M. Clemenceau.--“We have tried to prove it, and have been prevented,
and, if General de Pellieux wishes me to explain further, I am ready to
do so.”
The Judge.--“It is useless.”
M. Labori.--“It is proved by M. Salle; it is proved by M. Demange;
it is proved by publications in the newspapers that have not been
contradicted; it is proved by General Mercier, who did not dare to look
me in the face and say the contrary, though I had sent him, through
the newspapers of the day before, a challenge which he has answered by
silence, which he answered by a distinction which in itself alone is a
decisive proof, for, when I said: ‘General Mercier delivered a document
to the council of war, and has boasted of it publicly everywhere,’
General Mercier, throwing another equivocation into the debate,--I
do not say wilfully, perhaps unconsciously,--answered; ‘That is not
true,’ and I said to him: ‘What is not true,--that you have not said it
everywhere, or that you did not deliver the document?’ and he answered
me: ‘Simply that I have not boasted of it everywhere.’ So I say that to
every honest mind the proof is made, and the proof that the proof is
made is that no one has risen to say what General de Pellieux will not
dare to say. I defy him to say it. Well, I say that the proof is made.”
General de Pellieux.--“How do you expect me to say what happened in the
Dreyfus trial? I was not there.”