An Officer and a Spy

‘Companies — attention!’

‘Companies — present arms!’

The young men march past, eyes right, in perfect step, and the worst of it is they do not even see me. Or if they do, they see me without registering me — just another middle-aged civilian in a black suit and bowler hat watching wistfully from the other side.

And yet, in the end, we win — not in a flash of glory, as we had always hoped; not at the climax of some great trial, with the condemned man, vindicated at last, carried shoulder-high to freedom. We win quietly, behind closed doors, when tempers have cooled, in committee rooms and archives, as all the facts are sieved and sieved again, by careful jurists.

First, Jaurès, the leader of the socialists, makes a forensic speech in the Chamber of Deputies, lasting a day and a half, setting out the entire affair with such clarity that the new Minister of War, General André, agrees to look again at all the evidence — that is in 1903. Then the result of the André inquiry prompts the Criminal Chamber to take up the case itself, and conclude that it should be reviewed by the Supreme Court of Appeal — that occupies 1904. Then a year is lost in political turmoil over the separation of Church and State — farewell 1905. But finally, the Supreme Court of Appeal quashes the Rennes verdict and exonerates Dreyfus entirely — that happens on 12 July 1906.

On the 13th, a motion is laid before the Chamber of Deputies to restore Dreyfus to the army with the rank of major, and to award him the highest available distinction, the cross of the Legion of Honour; that passes by a margin of 432 to 32, and when Mercier tries to speak against it in the Senate, he is howled down. On the same day, a second motion is debated, restoring me to the army with the rank I might have hoped to achieve if I had not been dishonourably discharged in 1898; this resolution passes by an even larger margin, of 449 to 26. To my astonishment I find myself walking back on to the parade ground of the École Militaire for Dreyfus’s medal ceremony in the uniform of a brigadier general.

On 25 October, my friend Georges Clemenceau becomes prime minister; I am in Vienna at the time. That evening, dressed in white tie and tails, with Pauline on my arm, I take my seat at the Vienna State Opera to watch Gustav Mahler conduct Tristan und Isolde. I have been looking forward to this performance for weeks. But just before the house lights dim, I notice an official from the French Embassy hovering in the aisle, and then a telegram begins to be passed along the row, from gloved to jewelled hand. Eventually it reaches Pauline, who gives it to me.

Please be informed that I have today named you Minister of War. Return to Paris immediately. Clemenceau

Epilogue

Thursday 29 November 1906

25

‘Major Dreyfus to see the Minister of War. .’

I hear him announce himself to my orderly at the foot of the marble staircase in that familiar voice with its trace of German. I listen to the click of his boots as he mounts the steps, and then slowly he emerges into view — the cap, the epaulettes, the gold buttons, the braid, the sword, the stripe on his trousers: all exactly as it was before the degradation, but with the addition of the red ribbon of the Legion of Honour on his artilleryman’s black tunic.

He comes to a halt on the landing and salutes. ‘General Picquart.’

‘Major Dreyfus.’ I smile and extend my hand. ‘I have been waiting for you. Please come through.’

The ministerial office is unchanged since the days of Mercier and Billot, still panelled in duck-egg blue, although Pauline, who acts as chatelaine, likes to arrange fresh flowers each day on the table between the large windows overlooking the garden. The trees this afternoon are bare; the lights of the ministry burn bright in the late November gloom.

‘Sit down, Major,’ I say. ‘Make yourself comfortable. Have you been in here before?’

‘No, Minister.’ He lowers himself on to the gilt chair and sits very formally, stiff-backed.

I take the seat opposite him. He has thickened out, looks good, almost sleek in his expensively cut uniform. The pale blue eyes behind the familiar pince-nez are wary. ‘So then,’ I say, putting my fingertips together, and contemplating him long and hard, ‘what is it you want to discuss?’

‘It concerns my rank,’ he says. ‘The promotion I have received, from captain to major, takes no account of the years I spent wrongly imprisoned on Devil’s Island. Whereas your promotion — if you’ll forgive me for pointing it out — from colonel to brigadier general, treats your eight years out of the army as though they were spent in active service. I believe this is unfair — prejudiced, in fact.’

‘I see.’ I feel my smile hardening. ‘And what do you want me to do about it?’

‘Rectify it. Promote me to the rank I should have achieved.’

‘Which would be what, in your opinion?’

‘Lieutenant colonel.’