§ § § §
As Dreyfus was rotting away on Devil’s Island, the wheels of justice were turning very slowly. Vindication was, as yet, far off on the foggy horizon. The next week, when Zola and I shared another bottle of wine, I inquired, “Was he the accidental victim of a well-planned plot, and if so, what connected him with the German Embassy?”
“Good question, Charles.” He sipped his wine.
“Is the assumption that he was targeted because he’s Jewish?” I asked.
“Probably. But he also had family in Mulhouse.”
“Mulhouse?”
“It’s still under German occupancy.”
“Yes, of course. How did you learn that he had family there?”
“Curiosity, my friend, curiosity.”
“And,” I laughed, “resources.”
“The interesting thing is,” he continued, referring to the most recent leaked data, “that the French Army Intelligence had an agent in the German Embassy—a cleaning woman.” He filled his glass again.
“And?”
“At night she emptied the wastebaskets of a high-ranking German military attaché. She brought the trash to her supervisors, and on one occasion they found torn-up pieces of a bordereau. When the pieces were assembled, it was discovered that someone from our side was offering to sell military secrets.”
Shaking my head, I replied, “And they targeted Dreyfus for this because he’s a Jew and has family living in a German section of France? How did that ever hold up?”
“That’s not all.” He scratched his chin. “The secrets to be sold ostensibly pointed to an artillery officer. With Dreyfus’s connection to Mulhouse…”
Interrupting him, I said, “The Intelligence Service must have loved that,” alluding to the prejudice it had against Jews entering into high ranks in the military.
“Right you are. What apparently cinched the deal was a handwriting expert who compared the memorandum with Dreyfus’s handwriting. Under pressure he must have come up with some bogus proof. I don’t remember everything I read but it smelled fishy to me.”
“So then what was leaked to the press to question whether Dreyfus had been falsely accused?
“I was wondering when you’d ask me that,” he smiled.
“Well?”
“Apparently evidence came to light from an investigation ordered by the head of Intelligence.”
“Picquart?”
“Yes, and it identified someone else.”
“Who?”
“That’s where the leaked data stops.”
“Talk about suspense!” I was distracted by a group of men sitting at a nearby table, their voices raised in slurs at each other.
“The last interesting piece of information,” Zola leaned in across the table so I’d hear him over the raucous activity, “is that Picquart was transferred to a position in Africa.”
“Shame! He’s one of the decent leaders…so popular.”
“Exactly!”
“Are you planning on pursuing an article on this?”
“No.”
“Then this is only to satisfy your desire to know what’s going on?”
“For now, let’s just say that’s most likely the case. The inquisitive bug has caught me.” He looked around to be sure no one was paying attention to us or could hear him when in a strained murmur he said, “Any writer or journalist to touch this risks prosecution for libel.”
I have but one passion: to enlighten those who have been kept in the dark, in the name of humanity, which has suffered so much and is entitled to happiness.
Émile Zola
Chapter Four
If anti-Semitism didn’t incite the proceedings leading to Dreyfus’s imprisonment, it certainly fueled it. How could the army possibly vindicate a Jew, even when the evidence surfaced that the facts were wrong, misconstrued, or altered in the first place? To view the injustice without a reminder of France’s history and identification as a Catholic nation would be to blindly look at hatred with the justification of innocence. To understand this is to understand the huge popularity of a book published in the 1880s by Edouard Drumont, Jewish France, which focused on the influx of Jewish immigrants from Germany and Eastern Europe. Drumont wrote that Jews brought with them an ideology foreign to Christianity, convincing readers that France’s real debacle was the decline of Christian faith. He made a strong case for the corrupt influence that the modern art and traditions of the Jewish people had on France. The popularity of Drumont’s book was praised in the Catholic newspaper La Croix, which ignited the flame of anti-Semitism. Further ammunition was the fact that many French believed that Germany was the true religious home of the Jews because of the 1869 North German Confederation, a law that abolished former restrictions imposed on religious worship. Since Jews were religiously bound to Germany, the argument that they were politically allied with the Germans was an easy one for the French to make. I didn’t believe it, but it was easy for me to see how the stage had been set for my fellow countrymen to believe that a Jewish man would use his high rank in the French military against his country.
That prejudice, in combination with the humiliation the army would face were Dreyfus found innocent, was reason enough to sweep the whole affair, facts and all, under the carpet. To the accusers, Dreyfus was the most hated man in France. They believed he deserved to be ripped from his wife and children and sent to deteriorate on a forsaken island in the Atlantic. That he was not even allowed out of his cell to see the ocean that surrounded him was of no concern to his enemies. Therefore it was no wonder that the unraveling of the Dreyfus injustice moved along at a snail’s pace, preoccupying the minds of those involved, like my dear friend Zola and me.
§ § § §
Alfred Dreyfus’s father, Raphael, was a self-made prosperous man in the textile business. Speaking only Yiddish and German, he had moved with his wife and nine children from Germany to Alsace-Lorraine in France. At the end of the Franco-Prussian War when Alsace was annexed by Germany, he moved with his family to Paris. Many of his relatives remained in Alsace. As Alfred and his siblings grew, they would visit them. It was this geographical displacement by the war that motivated Alfred to decide on a career in the military. His brother, Mathieu, remained in the family’s textile business and supported Alfred’s family while Alfred was imprisoned. The well-to-do Mathieu was friends with Auguste Scheurer-Kestner, Vice President of the French Senate. Also a friend with Scheurer-Kestner was Zola.
§ § § §
On a lazy, humid Saturday afternoon, when I didn’t have plans with Zola or other friends I’d connected with since moving to Paris, I decided to go to the library. Motivated by Zola’s disturbed countenance when last we spoke, I wanted to better understand the roots of the hatred levied at Dreyfus. As I made my way down the Champs-Elysées past its gardens and trees, with the Arc de Triomphe in sight, I came to the Avenue du Trocadero—an uncanny coincidence. I had heard that it was the street where Dreyfus lived with his wife Lucie and their two young children, Pierre and Jeanne. A heaviness set into my chest as I imagined them fatherless.
Although I was well taken care of by the nuns who raised me, I knew the feeling—that empty place in a child’s heart, the yearning for one’s parents. I have missed them all my life. It was this craving in my soul, to be where I belong and with whom I am loved, that drove me to know more about the circumstances surrounding the Dreyfus family.
I started my search through the stacks of books and came across an abundance of material on French history, but what caught my attention was a book on the Franco-Prussian War. Letting my instincts guide me, I picked it up and began reading. I had found what I wanted.
In the early 1870s, when France was occupied by foreign troops and Adolphe Thiers came into power, there was much bloodshed with two provinces annexed to Germany. Afterwards, national pride and vengeance preoccupied the French people. It was at this time that an influx of Jewish immigrants poured into France. France was a devoutly Christian
country and suspicious of this invasion of non-believers. Anti-Semitism spread easily throughout the country. Like any group, the French people were a family—sharing traditions, history, and a common faith. Now this family was being threatened. I understand the fear that comes when an enemy, seen or unseen, jeopardizes one’s family. The irony was that the Dreyfus family endured the same fear; only now the enemy was the French. Nausea rose in my belly as I reflected back on the spilled blood, ruined and lost lives caused from the anger that seeded hatred.
Respectable people…What bastards!
Émile Zola
Chapter Five
Zola had had a meal with Auguste Scheurer-Kestner and wanted to talk with me. At ten in the morning he appeared at my door. His voice quivered as he said, “I’m disgusted. I need my friend.”
“Come in. Sit,” I motioned to a chair in my kitchen. “I’ll put some hot water on. You look as though you haven’t slept.”
“Then my looks don’t belie me.”
I poured tea into a cup and handed it to him.
“Thank you,” he said. “I met with Scheurer-Kestner.”
“Bad news?”
“Yes! It piles on and reaches a point where it’s just too much. I can understand the cover-up, that’s what politicians do.” Clutching the cup in his hand, “It’s the nature of the beast to those in power, but to have the facts point to his innocence and be completely suppressed? To continue to perpetuate the horrific lies when…”
“You’re overly annoyed,” I interrupted. “Something new?”
“Auguste is also friends with Dreyfus’s brother. They’ve been communicating.”
“Oh, I see. And?”
“Mathieu, Dreyfus’s brother, is working tirelessly to free him. He’s gathering evidence that has leaked…”
“From Scheurer-Kestner?”
“Yes,” he sneered.
The smugness in Zola’s tone perplexed me. “Why are you smirking at that? A government official talking to a civilian about military affairs won’t be looked at kindly.”
“The leaks are happening from too many places to lay blame on any one individual. Plus, Mathieu has a vested interest to keep confidential his sources,” said Zola.
“Surely others know he’s friends with the Vice President of the French Senate,” I replied.
“Mathieu Dreyfus is a man of wealth with friends in high places. Plus many in positions of authority, not privy to military affairs, are catching wind that Alfred Dreyfus was unfairly rushed through his court-martial and that solid evidence exists as to who the real traitor is. Here’s where it gets particularly entangled.” He went on to tell me that Scheurer-Kestner had learned that a Major Ferdinand Esterhazy’s stockbroker had seen a photograph of the bordereau published in a newspaper. “He recognized the handwriting as his client! Clearly discernable and unmistakable, it was Esterhazy who wrote the treasonous memorandum to give secrets to the Germans.”
I nearly fell off my chair. “Surely, you’re joking.”
“I kid you not,” Zola continued, “and so Scheurer-Kestner felt that if this is so loosely spoken of, then what is the harm to share a snippet or two with Dreyfus’s brother, a good friend of his?”
“What now?”
“The brother will plead a case for retrial.”
“Good luck with that.” I sipped my drink and waited for a response. When none came, I said, “Don’t you think the military will do everything in its power to obscure anything like this from being found out and validated? To them it will not matter that the stockbroker recognized the handwriting. There will be some pseudo proof to negate him.” Looking into Zola’s troubled eyes, I said, “Now I understand why you are so upset. It is frustrating.”
The conversation lasted through the morning, switching to his telling me of the misfortune of Cézanne, who had been stricken with diabetes. He had heard about it from a mutual friend. “The illness affected his personality and relationships,” Zola relayed. A sorrow overcame me as I recalled their longtime friendship, until their falling out when Zola wrote a fictionalized rendering of Cézanne and the Bohemian life of painters in his novel, The Masterpiece. Cézanne then withdrew into himself, spending less time with Zola. Consequently, Zola began to rely more on me.
“It is a shame you two no longer spend time together,” I said.
“Yes,” Zola responded. “I’ve often wondered about the wisdom of my approach in my writing about him.”
I put my hand on his. “It’s not easy to portend the regret that may come from our words.”
Oh, the fools, like a lot of good little schoolboys, scared to death of anything they've been taught is wrong!
Émile Zola
Chapter Six
Mathieu Dreyfus demonstrated intelligence and wisdom in portraying the case for justice when he put the focus of his communications on correcting an error rather than on vengeance. It was important to assume the stance that the injustice was a result of human error, rather than a gross evil that had been done on purpose. He knew well that the door to his brother’s vindication would stay closed with an assault on the reputation of the army. It would not work to attack its virtue.
“Mr. Dreyfus has been making waves,” Zola said, referring to Alfred Dreyfus’s brother.
“How so?”
“Dare you ask,” he laughed. “Apparently the evidence he has unearthed is too abundant to deny. The new boys in politics are considering acting on it.”
“Long live the progressives!” I cheered.
“Don’t get too excited. They might not have sway with the military. Look what happened to Piquart. He apparently followed the facts and we know where it got him. He is no friend of the Jews yet he, a righteous man, defended the truth, even if it went against his own prejudice,” said Zola, referring to Piquart’s upbringing in Alsace and his expressed acrimony over the Jewish infiltration.
“Admirable. If only there were more like him in politics and in the military.”
“Yes, but bear in mind that this is a matter larger than the question of a persecuted Jew and the army,” Zola said as he pushed his pince-nez back up to the bridge of his nose, the string dangling on his cheek.
“French history, yes. I spent time in the library trying to understand the deeper issues at hand.”
“Regardless of the progressive’s stance gaining power, anyone who takes up the Dreyfus case risks accruing enemies. Powerful ones.”
Perspiration was visible on my friend’s wrinkled brow. Zola’s near obsession with following the details surrounding Dreyfus’s imprisonment and his brother’s actions to exonerate him were clearly weighing on this man for whom justice was part of every breath. It was time to change the subject. “How is Jeanne?” I asked, referring to his mistress.
Wiping wetness from his forehead, “Keeping busy with the children,” he smiled. “But then she has the youth and energy to keep up with them,” he said, referring to the fact that Jeanne Rozerot was twenty-seven years younger than him. “They are growing so fast.”
Relieved to see him smile, I nodded my pleasure.
“Denise is turning into a tall beauty,” said Zola, referring to his daughter. “And my boy, Jacques, is gaining muscle.”
I thought of these two beautiful children, attractive Jeanne, and Zola’s distinguished looks, and reflected on my plain aspect. My brown hair had turned gray and my skin was pale from age; yet, in my mid-seventies, I still felt young inside. Having friends much younger than my years, including Zola’s artist and writer cohorts, who never ceased to be entertaining, kept me energetic.
“The children are my joy.” Zola’s eyes held mine. “Thank you for understanding that there is too much commotion in the house to have our talks there. And in the other home, Alexandrine is forever inviting friends over to keep her company.”
Zola was referring to the fact that we had taken to cafés for conversations, a change from regular invitations to his place for meals prepared by his wife Alexandrine. “I’m happy
to accommodate you,” I laughed. “I understand.”
Although he never brought the subject up with me, he gave me a look that made me wonder if he questioned why I never became involved with a woman. I looked into his handsome face, his eyes glowing, and my heart knew that his friendship was love enough. I didn’t miss intimacy with a woman and never fully understood why. Perhaps it was the way the nuns raised me, at a warm distance, and then again it may have been my seeing at an early age the human condition for what it was—jealousy, coveting, wanting more, and dissatisfaction with what is. Somehow blessed with a good temperament, I did not suffer from the lack of female companionship.
They dared not peer down into their own natures, down into the feverish confusion that filled their minds with a kind of dense, acrid mist.
Émile Zola
Chapter Seven
As the months moved on, Mathieu gained momentum in his endeavor to free his brother. The permissive left-wing politicians, fearful and reticent at first, became involved in the cause, among them the current newspaperman and future Prime Minister of France, Georges Clemenceau. None of them Jewish, they took up the cause because they wanted to see right done and end the burlesque of justice. It was clear to me that they wanted France to be true to its affirmed rules. I thanked the heavens for the growing support.
Persuasive was the mounting case against Ferdinand Esterhazy. In addition to the recognition of his handwriting on the memo that convicted Dreyfus, there was also a mountain of circumstantial evidence that cast him as a shoddy individual of dubious character. Using the lineage of the Esterhazy name, he claimed to be a count, an honor to which he was not entitled. His commission to the French Foreign Legion was provided by an uncle’s influence, which was highly irregular. It went against the custom, which was to be promoted from the ranks or to be a commissioned officer, neither of which he had attained. When it was discovered how he obtained his status in this elite corps, he was transferred to the army, employed to translate German in the French Military Intelligence Service. There he connected with players who were to be featured in the Dreyfus scandal. While never appearing at the regiment for daily work, for many years he continued to lead an extravagant life beyond his means, squandering his modest inheritance. Driven to desperation, he tried to regain money by gambling, without success. Esterhazy was two-faced. He gained assistance from the Rothschild family, prominent Jewish bankers, under false claims while winning favor with and supplying information to the editors of the anti-Semitic newspaper La Libre Parole. Even his physical appearance projected a character of questionable repute. Esterhazy was a man of small stature, with short legs, and hunched shoulders. He was suspicious-looking with his narrow set-eyes and prominent ears. Were he not so heinous I would have thought him a ridiculous caricature.
To Live Out Loud: A Novel Page 2