_Monsieur le Président_:
Will you permit me, in my gratitude for the kindly welcome that you
once extended to me, to have a care for the glory that belongs to you,
and to say to you that your star, so lucky hitherto, is threatened with
the most shameful, the most ineffaceable, of stains?
You have emerged from base calumnies safe and sound; you have
conquered hearts. You seem radiant in the apotheosis of that patriotic
_fête_ which the Russian alliance has been for France, and you are
preparing to preside at the solemn triumph of our Universal Exposition,
which will crown our great century of labor, truth, and liberty. But
what a mud-stain on your name--I was going to say on your reign--is
this abominable Dreyfus affair! A council of war has just dared to
acquit an Esterhazy in obedience to orders, a final blow at all truth,
at all justice. And now it is done! France has this stain upon her
cheek; it will be written in history that under your presidency it was
possible for this social crime to be committed.
Since they have dared, I too will dare. I will tell the truth, for I
have promised to tell it, if the courts, once regularly appealed to,
did not bring it out fully and entirely. It is my duty to speak; I
will not be an accomplice. My nights would be haunted by the spectre
of the innocent man who is atoning, in a far-away country, by the most
frightful of tortures, for a crime that he did not commit.
And to you, _Monsieur le Président_, will I cry this truth, with
all the force of an honest man’s revolt. Because of your honor I
am convinced that you are ignorant of it. And to whom then shall I
denounce the malevolent gang of the really guilty, if not to you, the
first magistrate of the country?
First, the truth as to the trial and conviction of Dreyfus.
A calamitous man has managed it all, has done it all--Colonel du Paty
de Clam, then a simple major. He is the entire Dreyfus case; it will
be fully known only when a sincere investigation shall have clearly
established his acts and his responsibilities. He appears as the most
heady, the most intricate, of minds, haunted with romantic intrigues,
delighting in the methods of the newspaper novel, stolen papers,
anonymous letters, meetings in deserted spots, mysterious women who
peddle overwhelming proofs by night. It is he who conceived the idea of
dictating the _bordereau_ to Dreyfus; it is he who dreamed of studying
it in a room completely lined with mirrors; it is he whom Major
Forzinetti represents to us armed with a dark lantern, trying to gain
access to the accused when asleep, in order to throw upon his face a
sudden flood of light, and thus surprise a confession of his crime in
the confusion of his awakening. And I have not to tell the whole; let
them look, they will find. I declare simply that Major du Paty de Clam,
entrusted as a judicial officer with the duty of preparing the Dreyfus
case, is, in the order of dates and responsibilities, the first person
guilty of the fearful judicial error that has been committed.
The _bordereau_ already had been for some time in the hands of
Colonel Sandherr, director of the bureau of information, who since
then has died of general paralysis. “Flights” have taken place; papers
have disappeared, as they continue to disappear even today; and the
authorship of the _bordereau_ was an object of inquiry, when little by
little an _a priori_ conclusion was arrived at that the author must be
a staff officer and an officer of artillery,--clearly a double error,
which shows how superficially this _bordereau_ had been studied, for a
systematic examination proves that it could have been written only by
an officer of troops. So they searched their own house; they examined
writings; it was a sort of family affair,--a traitor to be surprised
in the war offices themselves, that he might be expelled therefrom. I
need not again go over a story already known in part. It is sufficient
to say that Major du Paty de Clam enters upon the scene as soon as
the first breath of suspicion falls upon Dreyfus. Starting from that
moment, it is he who invented Dreyfus; the case becomes his case; he
undertakes to confound the traitor, and induce him to make a complete
confession. There is also, to be sure, the minister of war, General
Mercier, whose intelligence seems rather inferior; there is also the
chief of staff, General de Boisdeffre, who seems to have yielded to
his clerical passion, and the sub-chief of staff, General Gonse, whose
conscience has succeeded in accommodating itself to many things. But
at bottom there was at first only Major du Paty de Clam, who leads
them all, who hypnotizes them,--for he concerns himself also with
spiritualism, with occultism, holding converse with spirits. Incredible
are the experiences to which he submitted the unfortunate Dreyfus, the
traps into which he tried to lead him, the mad inquiries, the monstrous
fancies, a complete and torturing madness.
Ah! this first affair is a nightmare to one who knows it in its real
details. Major du Paty de Clam arrests Dreyfus, puts him in close
confinement; he runs to Madame Dreyfus, terrorizes her, tells her
that, if she speaks, her husband is lost. Meantime the unfortunate was
tearing his flesh, screaming his innocence. And thus the examination
went on, as in a fifteenth-century chronicle, amid mystery, with a
complication of savage expedients, all based on a single childish
charge, this imbecile _bordereau_, which was not simply a vulgar
treason, but also the most shameless of swindles, for the famous
secrets delivered proved, almost all of them, valueless. If I insist,
it is because here lies the egg from which later was to be hatched the
real crime, the frightful denial of justice, of which France lies ill.
I should like to show in detail how the judicial error was possible;
how it was born of the machinations of Major du Paty de Clam; how
General Mercier and Generals de Boisdeffre and Gonse were led into
it, gradually assuming responsibility for this error, which afterward
they believed it their duty to impose as sacred truth, truth beyond
discussion. At the start there was, on their part, only carelessness
and lack of understanding. At worst we see them yielding to the
religious passions of their surroundings, and to the prejudices of the
_esprit de corps_. They have suffered folly to do its work.
But here is Dreyfus before the council of war. The most absolute
secrecy is demanded. Had a traitor opened the frontier to the enemy
in order to lead the German emperor to Notre Dame, they would not
have taken stricter measures of silence and mystery. The nation
is awe-struck; there are whisperings of terrible doings, of those
monstrous treasons that excite the indignation of History, and
naturally the nation bows. There is no punishment severe enough; it
will applaud even public degradation; it will wish the guilty man
to remain upon his rock of infamy, eaten by remorse. Are they real
then,--these unspeakable things, these dangerous things, capable of
setting Europe aflame, which they have had to bury carefully behind
closed doors? No, there was nothing behind them save the romantic and
mad fancies of Major du Paty de Clam. All this was done only to conceal
the most ridiculous of newspaper novels. And, to assure one’s self of
it, one need only study attentively the indictment read before the
council of war.
Ah! the emptiness of this indictment! That a man could have been
condemned on this document is a prodigy of iniquity. I defy honest
people to read it without feeling their hearts leap with indignation
and crying out their revolt at the thought of the unlimited atonement
yonder, on Devil’s Island. Dreyfus knows several languages--a crime; no
compromising document was found on his premises--a crime; he sometimes
visits the neighborhood of his birth--a crime; he is industrious, he is
desirous of knowing everything--a crime; he does not get confused--a
crime; he gets confused--a crime. And the simplicities of this
document, the formal assertions in the void! We were told of fourteen
counts, but we find, after all, only one,--that of the _bordereau_. And
even as to this we learn that the experts were not in agreement; that
one of them, M. Gobert, was hustled out in military fashion, because
he permitted himself to arrive at another than the desired opinion. We
were told also of twenty-three officers who came to overwhelm Dreyfus
with their testimony. We are still in ignorance of their examination,
but it is certain that all of them did not attack him, and it is to be
remarked, furthermore, that all of them belonged to the war officers.
It is a family trial; there they are all at home; and it must be
remembered that the staff wanted the trial, sat in judgment at it, and
has just passed judgment a second time.
So there remained only the _bordereau_, concerning which the experts
were not in agreement. It is said that in the council-chamber the
judges naturally were going to acquit. And, after that, how easy to
understand the desperate obstinacy with which, in order to justify the
conviction, they affirm today the existence of a secret overwhelming
document, a document that cannot be shown, that legitimates everything,
before which we must bow, an invisible and unknowable god. I deny this
document; I deny it with all my might. A ridiculous document, yes,
perhaps a document concerning little women, in which there is mention
of a certain D---- who becomes too exacting; some husband doubtless,
who thinks that they pay him too low a price for his wife. But a
document of interest to the national defence the production of which
would lead to a declaration of war tomorrow! No, no; it is a lie; and a
lie the more odious and cynical because they lie with impunity, in such
a way that no one can convict them of it. They stir up France; they
hide themselves behind her legitimate emotion; they close mouths by
disturbing hearts, by perverting minds. I know no greater civic crime.
These, then, _Monsieur le Président_, are the facts which explain how
it was possible to commit a judicial error; and the moral proofs, the
position of Dreyfus as a man of wealth, the absence of motive, this
continual cry of innocence, complete the demonstration that he is a
victim of the extraordinary fancies of Major du Paty de Clam, of his
clerical surroundings, of that hunting down of the “dirty Jews” which
disgraces our epoch.
And we come to the Esterhazy case. Three years have passed; many
consciences remain profoundly disturbed, are anxiously seeking, and
finally become convinced of the innocence of Dreyfus.
I shall not give the history of M. Scheurer-Kestner’s doubts, which
later became convictions. But, while he was investigating for himself,
serious things were happening to the staff. Colonel Sandherr was dead,
and Lieutenant-Colonel Picquart had succeeded him as chief of the
bureau of information. And it is in this capacity that the latter,
in the exercise of his functions, came one day into possession of a
letter-telegram addressed to Major Esterhazy by an agent of a foreign
power. His plain duty was to open an investigation. It is certain that
he never acted except at the command of his superiors. So he submitted
his suspicions to his hierarchical superiors, first to General Gonse,
then to General de Boisdeffre, then to General Billot, who had
succeeded General Mercier as minister of war. The famous Picquart
documents, of which we have heard so much, were never anything but the
Billot documents,--I mean, the documents collected by a subordinate
for his minister, the documents which must be still in existence in
the war department. The inquiries lasted from May to September, 1896,
and here it must be squarely affirmed that General Gonse was convinced
of Esterhazy’s guilt, and that General de Boisdeffre and General
Billot had no doubt that the famous _bordereau_ was in Esterhazy’s
handwriting. Lieutenant-Colonel Picquart’s investigation had ended in
the certain establishment of this fact. But the emotion thereat was
great, for Esterhazy’s conviction inevitably involved a revision of the
Dreyfus trial; and this the staff was determined to avoid at any cost.
Then there must have been a psychological moment, full of anguish.
Note that General Billot was in no way compromised; he came freshly to
the matter; he could bring out the truth. He did not dare, in terror,
undoubtedly, of public opinion, and certainly fearful also of betraying
the entire staff, General de Boisdeffre, General Gonse, to say nothing
of their subordinates. Then there was but a minute of struggle between
his conscience and what he believed to be the military interest. When
this minute had passed, it was already too late. He was involved
himself; he was compromised. And since then his responsibility has
only grown; he has taken upon his shoulders the crime of others, he
is as guilty as the others, he is more guilty than they, for it was
in his power to do justice, and he did nothing. Understand this; for
a year General Billot, Generals De Boisdeffre and Gonse have known
that Dreyfus is innocent, and they have kept this dreadful thing to
themselves. And these people sleep, and they have wives and children
whom they love!
Colonel Picquart had done his duty as an honest man. He insisted in
the presence of his superiors, in the name of justice; he even begged
of them; he told them how impolitic were their delays, in view of the
terrible storm which was gathering, and which would surely burst as
soon as the truth should be known. Later there was the language that
M. Scheurer-Kestner held likewise to General Billot, adjuring him in
the name of patriotism to take the matter in hand, and not to allow
it to be aggravated till it should become a public disaster. No, the
crime had been committed; now the staff could not confess it. And
Lieutenant-Colonel Picquart was sent on a mission; he was farther and
farther removed, even to Tunis, where one day they even wanted to
honor his bravery by charging him with a mission which would surely
have led to his massacre in the district where the marquis de Morès
met his death. He was not in disgrace; Gen. Gonse was in friendly
correspondence with him; but there are secrets which it does one no
good to find out.
At Paris the truth went on, irresistibly, and we know in what way
the expected storm broke out. M. Mathieu Dreyfus denounced Major
Esterhazy as the real author of the _bordereau_, at the moment when
M. Scheurer-Kestner was about to lodge a demand for a revision of the
trial with the keeper of the seals. And it is here that Major Esterhazy
appears. The evidence shows that at first he was dazed, ready for
suicide or flight. Then suddenly he determines to brazen it out; he
astonishes Paris by the violence of his attitude. The fact was that
aid had come to him; he had received an anonymous letter warning him
of the intrigues of his enemies; a mysterious woman had even disturbed
herself at night to hand to him a document stolen from the staff,
which would save him. And I cannot help seeing here again the hand of
Lieutenant-Colonel du Paty de Clam, recognizing the expedients of his
fertile imagination. His work, the guilt of Dreyfus, was in danger, and
he was determined to defend it. A revision of the trial,--why, that
meant the downfall of the newspaper novel, so extravagant, so tragic,
with its abominable _dénouement_ on Devil’s Island. That would never
do. Thenceforth there was to be a duel between Lieutenant-Colonel
Picquart and Lieutenant-Colonel du Paty de Clam, the one with face
uncovered, the other masked. Presently we shall meet them both in the
presence of civil justice. At bottom it is always the staff defending
itself, unwilling to confess its crime, the abomination of which is
growing from hour to hour.
It has been wonderingly asked who were the protectors of Major
Esterhazy. First, in the shadow, Lieutenant-Colonel du Paty de Clam,
who devised everything, managed everything; his hand betrays itself in
the ridiculous methods. Then there is General de Boisdeffre, General
Gonse, General Billot himself, who are obliged to acquit the major,
since they cannot permit the innocence of Dreyfus to be recognized,
for, if they should, the war offices would fall under the weight of
public contempt. And the beautiful result of this prodigious situation
is that the one honest man in the case, Lieutenant-Colonel Picquart,
who alone has done his duty, is to be the victim, the man to be derided
and punished. O justice, what frightful despair grips the heart! They
go so far as to say that he is a forger; that he manufactured the
telegram, to ruin Esterhazy. But, in heaven’s name, why? For what
purpose? Show a motive. Is he, too, paid by the Jews? The pretty
part of the story is that he himself was an anti-Semite. Yes, we
are witnesses of this infamous spectacle,--the proclamation of the
innocence of men ruined with debts and crimes, while honor itself, a
man of stainless life, is stricken down. When a society reaches that
point, it is beginning to rot.
There you have, then, _Monsieur le Président_, the Esterhazy case,--a
guilty man to be declared innocent. We can follow the beautiful
business, hour by hour, for the last two months. I abridge, for this
is but the _résumé_ of a story whose burning pages will some day be
written at length. So we have seen General de Pellieux, and then
Major Ravary, carrying on a rascally investigation whence knaves come
transfigured and honest people sullied. Then they convened the council
of war.
How could it have been expected that a council of war would undo what a
council of war had done?
I say nothing of the choice, always possible, of the judges. Is
not the superior idea of discipline, which is in the very blood of
these soldiers, enough to destroy their power to do justice? Who
says discipline says obedience. When the minister of war, the great
chief, has publicly established, amid the applause of the nation’s
representatives, the absolute authority of the thing judged, do you
expect a council of war to formally contradict him? Hierarchically
that is impossible. General Billot conveyed a suggestion to the judges
by his declaration, and they passed judgment as they must face the
cannon’s mouth, without reasoning. The preconceived opinion that they
took with them to their bench is evidently this: “Dreyfus has been
condemned for the crime of treason by a council of war; then he is
guilty, and we, a council of war, cannot declare him innocent. Now,
we know that to recognize Esterhazy’s guilt would be to proclaim the
innocence of Dreyfus.” Nothing could turn them from that course of
reasoning.
They have rendered an iniquitous verdict which will weigh forever
upon our councils of war, which will henceforth tinge with suspicion
all their decrees. The first council of war may have been lacking
in comprehension; the second is necessarily criminal. Its excuse, I
repeat, is that the supreme chief had spoken, declaring the thing
judged unassailable, sacred and superior to men, so that inferiors
could say naught to the contrary. They talk to us of the honor of the
army; they want us to love it, to respect it. Ah! certainly, yes, the
army which would rise at the first threat, which would defend French
soil; that army is the whole people, and we have for it nothing but
tenderness and respect. But it is not a question of that army, whose
dignity is our special desire, in our need of justice. It is the sword
that is in question; the master that they may give us tomorrow. And
piously kiss the sword-hilt, the god? No!
I have proved it, moreover; the Dreyfus case was the case of the war
offices, a staff officer, accused by his staff comrades, convicted
under the pressure of the chiefs of staff. Again I say, he cannot
come back innocent, unless all the staff is guilty. Consequently
the war offices, by all imaginable means, by press campaigns, by
communications, by influences, have covered Esterhazy only to ruin
Dreyfus a second time. Ah! with what a sweep the republican government
should clear away this band of Jesuits, as General Billot himself calls
them! Where is the truly strong and wisely patriotic minister who
will dare to reshape and renew all? How many of the people I know are
trembling with anguish in view of a possible war, knowing in what hands
lies the national defence! And what a nest of base intrigues, gossip,
and dilapidation has this sacred asylum, entrusted with the fate of the
country, become! We are frightened by the terrible light thrown upon
it by the Dreyfus case, this human sacrifice of an unfortunate, of a
“dirty Jew.” Ah! what a mixture of madness and folly, of crazy fancies,
of low police practices, of inquisitorial and tyrannical customs, the
good pleasure of a few persons in gold lace, with their boots on the
neck of the nation, cramming back into its throat its cry of truth
and justice, under the lying and sacrilegious pretext of the _raison
d’Etat_!
And another of their crimes is that they have accepted the support of
the unclean press, have suffered themselves to be championed by all the
knavery of Paris, so that now we witness knavery’s insolent triumph
in the downfall of right and of simple probity. It is a crime to have
accused of troubling France those who wish to see her generous, at the
head of the free and just nations, when they themselves are hatching
the impudent conspiracy to impose error, in the face of the entire
world. It is a crime to mislead opinion, to utilize for a task of death
this opinion that they have perverted to the point of delirium. It is a
crime to poison the minds of the little and the humble, to exasperate
the passions of reaction and intolerance, while seeking shelter
behind odious anti-Semitism, of which the great liberal France of the
rights of man will die, if she is not cured. It is a crime to exploit
patriotism for works of hatred, and, finally, it is a crime to make the
sword the modern god, when all human science is at work on the coming
temple of truth and justice.
This truth, this justice, for which we have so ardently longed,--how
distressing it is to see them thus buffeted, more neglected and more
obscured. I have a suspicion of the fall that must have occurred in
the soul of M. Scheurer-Kestner, and I really believe that he will
finally feel remorse that he did not act in a revolutionary fashion,
on the day of interpellation in the senate, by thoroughly ventilating
the whole matter, to topple everything over. He has been the highly
honest man, the man of loyal life, and he thought that the truth was
sufficient unto itself, especially when it should appear as dazzling
as the open day. Of what use to overturn everything, since soon the
sun would shine? And it is for this confident serenity that he is now
so cruelly punished. And the same is the case of Lieutenant-Colonel
Picquart, who, moved by a feeling of lofty dignity, has been unwilling
to publish General Gonse’s letters. These scruples honor him the more
because, while he remained respectful of discipline, his superiors
heaped mud upon him, working up the case against him themselves, in
the most unexpected and most outrageous fashion. Here are two victims,
two worthy people, two simple hearts, who have trusted God, while the
devil was at work. And in the case of Lieutenant-Colonel Picquart we
have seen even this ignoble thing,--a French tribunal, after suffering
the reporter in the case to publicly arraign a witness and accuse him
of every crime, closing its doors as soon as this witness has been
introduced to explain and defend himself. I say that is one crime more,
and that this crime will awaken the universal conscience. Decidedly,
military tribunals have a singular idea of justice.
Such, then, is the simple truth, _Monsieur le Président_, and it is
frightful. It will remain a stain upon your presidency. I suspect that
you are powerless in this matter,--that you are the prisoner of the
constitution and of your environment. You have none the less a man’s
duty, upon which you will reflect, and which you will fulfill. Not
indeed that I despair, the least in the world, of triumph. I repeat
with more vehement certainty; truth is on the march, and nothing
can stop it. Today sees the real beginning of the affair, since not
until today have the positions been clear: on one hand, the guilty,
who do not want the light; on the other, the doers of justice, who
will give their lives to get it. When truth is buried in the earth,
it accumulates there, and assumes so mighty an explosive power that,
on the day when it bursts forth, it hurls everything into the air.
We shall see if they have not just made preparations for the most
resounding of disasters, yet to come.
But this letter is long, _Monsieur le Président_, and it is time to
finish.
I accuse Lieutenant-Colonel du Paty de Clam of having been the
diabolical workman of judicial error,--unconsciously, I am willing to
believe,--and of having then defended his calamitous work, for three
years, by the most guilty machinations.
I accuse General Mercier of having made himself an accomplice, at least
through weakness of mind, in one of the greatest iniquities of the
century.
I accuse General Billot of having had in his hands certain proofs
of the innocence of Dreyfus, and of having stifled them; of having
rendered himself guilty of this crime of _lèse-humanité_ and
_lèse-justice_ for a political purpose, and to save the compromised
staff.
I accuse General de Boisdeffre and General Gonse of having made
themselves accomplices in the same crime, one undoubtedly through
clerical passion, the other perhaps through that _esprit de corps_
which makes of the war offices the Holy Ark, unassailable.
I accuse General de Pellieux and Major Ravary of having conducted a
rascally inquiry,--I mean by that a monstrously partial inquiry, of
which we have, in the report of the latter, an imperishable monument of
naive audacity.
I accuse the three experts in handwriting, Belhomme, Varinard, and
Couard, of having made lying and fraudulent reports, unless a medical
examination should declare them afflicted with diseases of the eye and
of the mind.
I accuse the war offices of having carried on in the press,
particularly in “L’Eclair” and in “L’Echo de Paris,” an abominable
campaign, to mislead opinion and cover up their faults.
I accuse, finally, the first council of war of having violated the
law by condemning an accused person on the strength of a secret
document, and I accuse the second council of war of having covered
this illegality, in obedience to orders, in committing in its turn the
judicial crime of knowingly acquitting a guilty man.
In preferring these charges, I am not unaware that I lay myself liable
under Articles 30 and 31 of the press law of July 29, 1881, which
punishes defamation. And it is wilfully that I expose myself thereto.
As for the people whom I accuse, I do not know them, I have never seen
them, I entertain against them no feeling of revenge or hatred. They
are to me simple entities, spirits of social ill-doing. And the act
that I perform here is nothing but a revolutionary measure to hasten
the explosion of truth and justice.
I have but one passion, the passion for the light, in the name
of humanity which has suffered so much, and which is entitled to
happiness. My fiery protest is simply the cry of my soul. Let
them dare, then, to bring me into the assize court, and let the
investigation take place in the open day.