At the end, Labori questions me. ‘Does the witness think that these machinations were the work of Major Esterhazy alone, or does he think that Major Esterhazy had accomplices?’
I take my time replying. ‘I believe that he had accomplices.’
‘Accomplices inside the Ministry of War?’
‘There certainly must have been one accomplice who was familiar with what was going on in the Ministry of War.’
‘Which in your opinion was the more damaging evidence against Major Esterhazy – the bordereau or the petit bleu?’
‘The bordereau.’
‘Did you say as much to General Gonse?’
‘I did.’
‘Then how could General Gonse instruct you to separate the Dreyfus case from the Esterhazy case?’
‘I can only tell you what he said.’
‘But if Major Esterhazy is the author of the bordereau, the charge against Dreyfus falls?’
‘Yes – that is why to me it never made sense to separate them.’
The judge intervenes. ‘Do you remember sending for Maître Leblois to call on you at your office?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you remember the date?’
‘He came in the spring of ’96. I wanted his advice on the issue of carrier pigeons.’
‘Monsieur Gribelin,’ says the judge, ‘will you step forward? This is not your recollection, I believe?’
I half turn to watch Gribelin rise from his place among the General Staff. He comes to join me at the front of the court. He doesn’t look in my direction.
‘No, Monsieur President. One evening in October ’96 I went into Colonel Picquart’s office to get leave of absence. He was sitting at his desk with the carrier pigeon file to his right and the secret file to his left.’
The judge looks at me. I say politely, ‘Monsieur Gribelin is mistaken. Either his memory fails him or he has confused the files.’
Gribelin’s body stiffens. ‘Believe what I say: I saw it.’
I smile at him, determined to keep control of my temper. ‘But I say that you did not see it.’
The judge interjects: ‘Colonel Picquart, did you once ask Monsieur Gribelin to stamp a letter?’
‘To stamp a letter?’
‘To stamp a letter, not with the date of its arrival, but with an earlier date?’
‘No.’
Gribelin says sarcastically, ‘Colonel, let me refresh your memory. You returned to your office one afternoon at two o’clock. You sent for me, and as you were taking off your overcoat, you said: “Gribelin, could you get the post office to stamp a letter?”’
‘I have no such recollection.’
The judge says, ‘But surely you made the same request of Major Lauth?’
‘Never.’ I shake my head. ‘Never, never.’
‘Major Lauth, would you come forward, please?’
Lauth rises from his place next to Henry and comes to join us. Staring straight ahead, as if on parade, he says, ‘Colonel Picquart asked me to remove all traces of tearing from the petit bleu. He said, “Do you think we could get this stamped by the post office?” He also said that I should testify that I recognised the handwriting on the petit bleu as being that of a certain foreign gentleman. But I said to him, “I never saw this handwriting before.”’
I look at the pair of them: clearly years of running spies has made facile liars of them both. I grit my teeth. ‘But this was a document torn into sixty pieces,’ I say, ‘fastened together by adhesive strips on the side where the address was written. How could a stamp have been put on that? It would have looked ridiculous.’
Neither answers.
Labori is on his feet again. He hitches up his robes and says to Lauth, ‘You write in your deposition that Colonel Picquart could very easily have added the petit bleu to the cone of unprocessed intelligence material waiting in his safe – in other words, that it is a fabrication.’
‘That is true. He could.’
‘But you don’t have any proof?’
‘Nevertheless, I believe he did it.’
‘Colonel Picquart?’
‘Major Lauth may believe it, but that doesn’t make it true.’
The judge says, ‘Let us go back to the incident with the secret file. Colonel Henry, would you approach the witness?’
Now Henry heaves himself to his feet and comes forward. Close up, I can see he is in an agitated state, flushed and sweating. All three of them seem to be under great strain. It is one thing to repeat their lies in a small and secret military court; it is quite another to do it here. They can never have expected this. He says, ‘It was in October, I think. I’ve never been able to fix the date precisely. All I know is that there was an open file in the room. The colonel was sitting down, and at his left sat Monsieur Leblois, and before them on the desk were several files, among them the secret file, which I had labelled with blue pencil. The envelope was open, and the document in question – the one with the words “that lowlife D” – was outside it.’
The judge says, ‘Colonel Picquart, what have you to say?’
‘I repeat that I never had the file on my desk in the presence of Maître Leblois, either open or closed. In any case, it would have been impossible for this incident to have occurred as Colonel Henry describes it, because Maître Leblois can prove that he didn’t return to Paris until November the seventh.’
Henry blusters, ‘Well I say it was October. I’ve always said October, and I can’t say anything else.’
I ask the judge, ‘May I question Colonel Henry?’ He gestures for me to go ahead, and I say to Henry, ‘Tell me, did you enter my office by the door opposite the desk, or by the little side door?’
After a slight hesitation he says, ‘By the main door.’
‘And about how far into the office did you come?’
‘Not far. I can’t say exactly whether it was just half a pace or a full one.’
‘But whichever it was, you must have been on the other side of my desk – that is, on the side opposite to where I was sitting. So how could you have seen the document?’
‘I saw the document perfectly.’
‘But the writing on that document is very murky even if it’s directly beneath your eyes. How could you possibly have made it out at such a distance?’
‘Listen, Colonel,’ he replies, still trying to bluff his way out of it, ‘I know that document better than anyone and I would certainly recognise it at a distance of ten paces. There’s no question about it. Let me say it bluntly once and for all. You want the light? You shall have it!’ He points at me and turns to the jury. ‘Colonel Picquart is lying!’
He delivers the line in exactly the same theatrical tone and with the same gesture of accusation that he used at the Dreyfus court martial: The traitor is that man! There is a gasp in the courtroom and in that instant I forget my vow to keep my cool. Henry has just called me a liar. I turn on him and raise my hand to silence him. ‘You do not have the right to say that! I shall demand satisfaction for that remark!’
There is noise all around me now – some applause, some jeers, as the realisation spreads that I have just challenged Henry to a duel. Henry looks at me in surprise. The judge gavels for order but I am barely listening. I can control myself no longer. All the frustrations of the past year and a half burst forth. ‘Gentlemen of the jury, you have seen here men like Colonel Henry, Major Lauth, and the keeper of the archives, Gribelin, make the most foul accusations against me. You’ve just heard Colonel Henry call me a liar. You’ve heard Major Lauth, without a shred of proof, suggest I invented the petit bleu. Well, gentlemen, do you want to know why this is happening? All the architects of the Dreyfus affair . . .’
‘Colonel!’ warns the judge.
‘. . . that is, Colonel Henry and Monsieur Gribelin, aided by Colonel du Paty de Clam, at the direction of General Gonse, are covering up the mistakes that were made under my predecessor, Colonel Sandherr. He was a sick man, already suffering from the paralysis that kil
led him, and they have gone on covering up for him ever since – perhaps out of some misplaced sense of loyalty, perhaps for the sake of the department: I don’t know. And shall I tell you what my crime really was, in their eyes? It was to believe that there was a better way of defending our honour than blind obedience. And because of that, for months now, insults have been heaped upon me by newspapers that are paid for spreading slander and lies.’
Zola cries out, ‘That’s right!’ The judge is gavelling me to stop. I press on.
‘For months I have been in the most horrible situation that any officer can occupy – assailed in my honour, and unable to defend myself. And tomorrow perhaps I shall be thrown out of this army that I love, and to which I have given twenty-five years of my life. Well then – so be it! I still believe it was my duty to seek truth and justice. I believe that is the best way for any soldier to serve the army, and I also believe it was my duty as an honest man.’ I turn back to the judge and add quietly, ‘That is all I want to say.’
Behind me there is some applause and a lot of jeering. A lone voice calls out, ‘Vive Picquart!’
That night, to avoid the mob, I have to be smuggled out of a side door on to the quai des Orfèvres. The sky above the palace is the colour of blood, flecked with drifting sparks, and when we turn the corner we can see that on the embankment on the other side of the Seine a crowd of several hundred are burning books – Zola’s books, I discover afterwards, together with any journals they can lay their hands on that are sympathetic to Dreyfus. There is something pagan about the way the figures seem to dance around the flames above the darkness of the river. The gendarmes have to force a way through for our carriage. The horses shy; the driver has to fight to bring them under control. We cross the river and have barely travelled a hundred metres along the boulevard de Sébastapol when we hear the cascading sound of plate glass shattering and a mob comes running down the centre of the street. A man yells, ‘Down with the Jews!’ Moments later we pass a shop with its windows smashed and paint daubed across a storefront sign that reads Levy & Dreyfus.
The next day when I return to the Palace of Justice, I am taken not to the Assize Court but to a different part of the building, and questioned by a magistrate, Paul Bertulus, about the forged messages I received in Tunisia. He is a big, handsome, charming man in his middle forties, appointed to the task by General Billot. He has an upturned moustache and a red carnation in his buttonhole and looks as if he would be more at home watching the racing at Longchamps than sitting here. I know him by reputation to be a conservative, a royalist and a friend of Henry, which presumably is why he was given the task. Therefore I have the very lowest expectations of his diligence as an investigator. Instead, to my surprise, the more I describe what befell me in north Africa, the more obviously disturbed he becomes.
‘So let me be clear, Colonel. You are quite certain that Mademoiselle Blanche de Comminges did not send you these telegrams?’
‘Without doubt her name has only been dragged into this affair by Colonel du Paty.’
‘And why would he do that?’
I glance at the stenographer who is recording my evidence. ‘I would be willing to tell you that, Monsieur Bertulus, but only in confidence.’
‘That is not a regular procedure, Colonel.’
‘This is not a regular matter.’
The magistrate thinks about it. ‘Very well,’ he says eventually. ‘However, you must understand that I may have to act on what you tell me, whether you want me to or not.’
I have an instinct that I can trust him and so I agree, and after the stenographer has left the room I tell him the story of du Paty’s liaison with Blanche, replete with the detail of the stolen letter allegedly returned by a woman wearing a veil. ‘That is why I say du Paty must be behind it in some way or other. His imagination is lurid but restricted. I am sure that he is the one who gave Esterhazy this device from romantic fiction about a “veiled lady” who is somehow known to me.’
‘It’s barely credible.’
‘I agree. But you can see how devastating it would be to Mademoiselle de Comminges’s position in society if the full details ever became known.’
‘So you are suggesting Colonel du Paty is a direct link between Major Esterhazy’s allegations and an officially sanctioned conspiracy against you involving forged messages?’
‘I am.’
‘Is forgery a method commonly employed by the intelligence department?’
I have to suppress a smile at his naïvety. ‘There’s an officer who works for the Sûreté – Jean-Alfred Desvernine. He once brought a forger to see me with the pseudonym of Lemercier-Picard. I suggest you have a word with Desvernine. He might be able to help.’
Bertulus makes a note of the name and then calls the stenographer back into the room.
That afternoon, while I am still being deposed, there is a quick knock at the door and Louis puts his head into the room. He is sweating, out of breath. ‘Forgive my intrusion,’ he says to Bertulus, ‘but Colonel Picquart is needed urgently in court.’
‘I am afraid he is in the process of giving evidence to me.’
‘I appreciate that, and Maître Labori sends his apologies, but he really does need to call the colonel as a rebuttal witness.’
‘Well, if he must, he must.’
As we hurry along the corridor Louis says, ‘General Pellieux is on the witness stand and trying to destroy your evidence. He is claiming that Esterhazy couldn’t possibly have written the bordereau because he didn’t have access to that level of intelligence.’
‘But that’s nonsense,’ I say. ‘I dealt with all this yesterday. And anyway, what has it to do with Pellieux? Why isn’t Gonse handling that part of their case, or Henry?’
‘Haven’t you noticed? They now have Pellieux doing everything. He’s the only decent spokesman they’ve got, and he isn’t tainted like the others.’ When we reach the doors of the courtroom he turns. ‘You do realise what this means, Georges, don’t you?’
‘What?’
‘They’re on the run. For the first time they’re actually scared they’re going to lose.’
Inside the court, Pellieux is at the witness stand and clearly just reaching his peroration, addressing the jury directly as if he were an advocate. Louis and I stand at the back to listen. ‘Gentlemen,’ he cries, striking his breast, ‘I have a soldier’s soul, and it revolts against the infamies heaped upon us! I say that it is criminal to try to take away from the army its confidence in its chiefs. What do you imagine will become of this army on the day of danger – nearer, perhaps, than you think? What do you imagine will be the conduct of the poor soldiers led by chiefs of whom they have heard such things said? It is to butchery that they would lead your sons, gentlemen of the jury! But Monsieur Zola will have won a new battle, he will write a new Débâcle,1 he will spread the French language throughout the universe and throughout a Europe from whose map France will have been wiped!’
The section of the court occupied by army officers erupts in cheers. Pellieux holds up a finger to silence them. ‘One word more, gentlemen. We should have been glad if Dreyfus had been acquitted three years ago. It would have proved there was no traitor in the French army. But what the recent court martial was not willing to accept was that an innocent man should be put in Dreyfus’s place, whether Dreyfus was guilty or not.’
He stands down to renewed acclamation from the General Staff. I move forward towards the well of the court, past Gonse and Henry, who are both on their feet applauding. Pellieux struts back to his seat like a prizefighter who has just won a bout, and I stand aside to let him pass. His eyes are shining. He doesn’t even notice me until he draws level with me, and then he says out of the corner of his mouth as he goes by, ‘All yours.’
In the event, much to Labori’s irritation, the judge rules that it is too late in the day for me to be called and that my testimony will have to wait until the next session. I return to Mont-Valérien and pass a sleepless night, listenin
g to the wind and staring long into the small hours at the light on top of the Eiffel Tower, glowing like a red planet in the heavens above Paris.
The next morning, once I am standing at the front of the court, Labori says, ‘Yesterday General de Pellieux declared that Major Esterhazy couldn’t have obtained the documents listed in the bordereau. What do you say in answer to that?’
I begin cautiously: ‘Some things I shall say perhaps will contradict what General de Pellieux has said, but I believe it my duty to state what I think. The central point is that the documents listed in the bordereau are much less important than people have been led to believe.’
Once again I am careful to speak forensically. I point out that five sets of data were supposedly handed over with the bordereau. Yet four of them were not actual documents at all but simply ‘notes’, which required no inside knowledge of the General Staff: notes on the hydraulic brake of the 120 millimetre cannon, on covering troops, on changes to artillery formations, and on the invasion of Madagascar. ‘Well, why only notes? Surely anyone who had anything serious to offer and not simply what he had picked up in conversation or seen in passing would have said, “I send you a copy of such and such a document.” Now, there was a copy handed over: the fifth document – the firing manual – and surely it’s not a coincidence that we know Major Esterhazy was able to get access to that, and indeed arranged to have it transcribed. But here again the author speaks of having it for only a limited amount of time, whereas an officer on the General Staff, such as Dreyfus, would have had unlimited access.’