M. Quillard.--“M. Zola belongs to a literary generation absolutely
different from my own, and generally men of letters enjoying the public
favor find in their immediate successors the worst of adversaries and
the most clear-seeing of critics. We have not failed in this duty
toward M. Zola, and even I, while rendering a high homage to his
admirable work, which is an honor to French letters, have expressed
the keenest reserves in regard to him. Therefore it is not at all as a
faithful disciple that I come here, yet I am only the freer to say how
beautiful, generous, and heroic the attitude of M. Zola seems to me. He
might have kept silent; he might have listened to the counsels of what
Victor Hugo in 1871 called the complaisance of public anger. He knew
that, in writing the letter that he wrote, he was subjecting himself
in advance to all insults and all infamies. He knew that he endangered
not only his rest, but, as we now know, his life; that he endangered
his honor, since we have arrived, it seems, at such a degree of social
rottenness that no man can express his opinion without being accused of
venality. Well, knowing the circumstances in which we live, and knowing
the ignominy of anti-Semitism, I find this act of having spoken under
these circumstances what he believed to be the truth, and his opinion
that above the thing judged there was perhaps the thing true, to be
worthy of an honest man, and of more honor to M. Zola than many of his
works. So that I am happy to bring here the homage of my profound and
respectful admiration.”
_Testimony of M. Jean Jaurès._
Following M. Quillard came M. Jean Jaurès, a Socialist member of the
chamber of deputies, whose deposition follows:
“I was present at the public portion of the Esterhazy trial, and it
is because of that that I come to this bar to declare, not only the
complete good faith of M. Zola, but the high moral and social value of
his act. I consider that the conduct of the Esterhazy trial justifies
M. Zola’s most vehement indignation. It justifies also the anxieties
of those who, profoundly respectful of the national honor, do not wish
the military power to rise superior to all control and all law. I add
that the weaknesses shown by parliament and the government from the
beginning of this affair have obliged citizens to intervene, and, by
their defence of liberty and right, make up for the delinquencies of
the responsible powers. In the Esterhazy case three decisive facts have
especially struck me.
“In the first place, why were closed doors ordered for the hearing of
the handwriting-experts? Here was involved the essential feature of the
accusation. M. Esterhazy was accused of having written the _bordereau_.
Why, then, was it necessary to discuss in the mystery and secrecy of
closed doors the experts’ testimony, which was to settle this question?
Closed doors which withdraw the discussion from publicity, from the
control of opinion so useful, not only to the accused, but to his
judges,--closed doors can be justified only by superior reasons of
national interest, and it is impossible to pretend that there was any
national interest whatever in concealing from the country the expert
testimony relative to the authorship of the _bordereau_. The simple
reason for the closing of the doors was the existence of an interest,
which was not that of justice, in concealing the contradictions between
the conclusions of the experts who testified at the trial of 1894 and
the expert conclusions presented in the Esterhazy trial. But there were
not only these contradictions to veil; there were other facts pointing
to M. Esterhazy’s authorship of the _bordereau_ which it was of
importance to examine publicly. For my part, I know, and can bring to
this bar positive testimony, that Major Esterhazy had made singularly
disturbing declarations regarding the _bordereau_. I know it, and I
can appeal here to the testimony of one of our honest _confrères_
who will not contradict me; and I am determined, neglecting all the
secondary proprieties which are not to be considered in this case, to
go straight to the truth, because I consider that it is the first duty
of every citizen, in this case in which obscurities have been heaped
up without limit, to bring every particle of truth in his possession,
that from all these particles the definitive truth may later be
established. Well, this is what I heard M. Papillaud, an editor of ‘La
Libre Parole,’ say twice. He made this declaration to me once as we
were leaving the senate together after the interpellation made by M.
Scheurer-Kestner. He made it again publicly in presence of a group that
was forming in the Salle des Pas-Perdus of the chamber, which is open
to all comers, and where all remarks are public. Well, M. Papillaud
said to me, and to many other persons, this:
“‘I believe profoundly in the guilt of Dreyfus. I believe it, because
it seems to me impossible that French officers, having to judge
another French officer, should have condemned him in the absence
of overwhelming evidence. I believe it, because the power of the
Jews, very great four years ago, as it is today, would have torn
Dreyfus from the hands of justice, if there had been in his favor the
slightest possibility of salvation. The _bordereau_, moreover, is
but an accessory element in the case; but, so far as the _bordereau_
is concerned, it is my absolute conviction that it is the work of
Esterhazy, and this is why I think so. In the two days that followed
M. Mathieu Dreyfus’s letters of denunciation, M. Esterhazy, who did
not seem to have recovered his self-possession completely, went often
to the editorial rooms. He came to the editorial rooms of “La Libre
Parole,” and there, in the presence of my comrades and myself, he said:
“Yes, there is between the handwriting of the _bordereau_ and my own a
frightful resemblance, and when ‘Le Matin’ published the _fac-simile_,
I felt that I was lost.”’
“I point out to the jurors that the _fac-simile_ was published fifteen
months, I believe, before the letter of accusation, at a time when
the name of Esterhazy had not been mentioned in connection with this
matter, and I leave them to judge of the moral gravity of such a
remark. The result, if not the object, of hearing the expert testimony
behind closed doors was the concealment of all these indications.
“The second point that struck me was the attitude toward
Lieutenant-Colonel Picquart. The most violent charges were made against
him. He was accused of forgeries and of all sorts of base and guilty
manœuvres, and the accusations were public. The report that embodied
charges against him was read publicly, and, when the time came for
Lieutenant-Colonel Picquart to defend himself, those who reproach
M. Zola with assailing the honor of the army deprived this officer,
thus publicly accused, of the opportunity of a public defence. I say
that this is a serious matter. Here, before the jury, before this
audience, all the charges against Colonel Picquart have been produced,
and I shall be careful--for I have not the right, and it is not my
affair--not to say a word concerning the substance of these charges.
But, though he was accused in the presence of the country, in the
presence of the jurors, who are the legal conscience of the country, he
was allowed also to defend himself in the presence of the country and
in the presence of the jurors. I ask the jurors who heard the charges
of General de Pellieux against Colonel Picquart what they would have
thought, if, after having given General de Pellieux the floor to crush
Colonel Picquart, they had refused Colonel Picquart the right to defend
himself publicly? Well, gentlemen, it was that that happened in the
Esterhazy trial. Let them not plead again the necessity of the national
defence, of national secrecy, since here, without ever compromising the
national defence, and without the escape of a single terrible secret,
Colonel Picquart has been allowed to defend himself publicly, as he was
publicly attacked. It is precisely this outrageous contrast between
the publicity of an attack upon a man and the closed doors ordered
during his defence that has caused consciences to revolt,--I speak not
only of my own, but of those of many independent men who are not in
public life, professors, my school-comrades, men who have been absorbed
throughout their lives in disinterested investigations,--and that has
determined them in great numbers to throw off their reserve and their
neutrality, and go down into the streets in defence of the right. Well,
M. Zola felt as others felt, and no more than others have felt, the
natural and legitimate indignation which such methods excite.
“But, gentlemen, there was a third very disturbing fact in the
Esterhazy case,--namely, the absence of any serious investigation
regarding the history of the veiled lady and the method by which
the secret document was conveyed to M. Esterhazy. Really, we must
be strangely _blasé_ regarding certain things, or else arrogant
affirmations must have the power of entirely destroying our critical
and thoughtful disposition, if this fact does not agitate and trouble
us. There is a secret document. This document concerns the national
defence. It has, it seems, an international value. It might plunge our
country into diplomatic difficulties. It is locked in the securest
manner in the most secret and the most carefully guarded closet of the
most remote sanctuary of the staff. And yet a photograph of this secret
document is conveyed by melodramatic processes, through a mysterious
woman, who transmits it to an officer previously notified, and the
military authority, guardian of the national secrecy, guardian of the
security of the country,--the military authority does not even outline
the beginning of an investigation into the movements of this document.
Really, it is singular. And why has it not done so? Why? Because the
investigation would surely have shown that this photograph of the
secret document could not have been transmitted to M. Esterhazy except
by design of the staff, and for two decisive reasons. The first is
that, if the staff had not known that this document was communicated
to Major Esterhazy by the staff itself; if there had not been an
evident connivance on the part of the general staff and of Major
Esterhazy,--then, when Major Esterhazy, responsible officer of military
discipline, presented himself at the war department to return a secret
document without explaining how it came into his possession, the first
care and the first duty of the general staff would have been to arrest
Major Esterhazy. The second reason is that this document, I beg the
jurors to remember, could have had no interest for Esterhazy, unless
he knew that it came from the staff. In fact, of what was he accused?
He was accused of having written the _bordereau_. Now, how could the
possession of a document containing these words: ‘That scoundrel
D----,’ help Esterhazy to show that he did not write the _bordereau_?
This secret document, thus passed to Esterhazy, could not have been
useful to him because of its contents. It could have been useful to
him only because of the source whence it came to him. It could have
been useful to him only as informing him that the staff was watching
over him, that the staff was determined not to call the matter in
question, that the staff was arranging a new plan of campaign, that it
would not allow itself to be beaten, and that he, Esterhazy, protected
by his chiefs, should rest easy, should not lose foot or head, should
not be disturbed, should not make any confession. Such was the only
possible interest of the document communicated to Esterhazy. It was
not a cartridge that the staff sent him, but a cordial on the eve of
battle,--on the eve, that is, of the trial.
“Thus it appears throughout the Esterhazy trial, in the closed doors
for the hearing of the expert testimony, in the strangulation behind
closed doors practised upon Colonel Picquart, in the absence of all
investigation as to the conveyance of the secret document,--it appears
everywhere that the trial was conducted, not with a view to truth and
justice, but for the systematic justification of the military chiefs.
And then, gentlemen of the jury, the country has the more right to be
agitated and indignant, because they make use of the noblest words
to mislead it. There are no words more beautiful, more grand, more
sacred, than those of country, national defence, national honor. But
it is precisely because these words are the holiest and the grandest
known to the tongues of men that they have no right to profane them and
to prostitute them in covering up tricks of procedure. No, no! This
profanation of the country was enough to stir up all French souls and
all upright consciences.
“And now why have citizens like Zola, and many others with him,
thrown themselves into the battle, uttering this cry of their emotion
and their conscience? Because the responsible powers, consecrated to
intrigue and to impotence, did not act, did not come to the front.
Was it not the first duty of the legislators and the governors,
from the hour that the report was spread that a secret document had
been communicated to the judges in a criminal trial without being
communicated to the accused and to his counsel,--was it not the first
duty of the legislators and the governors to find out whether this
violation of republican law and of human rights had been committed?
And why did they not do it? On this point we have endeavored to obtain
from the responsible government the declarations that it owed to the
country. This violation of law and of right has been alluded to from
the tribune of the senate. I have ventured to put the question from
the tribune of the chamber, squarely asking the prime minister: ‘Yes
or no, has a document of interest to an accused person, capable of
establishing or confirming his guilt,--yes or no, has such a document
been communicated to the judges without being communicated to the
accused and to his counsel?’ and I have been able to obtain no precise
reply.
“They always take refuge in that equivocation, the legal truth. Oh!
yes, it is legal truth that a man is guilty when he has been legally
condemned, and it is also legal truth, it seems, that this man is
guilty and has been legally judged when his appeal for revision has
been rejected. But that does not tell us whether the communication of
a secret document, outside of all legal guarantees,--a communication
unknown at the time of the appeal for revision,--has been made or not.
And to this question, put by the responsible representatives of the
country to the responsible government, why have they steadily refused
to make a clear reply? I am mistaken. M. Méline, the prime minister,
has answered me: ‘I cannot reply without serving your designs.’ It
seems that in the country of the Declaration of the Rights of Man
it is a design to affirm that a person may not be judged on the
strength of secret documents. But he said to me (and his words are in
‘L’Officiel’): ‘You shall be answered elsewhere.’ Elsewhere! I thought
that it would be in the assize court; and it is true that here, by
surprise as it were, the truth has finally come to light. But I do
not know that any of the responsible representatives of power have
come here any more than to parliament to answer the question that
the country has a right to put, and it is really prodigious that a
country which believes itself free cannot know whether the law has been
respected, either in the palace where the law is made, or in the palace
where it is enforced.
“Everybody foresaw this violation. There were not four deputies in the
chamber who doubted it; why do they not speak of it, and why do they
not act? The other day, when I put this decisive question very simply,
I was sustained by a little group of friends,--fifteen or twenty,--but
in the chamber as a whole there was a passive silence. Yet, when I
descended from the tribune into the lobbies, where the parliamentary
soul recovers its elasticity and its liberty, deputies without number,
of all groups and of all parties, said to me: ‘You are right, but
what a pity that this matter was brought up a few months before the
election!’ Well, I believe that they are mistaken. I believe that,
in spite of all the passing fogs, in spite of all the insults and
all the threats,--I believe that this country is yet to have the
light and truth. But, if the truth is to be vanquished, it is better
to be vanquished with it, than to become an accomplice in all these
equivocations and humiliations.
“But, gentlemen, there has been not simply a violation of the law. This
violation has taken place in particularly aggravating circumstances.
Not only has a minister of war communicated a secret document under
illegal conditions, but he has not even taken what I will call human
precautions against error. He has not even consulted the cabinet.
“I have heard M. Charles Dupuy, I have heard M. Delcassé,--and here
I violate the professional secret of others,--I have heard these
gentlemen, who were then a part of the cabinet to which General Mercier
belonged, declare that there was no mention in the cabinet of any
secret document except the _bordereau_; that there was no allusion to
the other secret documents of which there has been talk since. Well,
gentlemen of the jury, this shows not only that the communication was
illegal, but that a single man, without official consultation with his
friends, took it upon himself to throw into the scales of the trial a
document whose value he alone had dared to measure. I say that this
man, in spite of the brilliancy of his service and of his stripes, in
spite of the arrogance of power, is a man,--that is, a miserable and
fragile being, made of darkness and of pride, of weakness and of error;
and I do not understand how it is that in this country of law a single
man has ventured to assume, upon his single conscience, upon his single
reason, upon his single head, to decide upon the life, liberty, and
honor of another man. And I say that, if such customs and such habits
were to be tolerated in our country, there would be an end to liberty
and justice.
“And that is why citizens like M. Zola have done right in rising to
protest. While the government, imprisoned in its own devices, intrigued
or equivocated; while parliamentary parties, imprisoned in their own
fears, kept silence or abdicated; while military justice set up the
arbitrary _régime_ of closed doors,--citizens rose in their pride, in
their liberty, in their independence, to protest against the violation
of right, and thereby have done the greatest service to our country
that they possibly could do.
“Oh! I know very well that M. Zola must suffer for this noble service,
and I know also why certain men hate and pursue him. They pursue in him
the man who has maintained the rational and scientific interpretation
of the miracle; they pursue in him the man who has predicted in
‘Germinal’ the flowering of a new humanity, the springing-up of the
wretched _prolétariat_ from the depths of suffering to the sunlight;
they pursue in him the man who has just torn the staff from that
baneful and arrogant irresponsibility in which unconsciously the way
is paved for all the disasters of the country. They may pursue him and
hunt him down, but I believe that I express the feeling of all free
citizens in saying that before him we respectfully bow.”
At the conclusion of the testimony of M. Jaurès the defence offered two
motions: first, that the court record its acknowledgment of the fact
that, Colonel Picquart having been called a liar by Lieutenant-Colonel
Henry, neither the presiding judge or the attorney-general intervened
to suppress the insult; second, that, General de Pellieux having
declared that there was little or no resemblance between the
_bordereau_ and _fac-simile_, the court order the production of the
original of the _bordereau_. The first motion was granted, but the
court refused to order the production of the _bordereau_.
The testimony of the experts being now in order, M. Bertillon took the
witness-stand.
_Testimony of M. Bertillon._
“I am absolutely sure,” he testified, “that Dreyfus wrote the
_bordereau_. I am absolutely sure that it is impossible that any other
person could have written it. There may be a revision followed by
an acquittal, but I swear most absolutely that it can not be proved
that any other person than the individual originally condemned unites
within himself the calligraphic characteristics that this _bordereau_
exhibits. It could have been written only at the house of the condemned
man.”
M. Labori.--“This is very interesting. We pretend to prove that the
_bordereau_ is the work of Major Esterhazy.”