An Officer and a Spy

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, 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-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.

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?’