“21 bis, Rue de Bruxelles.”
The drawing of the jury was then proceeded with. Three challenges were used by the prosecution, and seven by the defence, the jurors finally selected being as follows:
Foreman, Auguste Dutrieux, merchant; Auguste Leblond, roof-builder; Pierre Emery, merchant; Bernier, molder in copper; Edouard Gressin, clerk; Bouvier, proprietor; Albert Chevanier, wine merchant; Nigon, leather-dresser; Charles Fouquet, seedsman; Joseph Moureire, wire-drawer; Charles Huet, market-gardener; Brunot, linen-draper. Supplementary jurors: Antoine Jourde, tradesman; Alfred Boucreux, butcher.
Then began the reading of the documents in the case by the clerk, the only one of interest being the complaint of Gen. Billot. Referring to M. Zola’s letter, the complainant declared:
This article contains a series of insults and slanders directed against two ministers of war, general officers, and army officers of all grades under their orders. Chiefs and subordinates are above such outrages, and the opinion of parliament, of the country, and of the army has already placed them beyond reach of attack. Though the minister of war does not consider it his duty to lodge a complaint for the persons above referred to, any more than for the council of war which rendered the verdict of 1894, the authority of which must remain intact, we cannot admit any suspicion of the independence of military justice or any accusation that it rendered on January 11 in obedience to orders an iniquitous sentence and committed a judicial error in knowingly acquitting a guilty man. Consequently I have the honor to lodge a complaint against the gérant of “L’Aurore” and M. Emile Zola on account of the defamation directed against the first council of war of the military government of Paris, which at its sessions of January 10 and 11, 1898, declared the acquittal of Major Esterhazy.
After the reading of the documents, Attorney-General Van Cassel took the floor to make what he described as “a statement of the case,” speaking as follows:
“The minister of war has taken notice, in his complaint, of the imputation cast by M. Emile Zola upon the first council of war of having acquitted Major Esterhazy in obedience to orders. The summons could not go beyond the terms of the complaint. It is natural that every complainant should circumscribe the grievances for which he demands reparation. Otherwise it would be too easy for the accused to turn the discussion from its proper course, and create a diversion for the audience, which is the great art in the assize court. A single question is submitted to you, gentlemen of the jury: Did the first council of war act in obedience to orders in acquitting Major Esterhazy? The other imputation contained in M. Zola’s article the minister of war holds in contempt. Nevertheless the accused assert the right to discuss all the allegations contained in the article. Their avowed plan is to make you judges of the legality of the sentence passed upon Dreyfus. We shall not permit it. I warn them that any attempt on their part to provoke a sort of indirect revision of the Dreyfus case would be illegal and futile. No one has a right to indirectly call in question the thing judged. Our legislation, in its desire to avoid judicial error, has laid down rules for revision. These rules were broadened by the law of 1895. This law was passed prior to the trial of Dreyfus. Why have the accused not availed themselves of it? Why have they not attempted revision by the legal methods? They have not done so. They have tried to secure the conviction of a second officer on account of the crime of which Dreyfus was convicted. They have failed in their undertaking. Since then no new fact has been produced; no unknown document of such a nature as to establish the innocence of the condemned has been revealed to justice. In the absence of material wherewith to secure a legal revision, they wish—I use the words of M. Emile Zola—to provoke a revolutionary revision. The court will not lend itself to this manœuvre. Respect for the thing judged requires that the discussion be circumscribed to the single matter of which the minister of war takes notice in his complaint. Therefore no evidence can be admitted here except such as tends to prove the charges relating to the pretended iniquity committed in obedience to orders in 1898 by the military judges of Major Esterhazy. Accusations foreign to this special matter must remain outside of the discussion. I ask, then, that the accused may not be authorized to attempt proof thereof, either by documents or by testimony. The charges preferred by them against the officers, the witnesses, the experts, the members of the council of war of 1894, which convicted Dreyfus, have no connection with the defamation of the council of war of 1898.”
To this contention M. Labori made the following reply:
“I am not much astonished, gentlemen, at the difficulties which M. Zola meets in this affair, and I expect that this incident, which is the first, will not be the last. We expected that they would offer to you and impose upon us a restricted discussion. Such was the desire of the minister of war, and it was his right. It will be ours, at a certain moment, to ask what could have been the underlying reasons for the exercise of this right under the circumstances in which the minister of war has made use of it. However that may be, it was his right, and I do not deny it. But, gentlemen, I do not believe that the form of the complaint within which he confines himself involves the consequences which he has hoped for.”
Reading then all the charges made at the end of M. Zola’s letter, M. Labori continued: