At the sitting of the French chamber of deputies on the day of the
appearance of the foregoing letter, Comte de Mun, a member of the
chamber and representing the monarchical party, questioned the
government “as to the measures which the minister of war intends to
take, in consequence of the article published this morning by M. Emile
Zola.” After a stormy debate and a suspension of the sitting, M.
Méline, the prime minister, reluctantly declared the intention of the
government to prosecute the author of the article.
Accordingly, on January 20, the assize court of the Seine served
notice on M. Zola and M. Perrenx to appear before it at the Palais
de Justice on the following February 7, and there answer to a charge
of having publicly defamed the first council of war of the military
government of Paris, the charge being based on the following passages
from the incriminated article:
“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.”
“They have rendered an iniquitous verdict which will weigh forever
upon our councils of war, which will henceforth tinge all their
decrees with suspicion. The first council of war may have been lacking
in comprehension; the second is necessarily criminal.”
“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.”
On January 22 “L’Aurore” published a second letter from M. Zola,
addressed to the minister of war, in which he complained that the
government had based its charge of defamation exclusively on those
passages of his first letter which related to the trial of Major
Esterhazy, carefully refraining from specification of those passages
relating to the trial of Captain Dreyfus, lest thereby the truth about
the latter should come to light and compel a revision of his case. This
second letter concluded as follows:
Why were you afraid to take notice of all my charges? I will tell you.
Fearing an open discussion, you have resorted, in order to save
yourself, to the methods of a prosecuting attorney. They have called
to your attention, in the law of July 21, 1881, an Article 52 which
permits me to offer proof concerning only the matters “set forth and
complained of in the summons.”
And now you are quite at your ease, are you not?
Well, you are mistaken; I warn you in advance; you have been
ill-advised.
The first thought was to bring me before the police court, but they did
not dare, for the court of appeals would have upset the whole procedure.
Then they conceived the idea of delaying matters by greatly prolonging
the preliminary examination; but they were afraid that this might give
a new development to the case, and pile up against you a crushing mass
of evidence, methodically recorded.
Finally, in desperation, they decided to impose upon me an unequal
struggle, tying my hands in advance, to assure you, by the methods of a
lawyer’s clerk, the victory that undoubtedly you did not expect from a
free discussion.
You have forgotten that I am to have for judges twelve French
citizens, in possession of their independence.
I shall find a way to win by the force of justice; I shall illuminate
consciences with the effulgence of truth. At the first words we shall
see the methods of the quibblers swept away by the imperious necessity
of proof. This proof the law bids me give, and the law would be a liar
if, imposing on me this duty, it should refuse me the means of doing it.
How could I prove the charges of which you complain, if I were not
allowed to show the concatenation of facts and were prevented from
placing the whole matter in the fullest light?
Liberty to prove,--that is the power on which I depend.
On January 24 M. Zola’s counsel served notice on the attorney-general
of a long list of witnesses whom he intended to summon, in which
notice he called on the attorney-general to produce in court all the
papers relating to the trials of Captain Dreyfus and Major Esterhazy,
and made formal offer to prove, not only the matters set forth in the
summons, but also, as inseparable from them, the charges preferred
in the letter to President Faure against Lieutenant-Colonel du Paty
de Clam, General Mercier, General Billot, General de Boisdeffre,
General Gonse, General de Pellieux, Major Ravary, the three experts in
handwriting,--Belhomme, Varinard, and Couard,--the war offices, and
the Dreyfus council of war.
On February 7 M. Zola and M. Perrenx appeared for trial, and the
record of the court proceedings here follows.