Colonel Picquart.--“I have another word to say concerning the _troupes
de couverture_. I said just now that I did not believe that the author
of the _bordereau_ was connected with the department. Otherwise he
would not have written: ‘A note on the _troupes de couverture_; there
will be some modification in the new plan.’ If, as I had always
believed hitherto, the _bordereau_ was written in April, the writer
alluded to modifications just made. Now, the modifications that had
just then been made were then considered definitive, although later
they were slightly changed. I know something about this, because I drew
them up.”
M. Labori.--“Why have you always supposed that the _bordereau_ was
written in April?”
Colonel Picquart.--“I have always heard it so said at the war offices.”
The Judge.--“You do not know of your own knowledge?”
Colonel Picquart.--“No.”
M. Labori.--“Now I am going to ask Colonel Picquart--for I imagine that
at the point at which things have now arrived he will not refuse to
answer--whether he was not delegated by the minister of war to attend
the Dreyfus trial.”
Colonel Picquart.--“I maintain my first declaration.”