An Officer and a Spy

That afternoon I write my first secret intelligence report for the General Staff — a blanc, as they are known in the rue Saint-Dominique. I cobble it together from the local German newspapers and from one of the agents’ letters that Sandherr has elucidated for me: A correspondent from Metz reports that, for the past few days, there has been great activity among the troops in the Metz garrison. There is no noise and alarm in the city, but the military authorities are pushing the troops intensively. .

I read it over when I’ve finished and ask myself: is this important? Is it even true? Frankly, I have not the faintest idea. I know only that I am expected to submit a blanc at least once a week, and that this is the best I can do for my first attempt. I send it over the road to the Chief of Staff’s office, bracing myself for a rebuke for crediting such worthless gossip. Instead, Boisdeffre acknowledges receipt, thanks me, forwards a copy to the head of the infantry (I can imagine the conversation in the officers’ club: I hear on the grapevine that the Germans are up to something in Metz. .), and fifty thousand troops in the eastern frontier region have their lives made slightly more miserable by several days of additional drills and forced marches.

It is my first lesson in the cabalistic power of ‘secret intelligence’: two words that can make otherwise sane men abandon their reason and cavort like idiots.

A day or two later, Henry brings an agent to my office to brief me about Dreyfus. He introduces him as François Guénée, of the Sûreté.¹ He is in his forties, yellow-skinned with the effects of nicotine or alcohol or both, with that manner, at once bullying and obsequious, typical of a certain type of policeman. As we shake hands I recognise him from my first morning: he was one of those who were sitting around smoking their pipes and playing cards downstairs. Henry says, ‘Guénée has been running the surveillance operation on the Dreyfus family. I thought you’d want to hear how things stand.’

‘Please.’ I gesture and we take our places around the table in the corner of my office. Guénée has a file with him; so has Henry.

Guénée begins. ‘In accordance with Colonel Sandherr’s instructions, I concentrated my enquiries on the traitor’s older brother, Mathieu Dreyfus.’ From the file he extracts a studio photograph and slides it across the table. Mathieu is handsome, even dashing: he is the one who ought to have been the army captain, I think, rather than Alfred, who looks like a bank manager. Guénée continues, ‘The subject is thirty-seven years old, and has moved from the family home in Mulhouse to Paris with the sole purpose of organising the campaign on behalf of his brother.’

‘So there is a campaign?’

‘Yes, Colonel: he writes letters to prominent people, and has let it be known he is willing to pay good money for information.’

‘You know they’re very rich,’ puts in Henry, ‘the wife of Dreyfus even more so. Her family are the Hadamards — diamond merchants.’

‘And is the brother getting anywhere?’

‘There’s a medical man from Le Havre, a Dr Gibert, who is an old friend of the President of the Republic. Right at the start he offered to intercede on the family’s behalf with President Fauré.’

‘Has he done so?’

Guénée consults his file. ‘The doctor met the President for breakfast at the Élysée on February twenty-first. Afterwards Gibert went straight to the hôtel de l’Athénée, where Mathieu Dreyfus was waiting — one of our men had followed him there from his apartment.’

He gives me the agent’s report. Subjects were seated in lobby and appeared greatly animated. Positioned myself at adjoining table and heard B remark to A the following: ‘I’m telling you what the President said — it was secret evidence given to judges that secured conviction, not evidence in court.’ Same point repeated with emphasis several times. . After departure of B, A remained seated in state of obvious emotion. A paid bill (see copy attached) and left hotel at 9.25.

I look at Henry. ‘The President has revealed that the judges were shown secret evidence?’

Henry shrugs. ‘People talk. It was bound to come out one day.’

‘Yes, but the President. .? You’re not concerned?’