M. Meyer.--“Pardon me, I do not defend myself. Pupils are always the
best judges of their professors.”
M. Labori.--“What is the package, so preciously wrapped, that you have
there under the table? Does it contain, perchance, photographs of the
_bordereau_?”
M. Couard.--“No, it is the famous dissertation upon the flag of Jeanne
Hachette. I see what you are after. You wish to turn the course of my
testimony. But it is established, nevertheless, that my old teacher is
only an expert on occasion.”
_Testimony of M. Paul Moriaud._
The next witness was M. Paul Moriaud, professor in the Geneva law
school. He desired to use a blackboard for his demonstrations, as M.
Franck had done the day before, but the court refused to permit him
to do so. After declaring that there were never two handwritings so
nearly identical as that of Esterhazy and that of the _bordereau_, he
discussed the question whether the _bordereau_ was produced by tracing.
“Tracing,” said the witness, “can be done in two ways. There is first
the tracing of entire words separately. Suppose you desired to produce
this phrase: ‘You are right, Monsieur,’ signed ‘So and So.’ You
procure a specimen of the writing of M. So and So, and you look for
the word ‘are,’ the word ‘right,’ etc. You paste them side by side,
you cut out the signature and paste it beneath, and you photograph the
whole; or else you trace them. In this case we may suppose tracing,
for the _bordereau_ is on tracing-paper. Here you have 181 words,
almost all different. There are rare words among them,--Madagascar,
check, hydraulic, indicating, etc. Well, if you should collect Major
Esterhazy’s letters for ten years, and try to find in them all the
words that are in this _bordereau_, you would not succeed. The process
is an utter impossibility.
“You have been told by previous witnesses of the style and punctuation
of the _bordereau_. I wish to say something of the way in which the
words are placed. M. Esterhazy begins his paragraphs without indention.
The lines that begin paragraphs are as long as their predecessors.
Furthermore, he never divides a word at the end of a line. If there
is not room for it, he runs it over to the next line. Now, you find
that in the _bordereau_. Another thing. The _bordereau_ is not in
the same handwriting throughout. Now, M. Esterhazy’s handwriting is
very variable. He writes coarse or fine, according to circumstances.
Now, these two handwritings of Major Esterhazy are to be seen in the
_bordereau_. The first fourteen lines are written in a more compact,
more calm, more legible, finer handwriting, the last sixteen in a
larger, looser hand. Now, if the _bordereau_ had been traced, what
would have been the result? All the words would have been in the same
handwriting, either one or the other; or else there would have been a
mixture, one word in one handwriting and the next in the other. But in
the _bordereau_ all the first part is in one handwriting, and all the
second part in the other, which clearly shows that M. Esterhazy wrote
the _bordereau_ at two sittings, in two different states of mind.
“Some words are repeated in the _bordereau_. The word _ne_, for
instance, occurs four times; the word _de_ seven times. It is very
evident that, if these words had been hunted for in M. Esterhazy’s
letters, in order to trace them, on finding the word _ne_ they would
have copied it four times. But such is not the case. If we had time,
I would propose a little experiment. I would ask you to cut from the
_bordereau_ one of the four words _ne_, and give it to me; whereupon I
would immediately tell you which one of the four it was. Or you might
do the same thing with the word _vous_, which occurs six times. If
you will cut it out and show it to me, I will tell you whether it is
the fourth, the fifth, or the sixth. They are so different that, from
memory, in spite of the inevitable confusion that takes possession of
a man when he speaks in public and among strangers, I should be able
to recognize them, which proves that each of these words was written
individually by M. Esterhazy. No two persons ever write the same word
exactly like, and no person ever writes a word twice in exactly the
same way. And so in the _bordereau_ there is this variety of form which
life always gives.
“The last argument. As I said, M. Esterhazy never divides his words,
but, if the end of the word is far from the end of the line, he makes
a long final stroke, often immoderately long; and a curious thing,
that I have never seen in the handwriting of anybody else, is this: if
the word at the end of a line is a little word, and if M. Esterhazy
has much room, he writes the word in a larger hand. You will find,
for instance, at the end of a line an immoderately large _ne_, which
seems almost in another handwriting. Now, that is precisely what you
will find in M. Esterhazy’s letters, the elongation of the final
strokes to fill out the blank space at the end of a line; which proves
clearly that these words were not taken here and there from Esterhazy’s
letters. I consider this demonstration irresistible, and, whether its
truth be admitted or not today, the day will come when _savants_ will
take these documents and say that M. Esterhazy wrote the _bordereau_,
and there will be no doubt about it whatever. There may have been an
original corresponding as a whole to the _bordereau_, but in that case
M. Esterhazy wrote the original. If it be insisted that somebody has
imitated M. Esterhazy’s handwriting, the imitator was M. Esterhazy
himself.”
At the end of this demonstration the court adjourned.