General de Pellieux.--“I ask permission to say a word of the way in
which the case was presented before the council of war. The council
of war, I may also say, did not have to judge an accused person. In
military justice such a thing is possible. I mean that it did not have
to judge a person formally accused. In Major Esterhazy’s case the
reporter and the government commissioner had recommended an order that
there was no ground for prosecution. Consequently he appeared before
the council of war equipped with this recommendation. The governor
of Paris, General Saussier, my regretted chief, who has been my main
stay throughout this affair, and who is as familiar with it as I am
(perhaps we are the only two persons thoroughly familiar with it), did
not wish to issue the order recommended. In this he differed from many
authorities superior to his own. He desired the case to be carried
through to the end. It was his wish that Major Esterhazy should be
judged by his peers, by military justice, and he gave the order that he
be put on trial. He gave it in order that both sides might be heard. I
regretted that this trial was not public. I asked that it might be, but
the government demanded closed doors. The best proof that the council
of war was independent is that it refused closed doors, judging that
it was for the public interest that light should be thrown upon the
matter, at least partially, even though it were not possible to discuss
the entire case in the open day. Can it be said that a council of war
which, against the advice of the government, did not declare the doors
closed was criminal? This council was made up of seven brave officers
who have shed their blood on the field of battle while others were I
know not where.”