Colonel Picquart.—“Yes, but my superiors did not absolutely oppose me. I felt that I was not in entire harmony with them, but they did not tell me to stop. Otherwise I would have done my duty as an officer, and would have stopped; or, rather, I do not know exactly what I would have done at that time. But—yes, I would have stopped.”
M. Labori.—“Did Colonel Picquart never receive a formal order to stop?”
Colonel Picquart.—“Never.”
M. Labori.—“In Colonel Picquart’s eyes which was the more damaging evidence against Major Esterhazy, the bordereau or the dispatch?”
Colonel Picquart.—“The bordereau.”
M. Labori.—“Did Colonel Picquart make it known to General Gonse?”
Colonel Picquart.—“Yes.”
M. Labori.—“How, then, could General Gonse say that it was necessary to distinguish the Dreyfus case from the Esterhazy case?”
Colonel Picquart.—“That he said that is true. He said that confusion of the two cases should be avoided so far as possible; that the Esterhazy case should be continued, but that the Dreyfus case should not be mixed up with it.”
M. Labori.—“But, if Major Esterhazy had been recognized as the author of the bordereau, would not the charge against Dreyfus have fallen necessarily?”