am allowed to walk into the building freely, without an escort. In the boulevard du Palais there is an anti-Semitic demonstration. ‘Death to the Jews!’ ‘Death to the traitors!’ ‘Yids to the water!’ My face is recognised, perhaps from some of the vile caricatures that have appeared in La Libre Parole and similar rags, and a few ruffians break away from the rest and try to pursue me into the courtyard and up the steps of the palace, but they are stopped by the gendarmes. I can understand why Mathieu Dreyfus has announced he will not be attending the court.
The high vaulted hall of the palace, ablaze on this dull February day with electric light, is crowded and noisy like the concourse of some fantastical railway station: clerks and court messengers hurrying with legal documents, lawyers in their black robes gossiping and consulting with their clients, anxious plaintiffs and defendants, witnesses, gendarmes, reporters, army officers, poor people seeking shelter from the winter cold, ladies and gentlemen of high fashion who have managed to acquire a ticket to the Zola sensation – the whole of society throngs the Salle des Pas-Perdus and the endless Galerie des Prisonniers. Bells ring. Shouts and footsteps echo on the marble. I pass more or less unnoticed apart from the occasional nudge and stare. I find my way to the witness room and give my name to the usher. Half an hour later I am called.
First impressions of the Assize Court: size and grandeur, space, heavy wooden panelling and gleaming brass fixtures, the density of the crowd, the buzz of their conversation, the silence that falls as I walk up the aisle, my boots clicking on the parquet floor, thr
ough the little wooden gate in the railing that separates the judge and jury from the spectators, towards the semicircular bar of the witness stand in the well of the court.
‘Will the witness state his name?’
‘Marie-Georges Picquart.’
‘Place of residence?’
‘Mont-Valérien.’
That draws a laugh, and I have a moment to take my bearings: to one side of me the box of twelve jurors, all of them ordinary tradesmen; high on his bench the big round-faced judge, Delegorgue, in his scarlet robes; beneath him a dozen lawyers in their priest-like black vestments, including the Advocate General, Van Cassel, leading for the government; seated at a table Zola, who gives me an encouraging nod, as does his co-defendant, Perrenx, manager of L’Aurore; alongside them their counsel – Fernand Labori for Zola, Albert Clemenceau for Perrenx, and Georges Clemenceau, who has somehow gained permission to sit with his brother, even though he is not a lawyer; and behind me, like the congregation in a church, the spectators, including a solid block of dark-uniformed officers, among them Gonse, Pellieux, Henry, Lauth and Gribelin.
Labori rises. He is a young giant, tall and broad, blond-haired and -bearded – a piratical figure: ‘the Viking’, as he is known, famous for his combative style. He says, ‘Will Colonel Picquart tell us what he knows of the Esterhazy case, of the investigation that he made, and of the circumstances that accompanied or followed his departure from the Ministry of War?’
He sits.
I grip the wooden rail of the witness stand to stop my hands shaking and take a breath. ‘In the spring of 1896, the fragments of a letter-telegram fell into my hands . . .’
I speak uninterruptedly for more than an hour, pausing occasionally to take sips of water. I draw on my training as a lecturer at the war school. I try to imagine I am teaching a particularly complicated lesson in topography. I don’t use notes. Also I am determined to keep my composure – to be polite, precise, unemotional – not to betray any secrets, nor to indulge in personal attacks. I confine myself to the overwhelming case against Esterhazy: the evidence of the petit bleu, his immoral character, his need for money, his suspicious interest in artillery matters, the fact that his handwriting matches that of the bordereau. I describe how I took my suspicions to my superiors and ended up being sent to north Africa, and the machinations that have been launched against me since. The packed courtroom listens to me in complete silence. I can feel my words striking home. The faces of the General Staff officers, when I happen to turn and catch them, look grimmer by the minute.
An Officer and a Spy Page 34