An Officer and a Spy

Despite the restricted circle, it was inevitable that news would leak, and soon a miasma of unease infiltrated the rue Saint-Dominique. The problem lay in that five-point list of the documents betrayed, which set us all chasing our own tails. A ‘note on the hydraulic brake of the 120’ and the ‘draft Field Artillery Firing Manual’ suggested the spy must be in the artillery. But the ‘new plan’ mentioned in point two was the very phrase we used in the Third Department for the revised mobilisation schedule. Of course, the ‘new plan’ was also being studied by the railway timetable experts in the Fourth, so the spy could work there perhaps. But then the ‘note on the change to artillery formations’ was most likely to have come from the First. Whereas the plan to occupy Madagascar had been worked on by the intelligence officers in the Second. .

Everyone suspected everyone else. Old incidents were dredged up and picked over, ancient rumours and feuds revived. The ministry was paralysed by suspicion. I went through the handwriting of every officer on our list, even Boucher’s; even mine. I found no match.

And then someone — it was Colonel d’Aboville, deputy chief of the Fourth — had a flash of inspiration. If the traitor could draw on current knowledge of all four departments, wasn’t it reasonable to assume that he had recently worked in all four? And unlikely as it seemed, there was a group of officers on the General Staff of whom that was true: the stagiaires from the École Supérieure de Guerre — men who were relative strangers to their long-serving comrades. Suddenly it was obvious: the traitor was a stagiaire with a background in artillery.

Eight captains of artillery on the stagiaire programme fitted that particular bill, but only one of them was a Jew: a Jew moreover who spoke French with a German accent, whose family lived in the Kaiser’s Reich and who always had money to throw around.

Gribelin, watching me, says, ‘I’m sure you remember the bordereau, Colonel.’ He gives one of his rare smiles. ‘Just as I remember that you were the one who provided us with the sample of Dreyfus’s handwriting that matched it.’

It was Colonel Boucher who brought me the request from the Statistical Section. Normally he was loud and cheerfully red-faced, but on this occasion he was sombre, even grey. It was a Saturday morning, two days after we had started hunting for the traitor. He closed the door behind him and said, ‘It looks like we might be getting close to the bastard’

‘Really? That’s quick.’

‘General Gonse wants to see some handwriting belonging to Captain Dreyfus.’

‘Dreyfus?’ I repeated, surprised.

Boucher explained d’Aboville’s theory. ‘And so,’ he concluded, ‘they’ve decided the traitor must be one of your stagiaires.’

‘One of my stagiaires?’ I did not like the sound of that!

I had skimmed through Dreyfus’s file the previous day and eliminated him as a suspect. Now I pulled it out again and compared the handwriting of a couple of his letters to the bordereau. And on second glance, looking at them more closely, perhaps there were similarities: the same small lettering; the same slope to the right; similar spacing between both words and lines. . A terrible feeling of certainty began to seize hold of me. ‘I don’t know, Colonel,’ I said. ‘What do you think?’ I showed the letters to Boucher.

‘Well, I’m no expert either, but they look pretty much alike to me. You’d better bring them along.’

Ten minutes earlier, Dreyfus had been no more of a suspect to me than anyone else. But the power of suggestion is insidious. As the colonel and I walked together along the corridors of the ministry, my imagination began to fill with thoughts of Dreyfus — of his family still living in Germany, of his solitariness and cleverness and arrogance, of his ambition to enter the General Staff and his careful cultivation of senior officers — so much so that by the time we reached General Gonse’s office I had all but convinced myself: Of course he would betray us, because he hates us; he has hated us all along because he isn’t like us, and knows he never will be, for all his money; he is just. .

A regular Jew!

Waiting for us, along with Gonse himself, were Colonel d’Aboville, Colonel Fabre, the chief of the Fourth Department, Colonel Lefort, head of the First, and Colonel Sandherr. I laid Dreyfus’s letters out on Gonse’s desk and stepped back while my superiors crowded around to look. And from that huddle of uniformed backs arose a growing exclamation of shock and conviction: ‘Look how he forms the capital “s” there, and the “j”. . And the small “m” and the “r”, do you see? And the gap between the words is exactly the same. . I’m no expert, but. . No, I’m no expert either, but. . I’d say they’re identical. .’