An Officer and a Spy

by Robert Harris

  JOUAUST: I urge you to speak with moderation.

  LABORI: I have not said a single immoderate word.

  JOUAUST: But your tone is not moderate.

  LABORI: I’m not in control of my tone.

  JOUAUST: Well, you should be – every man is in control of his own person.

  LABORI: I’m in control of my person, just not of my tone.

  JOUAUST: I shall withdraw your permission to speak.

  LABORI: Go ahead and withdraw it.

  JOUAUST: Sit down!

  LABORI: I will sit down – but not on your orders!

  One day, at a legal strategy meeting I attend together with Mathieu Dreyfus, Demange says in his slightly pompous manner, ‘We must never forget our central objective, my dear Labori, which is not, with all due respect, to flay the army for its errors but to ensure our client walks free. As this is an army hearing, in which the outcome will be decided by military officers, we need to be diplomatic.’

  ‘Ah yes,’ retorts, Labori, ‘“diplomatic”! This would be the same diplomacy, I take it, that led to your client spending four years on Devil’s Island?’

  Demange, red-faced with fury, gathers together his papers and leaves the room.

  Wearily, Mathieu gets up to go after him. At the door he says, ‘I understand your frustration, Labori, but Edgar has stood by my family loyally for five years. He has earned the right to set the direction of our strategy.’

  On this issue, I agree with Labori. I know the army. It does not react to diplomacy. It responds to force. But even for me, Labori goes too far when he decides to telegraph – without consulting Demange – the Emperor of Germany and the King of Italy, asking them to allow von Schwartzkoppen and Panizzardi (both of whom have withdrawn to their native countries) to come to Rennes to give evidence. The Chancellor of Germany, Count von Bülow, replies as if to a madman:

  His Majesty the Emperor and King, our most gracious master, considers it naturally and totally impossible to accede in any manner to Maître Labori’s strange suggestion.

  The bitterness between Labori and Demange afterwards worsens to such an extent that Labori, white with pain, announces he will not deliver a closing speech: ‘I cannot be a party to a strategy in which I do not believe. If that old fool thinks he can win by being polite to these murdering bastards, let him try it alone.’

  As the end of the trial draws near, the Préfecture of Police in Rennes, Dureault, approaches me in the crowded courtyard of the lycée during an adjournment, when everyone is outside stretching their legs. He beckons me to one side and says in a low voice: ‘We have good intelligence, Monsieur Picquart, that the nationalists are planning to arrive in force at the time of the verdict, and that if Dreyfus is acquitted there is liable to be serious violence. In the circumstances, I fear we cannot guarantee your safety, and I would urge you to leave the town before then. I hope you understand.’

  ‘Thank you, Monsieur Dureault. I appreciate your candour.’

  ‘One further piece of advice, if I may. I suggest you catch the night train in order to avoid being seen.’

  He moves away. I lean against the wall in the sunshine and smoke a cigarette. I shall not be sorry to go. I have been here nearly a month. So has everyone. There are Gonse and Boisdeffre promenading up and down, arm in arm, as if clinging to one another for support. There are Mercier and Billot, sitting on a wall, swinging their legs like schoolboys. There is Madame Henry, the nation’s widow, veiled from head to foot in black, floating across the courtyard like the Angel of Death, on the arm of Major Lauth, whose relationship with her is said to be intimate. There is the stubby, hairy figure of Bertillon, with his suitcase full of diagrams, still insisting that Dreyfus forged his own handwriting in order to produce the bordereau. There is Gribelin, who has found a shadow to stand in. Not everyone is here, of course. There are some ghostly absences – Sandherr, Henry, Lemercier-Picard, Guénée – and a few that are not so ghostly: du Paty, who has avoided giving evidence by insisting he is too ill; Scheurer-Kestner, who really is ill, and said to be about to die from cancer; and Esterhazy, who has gone to earth in the English village of Harpenden. But otherwise here we all are, like the inmates of an asylum, or the passengers on some legal Flying Dutchman, doomed to circle one another, and the world, for ever.

  A bell rings, summoning us back into court.

  Edmond and I have a farewell supper at Les Trois Marches on the evening of Thursday 7 September. Labori and Marguerite are there, but Mathieu and Demange don’t come. We drink a final toast to victory, raising our glasses in the direction of Mercier’s house, and then we take a taxi to the deserted railway station and board the evening train to Paris. No one sees us leave. The town sinks away into the dark behind us.

  The verdict is due on Saturday afternoon, and Aline Ménard-Dorian decides it offers the most wonderful opportunity for a luncheon party. She arranges with her friend the Under-Secretary of State for Posts and Telegraphs to have a telephone line left open from her drawing room to the Bourse de Commerce in Rennes – we will thus have the result almost as soon as it is announced – and invites all her usual salon, plus a few others, to a buffet at one o’clock in the rue de la Faisanderie.

  I don’t feel much like going, but her invitation is so insistent – ‘it would be utterly wonderful to have you with us, my dearest Georges, to share in your moment of glory’ – that I feel it would be churlish to refuse; besides, I have nothing else to do.

  Back from exile, Zola attends, along with Georges and Albert Clemenceau, Jean Jaurès, and de Blowitz of the London Times; there must be fifty or sixty of us, including Blanche de Comminges with a young man named d’Espic de Ginestet, whom she introduces as her fiancé. A liveried footman crouches by the telephone in the corner, checking occasionally with the operator to ensure the line is still working. At three fifteen, after we have finished eating – or not eating, in my case – he signals to our host, Paul Ménard, Aline’s husband, an industrialist of radical sympathies, and hands him the instrument. Ménard listens gravely for a moment and then announces, ‘The judges have retired to consider their verdict.’ He returns the telephone to the white-gloved hand of the footman.

  I go out on to the terrace to be alone, but several other guests follow me. De Blowitz, whose spherical body and bulbous ruddy features give him the look of a character out of Dickens – Bumble, perhaps, or Pickwick – asks me if I can remember how long the judges spent deliberating at the first court martial.

  ‘Half an hour.’

  ‘And would you say, monsieur, that the longer they take, the more likely the outcome is to be favourable to the accused, or the reverse?’

  ‘I really couldn’t answer that. Excuse me.’

  The minutes that follow are a torture. A neighbouring church chimes the half-hour, and then four o’clock. We patrol the patch of lawn. Zola says, ‘They are obviously weighing the evidence thoroughly, and if they do that then surely they must come down on our side. It is a good sign.’

  ‘No,’ says Georges Clemenceau, ‘men are being induced to change their minds and that cannot be good for Dreyfus.’

  I go back into the drawing room and stand at the window. Outside in the street a crowd has gathered. Someone shouts up to ask if there is any news. I shake my head. At a quarter to five, the footman signals to Ménard, who goes over to the telephone.

  Ménard listens and then announces, ‘The judges are returning to the courtroom.’

  So their deliberations lasted for an hour and a half. Is that long or short? Good or bad? I am not sure what to make of it.

  Five minutes pass. Ten minutes. Someone makes a joke to alleviate the tension, and people laugh. Suddenly Ménard holds up his hand for silence. Something is happening at the other end of the line. He frowns. Slowly, crushingly, his arm descends. ‘Guilty,’ he says quietly, ‘by five votes to two. Sentence reduced to ten years’ imprisonment.’

  Just over a week later, at the end of the afternoon, Mathieu Dreyfus comes to see me. I
am surprised to find him on my doorstep. He has never been to my apartment before. For the first time he looks grey and crumpled; even the flower in his buttonhole is faded. He perches on the edge of my small sofa, nervously turning his bowler hat around and around between his hands. He nods to my escritoire, which is strewn with papers, the desk lamp lit. ‘I see I am disturbing you at your work. Forgive me.’

  ‘It’s nothing – I thought I might try to write some sort of memoir while it’s all still fresh in my mind. Not for publication, though – at least not in my lifetime. Can I get you a drink?’

  ‘No. Thank you. I won’t stay long. I’m catching the evening train to Rennes.’

  ‘Ah. How is he?’

  ‘Frankly, Picquart, I fear he’s preparing himself for death.’

  ‘Oh, come, come, Dreyfus!’ I say, sitting down opposite him. ‘If your brother could survive four years on Devil’s Island, he can withstand a few more months in prison! And I’m sure it won’t be much longer than that. The government will have to let him go in time for the Universal Exhibition, otherwise there’ll be a boycott. They can’t possibly allow him to die in gaol.’

  ‘He’s asked to see the children for the first time since his arrest. Can you imagine the effect that will have on them – to see their father in such a state? He wouldn’t subject them to that ordeal unless it was to say goodbye.’

  ‘Are you sure his health is so poor? Has he been examined by a doctor?’

  ‘The government has sent a specialist to Rennes. He says Alfred is suffering from malnutrition and malarial fever, and possible tuberculosis of the spinal marrow. His opinion is that he won’t last long in captivity.’ He looks at me miserably. ‘For that reason – I’ve come to tell you – I’m sorry to say it – we’ve decided to accept the offer of a pardon.’

  A pause. I wish I could keep the coldness out of my voice. ‘I see. There is an offer on the table, then?’

  ‘The Prime Minister is worried about the country becoming permanently divided.’

  ‘I’m sure he is.’

  ‘I know this is a blow to you, Picquart. I can see that it places you in an awkward position . . .’

  ‘Yes, well how could it not?’ I burst out. ‘To accept a pardon is an admission of guilt!’

  ‘Technically, yes. But Jaurès has drafted a statement for Alfred to issue the moment he emerges from prison.’ He pulls a creased sheet of paper from his inside pocket and hands it over.

  The government of the Republic grants me my freedom. It means nothing to me without my honour. Beginning today, I shall persist in working towards an overturning of the frightful judicial error whose victim I continue to be . . .

  There is more, but I have read enough. I give it back. ‘Well, these are very noble words,’ I say bitterly. ‘Naturally they would be – one can always rely on Jaurès for noble words. But the reality is the army has won. And the very least they’ll insist on in return is an amnesty for those who organised the conspiracy against your brother.’ And against me, I want to add. ‘It will make it impossible for me to pursue my legal claim against the General Staff.’

  ‘In the short term, perhaps. But in the long run, with a different political climate, I have no doubt we can win a full exoneration in the courts.’

  ‘I wish I shared your faith in our legal system.’

  Mathieu stuffs the statement back in his pocket and stands. There is defiance in the way he plants his legs apart. ‘I’m sorry you feel as you do, Picquart. I understand that for the sake of your cause you’d prefer to have my brother die a martyr, if that is what it takes. But his family wants him back alive. He isn’t reconciled to this decision himself, to be honest with you. I think it would make a difference if I could tell him he had your agreement.’

  ‘My agreement? Why should that matter to him?’

  ‘Nevertheless, I believe it does. What message may I give him from you?’

  He stands there, implacable.

  ‘What do the others say?’

  ‘Zola, Clemenceau and Labori are opposed. Reinach, Lazare, Basch and the rest say yes, with varying degrees of enthusiasm.’

  ‘Tell him I am opposed as well.’

  Mathieu nods curtly, as if he expected nothing else, and turns to leave.

  ‘But tell him that I understand.’

  Dreyfus is released on Wednesday 20 September 1899, although the news is not made public for another day, to enable him to travel without being accosted by members of the public. I learn about his freedom from the newspapers like everyone else. Wearing a dark blue suit and a soft black hat for disguise, he is driven away by automobile from the prison in Rennes at dusk by officers of the Sûreté and taken to join Mathieu at the railway station in Nantes, where the brothers catch the southbound sleeper. At a family house in Provence he is reunited with his wife and children. Afterwards he moves to Switzerland. He doesn’t return to Paris. He fears assassination.

  As for me, I scratch a living and, with Labori’s help, pursue various newspapers for libel. In December I refuse to accept the government’s offer of a general amnesty for all those involved in the affair, even though I am told I will be restored to the army and given a command. Why should I put on the same uniform as Mercier, du Paty, Gonse, Lauth and that gang of criminals?

  In January, Mercier is elected as senator for the lower Loire on a nationalist platform.

  From Dreyfus I hear nothing. And then, more than a year after his release, one bleak day in the winter of 1900, I go downstairs to collect my mail and find a letter, postmarked Paris. The address is in handwriting familiar to me only from secret files and courtroom evidence.

  My Colonel,

  I have the honour to request that you set a day and a time when you will allow me to express to you in person my gratitude.

  Respectfully,

  A. Dreyfus

  It comes from an address in the rue de Châteaudun.

  I carry it back upstairs. Pauline has stayed overnight, as she does quite often now the girls are getting older. Madame Romazzotti is how she prefers to style herself these days, having reverted to her maiden name: people assume she is a widow. I tease her that it makes her sound like a spiritualist on the boulevard Saint-Germain.

  She calls from the bedroom, ‘Anything interesting?’

  I read the note again.

  ‘No,’ I call back, ‘nothing.’

  Later that morning I take one of my visiting cards and write on the back: Sir, I will let you know the day when I can see you. G. Picquart.

  And then I do nothing about it. He is not the kind of man who finds it easy to say thank you; very well; I am not the sort who finds it easy to be thanked; therefore let us spare ourselves the bathos of the encounter. Later, I am accused in the newspapers of flatly refusing to meet Dreyfus. One anonymous friend of the family – it turns out to be the Zionist pamphleteer Bernard Lazare – tells L’Echo de Paris, a right-wing newspaper: We do not understand Picquart, or his attitude . . . you probably do not know, nor do many others, that Picquart is energetically anti-Semitic.

  How am I to answer this? Perhaps by observing that if the true measure of a man’s character, as Aristotle says, is his actions, then mine have hardly been those of an energetic anti-Semite. Still, there is nothing like an accusation of anti-Semitism to get all one’s old prejudices flowing, and I write bitterly to a friend: ‘I knew that one day I would be attacked by the Jews, and notably by the Dreyfuses . . .’

  Thus our beautiful cause descends into tantrums, disappointment, reproaches and acrimony.

  On the parade ground of the École Militaire, the companies of cadets wheel and stamp on the packed brown dirt. I stand behind the railings of the place de Fontenoy, as I often do, and watch as they are put through their paces. So much of my life is contained here in this spot. This is where I was taught as a young officer, and where I did my teaching. This is where I witnessed Dreyfus’s degradation. Over there in the riding school is where I fought my duel with Henry.

 
; ‘Companies – attention!’

  ‘Companies – present arms!’

  The young men march past, eyes right, in perfect step, and the worst of it is they do not even see me. Or if they do, they see me without registering me – just another middle-aged civilian in a black suit and bowler hat watching wistfully from the other side.

  And yet, in the end, we win – not in a flash of glory, as we had always hoped; not at the climax of some great trial, with the condemned man, vindicated at last, carried shoulder-high to freedom. We win quietly, behind closed doors, when tempers have cooled, in committee rooms and archives, as all the facts are sieved and sieved again, by careful jurists.

  First, Jaurès, the leader of the socialists, makes a forensic speech in the Chamber of Deputies, lasting a day and a half, setting out the entire affair with such clarity that the new Minister of War, General André, agrees to look again at all the evidence – that is in 1903. Then the result of the André inquiry prompts the Criminal Chamber to take up the case itself, and conclude that it should be reviewed by the Supreme Court of Appeal – that occupies 1904. Then a year is lost in political turmoil over the separation of Church and State – farewell 1905. But finally, the Supreme Court of Appeal quashes the Rennes verdict and exonerates Dreyfus entirely – that happens on 12 July 1906.

  On the 13th, a motion is laid before the Chamber of Deputies to restore Dreyfus to the army with the rank of major, and to award him the highest available distinction, the cross of the Legion of Honour; that passes by a margin of 432 to 32, and when Mercier tries to speak against it in the Senate, he is howled down. On the same day, a second motion is debated, restoring me to the army with the rank I might have hoped to achieve if I had not been dishonourably discharged in 1898; this resolution passes by an even larger margin, of 449 to 26. To my astonishment I find myself walking back on to the parade ground of the École Militaire for Dreyfus’s medal ceremony in the uniform of a brigadier general.