An Officer and a Spy

CAVAIGNAC: So this is what happened? You received in 1896 an envelope with a letter inside, an insignificant letter. You suppressed the letter and fabricated another.

HENRY: Yes.

In the darkness of my cell I play out this scene again and again. I see Cavaignac behind his desk — the overambitious young minister: the fanatic with the temerity to believe he could end the affair once and for all and who now finds himself tripped up by his own hubris. I see Gonse’s hand trembling as he smokes and watches the interrogation. I see Boisdeffre by the window staring into the middle distance, as immutably aloof as one of the stone lions that no doubt guarding the gate of his family chateau. And I see Henry occasionally looking round at his chiefs in mute appeal as the questions rain down on him: help me! But of course they say nothing.

And then I picture Henry’s expression when Cavaignac — not a soldier but a civilian Minister of War — orders him to be arrested on the spot and taken to Mont-Valérien, where he is locked up in the same rooms that I occupied in the winter. The next day, after a sleepless night, he writes to Gonse (I have the honour of requesting you to agree to come and see me here: I absolutely must speak to you) and to his wife (My adored Berthe, I see that except for you everyone is going to abandon me and yet you know in whose interest I acted).

I visualise him stretched out on his bed at noon, drinking a bottle of rum — which was the last time he was seen alive — and again six hours later, when a lieutenant and an orderly enter the room and find him still lying on the same bed saturated in blood, his body already cold and stiff, his throat slit twice with a razor, which (an odd detail, this) is clenched in his left hand even though he is right-handed.

But between these two scenes, between noon and six — between Henry alive and Henry dead — my imagination fails me. Labori believes he was murdered, like Lemercier-Picard, to keep him quiet, and that his killing was staged to look like a suicide. He cites medical friends of his who state that it is physically impossible for a person to sever their carotid artery on both sides. But I am not convinced that murder would have been necessary, not with Henry. He would have known what was expected of him after Boisdeffre and Gonse both failed to raise their voices in his defence.

You order me to shoot a man and I’ll shoot him.

That afternoon, at the same time as Henry’s lifeblood is flowing out of him, Boisdeffre is writing to the Minister of War:

Minister,

I have just received proof that my trust in Colonel Henry, head of the intelligence service, was not justified. That trust, which was total, led me to be deceived and to declare authentic a document that was not, and to present it to you as such.

In these circumstances, I have the honour of asking you to relieve me of my duties.

Boisdeffre

He retires at once to Normandy.

Three days later Cavaignac also resigns, albeit defiantly (I remain convinced of the guilt of Dreyfus and as resolute as ever to fight against a revision of the trial); Pellieux submits his resignation; Gonse is transferred out of the Ministry of War and goes back to his regiment on half-pay.

I assume, like most people, that it is all over: that if Henry could have arranged the forging of one document, it will be accepted that he could have done it many times, and that the case against Dreyfus has collapsed.

But the days pass, Dreyfus stays on Devil’s Island and I remain in La Santé. And gradually it becomes apparent that even now the army will not acknowledge its mistake. I am refused parole. Instead I receive a notification that I will stand trial with Louis in three weeks’ time in an ordinary criminal court for illegally transmitting secret documents.

On the eve of the hearing Labori visits me in prison. Normally he is ebullient, even aggressive; today he looks worried. ‘I have some bad news, I’m afraid. The army are bringing fresh charges against you.’

‘What now?’

‘Forgery.’

‘They’re accusing me of forgery?’

‘Yes, of the petit bleu.’