An Officer And A Spy Part 31

Mont-Valerien 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 FrenchRussian 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 a.s.size 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 d.a.m.ned 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-Valerien 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 le de la Cite, 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-Valerien 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 doc.u.ments, 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 pa.s.s 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 a.s.size Court: size and grandeur, s.p.a.ce, heavy wooden panelling and gleaming bra.s.s 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, through 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-Valerien."

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 priestlike black vestments, including the Advocate General, Van Ca.s.sel, 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 circ.u.mstances 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 pet.i.t 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.

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 pet.i.t 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 Matre 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 pet.i.t 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 pet.i.t 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 doc.u.ment 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 pet.i.t 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 doc.u.ment 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 Matre 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 Matre Leblois can prove that he didn't return to Paris until November the seventh."

Henry bl.u.s.ters, "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 doc.u.ment?"

"I saw the doc.u.ment perfectly."

"But the writing on that doc.u.ment 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 doc.u.ment 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 pet.i.t 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 killed 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-a.s.sailed 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 Orfevres. 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 Sebastapol when we hear the cascading sound of plate gla.s.s shattering and a mob comes running down the centre of the street. A man yells, "Down with the Jews!" Moments later we pa.s.s 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 a.s.size 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 b.u.t.tonhole 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's, 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."