M. Teyssonnière.—“No, but I felt that he was endeavoring to get me to express a doubt as to the conclusions of my report. He buried that in my brain as with a gimlet.”
On the demand of M. Labori, M. Trarieux was recalled for confrontation with M. Teyssonnière.
M. Trarieux.—“When M. Teyssonnière, who had been sent to me by his deputy, M. Descubes, came to tell me of his disgrace, he said that he had been denounced by a Jewish magistrate. I asked the judge of the civil court who had revoked him to restore him to his position. This magistrate explained that M. Teyssonnière had asked of a client an advance payment of 2,000 francs, that certain experts were in the habit of making these demands, and that an example must be made of some one. I fully approved, but I asked him if M. Teyssonnière was unworthy of my interest. Receiving a negative reply, I went to the president of the appellate court, and asked him to inscribe M. Teyssonnière on his list of experts, which he did.”
M. Teyssonnière.—“And I shall always be grateful to you. Investigation showed, however, that, far from having asked 2,000 francs too much, I was a loser by 600 francs.”
M. Trarieux.—“I remained on excellent terms with M. Teyssonnière. He came to see me several times. We talked of the Dreyfus case, and I saw that he had been much more struck by the dissimilarities between the writing of Dreyfus and the bordereau than by the similarities. In the course of one of our discussions M. Bertillon was mentioned. ‘Bertillon!’ exclaimed M. Teyssonnière; ‘he nearly spoiled everything. He made an incomprehensible report. Fortunately I was there.’ I sent M. Teyssonnière to M. Scheurer-Kestner, who, though at first convinced by his demonstration, soon afterwards was impressed, as I was, by certain dissimilarities, especially by certain double ss, which were written fs in the Dreyfus writing and sf in the bordereau. M. Teyssonnière maintained that these dissimilarities were intentional.
“Last June M. Teyssonnière came to me to tell me of a strange occurrence. The night before, as he was leaving his house, he found on the table in his vestibule a package that had been left there by an unknown hand. He opened it, and was astonished to find the photographs of Dreyfus’s handwriting that had been given to him to report upon in 1894. ‘How is it,’ he asked, ‘that these documents, which I surely returned, have been left at my house? It is the work of the Jews. They are trying to compromise me.’ I advised him to return the documents to the minister of war, or put them in a safe place. I do not know whether it was the same day or later that he told me that he had had occasion to go to the war offices for a certain piece of information, and had been received very unfavorably, the officer to whom he applied saying to him that he was astonished that M. Teyssonnière dared to show himself there. M. Teyssonnière was at a loss to understand such an attitude toward an expert whose testimony in the Dreyfus case had won him the congratulations of the staff.
“Last November I was told that M. Teyssonnière was suspected by the government of having communicated to ‘Le Matin’ the bordereau of which ‘Le Matin’ gave a fac-simile in November. Till then my confidence in M. Teyssonnière had been complete. But, beginning now to entertain doubt, I wrote about the matter to his deputy, M. Descubes, who sent my letter to M. Teyssonnière. Nevertheless I heard nothing more from him.”
Testimony of M. Charavay.
The second expert was succeeded on the witness-stand by the third, M. Charavay.
M. Labori.—“Can M. Charavay tell us whether the bordereau was traced, or written in a running hand?”