The Judge.--“I did not hear it.”
M. Leblois.--“I said just now that I was first introduced to this
affair in June, 1897, when Colonel Picquart came to ask my aid and
protection against written threats that he had received on June 3 from
one of his former subordinates. It was for purposes of his defence that
Colonel Picquart related to me a portion of the facts, but not those
concerning military secrets, and it was for purposes of his defence
that he gave me General Gonse’s letters. I consider that you are now
reassured as to the source of my information.
“I add that nothing is easier than to establish materially the proof
of what I have just said, for information telegraphed by a provincial
agency on February 2, and not contradicted since by any newspaper or
otherwise, specifies the points raised in the debate before the council
of inquiry. Furthermore, Colonel Picquart has received, in conformity
with military regulations, a clear notification of the questions
concerning which he was examined. In fact, if a single question is to
be put in a council of inquiry, the law requires that the person to be
questioned shall receive a notice of the points on which the discussion
will turn. Then Colonel Picquart, being in possession of such notice,
emanating from the reporter in the case, is clearly in a position to
prove what I have just said.”
M. Albert Clemenceau.--“Permit me to ask a question. Just now the
witness said this second letter, which was a forgery, was so drawn
up as to prove that it emanated from a personage familiar with the
documents of the war offices. But the witness did not explain this
declaration. I should like to ask him what there was in this letter
that enables him to make this declaration, and to say that it came from
the war offices.”
M. Leblois.--“I prefer not to give any explanations in regard to
this letter, for I should run a risk of altering the version that
you will soon hear from Colonel Picquart. [Laughter.] I think there
is some misunderstanding. I said that the text of the two telegrams
was a certain proof that they emanated from a man familiar with all
the secrets of the war department, but I can say that only of the
telegrams, because I have seen them and am in possession of their text.
I cannot speak so certainly of a letter which I have not seen, and
concerning which I have only information.”
M. Labori.--“From the standpoint of the conspiracies to which M.
Leblois has referred, what was the bearing of the false letter
intercepted in the war offices?”
M. Leblois.--“I said just now that I considered this false letter
signed ‘Speranza’ another stone on which to erect, little by little,
the edifice of the conspiracies against Colonel Picquart. Regarding the
two telegrams, must I give details?”
The Judge [hastily].--“No.”
M. Labori.--“_Monsieur le Président_, we are very desirous that he
should.”
The Judge [sadly].--“Since the defence demands it, speak.”
M. Leblois.--“The following telegram: ‘We have proofs that the
dispatch was manufactured by Georges. Blanche,’ suggests to me this
reflection: Who, outside of the war department, could then know that
an inquiry was in progress concerning Major Esterhazy, and especially
that the basis of this inquiry was a dispatch? That was an absolute
secret. The two telegrams of which I have spoken were not the only
elements of this complicated plot against Colonel Picquart. There were
many other telegrams sent by third parties. For instance, an individual
sent from Paris a telegram signed ‘Baron Keller’ and addressed to a
pretended Baroness Keller at Sousse. All these telegrams were intended
to compromise Colonel Picquart. The two which I have cited are the
only ones that reached him, but they are only the centre of a very
complicated network. He referred to all of this in an article in ‘La
Libre Parole’ of November 16, 1897.”
M. Labori.--“M. Leblois has told us that Colonel Picquart left the war
department November 16, 1896. Could he tell us what was the attitude
of his superiors, and especially of General Gonse, toward him at that
time? Did Colonel Picquart go in disgrace, and how has he been treated
since, up to the time of his recall to Paris, under circumstances with
which the jurors must be familiar, at the beginning of the Esterhazy
inquiry?”
M. Leblois.--“Colonel Picquart’s superiors behaved toward him in
the most kindly manner throughout his inquiry concerning Major
Esterhazy,--an inquiry which began toward the end of spring and
continued until September. According to Colonel Picquart, it was
not until the moment had come for a decision in this matter that a
difference of opinion was revealed between his superiors and himself.
This difference did not assume an acute form at first. In the beginning
it was simply an exchange of opposite views, such as often takes place
between inferiors and superiors. The solution of the matter, clearly
stated in a letter from Colonel Picquart bearing date of September 5,
1896, remained in suspense until November, 1896. At that moment things
were growing worse under influences which I do not exactly know myself.
Perhaps the government, upon the question being laid before it, decided
that there was no occasion to review the Dreyfus case. I know nothing
about it; I can only form hypotheses. Answering M. Labori’s question,
I will say this: when Colonel Picquart left the war department, they
gave him not the slightest hint that he was sent away in disgrace.
On the contrary, they represented to him as a favor the rather vague
mission with which he was entrusted. They said to him: ‘You are to go
away for a few days. You will go to Nancy, to do certain things.’ When
once he was at Nancy, they said to him: ‘Go elsewhere.’ Thus from day
to day they gave him new orders, continually prolonging his mission;
and the colonel, who had left Paris without extra clothing, was told,
when he asked permission to return to get his linen, that his mission
was too important to warrant a diversion of even a few hours; and they
sent him to Besançon. Thus, without suspecting the fate that was in
store for him, he was sent along the frontier, and then to Algeria and
Tunis, where, in March, 1897, he was made lieutenant-colonel of the
Fourth Sharpshooters. They pretended that he was given this appointment
as a favor. General Gonse told him positively, in a letter, that the
regiment was a very select one, and that he should consider himself
fortunate in belonging to it. The general’s letters are full of
expressions of sympathy.”
M. Labori.--“M. Leblois referred just now to a threatening letter which
intervened at a certain moment, and which apparently modified the state
of mind prevailing in the office of the minister of war. Could he tell
us when this letter was addressed to Colonel Picquart, from whom it
came, and in what spirit it was conceived?”
M. Leblois.--“I have already said that this letter was dated June 3,
1897. It came from Lieutenant-Colonel Henry, who had been Colonel
Picquart’s subordinate, and it was couched in terms almost insulting.”
M. Albert Clemenceau.--“The witness has said that at the same time when
Colonel Picquart’s letters were being seized in the war department he
was suffered to receive forged telegrams, and that at the same time
also General Gonse, sub-chief of the general staff, acted in a very
kindly manner toward him. I ask him if these three matters were really
contemporaneous.”
M. Leblois.--“The reply is simple enough. You must distinguish between
two utterly distinct orders of events,--the events at the end of 1896,
which was the time of Colonel Picquart’s departure, and the events at
the end of 1897. I know of only one letter intercepted at the bureau of
information in 1896,--namely, the letter signed ‘Speranza.’ It was at
that time that General Gonse showed the greatest sympathy for Colonel
Picquart. Coming to the conspiracy of 1897, it is my opinion that
letters were then intercepted, but I prefer that the testimony on this
point should come from Lieutenant-Colonel Picquart.”
M. Clemenceau.--“Yet the witness said just now that they sent a letter
to Lieutenant-Colonel Picquart after having opened it.”
M. Leblois.--“That was in 1896. It was in December of that year that
the Speranza letter was sent.”
M. Clemenceau.--“Then my question was appropriate. All these things
happened at the same time.”
M. Labori.--“Does M. Leblois know of certain facts in the relations
that prevailed in 1892 between M. du Paty de Clam and the de Comminges
family that offer a singular analogy with the participation of the
veiled lady in the Esterhazy case?”
M. Leblois.--“The comte de Comminges received in 1892 a certain number
of very serious anonymous letters. He had reason to suspect that they
were written by Colonel du Paty de Clam, who was then only a major. He
consulted the prefect of police, M. Lozé, who, if I have been correctly
informed, answered: ‘It is du Paty de Clam.’”
The Judge.--“But you know nothing about it; this information is
second-hand.”