An Officer and a Spy

That is what they want to hear. At the entrance to the lycée they peel away and run off in the direction of the Bourse de Commerce to telegraph their stories.

Inside, Mercier is on the stand and I realise within a minute of taking my seat that Demange is making heavy work of questioning him. Demange is a decent, civilised man of nearly sixty with bloodhound eyes, who has faithfully represented his client for almost half a decade. But he isn’t prepared for this session, and even if he were, he lacks Labori’s forensic menace. He is, to put it bluntly, a windbag. His habit is to preface every question with a speech, giving Mercier plenty of time to think of his answer. Mercier brushes him aside with ease. Asked about the falsified Panizzardi telegram in the Ministry of War archive, he denies all knowledge of it; asked why he didn’t place the telegram in the secret dossier and show it to the judges, he says it is because the Foreign Ministry wouldn’t have liked it. After a few more minutes of this he is allowed to step down. As he walks back up the aisle, his glance flickers in my direction. He stops and bends down to speak to me, holds out his hand. He knows the entire courtroom is watching us. He says, with great solicitation, loud enough for half the audience to hear, ‘Monsieur Picquart, this is the most appalling news. How is Maître Labori’s condition?’

‘The bullet is still inside him, General. We will know better tomorrow.’

‘It is a profoundly shocking incident. Will you be sure to give Madame Labori my best wishes for her husband’s recovery?’

‘Certainly, General.’

His strange sea-green eyes hold mine, and for a fractional instant I glimpse the shadow, like a fin in the water, of his dull malevolence, and then he nods and moves away.

The following day is the Feast of the Assumption, a public holiday, and the court does not sit. Labori survives the night. His fever diminishes. There are hopes of a recovery. On Wednesday, Demange rises in court and pleads for an adjournment of two weeks, until either Labori is well enough to resume work or a new advocate can be fully briefed: Albert Clemenceau has agreed to take on the case. Jouaust turns the request down flat: the circumstances are unfortunate but the defence will have to get by as best it can.

The first part of the morning’s session is devoted to the details of Dreyfus’s confinement on Devil’s Island, and as the terrible harshness of the regime is described, even the prosecution witnesses — even Boisdeffre, even Gonse — have the decency to look embarrassed at the catalogue of torments inflicted in the name of justice. But when, at the end, Jouaust asks the accused if he has any comment to make, Dreyfus merely responds stiffy, ‘I am here to defend my honour and that of my children. I shall say nothing of the tortures I have been made to undergo.’ He prefers the army’s hatred to its pity. What seems to be coldness, I realise, is partly a determination not to be a victim; I respect him for it.

On Thursday, I am called to give evidence.

I walk to the front of the court, and climb the two steps to the raised platform, conscious of the silence that has fallen behind me in the crowded court. I feel no nervousness, just a desire to get it done. Before me is a railing with a shelf, on which witnesses can place their notes or military caps; beyond that the stage and the row of judges — two colonels, three majors and two captains — and to my left, sitting barely two metres away, Dreyfus. How curious it is to stand there close enough to shake his hand, and yet not to be able to speak to him! I try to forget his presence as I stare firmly ahead and swear to tell the complete truth.

Jouaust begins, ‘Did you know the accused before the events for which he is charged?’

‘Yes, Colonel.’

‘How did you know him?’

‘I was a professor at the École Supérieure de Guerre when Dreyfus was a pupil.’

‘Your relations went no further than that?’

‘Correct.’

‘You were not his mentor, or his ally?’

‘No, Colonel.’

‘You were not in his service, nor he in yours?’

‘No, Colonel.’

Jouaust makes a note.

Only now do I risk a brief sidelong glance at Dreyfus. He has been so long at the centre of my existence, has changed my destiny so utterly, has grown so large in my imagination, that I suppose it would be impossible for the man to be the equal of all he represents. Even so, it is strange to contemplate this quiet stranger who, if I had to guess, I would say was a retired minor official from the Colonial Service, blinking at me through his pince-nez as if we have just happened to find ourselves in the same railway compartment on a very long journey.

I am recalled to the present by Jouaust’s dry voice saying, ‘Describe the events as you know them. .’ and I look away.