M. Clemenceau.--“M. Zola tells me that he is an anti-Semite. I did
not know it, and it does not matter. It was Colonel Picquart who
submitted his doubts to his superior, General Gonse, and it is out of
the scruples of those two men, expressed in the letters with which you
are now familiar, that the whole matter which brings us here today has
grown.
“Now, gentlemen, what is the question before us? For my part, I
consider it at once most simple and most complex. Most simple, for
it is a question of legality, a question whether the law which is
the guarantee of all of us, the law which protects us against the
temptations of judges, the law which protects us against exterior
passions, the law which safeguards all of us from the highest to
the lowest,--it is a question whether the guarantees which this law
furnishes have been observed in the case of Dreyfus. No, they have
not. And that is all I want to know. I do not examine the presumptions
of innocence, which are enormous, especially now that the present
trial has shed full light upon them. I consider only the question of
legality. And, the question being so simple, why has it aroused so many
passions against it? It is because justice, while undoubtedly the most
beautiful ideal to sing and to celebrate, is also the most difficult to
realize.
“The social organization is theoretically admirable. The people send
to parliament men whose mission it is to represent their will. This
will is formulated under the forms of law. The judges apply it, the
police execute it. But it comes about that men invested with public
power suffer themselves, because they are men, because they are weak,
to be abused by the idea that they are more or less necessary men.
Having some power, they want more. They confuse their own interests,
individually and as a body, with the general interest, and, when it is
pointed out to them that they have made an error, their first impulse
is to resist _en masse_. Their entire profession is at stake.
“May I be permitted this respectful criticism? They say to us: ‘You
insult the army.’ No, we do not insult the army. The army exists only
through the law. We desire it to be great through the law, for we have
duties toward it. But it has duties toward us, and there must be an
understanding between military and civil society on the very ground
of law and justice. Gentlemen, France for twenty-five years has been
carrying on a double enterprise, which seems contradictory. We are a
vanquished nation,--gloriously vanquished, it is true, but vanquished
none the less,--and it has been our thought to re-establish the power
of France. That is a matter of necessity. It must be, because there
is no civil law, there is no means of doing right and justice, if we
are not, in the first place, masters in our own house. And our second
thought has been that of ridding ourselves of all personal despotisms,
of every vestige of oligarchy, and founding in our own country a
democracy of liberty and justice.
“Then the question arose whether these two views are not contradictory.
The principle of civil society is right, liberty, justice. The
principle of military society is discipline, countersign, obedience.
And, as each is led by the consciousness of the utility of his function
to try to encroach upon his neighbor, military society, which has force
at its disposal, tends to encroach on civil authority, and to look
upon civil society sometimes from a somewhat lofty standpoint. It is
a wrong. Soldiers have no _raison d’être_ except as defenders of the
principle which civil society represents. A reconciliation between
these two institutions is necessary. The professional army no longer
exists. The universal army, the army of all, must be penetrated with
the ideas of all, with the universal ideas of right, since it is made
up of the universality of citizens. If, absorbed by the thought of
defence, which is of the first legitimacy, civil society were to rush
into military servitude, we should still have a soil to defend, it is
true; but the moral country would be lost, because, abandoning the
ideas of justice and liberty, we should have abandoned all that has
been done hitherto in this world by the glory and renown of France.
These two societies must come to an understanding. Military society
must enjoy all its rights, in order to do all its duties. Civil
society, conscious of its duties toward the country and the army, must
maintain its rights inflexibly, not only in the higher interest of the
principle which it represents, but to insure a maximum of efficiency in
the military institution. Yes, indeed, the army must be strong, but, as
the abnegation of some and the absolute command of others are destined
to fuse in one immense effort of life and death for the defence of the
territory, it is necessary that civil society, by the superiority of
its principle, should preserve its full power of control.
“Gentlemen, you belong to the army. At what moment will the army be
most admirable? At the moment when, running to the frontier, it will
have all our heart and all our hope. Suppose that a hundred thousand
Frenchmen fall in the first battles. Ninety thousand of these will be
men who today are not wearing the uniform, and only ten thousand of
them will be men who call themselves soldiers. Will these men lie in
two heaps? Will it be said that there is one honor belonging to the ten
thousand military men, and another belonging to the ninety thousand
civilians? No. There is but one honor for all, the honor that consists
in the fulfillment of the supreme duty, total duty toward the country.
Then let us not abuse a word which no longer has the significance that
it had in the days of professional armies. The honor of the army today
is the honor of all. The army has but one honor,--that it is potent for
the national defence, that in peace it is always respectful of the law.
“General de Pellieux asked us for confidence the other day. And,
while he spoke, I reflected that, during the twenty-five years of
the empire, we had full confidence in the commanders of the army. We
never criticised them, we never controlled them. The men whom I saw
start were full of confidence. You know to what disasters they ran.
M. Zola has been reproached for having written ‘La Débâcle.’ Alas!
gentlemen,--and I say it very low,--if he wrote it, it was because
before him there had been men of war to organize it and to bring it
about. It is a return of that that is to be avoided, and patriotism
does not consist in admiring, whether or no, everything that is done in
the army, but in submitting the army to the discipline of the law. When
General de Boisdeffre came to this bar, after General de Pellieux, to
use toward this jury language that was threatening, he revealed to you
what must have taken place before the council of war, and from what we
have seen of the trial in the open day we may judge of the trial behind
closed doors. The language of General Billot at the tribune was clear
enough. It was the equivalent of an order; and did not Colonel Picquart
say, to explain the insufficiency of the Ravary report: ‘General de
Pellieux had concluded that there was no ground for a prosecution;
Major Ravary could not do otherwise than come to the conclusion of his
superior?’ It is not necessary to conclude therefrom that the generals
have wilfully failed in their duty. Nothing more than their own words
is necessary to show us how, without intending it, without realizing
it, they have stepped aside from the clear path of right and justice.
General de Boisdeffre would have proved it superabundantly, if that
had been necessary. He was asked for the proof, or, rather, he was not
asked for it, for we were not allowed to ask it, but at the bottom of
our hearts we wanted it revealed. If he had brought a decisive proof
that would have compelled everybody to bow, for my part, I swear to
you, I would have left this court-room with a sense of relief. But
what sort of proof did they bring us? A document later by two years
than the Dreyfus verdict. What sort of justice is it, gentlemen, that
discovers proofs of a just verdict two years after the verdict was
rendered, and which produces, as convincing, documents that were never
submitted to the accused? That is the philosophy of these closed doors.
Behind them everything was known, even the secret documents, known
to all except to him whom these documents were to condemn. They hide
from us documents the revelation of which they say would be harmful
to the national defence, and these documents, which they refuse to M.
Scheurer-Kestner and to the chamber, traverse the highways in Major
Esterhazy’s pocket. M. Méline, to whom Jaurès said: ‘Yes or no, did
you communicate secret documents?’ replied to him: ‘We will answer you
elsewhere.’ Elsewhere is here, and here they have not answered us, for
I cannot consider as an answer the assertion that two years after the
verdict they discovered a proof against the prisoner. M. Labori has
told you that this document is a forgery. I tell you that, even if it
is true, it is the first duty of all of us to see that this document
is submitted to Dreyfus, whether he is a traitor or not,--to Dreyfus
and to his lawyer; and, if you say that, because he is a Jew, he is
not to be tried as others are tried, I tell you that the day will
come when you will be similarly treated because you are a Protestant
or a Freethinker. This is a denial of the French idea born of the
Revolution, the idea of liberty for all, the idea of tolerance for
all, the idea of equality of guarantees, equality of rights, equality
of justice. If you once condemn a man without the forms of justice,
some day the forms of justice will be abrogated by others to your
harm. How justly the historians have cried out against the abominable
law of the 22d of Prairial, made by Robespierre to rid himself of his
enemies! All thinkers have handed over to the execration of mankind
this abominable law that abolished the right of defence. It is odious,
it is infamous; but at least it allowed the prisoner to know the charge
against him. Why do you not do as much, you in times which are not
of revolutionary violence, in peace, in tranquillity, when all the
machinery of the public powers is operating freely? Yes, we condemn
a man, a French officer, for he is a French officer, and not of the
least distinguished, belonging to a family which has given proofs of
patriotism. I do not know the Dreyfus family. I only reproduce the
testimony of M. Lalance, which M. Labori has read to you.
“Even if Dreyfus is a traitor, I do not see what interest we can have
in refusing to honor people who are not responsible for the crime
committed, and who have given manifest proofs of love for the French
country. I cannot suffer the error of one to become a burden on all.
If Dreyfus is guilty, let him be punished as severely as you will. You
have my article, in which I say that I ask no pity for him. But, if he
has brothers, children, parents, who have behaved themselves as good
Frenchmen, I hold it a point of honor to do them justice. It is the
misfortune of the times, in which all passions are furiously unchained,
that we will not listen to the voice of reason; that we insult each
other, that we accuse each other. You have even seen here officers who
are old comrades, who tomorrow will vie with each other in deeds of
valor and self-sacrifice, if the country is threatened,--you have seen
them accuse each other, defy each other, and exchange retorts as if
they were sword-thrusts. Tomorrow Colonel Picquart will cross swords
with a companion in arms whom at the bottom of his heart perhaps he
loves. And we, who do not wear the uniform, who are Frenchmen all the
same, and who intend also that France shall be effectively defended,
what do we do? A few of us assert that perhaps a judicial error has
been committed. Then goes up a great cry from the crowd: ‘Traitor!
Scoundrel! Renegade! Agent of the Jews!’ And these are Frenchmen,
gentlemen, who think to serve France by pointing her out as a den of
people who sell themselves; these are Frenchmen, to whom it never
occurs to suppose that their fellow-citizens are capable of French
generosity. They hurl insults, they betray hatred, and it is thus that
they pretend to serve the country.
“Gentlemen, if our enemies do not understand us, it is our duty to
ourselves and to our country to understand them, in order that the
prevailing obscurity may be dissipated. For my part, I consider that
the worst treason, perhaps because it is the most common, is treason
to the French spirit, that spirit of tolerance and justice which has
made us beloved by the peoples of the earth. Even if France were to
disappear tomorrow, we should leave behind us one thing eternal, the
sentiments of liberty and human justice that France unchained upon the
world in 1789. Gentlemen, when the hour of insults is past, when they
have finished outraging us, it will be necessary to reply. And then
what will they offer us? The thing judged. Gentlemen, look above your
heads. See that Christ upon the cross. There is the thing judged, and
it has been put above the judge’s head that the sight of it may not
disturb him. It ought to be placed at the other end of the room, in
order that, before rendering his verdict, the judge might have before
his eyes the greatest example of a judicial error, held up for the
shame of humanity. Oh! I am not one of the worshippers of Christ, in
the sense in which many among you are, perhaps. But, after all, perhaps
I love him more, and certainly I respect him more than do many of those
who preach massacre in the name of the religion of love.
“They also tell us of the honor of the army. On that point I have
answered, but I wanted to cite to you, so odious are these words of
treason, and so revolting is it to me to see them flung so freely
about,--I wanted to cite to you the case of Marshal Bazaine. He was
really a traitor, was he not? He betrayed French soldiers by hundreds
of thousands, at the critical moment when it depended upon him to
change the fortune of our arms and save his country. I wish to indulge
in no declamation here, but I declare, and I defy any man to rise to
contradict me, that Bazaine committed the greatest act of treason
known to the world. Condemned to military degradation and to death,
they spared him both. Tell me, do you think that the responsibility
of commanders is greater than the responsibility of soldiers? Yes,
undoubtedly. Well, if this responsibility is greater, why every day do
they punish simple soldiers so pitilessly, and why do they pardon the
traitor _par excellence_, the traitor who had no excuse, the traitor
whose outstretched hand France awaited on the day of her supreme
disaster. To what _régime_ did they submit him? Let me read you a few
words from a pamphlet by M. Marchi, keeper of the prison of the Sainte
Marguerite Islands. Here are his instructions:
You will treat the prisoner with the greatest regard; in short, at
Sainte Marguerite one must be a man of the world, and not a jailer.
“M. Marchi arrives at Sainte Marguerite. The temporary superintendent
makes him familiar with the service, and informs him, among other
things, that, supposing it to be his duty to watch the condemned man
whenever he went to walk upon the terrace, Lieutenant-Colonel Valley
went to Paris to protest against the conduct of the keeper, wherefore
the keeper had been reprimanded? It would take too long to tell you of
all the instructions. Suffice it to know that cabinet ministers wrote
to Bazaine, that they addressed him as Monsieur the Marshal, and that
there was a question of pensioning him. Boats were allowed to come to
the edge of the terrace, whence he conversed with visitors. On the eve
of his escape he had obtained permission to go out with a guardian.
Well, really, when I compare this tolerance, which is an outrage
upon France and upon the army, with the hatred unchained against
the prisoner on Devil’s Island; when I remember that an artillery
officer named Triponé, who had not only delivered documents, but had
delivered the Bourges detonator, of which we were the only possessors
in Europe, by the complicity of the sub-officer Fessler, to the house
of Armstrong, which then gave the benefit of it to Germany; when I see
that Triponé was sentenced to five years in prison, and was pardoned
after two years and a half, though his crime was certainly not less
than that of Dreyfus,--I say that there is no equality of punishment
between these Christians and this Jew.
“Again, there is another fact. Adjutant Chatelain, who is now in New
Caledonia, perhaps is farming there and raising cattle; his crime,
if I remember rightly, consisted in the sale of certain documents to
Italy. He was not less guilty than Dreyfus. But what a difference
in treatment! They talk of equality before the law. It is a phrase.
We await the reality. They tell us that we have violated the law.
I maintain, on the contrary, that we appear here in the interest
of the law, and I say that we were unable to do otherwise. For the
rectification of a judicial error application was made to the war
department, to the executive power. You know how General Billot
received the application; he refused to act. M. Trarieux applied to
M. Méline; M. Scheurer-Kestner did the same; M. Méline would not even
talk with them. In the senate, discussion, leading to nothing. In
the chamber, discussion, leading to nothing. And similarly with the
council of war, with the investigation by General de Pellieux, with the
investigation by Major Ravary. Now, when all the powers that are the
organs of the law fail in their legal duty, what was left for those
who, like M. Zola, have undertaken the work of justice from which the
powers of justice shrank? M. Zola’s idea is an appeal to the people,
an appeal to the people represented by twelve jurors whom he does not
know, whose opinions none of us know, to pass upon his act, and say
whether they will allow him to bring out the light. If he must be
struck, he is very proud to be struck for this confession of justice
and truth.
“If the jury gives him its aid, the pacification of minds may be
accomplished, and the agitation of this day finished by the legal
reparation due to all who have been deprived of the guarantees of the
law. Without truth, M. Zola can do nothing; he is powerless; he will be
baffled on every hand. With a bit of the truth, M. Zola is invincible.
It is for the jurors to answer to the appeal of truth.
“I have said that the government is fallible. The jurors also have no
higher light. They are men. They do their best. They have the advantage
of being for a time unbiased by _esprit de corps_, and of being able
thus, in perfect liberty of mind, to act in accordance with that need
of superior justice which we all feel. We are before you, gentlemen.
Shortly you will pass judgment. I hope that you may not be governed
by the argument which now controls too many minds. How many Frenchmen
there are who say: ‘Possibly Dreyfus was condemned illegally, but he
was condemned justly, and that is sufficient; so let us say no more
about it.’ Sophism of the _raison d’Etat_, which has done us so much
harm,--which hampered the magnificent movement of the French revolution
by the guillotine and all sorts of violence. Ah! we have torn down the
Bastille. Every 14th of July we dance to celebrate the abolition of the
_raison d’Etat_. But a Bastille still remains within us, and, when we
question ourselves, an illegality committed to the detriment of others
seems to us acceptable, and we say, and we think, that this may be a
little evil for a great good. Profound error. An illegality is a form
of iniquity, since the law is guarantee of justice.
“Gentlemen, all the generals together have no right to say that the
illegality which comes from a certain form of justice, since it is
a denial of it; all the magistrates together,--have no right to say
that illegality can be justice, because the law is nothing but the
guarantee of justice. To do justice outside of the law no one has
either the right or the power. If you wish to render the supreme
service to the country under the present circumstances, establish the
supremacy of the law, the supremacy of justice. Cause to disappear
from our souls that respect for the _raison d’Etat_ so absurd in a
democracy. With Louis XIV, with Napoleon, with men who hold a people in
their hands and govern according to their good pleasure, the _raison
d’Etat_ is intelligible. In a democracy the _raison d’Etat_ is only a
contradiction, a vestige of the past. ‘France is a high moral person,’
said Gambetta. I do not deny it, monarchy or republic. But I say that
the tradition of the _raison d’Etat_ has had its day, and that the hour
has come for us to attach ourselves to the modern idea of liberty and
justice. After the original duty of defence of the soil, nothing can
be more urgent than to establish among us a _régime_ of liberty and
justice, which shall be in accordance with the ambition of our fathers,
an example to all civilized nations.
“At the present hour, I admit, the problem presents itself to you in a
bitter and sorrowful form. Oh! it is very sorrowful to sincere people
to find themselves in hostility with brave soldiers who intended to do
well, who wished to do well, and who, thinking to do well, have not
done well. That happens to civilians not in uniform; that happens to
civilians in uniform,--for soldiers are nothing else.
“From this point of view you are at a turning-point in our history,
and you must submit military society to the control of the civil law,
or abandon to it our most precious conquests. We have not to pass upon
General de Boisdeffre or upon General de Pellieux. They will explain
themselves to their superiors. It is not our affair. They have nothing
to ask of us. But, however painful it may be to find ourselves for
a day in conflict with them, take your course, since no danger can
result, unless you yourselves abandon the cause of the law of justice
which you represent. Thus you will render us the grand service, the
inestimable service, of extinguishing at the beginning the religious
war that threatens to dishonor this country. [Murmurs of protest.]
“Since you protest, so much the better. I am willing to believe that
it is your intention to renew the wars of religion; but, when I see in
France, in our France of Algeria, a pillaging of warehouses; when I see
it boasted in the newspapers that safes have been thrown into the sea,
and that contracts have been torn up; when I see that Jews, while going
to get bread for their families, have been massacred,--I have a right
to say that religious warfare offered no other aspect in the middle
ages; and I say that the jurors of today, in rendering a verdict in
favor of liberty and justice for all, even for Jews, will signify their
intention of putting an end to these excesses by saying to those who
have committed these barbarities: ‘In the name of the French people,
you shall go no farther.’
“Gentlemen, we are the law; we are toleration; we are the defenders of
the army, for we do not separate justice from patriotism, and the army
will not be strong, it will not be respected, unless it derives its
power from respect for the law. I add that we are the defenders of the
army, when we ask you to drive Esterhazy from it. You have driven out
Picquart, and kept Esterhazy. And, gentlemen of the jury, since there
has been reference to your children, tell me who would like to belong
to the same battalion that Esterhazy belongs to? Tell me if you will
trust this officer to lead your children against the enemy? I need only
ask the question. No one will dare reply.
“Gentlemen, we have known terrible shocks in this century. We have
experienced all glories and all disasters. We are now confronted with
the unknown, between all fears and all hopes. Seize the occasion, as we
have seized it, and determine your destinies. It is an august thing,
this judgment of the people upon itself. It is a terrible thing also,
this decision by the people of its future. Your verdict, gentlemen,
will not decide our fates as much as your own. We appear before you.
You appear before history.”
It was six o’clock when M. Clemenceau took his seat and
Attorney-General Van Cassel rose to reply.
“I am obliged to place the question before you anew. M. Zola has
declared that the council of war condemned in obedience to orders. Has
he given the slightest proof of this? He has not even attempted it. For
twelve days we have heard nothing here but insults to the army; and
now, for the last two days, in order that they might be tolerated here,
they have done nothing but repeat that the staff is made up of brave
generals, and that the council of war rendered its verdict in good
faith. The insulters have been forced to hide themselves behind the
army, shouting: ‘Long live the army!’”
To this address M. Labori made rejoinder. Facing the audience, which
was crying “Enough! enough! Down with Labori!” he said:
“This last incident was necessary, in order to show the two parties to
this debate,--those, on the one hand, who plead for justice and right,
and those who shout ‘Enough!’ when, in the name of the accused, the
counsel takes the floor, as is his right.”
Then, turning to the attorney-general, he continued:
“You call me an insulter of the army; for it was at me that your
words were aimed, since it was I who spoke for two days. I am not of
those who are accustomed to such attacks, and I am not of those who
are disposed to submit to them. I do not accept this insult that rises
to me from your seat, Monsieur Attorney-General, however high your
position. From the standpoint of talent you and I are equals. You have
no lesson to give me. I refuse you the right, and I say that you rose
to utter these brief words because you knew that they would let loose
a manifestation which you had a right to expect from a hall packed
against us.”
Then, turning to the jury, he concluded:
“There are two ways of understanding right, gentlemen of the jury. The
question before you is this: Is Zola guilty? Let these clamors dictate
to you, gentlemen, the duty of firmness that is incumbent upon you.
You are the sovereign arbiters. You are higher than the army, higher
than the judicial power. You are the justice of the people, which only
the judgment of history will judge. If you have the courage, declare
Zola guilty of having struggled against all hatreds in behalf of right,
justice, and liberty.”
The session was then suspended, and the jury retired for deliberation.
After thirty-five minutes, it returned. The court came in again. Then
the foreman of the jury rose and said:
“On my honor and my conscience the declaration of the jury is: as
concerns Perrenx, _yes_, by a majority vote. As concerns Zola, _yes_,
by a majority vote.”
Then the air was filled with cries of ‘Long live the army! Long live
France! Down with the insulters! To the door with Jews! Death to Zola!’
amid which Zola sadly cried: ‘These people are cannibals.’
The court then retired to deliberate upon the sentence. Returning a few
minutes later, it condemned M. Perrenx, the _gérant_ of “L’Aurore,”
to an imprisonment of four months and the payment of a fine of three
thousand francs; upon M. Emile Zola it inflicted the maximum penalty of
one year’s imprisonment and a fine of three thousand francs.
The trial thus being ended, the court adjourned; but a day or two later
the council for the accused appealed from the verdict to the higher
court.