An Officer and a Spy

My evidence takes up the whole of the day’s session, and most of the next. There is no point in my describing it again — petit bleu, Esterhazy, bordereau. . I deliver it, once more, as if it were a lecture, which in a sense it is. I am the founder of the school of Dreyfus studies: its leading scholar, its star professor — there is nothing I can be asked about my specialist field that I do not know: every letter and telegram, every personality, every forgery, every lie. Occasionally, officers of the General Staff rise like sweaty students to challenge me on specific points; I flatten them with ease. From time to time as I speak, I scan the furrowed faces of the judges in the same way that I used once to survey those of my pupils, and wonder how much of this is sinking in.

When at last Jouaust tells me to stand down and I turn and walk back to my seat, it seems to me — I may be mistaken — that Dreyfus gives me the briefest of nods and a half-smile of thanks.

Labori’s recovery continues, and in the middle of the following week, with the bullet still lodged in the muscles of his shoulder, he returns to court. He enters accompanied by Marguerite to loud applause. He acknowledges his reception with a wave and walks to his place, where he has been provided with a large and comfortable armchair. The only obvious sign of his injury, apart from his damp and chalky pallor, is the stiffness of his left arm, which he can hardly move. Dreyfus stands as he passes and warmly shakes his good hand.

Privately, I am not convinced that he is as fit to return to his duties as he insists he is. Gunshot injuries are something I know about. They take longer to get over than one imagines. Labori should have had an operation to have the bullet removed, in my opinion — but that would have taken him out of the trial altogether. He is in a lot of pain and isn’t sleeping. And there is also a mental trauma he is refusing to acknowledge. I can see it when he goes out into the street — the way he slightly recoils every time a stranger approaches with his hand extended, or flinches when he hears hurrying footsteps behind him. Professionally it expresses itself in a certain irritability and shortness of temper, particularly with the president of the court, whom Labori delights in goading:

JOUAUST: I urge you to speak with moderation.

LABORI: I have not said a single immoderate word.

JOUAUST: But your tone is not moderate.

LABORI: I’m not in control of my tone.

JOUAUST: Well, you should be — every man is in control of his own person.

LABORI: I’m in control of my person, just not of my tone.

JOUAUST: I shall withdraw your permission to speak.

LABORI: Go ahead and withdraw it.

JOUAUST: Sit down!

LABORI: I will sit down — but not on your orders!

One day, at a legal strategy meeting I attend together with Mathieu Dreyfus, Demange says in his slightly pompous manner, ‘We must never forget our central objective, my dear Labori, which is not, with all due respect, to flay the army for its errors but to ensure our client walks free. As this is an army hearing, in which the outcome will be decided by military officers, we need to be diplomatic.’

‘Ah yes,’ retorts, Labori, ‘“diplomatic”! This would be the same diplomacy, I take it, that led to your client spending four years on Devil’s Island?’

Demange, red-faced with fury, gathers together his papers and leaves the room.

Wearily, Mathieu gets up to go after him. At the door he says, ‘I understand your frustration, Labori, but Edgar has stood by my family loyally for five years. He has earned the right to set the direction of our strategy.’

On this issue, I agree with Labori. I know the army. It does not react to diplomacy. It responds to force. But even for me, Labori goes too far when he decides to telegraph — without consulting Demange — the Emperor of Germany and the King of Italy, asking them to allow von Schwartzkoppen and Panizzardi (both of whom have withdrawn to their native countries) to come to Rennes to give evidence. The Chancellor of Germany, Count von Bülow, replies as if to a madman:

His Majesty the Emperor and King, our most gracious master, considers it naturally and totally impossible to accede in any manner to Maître Labori’s strange suggestion.