M. Lalance.—“I desist, in obedience to your orders. But I thought it might be useful for the jury to know what the elder brother did.”
M. Labori then read the following letter received from M. Gabriel Séailles, professor of philosophy at the Sorbonne, who had been summoned, but was kept at home by illness.
Why did I sign the protest?
A man of the study. I can bring here only the testimony of my free and sincere conscience. After the Dreyfus trial it never occurred to me for a moment to call in question the legality of the verdict. I do not wish to lessen the initiative of M. Zola, but it is not he who opened this debate. It was opened by the unknown person who transmitted to ‘Le Matin’ the fac-simile of the famous bordereau. On that day the question was submitted to public opinion; an appeal was taken to the conscience of each of us. There is no escape from the logic of events. Other things occurred, other documents have been presented to us. We have seen a bit of writing which, by the confession of its author, bears a frightful resemblance to the handwriting of the bordereau. We have witnessed a trial the conduct of which astonished us,—a trial where the witnesses were transformed into the accused. We have read an indictment which disconcerted us, because we sought in it in vain for what we expected to find there. We may be condemned to silence, but we cannot prevent ourselves from thinking. So my mind worked on the data that had been furnished, and my ideas concentrated themselves in the following dilemma: of two things one; either Dreyfus was convicted on the strength of the bordereau,—that is, without proof,—or he was convicted on secret documents not communicated to the defence,—that is, illegally. This almost involuntary conclusion fell heavily upon my heart. If the law, which is the security of all of us, and which we may have to invoke tomorrow, should be always respected, should it not be especially respected when in one individual there are thousands of individuals whom they pretend to condemn and dishonor?
How was I led to sign a protest?
I had just corrected a lesson in morals, the work of a student. I had said to these young people what all of you I am sure would wish me to say to them: that the human person is sacred; that justice is inviolable: that it cannot be sacrificed to passion or to interest, with whatever name they may be decorated. I had told them that justice is not a servant whom we ring for when we need its service; that it is the grand image which should hover over all conflicts of passions and interests, because it alone can be the peacemaker. I returned to my study. A student brought me a petition. I signed it. Our teaching would have no authority, if we were not ready to confirm it by our acts. I have no authority to speak in the name of the university. The painful conflict of duties that has disturbed so many consciences has divided us, but we too highly esteem one another, we hold sincere thought in too great respect, to treat each other as knaves or fools. If you have found on the lists of those protesting so many names of people connected with the university, it is not because of any spirit of revolt. It is because these brave people who, should occasion arise, would hasten to defend the integrity of the national territory consider it their professional duty to maintain another integrity no less precious,—the integrity of the national conscience. But, since the name of the university has been uttered, let us have an understanding. We respect and we love the army. In that we are unanimous. We consider ourselves as workers in the same work, servants of the same cause, soldiers in the same fight. The army of France, the army of mutilated France, is force in the service of right. Never have we separated the cause of right from the cause of the army. Please God that we may soon find ourselves reconciled in the superior thought of the country, and that at last we may be spared the continuance of the painful spectacle of so many French hands withdrawing from one another, when all ought to join in a common and fraternal action. As for M. Zola’s good faith, the very experiences that he is undergoing are sufficient to attest it. He has acted in accordance with his temperament, after the fashion of a man who, shut up in a room where the air is becoming stifling, rushes to the window, and, at the risk of covering himself with blood, breaks the glass to let in a little air and light.
Gabriel Séailles.
The witness-stand was then taken by M. Duclaux, director of the Pasteur Institute, who testified that he signed the protest because it seemed to him that it would be a good thing for a group of men to declare to the public that the Esterhazy trial had not dissipated the obscurity of the Dreyfus trial. His testimony was followed by that of M. Anatole France, member of the French Academy, who, after explaining why he had signed the protest, was asked his opinion of M. Zola’s good faith.
M. France.—“Having spent some hours with M. Zola last December, and having been, so to speak, the witness of his thought, I can testify here to his admirable good faith and his absolute sincerity. But the sincerity of M. Zola needs no guarantee; so I will simply say that he is acting, under these circumstances, with courage, according to his temperament, in behalf of justice and truth, inspired by the most generous sentiments.”
General Billot, who had been appealed to to authorize the production of the Uhlan letter, having written to the judge that he would leave the matter to the decision of the court, the court now rendered a decree that it should not be produced, since by a previous decree all matters “relating to the Dreyfus and Esterhazy trials, judged, in whole or in part, behind closed doors, had been excluded from the debate.”