M. Labori.—“I do not ask the floor to plead. Nevertheless it is fitting that the defence should say a word in answer to the attorney-general, and I thank the court for allowing me for once to take the floor.” [Murmurs of protest in the court-room.]
The Judge.—“For ten sessions this has been going on.”
M. Labori.—“What has been going on, and what is increasing, is the unfitting manifestations which the court makes no effort to suppress. The attorney-general seeks shelter behind the words that he uttered on the opening day. He has seen nothing of what has been going on during the last ten days, if he thinks that we are still at the point where we were when he rose for the first time, on February 7, 1898. The facts have taken it upon themselves to prove that, in presence of a situation so serious as this, procedure and its subtleties are of no avail. I said, when I rose the first time: ‘Do you imagine that you can stop a torrent by placing yourself in the middle of it?’ You see that this torrent flows on. But the attorney-general could not have chosen a more inopportune moment for placing himself in opposition to the full explanations that we desire. Was it the accused who threw into the trial the incredible declarations that were heard here yesterday, and that could not resist ten minutes’ examination? We have nothing to do with them. Generals have come here every day to plead, not only with the oratorical talent that some of them possess, but with their authority, with their uniform, with their stripes, with their decorations” ...
The Judge.—“I shall take the floor from you, if you go on in that tone; it the last degree of impropriety.”
M. Labori.—“I do not accept the word ‘impropriety.’ There is nothing improper in my words. I say that these generals have come here to plead. Is that improper? I say that they have pleaded here not only with their talent. Is that improper?”
The Judge.—“No.”
M. Labori.—“I say that they have pleaded also with all the authority given them by the love of this country for its flag, which it wrongly confounds with them, for the flag is to be confounded with nobody. The flag is a symbol. [Cries of Enough! Enough!] Silence for those who do not respect justice in default of respect for defence. Really, who is it that is guilty of impropriety here, I ask?”
The Judge.—“The impropriety is in exciting the protests that you excite.”
M. Labori.—“Pardon me, this trial has now risen to such a point that such opinions as those which you have just uttered, Monsieur le Président, have no weight with me, whatever my respect for your functions. And you shall not stop me, except by depriving me of the floor. It would not be the first time, and, if the trial goes on in this way, I am afraid that it will not be the last. That said, I resume my explanations at the point where I left off. I say that the attorney-general could not have chosen more inopportune circumstances to remind us of his words on the opening day. These generals have brought into the trial, not facts, but assertions, which we are forbidden, I do not say to contradict, but to discuss and examine. This is not the moment to protest against the revision that we desire. Ah! yes, in spite of all obstacles, by virtue of the forces that truth and the sentiment of justice impart, we have been making this revision here for the last ten days, and it is because we are making it so successfully that by violent, morally violent, and illegal means they are trying from day to day, by demolishing each stone of the edifice that is rising in spite of everything, to make against us a sort of counter-revision. Well, there shall be no counter-revision here, unless we have the right to reply. The debate has now risen far above the condemned man on Devil’s Island, who is interesting not because of his suffering, for there are so many men who suffer, and in so many different ways, that one more or less does not make much difference. He is interesting only because he suffers in violation of law, by a verdict rendered in the name of the people, in the name of the country. The trial has risen far above Esterhazy, far above M. Zola and M. Perrenx. It has risen above everybody. It is justice, liberty, and right that are now in question, and it is in their name that I offer in abstracto the motion which I have just offered.
“You also, gentlemen of the court, have responsibilities here. Do not answer our motion by equivocations. Do not say that I have asked for the floor for an argument. It would not be true. Confront the question as it is put. You are to tell us, gentlemen, if new forms of justice are to be inaugurated in this country. Neglect the tumult of an audience which does not know why it rages. Neglect the passions of people who trustingly believe in assertions that cannot be examined, and could not stand examination for a second. Do not forget that perhaps we are at a turning-point in the history of this country; and that you are about to render a decree the consequences of which no one can measure.”