M. Labori.—“It is proved.”
M. Clemenceau.—“We have tried to prove it, and have been prevented, and, if General de Pellieux wishes me to explain further, I am ready to do so.”
The Judge.—“It is useless.”
M. Labori.—“It is proved by M. Salle; it is proved by M. Demange; it is proved by publications in the newspapers that have not been contradicted; it is proved by General Mercier, who did not dare to look me in the face and say the contrary, though I had sent him, through the newspapers of the day before, a challenge which he has answered by silence, which he answered by a distinction which in itself alone is a decisive proof, for, when I said: ‘General Mercier delivered a document to the council of war, and has boasted of it publicly everywhere,’ General Mercier, throwing another equivocation into the debate,—I do not say wilfully, perhaps unconsciously,—answered; ‘That is not true,’ and I said to him: ‘What is not true,—that you have not said it everywhere, or that you did not deliver the document?’ and he answered me: ‘Simply that I have not boasted of it everywhere.’ So I say that to every honest mind the proof is made, and the proof that the proof is made is that no one has risen to say what General de Pellieux will not dare to say. I defy him to say it. Well, I say that the proof is made.”
General de Pellieux.—“How do you expect me to say what happened in the Dreyfus trial? I was not there.”
M. Labori.—“It is well. I thank you, my general.”
M. Clemenceau.—“We brought here a witness who had it from the lips of one of the members of the council of war that a secret document was communicated to the judges. We were not allowed to question him.”
M. Labori.—“I have two letters that say the same thing, and I have another letter from a friend of the president of the republic, declaring that he will not come to testify, because he has been warned that, if he tells the truth, they will declare him a liar.”
M. Clemenceau.—“As to the secret document, why did not General Billot show it to M. Scheurer-Kestner when that gentleman went to see him? In that case the whole matter would have been finished by this time.”
Cutting the matter short, the court called the next witness. It was Major Esterhazy. He advanced to the bar, and rested himself upon it, facing the jury. A guard followed him, stopping a little distance away. But M. Labori insisted that the trial could not go on until the declarations of General de Pellieux had been either overthrown or confirmed, and, General de Boisdeffre not having arrived, the court postponed the hearing of Major Esterhazy to the following day, and an adjournment was declared.