An Officer and a Spy

Only one stage of his Calvary remained: for him the worst part of it, I am sure, when he had to pass along the railings in front of the crowd. The police had linked arms to try to keep the public at a distance. But when the spectators saw the prisoner approaching, they surged forwards. The police line bulged, tautened and then burst apart, releasing a flood of protesters, who poured across the pavement and spread along the railings. Dreyfus stopped, turned and faced them, raised his arms and said something. But he had his back to me and I couldn’t hear his words, only the familiar taunts of ‘Judas!’, ‘Traitor!’ and ‘Death to the Jew!’ that were thrown back in his face.

Finally, his escort pulled him away and steered him towards the prison wagon, waiting just ahead with its mounted outriders. The condemned man’s hands were cuffed behind his back. He stepped up into the wagon. The doors were closed and locked, the horses whipped, and the cortège jolted forwards, out of the gate and into the place de Fontenoy. For a moment I doubted if it would escape the surrounding crowd, stretching out their hands to strike the sides of the wagon. But the cavalry officers used the flats of their swords to drive them back. I heard the whip crack twice. The driver shouted a command. The wagon accelerated free of the mob, turned left and disappeared.

An instant later the order was given for the parade to march past. The stamp of boots seemed to shake the ground. Bugles were blown. Drums beat time. As the band struck up ‘Sambre-et-Meuse’ it started to snow. I felt a great sense of release. I believe we all did. Spontaneously we turned to one another and shook hands. It was as if a healthy body had purged itself of something foul and pestilential, and now life could begin anew.

I finish my report. The minister’s room falls silent, apart from the crackle of the fire.

‘The only pity,’ Mercier says eventually, ‘is that the traitor will continue to remain alive. I say this more for his sake than anyone else’s. What kind of life is left to him? It would have been kinder to finish him off. That’s why I wanted the Chamber of Deputies to restore the death penalty for treason.’

Boisdeffre nods ingratiatingly. ‘You did your best, Minister.’

With a creak of knee joints, Mercier stands. He walks over to a large globe, which stands in a mount beside his desk, and beckons me to join him. He puts on a pair of spectacles and peers down at the Earth, like a short-sighted deity.

‘I need to put him in a place where it’s impossible for him to talk to anyone. I don’t want him smuggling out any more treasonous messages. And just as important, I don’t want anyone communicating with him.’

The minister places a surprisingly delicate hand on the northern hemisphere and gently turns the world. The Atlantic slides past. He halts the sphere and points to a spot on the coast of South America, seven thousand kilometres from Paris. He looks at me and raises an eyebrow, inviting me to guess.

I say, ‘The penal colony at Cayenne?’

‘Close, but more secure than that.’ He leans in and taps the globe. ‘Devil’s Island: fifteen kilometres off the coast. The sea around it is infested with sharks. The immense waves and strong currents make it hard even to land a boat.’

‘I thought that place had been closed down years ago.’

‘It was. The last inhabitants were a colony of convict lepers. I will need to seek approval in the Chamber, but this time I will get it. The island will be reopened especially for Dreyfus. Well, what do you think?’

My immediate reaction is surprise. Mercier, married to an Englishwoman, is considered a republican and a free-thinker — he refuses to attend Mass, for example — qualities I admire. And yet, for all that, there lingers about him something of the Jesuit fanatic. Devil’s Island? I think. We’re supposed to be on the brink of the twentieth century, not the eighteenth. .

‘Well?’ he repeats. ‘What’s your view?’

‘Isn’t it a trifle. .’ I choose the word carefully, wishing to be tactful, ‘Dumas?’

‘Dumas? What do you mean, Dumas?’

‘Only that it sounds like a punishment from historical fiction. I feel an echo of The Man in the Iron Mask. Won’t Dreyfus become known as “The Man on Devil’s Island”? It will make him the most famous prisoner in the world. .’

‘Exactly!’ cries Mercier, and slaps his thigh in a rare display of feeling. ‘That’s exactly what I like about it. The public’s imagination will be captured.’

I bow to his superior political judgement. At the same time I wonder what the public has to do with it. Only when I am collecting my coat and about to leave does he offer a clue.

‘This may be the last time that you will see me in this office.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that, General.’