An Officer and a Spy

The whole court draws in its breath. The officials are too stunned to move. Only Mercier seems unaffected. He ignores the figure looming over him. ‘I would say to Captain Dreyfus,’ he repeats patiently, ‘“I have been honestly mistaken. I acknowledge it in good faith and will do all in my power to repair a terrible mistake.”’

Dreyfus is still on his feet, staring down at him, his arm raised. ‘It is your duty!’

There is a round of applause, mostly from the journalists; I join in.

Mercier smiles slightly, as if confronted by overemotional children, shakes his head, waits for the demonstration to die down. ‘No, it is not so. My conviction since 1894 has not undergone the slightest change. In fact it has actually been strengthened, not only by a thorough study of the secret dossier but by the pathetic case that has been made for Dreyfus’s innocence by his supporters, despite all the frantic efforts and the millions spent on his behalf. There. I have done.’

With that, Mercier closes his leather case, stands, bows to the judges, collects his kepi from the shelf in front of him, tucks the documents under his arm, and turns to walk out of the court, to a loud accompaniment of jeers. As he passes the press benches, one of the reporters — it is Georges Bourdon of Le Figaro — hisses at him, ‘Assassin!’

Mercier stops and points at him. ‘This fellow just called me an assassin!’

The army prosecutor rises. ‘Monsieur President, I demand that man be arrested for contempt.’

Jouaust calls to the sergeant-at-arms, ‘Take him into custody!’

As soldiers close in on Bourdon, Labori rises. ‘Monsieur President, excuse me, but I would like to question the witness.’

‘Of course, Maître Labori,’ replies Jouaust, coolly checking his watch, ‘but it is already after twelve, and tomorrow is Sunday. You will have your chance at six thirty on Monday morning. Until then the court is adjourned.’

24

Mercier’s testimony is held to have been a disaster — a grave disappointment to his own side, as he failed to provide the promised ‘proof’ that Dreyfus was guilty, and an opportunity for ours, in that Labori — generally considered to be the most aggressive cross-examiner at the Paris bar — will now have the chance to challenge him on the witness stand about the secret file. All he needs is sufficient ammunition, and on Sunday morning I walk to his lodgings to help him prepare. I have no qualms about breaking the last vestiges of my oath of confidentiality: if Mercier can talk about matters of national security, so can I.

‘The point about Mercier,’ I say, when Labori and I are ensconced in his makeshift study, ‘is that the Dreyfus affair would never have happened without him. He was the one who ordered the spy-hunt to be confined to the General Staff — the original and fundamental error. He was the one who ordered that Dreyfus should be held in solitary confinement for weeks in order to break him. And he was the one who ordered the compilation of the secret dossier.’

‘I’ll challenge him on those three points.’ Labori is making rapid notes. ‘But we’re not saying that he knew all along that Dreyfus was innocent?’

‘Not at the very beginning. But when Dreyfus refused to confess, and they realised that the only thing they had against him was the handwriting of the bordereau — that was when they started to panic, in my view, and to fabricate the evidence.’

‘And you think Mercier knew of this?’

‘Definitely.’

‘How?’

‘Because at the beginning of November, the Foreign Ministry broke an Italian cipher telegram that showed that Panizzardi had never even heard of Dreyfus.’

Labori, still writing, raises his eyebrows. ‘And this was shown to Mercier?’

‘Yes. The decrypt was handed to him personally.’

Labori stops writing and sits back in his chair, tapping his pencil against his notebook. ‘So he must have been aware more than a month before the court martial that the “lowlife D” letter couldn’t refer to Dreyfus?’ I nod. ‘Yet he went ahead anyway and showed it to the judges, along with a commentary pointing out its importance in proving Dreyfus’s guilt?’

‘And he was still maintaining the same position yesterday. The man is quite shameless.’

‘So what did the Statistical Section do with the Italian telegram? Presumably they simply ignored it?’

‘No, worse: they destroyed the original War Ministry copy and substituted a false version which implied the opposite — that Panizzardi knew all about Dreyfus.’

‘And Mercier is ultimately responsible for this?’

‘That is my belief, after months of thinking about it. There are plenty of others with dirty hands — Sandherr, Gonse, Henry — but Mercier was the driving force. He was the one who should have halted the proceedings against Dreyfus the moment he saw that telegram. But he knew it would do him terrible damage politically, whereas if he brought off a successful prosecution he might just ride it all the way to the Élysée. It was a stupid delusion, but then he’s fundamentally a dim man.’