An Officer and a Spy (55 page)

Is the transcript accurate? Labori thinks not, but I have little doubt. Just because the government lies about some things, it doesn’t mean they lie about everything. I can hear Henry’s voice rising off the page better than any playwright could imitate it—bombastic, sulky, wheedling, cunning, stupid.

In the darkness of my cell I play out this scene again and again. I see Cavaignac behind his desk—the overambitious young minister: the fanatic with the temerity to believe he could end the affair
once and for all and who now finds himself tripped up by his own hubris. I see Gonse’s hand trembling as he smokes and watches the interrogation. I see Boisdeffre by the window staring into the middle distance, as immutably aloof as one of the stone lions that no doubt guard the gate of his family château. And I see Henry occasionally looking round at his chiefs in mute appeal as the questions rain down on him:
Help me!
But of course they say nothing.

And then I picture Henry’s expression when Cavaignac—not a soldier but a civilian Minister of War—orders him to be arrested on the spot and taken to Mont-Valérien, where he is locked up in the same rooms that I occupied in the winter. The next day, after a sleepless night, he writes to Gonse (
I have the honour of requesting you to agree to come and see me here: I absolutely must speak to you
) and to his wife (
My adored Berthe, I see that except for you everyone is going to abandon me and yet you know in whose interest I acted
).

I visualise him stretched out on his bed at noon, drinking a bottle of rum—which was the last time he was seen alive—and again six hours later, when a lieutenant and an orderly enter the room and find him still lying on the same bed saturated in blood, his body already cold and stiff, his throat slit twice with a razor, which (an odd detail, this) is clenched in his left hand even though he is right-handed.

But between these two scenes, between noon and six—between Henry alive and Henry dead—my imagination fails me. Labori believes he was murdered, like Lemercier-Picard, to keep him quiet, and that his killing was staged to look like a suicide. He cites medical friends of his who state that it is physically impossible for a person to sever their carotid artery on both sides. But I am not convinced that murder would have been necessary, not with Henry. He would have known what was expected of him after Boisdeffre and Gonse both failed to raise their voices in his defence.

You order me to shoot a man and I’ll shoot him
.

That afternoon, at the same time as Henry’s lifeblood is flowing out of him, Boisdeffre is writing to the Minister of War:

He retires at once to Normandy.

Three days later Cavaignac also resigns, albeit defiantly (
I remain convinced of the guilt of Dreyfus and as resolute as ever to fight against a revision of the trial
); Pellieux submits his resignation; Gonse is transferred out of the Ministry of War and goes back to his regiment on half pay.

I assume, like most people, that it is all over: that if Henry could have arranged the forging of one document, it will be accepted that he could have done it many times, and that the case against Dreyfus has collapsed.

But the days pass, Dreyfus stays on Devil’s Island and I remain in La Santé. And gradually it becomes apparent that even now the army will not acknowledge its mistake. I am refused parole. Instead I receive a notification that I will stand trial with Louis in three weeks’ time in an ordinary criminal court for illegally transmitting secret documents.

On the eve of the hearing Labori visits me in prison. Normally he is ebullient, even aggressive; today he looks worried. “I have some bad news, I’m afraid. The army are bringing fresh charges against you.”

“What now?”

“Forgery.”

“They’re accusing
me
of forgery?”

“Yes, of the
petit bleu
.”

I can only laugh. “You have to credit them with a sense of humour.”

But Labori refuses to join in. “They will argue that a military
investigation into forgery takes precedence over a civil proceeding. It’s a tactic to get you into army custody. My guess is the judge will agree.”

“Well,” I shrug, “I suppose one prison is much like another.”

“That’s precisely where you’re wrong, my friend. The regime at Cherche-Midi is much harsher than here. And I don’t like the thought of you in the clutches of the army—who can tell what accidents might befall you?”

The next day when I am taken into the criminal court of the Seine I ask the judge if I can make a statement. The courtroom is small and jammed with journalists—not just French, but international: I can even see the bald dome and massive side-whiskers of the most famous foreign correspondent in the world, Monsieur de Blowitz of the London
Times
. It is to the reporters that I address my remarks.

“This evening,” I say, “I may well be taken to Cherche-Midi, so this is probably the last time that I can speak in public before the secret investigation. I want it to be known that if Lemercier-Picard’s shoelaces or Henry’s razor are ever found in my cell, it will be murder, for never would a man such as I, even for one instant, contemplate suicide. I shall face this accusation, my head held high, and with the same serenity that I have always shown before my accusers.”

To my surprise there is loud applause from the reporters, and I am escorted out of the chamber to shouts of
“Vive Picquart!” “Vive la verité!” “Vive la justice!”

Labori’s prediction is correct: the army wins the right to deal with me first, and the following day I am taken to Cherche-Midi—to be locked, I am told with relish, in the very same cell in which poor Dreyfus used to bash his head against the wall exactly four years before.

I am kept in solitary confinement, forbidden most visitors and let out for only an hour a day into a tiny yard, six paces square, surrounded by high walls. I crisscross it, back and forth, from corner to corner, and circle the edge, like a mouse trapped in the bottom of a well.

The accusation is that I scratched off the original addressee of the telegram-card and wrote in Esterhazy’s name myself. The offence carries a sentence of five years. The questioning goes on for weeks.

Tell us the circumstances in which you came into possession of the
petit bleu …

Fortunately, I haven’t forgotten that I asked Lauth to make photographic copies of the
petit bleu
soon after it was pieced together: eventually these are fetched and show clearly that the address had not been tampered with at that time; only subsequently was it altered as part of the conspiracy to frame me. Still I am kept in Cherche-Midi. Pauline writes, asking to visit me; I tell her not to—it might get into the papers, and besides, I don’t want her to see me in this condition; I find it easier to endure it alone. Occasionally the boredom is alleviated by trips to court. In November I lay out the whole of my evidence yet again, this time to the twelve senior judges of the Criminal Chamber, who are beginning the civil process of considering whether the verdict against Dreyfus is safe.

My continued detention without trial becomes notorious. Clemenceau, who is allowed to visit me, proposes in
L’Aurore
“the nomination of Picquart to the post of Grand Prisoner of State, vacant since the Man in the Iron Mask.” At night, after they have turned out my light and I can no longer read, I can hear demonstrations both for and against me in the rue Cherche-Midi. The prison has to be protected by seven hundred troops; the hooves of the cavalry clatter down the cobbled streets. I receive thousands of letters of support, including one from the old Empress Eugénie. So embarrassing does this become to the government that Labori is told by officials of the Ministry of Justice that he should ask the civil courts to intervene and release me. I refuse to permit him to do so: I am more useful as a hostage. Every day that I am locked up, the more desperate and vindictive the army looks.

Months pass, and then on the afternoon of Saturday, 3 June 1899, Labori comes to see me. Outside the sun is shining strongly, penetrating even the grime and bars of the tiny window; I can hear a bird singing. He puts a large and inky palm to the metal grille and says, “Picquart, I want to shake your hand.”

“Why?”

“Must you always be so damned contrary?” He rattles the steel mesh with his long, thick fingers. “Come: for once, just do as I ask.” I place my palm to his and he says quietly, “Congratulations, Georges.”

“On what?”

“The Supreme Court of Appeal has ordered the army to bring Dreyfus back for a retrial.”

I have waited for this news for so long, and yet when it comes I feel nothing. All I can say is, “What reasons did they give?”

“They cite two, both drawn from your evidence: first, that the ‘lowlife D’ letter
doesn’t
actually refer to Dreyfus and shouldn’t have been shown to the judges without informing the defence, and second, that—how do they put it? Oh yes, here’s the line: ‘facts unknown to the original court-martial tend to show that the
bordereau
could not have been written by Dreyfus.’ ”

“What language you lawyers talk!” I savour the legalese on my tongue as if it were a delicacy: “ ‘Facts unknown to the original court-martial tend to show …’ And the army can’t appeal against this?”

“No. It’s done. A warship is on its way to pick up Dreyfus now and bring him back for a new court-martial. And this time it won’t be in secret—this time the whole world will be watching.”

I am released from gaol the following Friday, on the same day that Dreyfus is disembarked from Devil’s Island and begins the long voyage back to France aboard the warship
Sfax
. In light of the Supreme Court ruling, all charges against me are dropped. Edmond is waiting for me with his latest toy, a motorcar, parked outside the prison gates to drive me back to Ville-d’Avray. I refuse to speak to the journalists who surround me on the pavement.

The abrupt change in my fortunes disorientates me. The colours and noises of Paris in the early summer, the sheer
aliveness
of it, the smiling faces of my friends, the lunches and dinners and receptions that have been organised in my honour—all this after the solitary gloom and stale stink of my cell is overwhelming. It is only when I am with other people that I realise how much I have been affected. I find making conversation with more than one person bewildering; my voice is reedy in my ears; I am breathless. When Edmond takes me up to my room, I am unable to climb the stairs without pausing on every third or fourth step and clinging on to the handrail: the muscles that control my knees and ankles have atrophied. In the mirror I look pale and fat. Shaving, I discover white hairs in my moustache.

Edmond and Jeanne invite Pauline to stay and tactfully give her the room next to mine. She holds my hand under the table during dinner and afterwards, when the household is asleep, she comes into my bed. The softness of her body is both familiar and strange, like the memory of something once lived and lost. She is finally divorced; Philippe has been posted abroad at his request; she has her own apartment; the girls are living with her.

We lie in the candlelight, facing each other.

I stroke the hair from her face. There are lines around her eyes and mouth that weren’t there before. I have known her since she was a girl, I realise. We have grown old together. I am suddenly overwhelmed by tenderness towards her. “So you’re a free woman?”

“I am.”

“Would you like me to ask you to marry me?”

A pause.

“Not particularly.”

“Why not?”

“Because, my darling, if that is how you choose to pose the question, I don’t think there’s much point, do you?”

“I’m sorry. I’m not much used to any sort of conversation, let alone this kind. Let me try again. Will you marry me?”