An Officer and a Spy

The next day is the funeral of Louis’s father, Georges-Louis Leblois. A Lutheran pastor, a believer in scientific progress, a radical thinker who denied the divinity of Christ, the old man wished to be cremated. However, no such facilities exist in Strasbourg, therefore the ceremony has to take place in Paris at the new crematorium of Père-Lachaise. The silence of the immense cemetery, with its shaded alleys, and the grey city in the plain below reaching towards the blue hills on the horizon make a profound impression on me. The mourners come up to me to commiserate on the previous day’s verdict, shaking my hand and speaking in low tones, so that it almost feels as if I am the one who has died and I am attending my own obsequies.

While this is going on, I discover later, General Billot is signing my arrest warrant, and when I return to my apartment I find a notification that I will be taken into custody the next day.

They come for me just before dawn. I am already dressed in civilian clothes, my suitcase packed. An elderly colonel, accompanied by a private soldier, knocks on my door and shows me a copy of the warrant from General Billot: Colonel Picquart has been investigated for a serious breach of professional duties. He has committed grave errors in his service, contrary to army discipline. Therefore I have decided that he is to be held under arrest in the fortress of Mont-Valérien, until further orders.

The colonel says, ‘Sorry to call so early, but we thought we’d try to avoid these ghastly newspaper people. May I take your service revolver, please?’

The manager of the building, Monsieur Reigneau, who lives several doors along the street, comes to see what all the noise is about. I pass him with my escort on the stairs. Afterwards he reveals to Le Figaro my parting words: ‘You see what is happening to me. But I am quite calm. You will have read in the papers all that they say about me. Continue to believe that I am an honest man.’

Drawn up outside is a large military carriage harnessed to two white horses. There has been a hard frost overnight. It is still dark. A red lamp from the building works opposite gleams faintly on the frozen puddles. The private takes my suitcase and clambers up next to the driver while the colonel politely opens the door and allows me to go first into the carriage. Nobody is in the street to witness my disgrace, apart from Reigneau. We turn left into the rue Copernic and head towards the place Victor Hugo. There are a few early risers queuing to buy newspapers on the corner of the roundabout, and even more further along at the kiosk on the place de l’Étoile. As we pass I catch a glimpse of a huge banner headline, ‘J’Accuse. .!’ and I say to the colonel, ‘If a condemned man is allowed a final request, do you think we might stop for a newspaper?’

‘A newspaper?’ The colonel looks at me as if I am mad. ‘Well, I suppose so, if you must.’

He calls up to the driver to pull over. I get out and walk back towards the vendor. The private soldier trails behind me at a discreet distance; ahead the sky is just beginning to lighten above the avenue du Bois de Boulogne, silhouetting the bare tops of the trees. The paper everyone is queuing to buy is Clemenceau’s L’Aurore, and the headline, spread across the top of all six columns, is:

J’ACCUSE. .!

LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC

By Émile Zola

I join the queue to buy a copy and walk slowly back towards the carriage. There is just enough light from the street lamps for me to make it out. The piece takes up the entire front page, thousands of words of polemic, cast in the form of a letter to President Fauré (Knowing your integrity, I am convinced that you are unaware of the truth. .). I skim it with increasing astonishment.

Can you believe that for the last year General Billot, Generals Gonse and Boisdeffre have known that Dreyfus is innocent, and they have kept this terrible knowledge to themselves? And these people sleep at night, and have wives and children they love!