After the opening of the court, permission was given to General Gonse
to make an explanation concerning the testimony of M. Jaurès. He
protested that the staff, far from having delivered a secret document
to Major Esterhazy as a cordial, as M. Jaurès had said, and far from
being desirous of avoiding the light, wished the light most ardently;
that in the preliminary investigation of the Esterhazy case an inquiry
was begun to find out how the document reached Major Esterhazy, but
then, in consequence of the rapidity with which the investigation was
conducted, the inquiry could not be carried to the end, and so the
light was not obtained; that it would be a great relief to the staff to
know who conveyed the document, especially as the only persons in whose
hands it had been were Colonel Henry, M. Gribelin, Colonel Picquart,
and himself, General Gonse; that he could answer for Colonel Henry and
M. Gribelin, but that it was not for him to speak of himself; that
the newspapers had misreported that part of his testimony in which he
declared that Colonel Picquart, prior to this affair, had been a very
good officer, by making him say that Colonel Picquart _is_ capable of
continuing to be a very good officer, whereas he had spoken, not in the
present, but in the past tense, to give expression to the fact that
such was his belief at the time when Colonel Picquart was sent on a
mission; and that his present feeling regarding Colonel Picquart he had
stated very clearly before the council of investigation, but could not
now repeat, because the proceedings of that council were secret.
M. Labori.--“General Gonse declares that the staff is desirous of the
light, and that he and his superiors are ready to contribute thereto
as far as possible. Therefore I invite him to ask the minister of
war to authorize General Mercier to explain the communication of the
secret document, which is now proved; to release Colonel Picquart
from the obligation of professional secrecy, except on matters vital
to the national defence; to consent to the production in court of the
original _bordereau_, and of the papers used by M. Bertillon in his
expert examination; and to instruct M. Bertillon and the experts in the
Esterhazy case to testify.”
General Gonse.--“I am not authorized to speak of these questions, or to
transmit them.”
M. Labori.--“Then don’t come here again to talk to us of the light, and
to tell us that you love the light.”
_Testimony of M. Crépieux-Jamin._
M. Crépieux-Jamin then took the witness-stand to answer the charges
made by M. Teyssonnière the day before.
“The testimony of M. Teyssonnière,” said the witness, “is a pure
romance from one end to the other. In the first place, there is only
one man capable of valuing M. Teyssonnière at 100,000 francs, and that
is M. Teyssonnière himself. When I went to his house, I was absolutely
ignorant of his report. He asked me to dinner, and we did not talk of
this matter at all. After dinner he took me aside, and said: ‘Come, let
us talk of the case.’ ‘Of what case?’ ‘The case of Dreyfus.’ Today, of
course, everybody would understand that it was the case of Dreyfus, but
at that time it was still possible for people to meet without talking
of the Dreyfus case. My wife was engaged in some trifling work. M.
Teyssonnière said to her in a theatrical tone: ‘Madame, drop what you
are doing; I am going to show you things of much greater interest.’ And
to my astonishment M. Teyssonnière spread before me the entire file of
the first council of war. We talked at length about this file. I had
all the documents--which were secret documents--in my hands, and M.
Teyssonnière said to me: ‘Promise me that you will say nothing.’ I have
kept my promise until today, and now it is only to defend myself that
I declare that M. Teyssonnière showed me the file, which he got I know
not where, I know not from whom, and which he certainly had no right to
show me. I listened while M. Teyssonnière told me of his report. Every
moment or two he stopped to ask me: ‘Well, are you convinced?’ ‘Oh,
dear, no, and I assure you that your proofs are only quarter-proofs.
There is absolutely nothing in your report that is convincing.’ We
talked at length about the _bordereau_ and the _fac-simile_ in ‘Le
Matin.’ There is only one little difference between them; the ‘Matin’
plate was slightly damaged at the bottom. M. Teyssonnière said: ‘What
annoys me is that they accuse me, or will accuse me, of having given
the _bordereau_ to “Le Matin.”’ I asked him why. ‘Oh!’ he said,
‘because each photograph of the _bordereau_ has its peculiar margin,
and it seems that the photograph which ‘Le Matin’ obtained has the same
margin as the photograph which I had upon which to make my report.’
‘Well,’ I answered, ‘you have reason to be troubled, since in that case
the document can have been communicated only by you or by the officers
of the council of war.’ ‘Well,’ said he, finally, ‘I have not convinced
you?’ ‘No,’ I replied, ‘and I believe that of all your reports this
is the worst. You pretend to infallibility, and your report is
indisputably false.’
“Now, gentlemen, if I had been sent by the Dreyfus family to bore
a gimlet into M. Teyssonnière’s head, as he claims, evidently he
would not have waited four days, but would have speedily turned me
out of his house. But nothing of the kind. I was not lodging at M.
Teyssonnière’s. I was at a neighboring hotel. As my departure drew
near, M. Teyssonnière said to me: ‘Excuse me, I have something to do.
Wait five minutes.’ He went out. When I arrived at my hotel, I called
for my bill. M. Teyssonnière said: ‘Dear friend, I am too happy to have
had you for my guest. I have paid everything.’ That was not the conduct
of a man who had just received impudent proposals. A fortnight later M.
Teyssonnière wrote me an extremely affectionate letter, which I have
in my pocket. My visit was on August 23; it was on September 3 that M.
Teyssonnière gave me this evidence of affection. If my purpose in going
to his house was to buy him, it is curious that a fortnight later he
should have written me in such terms.”
M. Labori.--“Has not the witness refused to testify as an expert in the
present trial?”
M. Crépieux-Jamin.--“That is a proof of my honesty and my independence.
If I had been a paid agent of the Dreyfus family, I would not have
refused. When I was approached about this matter, I answered: ‘Thank
you; I am a physician and a dentist, not an expert in handwriting.’”
M. Labori.--“If I am well informed, the witness declined to testify for
motives of prudence?”
M. Crépieux-Jamin.--“Yes; I am not particularly fond of having my
windows broken. In the first place, I am not a professional expert in
handwriting; I am only an amateur. When I was asked for a first report,
I gave it, because it suited me to give it. When I was asked for a
second, I refused, because it did not suit me to give it, and because
I saw danger in doing so. I did not want people to come to me and say:
‘You have done such and such things; hereafter you shall not fill our
teeth.’”
The witness being asked if the photographs shown him by M. Teyssonnière
resembled the _fac-simile_ in “Le Matin,” he answered:
“It is inconceivable that any one should deny it. A fact is a hard
thing to kill. Sooner or later the time will come when the original
photograph of the _bordereau_ will be in the hands of everybody, and
then the persons who have declared these _fac-similes_ to be false will
see that they have been guilty of an impudence which lays them under
suspicion.”
M. Labori.--“What is the difference between the official photographs
and the _fac-simile_?”
M. Crépieux-Jamin.--“The difference is slight. It is more or less
marked, according to the copy of ‘Le Matin’ that you happen to get. In
my opinion, that newspaper had several plates. One of these plates must
have received a blow in the lower right-hand corner that crushed a few
of the words. The rest is so typical that there is not the smallest
difference. Besides, if there is any forger here, it must be the sun,
because these things are obtained by purely mechanical processes. One
must be ignorant of the methods of reproduction to say that a plate has
been altered. You can no more alter a plate of this kind than you can
alter a photographic plate. What retouching process could it have been
submitted to? It would have been necessary to efface entire words, and
replace them with other words. But, I repeat, facts have a long life;
they have time to live, and the truth that I am telling you will be
very plain one of these days.”
_Testimony of M. Paul Meyer._
The next witness called was M. Paul Meyer, director of the Ecole des
Chartes, member of the Institute, and a professor in the College of
France.