“The second point that struck me was the attitude toward Lieutenant-Colonel Picquart. The most violent charges were made against him. He was accused of forgeries and of all sorts of base and guilty manœuvres, and the accusations were public. The report that embodied charges against him was read publicly, and, when the time came for Lieutenant-Colonel Picquart to defend himself, those who reproach M. Zola with assailing the honor of the army deprived this officer, thus publicly accused, of the opportunity of a public defence. I say that this is a serious matter. Here, before the jury, before this audience, all the charges against Colonel Picquart have been produced, and I shall be careful—for I have not the right, and it is not my affair—not to say a word concerning the substance of these charges. But, though he was accused in the presence of the country, in the presence of the jurors, who are the legal conscience of the country, he was allowed also to defend himself in the presence of the country and in the presence of the jurors. I ask the jurors who heard the charges of General de Pellieux against Colonel Picquart what they would have thought, if, after having given General de Pellieux the floor to crush Colonel Picquart, they had refused Colonel Picquart the right to defend himself publicly? Well, gentlemen, it was that that happened in the Esterhazy trial. Let them not plead again the necessity of the national defence, of national secrecy, since here, without ever compromising the national defence, and without the escape of a single terrible secret, Colonel Picquart has been allowed to defend himself publicly, as he was publicly attacked. It is precisely this outrageous contrast between the publicity of an attack upon a man and the closed doors ordered during his defence that has caused consciences to revolt,—I speak not only of my own, but of those of many independent men who are not in public life, professors, my school-comrades, men who have been absorbed throughout their lives in disinterested investigations,—and that has determined them in great numbers to throw off their reserve and their neutrality, and go down into the streets in defence of the right. Well, M. Zola felt as others felt, and no more than others have felt, the natural and legitimate indignation which such methods excite.
“But, gentlemen, there was a third very disturbing fact in the Esterhazy case,—namely, the absence of any serious investigation regarding the history of the veiled lady and the method by which the secret document was conveyed to M. Esterhazy. Really, we must be strangely blasé regarding certain things, or else arrogant affirmations must have the power of entirely destroying our critical and thoughtful disposition, if this fact does not agitate and trouble us. There is a secret document. This document concerns the national defence. It has, it seems, an international value. It might plunge our country into diplomatic difficulties. It is locked in the securest manner in the most secret and the most carefully guarded closet of the most remote sanctuary of the staff. And yet a photograph of this secret document is conveyed by melodramatic processes, through a mysterious woman, who transmits it to an officer previously notified, and the military authority, guardian of the national secrecy, guardian of the security of the country,—the military authority does not even outline the beginning of an investigation into the movements of this document. Really, it is singular. And why has it not done so? Why? Because the investigation would surely have shown that this photograph of the secret document could not have been transmitted to M. Esterhazy except by design of the staff, and for two decisive reasons. The first is that, if the staff had not known that this document was communicated to Major Esterhazy by the staff itself; if there had not been an evident connivance on the part of the general staff and of Major Esterhazy,—then, when Major Esterhazy, responsible officer of military discipline, presented himself at the war department to return a secret document without explaining how it came into his possession, the first care and the first duty of the general staff would have been to arrest Major Esterhazy. The second reason is that this document, I beg the jurors to remember, could have had no interest for Esterhazy, unless he knew that it came from the staff. In fact, of what was he accused? He was accused of having written the bordereau. Now, how could the possession of a document containing these words: ‘That scoundrel D——,’ help Esterhazy to show that he did not write the bordereau? This secret document, thus passed to Esterhazy, could not have been useful to him because of its contents. It could have been useful to him only because of the source whence it came to him. It could have been useful to him only as informing him that the staff was watching over him, that the staff was determined not to call the matter in question, that the staff was arranging a new plan of campaign, that it would not allow itself to be beaten, and that he, Esterhazy, protected by his chiefs, should rest easy, should not lose foot or head, should not be disturbed, should not make any confession. Such was the only possible interest of the document communicated to Esterhazy. It was not a cartridge that the staff sent him, but a cordial on the eve of battle,—on the eve, that is, of the trial.
“Thus it appears throughout the Esterhazy trial, in the closed doors for the hearing of the expert testimony, in the strangulation behind closed doors practised upon Colonel Picquart, in the absence of all investigation as to the conveyance of the secret document,—it appears everywhere that the trial was conducted, not with a view to truth and justice, but for the systematic justification of the military chiefs. And then, gentlemen of the jury, the country has the more right to be agitated and indignant, because they make use of the noblest words to mislead it. There are no words more beautiful, more grand, more sacred, than those of country, national defence, national honor. But it is precisely because these words are the holiest and the grandest known to the tongues of men that they have no right to profane them and to prostitute them in covering up tricks of procedure. No, no! This profanation of the country was enough to stir up all French souls and all upright consciences.
“And now why have citizens like Zola, and many others with him, thrown themselves into the battle, uttering this cry of their emotion and their conscience? Because the responsible powers, consecrated to intrigue and to impotence, did not act, did not come to the front. Was it not the first duty of the legislators and the governors, from the hour that the report was spread that a secret document had been communicated to the judges in a criminal trial without being communicated to the accused and to his counsel,—was it not the first duty of the legislators and the governors to find out whether this violation of republican law and of human rights had been committed? And why did they not do it? On this point we have endeavored to obtain from the responsible government the declarations that it owed to the country. This violation of law and of right has been alluded to from the tribune of the senate. I have ventured to put the question from the tribune of the chamber, squarely asking the prime minister: ‘Yes or no, has a document of interest to an accused person, capable of establishing or confirming his guilt,—yes or no, has such a document been communicated to the judges without being communicated to the accused and to his counsel?’ and I have been able to obtain no precise reply.
“They always take refuge in that equivocation, the legal truth. Oh! yes, it is legal truth that a man is guilty when he has been legally condemned, and it is also legal truth, it seems, that this man is guilty and has been legally judged when his appeal for revision has been rejected. But that does not tell us whether the communication of a secret document, outside of all legal guarantees,—a communication unknown at the time of the appeal for revision,—has been made or not. And to this question, put by the responsible representatives of the country to the responsible government, why have they steadily refused to make a clear reply? I am mistaken. M. Méline, the prime minister, has answered me: ‘I cannot reply without serving your designs.’ It seems that in the country of the Declaration of the Rights of Man it is a design to affirm that a person may not be judged on the strength of secret documents. But he said to me (and his words are in ‘L’Officiel’): ‘You shall be answered elsewhere.’ Elsewhere! I thought that it would be in the assize court; and it is true that here, by surprise as it were, the truth has finally come to light. But I do not know that any of the responsible representatives of power have come here any more than to parliament to answer the question that the country has a right to put, and it is really prodigious that a country which believes itself free cannot know whether the law has been respected, either in the palace where the law is made, or in the palace where it is enforced.
“Everybody foresaw this violation. There were not four deputies in the chamber who doubted it; why do they not speak of it, and why do they not act? The other day, when I put this decisive question very simply, I was sustained by a little group of friends,—fifteen or twenty,—but in the chamber as a whole there was a passive silence. Yet, when I descended from the tribune into the lobbies, where the parliamentary soul recovers its elasticity and its liberty, deputies without number, of all groups and of all parties, said to me: ‘You are right, but what a pity that this matter was brought up a few months before the election!’ Well, I believe that they are mistaken. I believe that, in spite of all the passing fogs, in spite of all the insults and all the threats,—I believe that this country is yet to have the light and truth. But, if the truth is to be vanquished, it is better to be vanquished with it, than to become an accomplice in all these equivocations and humiliations.
“But, gentlemen, there has been not simply a violation of the law. This violation has taken place in particularly aggravating circumstances. Not only has a minister of war communicated a secret document under illegal conditions, but he has not even taken what I will call human precautions against error. He has not even consulted the cabinet.
“I have heard M. Charles Dupuy, I have heard M. Delcassé,—and here I violate the professional secret of others,—I have heard these gentlemen, who were then a part of the cabinet to which General Mercier belonged, declare that there was no mention in the cabinet of any secret document except the bordereau; that there was no allusion to the other secret documents of which there has been talk since. Well, gentlemen of the jury, this shows not only that the communication was illegal, but that a single man, without official consultation with his friends, took it upon himself to throw into the scales of the trial a document whose value he alone had dared to measure. I say that this man, in spite of the brilliancy of his service and of his stripes, in spite of the arrogance of power, is a man,—that is, a miserable and fragile being, made of darkness and of pride, of weakness and of error; and I do not understand how it is that in this country of law a single man has ventured to assume, upon his single conscience, upon his single reason, upon his single head, to decide upon the life, liberty, and honor of another man. And I say that, if such customs and such habits were to be tolerated in our country, there would be an end to liberty and justice.
“And that is why citizens like M. Zola have done right in rising to protest. While the government, imprisoned in its own devices, intrigued or equivocated; while parliamentary parties, imprisoned in their own fears, kept silence or abdicated; while military justice set up the arbitrary régime of closed doors,—citizens rose in their pride, in their liberty, in their independence, to protest against the violation of right, and thereby have done the greatest service to our country that they possibly could do.
“Oh! I know very well that M. Zola must suffer for this noble service, and I know also why certain men hate and pursue him. They pursue in him the man who has maintained the rational and scientific interpretation of the miracle; they pursue in him the man who has predicted in ‘Germinal’ the flowering of a new humanity, the springing-up of the wretched prolétariat from the depths of suffering to the sunlight; they pursue in him the man who has just torn the staff from that baneful and arrogant irresponsibility in which unconsciously the way is paved for all the disasters of the country. They may pursue him and hunt him down, but I believe that I express the feeling of all free citizens in saying that before him we respectfully bow.”