An Officer and a Spy

ESTERHAZY ACCUSES COLONEL PICQUART. Paris, 10h 35m. In an interview in Le Matin, Esterhazy says: ‘Everything that has happened is the responsibility of Colonel Picquart. He is a friend of the Dreyfus family. He opened an investigation against me fifteen months ago when he was in the Ministry of War. He wanted to destroy me. M. Scheurer-Kestner has been given all his information by Picquart’s lawyer, Maître Leblois, who went to the colonel’s office and was shown secret files. The colonel’s behaviour was considered so appalling by his superiors he was sent in disgrace to Tunisia.’

I have never before had my name printed in a newspaper. I picture all the people I know, my friends and family in France, coming upon it unawares. What will they think? I am supposed to be a spy, a man in the shadows. Now a searchlight has picked me out.

And there is more:

CHEZ MAÎTRE LEBLOIS. According to Le Matin: ‘At midnight, after our interview with Major Esterhazy, we go to the door of Maître Leblois, advocate of the court of appeal — 96, rue de l’Université — but the door is closed. We ring again. The door doesn’t open. But from the interior comes a voice: “Who’s there? What do you want?” We explain the reason for our visit: that Major Esterhazy has formally alleged that he, Maître Leblois, provided the dossier to M. Scheurer-Kestner based on documents furnished by Colonel Picquart. The voice becomes more menacing: “What can I tell you? I am bound by a professional vow of silence. I have nothing to say, absolutely nothing. But I recommend you do not name Colonel Picquart. Now, good night and don’t come back!”’

By the time I finish reading and look round, the clubroom is empty.

That evening I receive another telegram: I find it pushed under my door. But this one is quite unambiguous: Evacuate your quarters in Sousse immediately on assumption you will not be returning and report to me at General Headquarters. Signed Leclerc.

In Tunis I am given a small room on the second floor of the main barracks. I lie on the bed and listen to the symphony of male institutional life — the shouts and sudden bursts of whistling, the clanging of doors and heavy footsteps. I think about Pauline. She has gone very quiet over the last few weeks. I wonder what she will have made of the references to me in the press — that I am in the pay of the Jews; that I was shipped off to Tunisia ‘in disgrace’. I write her a letter.

Tunis

20 November 1897

Ma chérie,