Testimony of M. G. A. Hubbard.
He testified as follows:
“On November 15 my cousin, M. Alphonse Bertillon, came to see me, after having previously made an appointment with me, desiring to inform me concerning certain details of his expert examination of handwriting, and especially concerning the bordereau that had appeared in ‘Le Matin’ a few days before. I was very willing to listen to what he had to say, especially as he made no secret of the matter, and was trying to plant in me the germ of an opinion on matters under public discussion. He gave me a long explanation, which you already know in part from his testimony, but which I did not quite comprehend in all its details, of his plan, his scheme, his comparisons of handwriting, which led him very clearly to the opinion that the original of the bordereau was a tracing from a writing of Dreyfus. He told me that he had had other documents in his hands which had enabled him, by the fitting of margins and other mathematical deductions, to see that this was the only possible conclusion, and he told me that I need not be disturbed by anything that I might hear during the trial. I was left under this impression, and, after that, wherever I found myself, and whenever the matter came up, I made haste to give the opinion that he had given to me and the reasons therefor. When the newspaper published the first fac-simile of the bordereau, then attributed to M. Esterhazy, I remembered the conversation with my cousin, and applied for myself to the handwriting of Major Esterhazy the observations made to me by my cousin upon the bordereau of which he had brought me the photograph. Immediately it appeared to me that the differences which Bertillon had pointed out to me between the bordereau and the writing of Dreyfus disappeared upon comparison with the writing of Esterhazy.
“I was much agitated; so I went to my cousin, and said to him: ‘You came to me in 1896, at the time of the Castelin interpellation, to tell me that you were sure that the bordereau was a tracing from a writing of Dreyfus. Yet here is a writing which seems to me to be that of Esterhazy. I beg you, on your soul and conscience, to make once more the application of your system. After having brought me so decided an opinion previously, you cannot now leave me in doubt, in view of the new charge against a certain Esterhazy.’ Straightway my cousin said to me: ‘I don’t want to see the handwriting; I don’t want to see it. I know it. It is Esterhazy’s. I know that Esterhazy is the Jews’ man of straw, and he will finally confess it. The bordereau is not dated or signed. It would not be a forgery or a swindle, and thus it is hoped to get out of the affair. But I don’t want to see the writing. Besides, there can be, there must be, no revision. A revision would mean civil revolution. The people would go down into the streets. There would be riot. There must be no revision.’
“I answered: ‘That is politics. One may hold that opinion, but it is not scientific criticism; it is not a scientific expert examination based upon a verification of documents. I remember what you told me a year ago. I marked the gravity of your words. You told me, when you came back from the war department with your demonstration, that they would not allow you to testify in a certain way, saying to you: “Your demonstration would tend to the acquittal of Dreyfus.” And now you say that you will not look into the question of handwriting.’ But he still refused to make the comparison, and even added,—I remember that his wife was present at the interview,—‘There are moments when the prefects of police tell you to speak, and there are others when they tell you to be silent.’ I understood that ‘the moments when the prefects of police tell you to speak’ referred to the evening of November, 1896, when he came to me to make his demonstration. I have always been on most friendly terms with my cousin. I have always had the highest esteem for his character, and anything which he could say to me was calculated to carry conviction. But I must say that, as much as I was attached at first to the idea that there was certain proof that the writing of the bordereau was a tracing from the writing of Dreyfus, I later saw that there was reason to doubt, and that the writing of Esterhazy bore a resemblance to it that could not be attributed simply to chance. The incidents that have occurred since in the chamber and in the senate troubled me much. Then came the partial closed doors of the Esterhazy trial, and the failure to reveal to the public the testimony of the experts, which I especially awaited in order to compare it with what my cousin had said, and my trouble became only the greater. And when, in the chamber, M. Jaurès asked the prime minister if a secret document had been communicated, I considered that the silence of the government gave consent. General Iung, my friend and colleague in the chamber, entertained the same distrust, and very squarely declared that the conduct of the war offices had been abominable.”
Testimony of M. Yves Guyot.
The witness-stand was then taken by M. Yves Guyot, who testified concerning a lesson in expert examination of handwriting which he had received from M. Bertillon.
“M. Bertillon told me that there were two kinds of handwriting,—sinistrogyrate and dextrogyrate. It seems that in sinistrogyrate writing the loops turn to the left, while in dextrogyrate writing the curves and loops turn to the right. I confess that today it would be as impossible for me to tell one from the other as it was before I received the lesson. Then I said to M. Bertillon: ‘Well, when you compared the incriminated document with the writing of the accused, you doubtless found that the two documents were in the sinistrogyrate writing?’ ‘Not at all,’ said he; ‘the writing of the accused is dextrogyrate, while that of the incriminated document is sinistrogyrate; but I saw by certain contractions of the pen that the accused had disguised his handwriting, changing his dextrogyrate writing into sinistrogyrate writing.’ ‘Then,’ said I, ‘it is not because of identity of writing that you attribute the document to the accused, but because of a difference in writing.’ ‘Yes,’ he said. I answered that I was surprised that he should make such a declaration on such a basis. ‘Pardon me,’ said he, ‘I did not conduct the examination. I proposed that other means should be employed. I said, for instance, that a chemical composition could be put in the inkstand of the accused, and if, after that, a document was found, a test with the chemical reagent would show whether the document was written with ink from that inkstand. I also indicated four or five other ways of determining whether the accused was guilty, but they did not follow my advice. I simply gave my opinion, declaring that a document written in a sinistrogyrate writing must be the work of a man whose writing is dextrogyrate.’”
M. Guyot was then asked his opinion of M. Zola’s good faith. He answered:
“Gentlemen, I have a very clear opinion of my own, and this opinion I share with the intellectual élite of France. Moreover, as I was a member of the cabinet for three years, I am more or less intimate with personnel of the departments. Well, there I find many men who do not hesitate to say in private conversation that the Esterhazy trial was a parody on justice. And not only do these persons believe in M. Zola’s good faith, but so do many foreigners—specialists and men of science—with whom I am in relations. The truth is known beyond our frontiers, and will be appreciated there, though we stifle it here. In foreign countries the military officers and the diplomatists understand the Esterhazy case exactly.”