The Dreyfus Affair (48 page)

Unwavering in his insistence that Dreyfus was guilty, and as much in command in 1899 as he had been in 1894, Mercier’s political affiliations had changed. As Jean Doise has pointed out, it was Mercier who started the Affair, a man who was said to be inspired by anti-Semitism, but in October 1894 he had been a staunch republican, a free-thinker, married to a Protestant Englishwoman, and ‘had nothing about him of the
chouan
’ (see p. 298).
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Now he was the hero of the nationalist and royalist anti-Dreyfusards, although among these, as the trial had proceeded, there was a growing impatience at Mercier’s delay in producing the document that would settle things once and for all – the photograph of the
bordereau
annotated in the hand of the Kaiser and mentioning Dreyfus by name. Was not the letter from Panizzardi, asked
La Libre Parole
and
La Croix
, forged by Henry to take its place at a time when revealing the real thing would have led to war? Now the time had come to end all procrastination. Mercier must play his trump card.

There was no trump card. Mercier’s confidence that his view would prevail depended not on evidence but on authority. ‘Nothing has been able to shake his faith in his own infallibility,’ wrote Paléologue. ‘The ruins that have accumulated round his handiwork, the most categorical denials, the most devastating disclosures, the troubled consciences of many of the most upright and able men, left him unmoved.’
41
On Saturday, 12 August, General Mercier took the stand. ‘The hall was all agog’, wrote Paléologue, ‘for the dramatic and devastating disclosure that would end the case once and for all. But nothing came but a commonplace account of the case.’ However, General Mercier concluded his four and a half hours of evidence with a personal statement.

I shall now end my deposition, already very long, in thanking you for allowing me to speak for so long.

I want to add only one word. I have not reached my age without learning from sad experience that all that is human is subject to error. In any case, if I am feeble-minded as Monsieur Zola has said, I am at least an honest man and the son of an honest man. Therefore, when I saw the start of the campaign for a retrial, I followed with acute anxiety all the polemics, all the debates which took place during the campaign. If the least doubt had entered my mind, gentlemen, I would be the first to declare and to say before you, Captain Dreyfus: ‘I made an honest mistake.’

Hearing this, Dreyfus got to his feet. ‘That is just what you must say.’

‘I would say to Captain Dreyfus,’ Mercier went on, ‘“I made an honest mistake, and with the same good faith I recognise that mistake, and I will do all that is humanly possible to make up for a terrible error.”’

‘It is your duty,’ shouted Dreyfus.

‘But no. My conviction since 1894 has not changed one jot, and it has been strengthened by a deeper study of the dossier, and also by the futility of the efforts made to prove the innocence of the man convicted in 1894, despite the enormous effort and the many millions foolishly spent.’
42

Mercier would make other interventions in the course of the trial, contradicting the evidence of the former President of the Republic, Jean Casimir-Perier ‘with cold, poisonous – and cruel – impertinence’ on the question of whether France and Germany were close to war on the night of 6 January 1895. But from Dreyfus himself there would be no further outbursts: he was beyond outrage. Paléologue found ‘nothing sadder’ than the spectacle of Dreyfus’s ‘old friends, or rather his old comrades, for even in the days of his prosperity he never had a friend’, giving evidence against him, twisting what he had once said, or questions he had put to them, into evidence of treasonous intent. Dreyfus’s passivity was baffling.

If he were to leap from his chair and protest, the members of the court would be grateful to him. But no, he remains seated, phlegmatic or slightly contemptuous. He is the Jew, accustomed for so many centuries not to rise in protest against outrage. However, two or three times he raised his head, with a strange smile, as if he was saying to himself: ‘Insult me! Humiliate me! What does it matter? Is not my cause that of justice and reason? Am I not at this moment the representative of the race which had the signal privilege of announcing the reign of justice in the world? What contempt all these
goyim
inspire me with.’ Is not this the specific characteristic of Israel through the ages? An immense pride under the mask of humility?
43

On Thursday, 7 September, General Mercier made a final ‘moving’ statement; he was the last witness to be heard. Colonel Jouaust then announced that the hearing of evidence was now concluded, at which point the hundred or so officers in the court rose as one man and marched out of the
salle des fêtes
in good order, ‘with machine-like precision, with measured step and holding their heads erect, as if they were on manoeuvres’.
44
The prosecutor, Major Carrière, then made his closing speech. It was a fiasco – described by the correspondent for
Le Figaro
, Jules Cornély, as ‘more or less incomprehensible drivel’
45
and by Paléologue as ‘twaddle’. ‘The twaddle that he inflicted on us for an hour and a half was so absurd, so flabby, so disjointed, so flat and incoherent, that at least twenty times the shorthand-writers, having hopelessly lost the thread, put down their pens in despair.’ When the court rose, General Chamoin telephoned General Galliffet,
*
the Minister of War, to say that an acquittal was certain.

Then it was the turn of the defence. The differences between Labori and Demange remained, and each had his supporters in the Dreyfusard high command. Picquart and Georges Clemenceau wanted Labori to take the lead and denounce the conspiracy by Mercier and the General Staff. Joseph Reinach and Bernard Lazare wanted Labori to step back; so too did Victor Basch and Jean Jaurès. It was for Mathieu to decide, and he dithered, as conflicting advice came from all directions. Demange thought his colleague should take part in the final peroration, but in the end Labori himself decided that he would remain silent. ‘If I speak,’ he told Mathieu, ‘and if, as I no longer doubt, your poor brother is convicted, they will say that it is my fault, that everything would have been saved without me. I shall remain silent.’
46

Demange started to speak in defence of his client, Alfred Dreyfus, at 7.35 on the morning of Friday, 8 September. His peroration lasted for five hours. All agreed that he spoke well – ‘a fine speech’, judged Paléologue, ‘with no gratuitous eloquence but solid, clear, prudent, moderate, imbued with common sense, and pity’. Lord Russell, too, thought the speech ‘clear, sensible, well constructed’. However, Demange’s strategy remained that of showing great respect for the army and going no further than demonstrating that there was a reasonable doubt. ‘I am sure that doubt will at least have entered your minds,’ he said to the judges, ‘and doubt is enough for you to acquit Dreyfus.’

Had doubt entered their minds? Paléologue, who in the course of the trial had got to know the seven judges, was pessimistic about an acquittal. The presiding judge, Colonel Jouaust, with his ‘hard, martial and intelligent face’, had shown a marked antagonism towards Dreyfus from the beginning. Brogniart, his deputy, and Bréon had confided in Paléologue at the start of the trial the unfavourable impression made on them by the accused. Paléologue had observed the difficulty faced by the judges in their effort ‘to demilitarise their minds’. He was sure the effort would be too great for Commandant Merle who had taken part in the court’s proceedings ‘as he would a review, his head erect, his eyes looking straight to the front and empty. He is not a judge, but a sabre.’ The devout Bréon looked to a higher authority: ‘Every morning and every night the major spends a long time in prayer, praying to God to reveal to him whether Dreyfus is guilty or not.’
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Profillet and Parfait were thought to favour a conviction, Beauvais to be undecided.

That afternoon, at three o’clock, Carrière, the prosecutor, responded to Demange in a short speech prepared by his assistant, Jules Auffray. ‘The law does not ask jurors to account for the ways in which they have reached their beliefs,’ he told the judges. ‘It does not prescribe rules to which they are obliged to submit their sense of the sufficiency of evidence. It asks them only one question, which comprises the full measure of their duty: are you convinced?’

Demange begged Labori to have the final word, but Labori refused. An exhausted Demange therefore made a final plea in favour of Dreyfus: ‘I know . . . that men of the loyalty and rectitude of these military judges will never raise to the level of proof mere possibilities and presumptions . . . Consequently, my last word is the one I have uttered before all of you. I have confidence in you because you are soldiers.’ Dreyfus was asked by Jouaust if he had anything to add.

Pale, patently upset, Dreyfus managed only a few words in a hoarse voice. ‘I am innocent . . . The honour of the name my children bear . . . Your loyalty . . .’ He fell back on his chair, sweat pouring down his face.

‘Is that all you have to say?’ asked Jouaust.

‘Yes,
mon colonel
.’

At 3.15 p.m., the judges withdrew to consider their verdict. While waiting, Maurice Paléologue and General Chamoin walked up and down in a small courtyard smoking cigarettes, as Commandant Carrière tried to keep them amused by telling ‘inept jokes’. At 4.45 a bell rang to signal that the session was due to resume. Paléologue and Chamoin took their seats behind the judges. The auditorium quickly filled with silent spectators. A line of gendarmes had been stationed in front of the platform, and soldiers at the entrance to the hall. The chair in which Alfred Dreyfus had sat throughout the long court martial remained empty: the Military Code stipulated that the accused should not be present when the verdict was given. The judges filed in, ‘all horribly pale’. Choking as he pronounced his first words, Colonel Jouaust declared, ‘In the name of the French people! The court martial, by a majority of five votes to two, declares: Yes, the prisoner is guilty. By a majority, there are attenuating circumstances. As a result of this, the court sentences Alfred Dreyfus to ten years’ detention.’

4: Pardon

Alfred Dreyfus, under guard in a small room, was told of his second conviction by Fernand Labori. ‘You tell him,’ Demange said to Labori. ‘I can’t bring myself to do it.’ ‘Two votes for you,’ Labori told Dreyfus, ‘plus attenuating circumstances. It is a conviction but you won’t return to Devil’s Island, I can promise you that.’

Dreyfus showed no emotion. ‘Take care of my wife and my children,’ he said to Labori.

The same impassive expression remained on his face when, in the corridor outside the room where he had been held, the clerk of the court, Coupois, formally read the sentence. Dreyfus stood, motionless, at attention, then he marched back to his cell in the military prison.

The two votes for an acquittal had been cast by the presiding judge, Colonel Jouaust, and the devout Catholic, Commandant de Bréon. It was no doubt they who had persuaded a majority to mention ‘attenuating circumstances’ which justified the sentence of ten years’ imprisonment rather a return to Devil’s Island. But, as was quickly realised, the concept of ‘attenuating circumstances’ was absurd: if Dreyfus was guilty, he was an out-and-out traitor and merited no mercy.

The tight control of his emotions that Alfred Dreyfus had shown upon hearing of his second conviction was not sustained. When Mathieu visited him the following day, he found him ‘ravaged by suffering’ – his mouth set in a grimace, his features convulsed. He shuddered at the mention of a second degradation: ‘I will never tolerate a new condemnation. I will not put on my uniform again. They will have to drag me out. They will have to take me there by force.’
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The brothers agreed that he should appeal. Henri Mornard drew up the papers which Alfred Dreyfus signed on 9 September 1899.

In Paris, the Prime Minister, Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau, also planned to appeal on behalf of the government on the grounds that the court martial had gone beyond its terms of reference in considering questions, such as Dreyfus’s alleged confession, which had already been dealt with by the Combined Chambers of the Cour de Cassation. His Minister of War, General Galliffet, urged caution: the government should take care not to create a polarity – ‘on one side the entire Army, a majority of the French, and all the agitators; on the other, the cabinet, the Dreyfusards, and the international community’.
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The international community mattered more than Galliffet supposed, and upon hearing the verdict Waldeck-Rousseau consulted not just his Minister of War and the President of the Republic, but also the Foreign Minister, Théophile Delcassé. The news of Dreyfus’s second conviction had produced ‘absolute amazement’ abroad, followed by an outburst of extreme indignation.
50
There were demonstrations in Milan, Naples, Trieste, London and New York. The Germans were baffled: even the ultra-Catholic
Popular Gazette of Cologne
asked if the French had gone mad. The correspondent of
Le Figaro
in London wrote that the news of the verdict ‘produced a profound stupefaction, followed at once by expressions of indignation from everyone that went beyond anything one could imagine. Never have I witnessed such an outburst of anger against our country. I do not approve of them, I merely report faithfully what I have seen and heard in journalistic circles as in the street.’
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