The Judge.--“Oh! no phrases. You can only ask questions. What questions
do you wish to put to the general?”
M. Zola.--“I ask General de Pellieux if he does not think that there
are different ways of serving France. One may serve it by the sword and
by the pen. General de Pellieux has undoubtedly won great victories; I
have won mine. By my works the French language has been spread through
the world. I have my victories. I leave to posterity the name of
General de Pellieux and that of Emile Zola. It will choose.”
General de Pellieux.--“_Monsieur le Président_, I will not answer.”
M. Labori.--“Did not M. Leblois hand to General de Pellieux, in the
name of M. Scheurer-Kestner, two letters from Major Esterhazy, and a
dispatch written in characters similar to those used in printing, which
bore these words: ‘Picquart is a rascal?’”
General de Pellieux.--“Those documents are on file with the other
documents pertaining to the investigation.”
M. Labori.--“It is unfortunate that we cannot obtain these documents.
Did not this dispatch show an astonishing resemblance to the dispatch
that Major Esterhazy pretends to have received from the veiled lady?”
General de Pellieux.--“These two telegrams resemble each other as all
documents written in the characters of print resemble each other.”
M. Labori.--“Did you take no pains to see the dispatch sent to Major
Esterhazy by the veiled lady?”
General de Pellieux.--“No.”
M. Labori.--“Did not M. Leblois ask you to have an expert examination
of the two telegrams at the time?”
General de Pellieux.--“The matter was never mentioned.”
M. Labori.--“In the dispatch addressed to Colonel Picquart, was not
that officer’s name written without a _c_?”
General de Pellieux.--“Yes, he called my attention to it.”
M. Labori.--“Was not this peculiarity found also in the telegram signed
‘Speranza’ and addressed to Colonel Picquart at Sousse?”
General de Pellieux.--“Yes.”
M. Labori.--“And in an insulting letter addressed by Major Esterhazy to
Colonel Picquart was not the name again written without a _c_?”
General de Pellieux.--“I do not know that letter.”
M. Labori.--“In the last interview that M. Leblois had with General de
Pellieux on November 29 did not General de Pellieux say to M. Leblois
that he could not order an expert examination of the _bordereau_,
because the _bordereau_ had been attributed to Dreyfus by the verdict
of 1894, and that to so order would be a reconsideration of the thing
judged?”
General de Pellieux.--“Certainly.”
M. Labori.--“Did not M. Leblois attempt to refute this argument,
which was abandoned by the minister of war himself when, after M.
Scheurer-Kestner’s interpellation of December 17, he transferred the
_bordereau_ to the Ravary papers for expert examination?”
General de Pellieux.--“Yes. I will even add a detail. I did not think
that I had the right, as a judicial officer of police, to subject the
_bordereau_ to a new expert examination. It was my personal opinion
that to do that would be to reopen the Dreyfus case. I was not alone
in this opinion, for, when I received the order, which I executed,
to lay the _bordereau_ before the minister of war and submit it to
expert examination, I was confronted with a strike of experts. That
is a rather rare thing. The experts for whom I sent refused to make
the examination, basing themselves on the ground that I had taken,
and saying that to make a new examination of the _bordereau_ was to
question the thing judged. There are five experts in the same court.
Three of them had been concerned in the Dreyfus case. I sent for the
other two. They refused to come. I immediately reported the matter,
because I desired to close my inquiry as soon as possible, because
I felt that the public was getting impatient, and because I was to
make only a preliminary investigation. So it was on the order of the
minister of justice to the experts that the examination was made. Major
Ravary ordered it.”
M. Labori.--“Was not General de Pellieux present at the second session
of the council of war held on Tuesday, January 11, 1898?”
General de Pellieux.--“I was present at all the sessions of the council
of war as a delegate of the governor.”