The Judge.—“To stamp a letter; not with the date of its arrival, but with an earlier date.”
M. Gribelin.—“My colonel, let me refresh your memory. You re-entered your office at two o’clock. You sent for me and, as you were taking off your overcoat, you said: ‘Gribelin, could you get the post-office to stamp a letter?’ You did not add a word. You never spoke of the matter afterward. But, on my honor as a soldier, that is the truth, and you know that I never lie.”
Colonel Picquart.—“That I know, but I answer as follows. It has very often happened that Gribelin and I have talked of the way in which letters could be sent to spies. Well, it is possible that one of these recollections is in his mind. But I say that I have no recollection of it at all.”
The Judge.—“But did you not ask this information of Major Lauth almost in the same terms?”
Colonel Picquart.—“I? Oh, never, never, never!”
The court recalled M. Lauth, who repeated his accusation as follows:
“On the very day when Colonel Picquart spoke to me on the subject of removing the traces of tear, he said to me: ‘Do you think that they would stamp this document at the post-office?’ I answered him that they would not be very obliging in such a matter, and that I did not think they would do it.”
The Judge.—“You see, it is almost the same thing.”
Colonel Picquart.—“Does Major Lauth remember that, in his written deposition regarding the proposition which he declares that I made to him that he should say that the handwriting of the dispatch was that of such or such a person, he said: ‘This document has no authentic character; it must have the stamp of the post-office.’”
M. Lauth.—“‘In order that it may have an authentic character, it must have a stamp’; and I added: ‘It is a handwriting that I do not know.’ Colonel Picquart never asked me to certify to my recognition of the dispatch. He said: ‘You will be there to verify that it is the handwriting of such or such a person.’ That is what he said to me, and I answered: ‘I never saw this handwriting, and cannot certify that it is the handwriting of such or such a person.’”