“Is not the misinterpretation of so simple a matter identical with calumny?
“As for Colonel Picquart, who endeavored to maintain here that the documents seized after the condemnation of Dreyfus are forgeries, he has been contradicted by his inferiors and by his equals, and you have heard in what terms his superior, General de Pellieux, expressed himself regarding him. And finally he contradicted himself. The scene was so saddening that I have not the courage to dwell upon it.
“Gentlemen of the jury, the judges of the council of war are invested with a double character. They are at once magistrates and jurors. It seems to me that I see them, hesitating first, then stiffening their will in face of the duty to be done, far from all influence, solely concerned with the rendering of an honest and loyal verdict. You have the same honorable mission, gentlemen of the jury. You are to do the same justice. The prime minister has declared from the tribune of the chamber his high confidence in the twelve free citizens to whom the government has entrusted the defence of justice and of the honor of the army. The revolutionary manifestation of M. Emile Zola has met its counter-shock in the street. Persons and property are no longer respected. Violence breeds violence. But what cares ‘L’Aurore,’ which has its sensational trial? What difference does that make to M. Emile Zola? He has lifted himself to the rôle of a great man, which he easily assumes. He has realized his dream. He has brought to this court-room cabinet ministers, foreign diplomats, generals. He would have summoned all Europe. It was the necessary stage-setting for the novel that he announces. ‘L’Aurore’ tells us that he has entered into glory in his lifetime. His ‘Letter to France’ is literature; it savors of the Academy. His ‘Letter to Youth’ has enjoyed a success only in Berlin, and here is a translation sent to me from Germany. For the sake of his personal vanity he has imposed upon you these twelve sessions that have made the heart of the country bleed. And beyond the frontier what lamentable echoes! They have not hesitated to attack the staff, to compromise the national defence. They have overwhelmed with outrages the obedient and silent army, in which every Frenchman sees the image of his country. They have put upon it the outrageous insult of casting suspicion on its commanders, who are endeavoring, respectful of the laws, to make it worthy of its task on the day when it shall be necessary to lead it against the enemy. No more violent insult could be offered. No more anti-patriotic campaign could be conceived. You have listened here to M. Jaurès. For my part, I value talent only in the ratio of the good that it does, not in the ratio of the ruins that it accumulates. No, it is not true that a council of war has rendered a verdict in obedience to orders. It is not true that seven officers have been found to obey any other than the order of their free and honest conscience. You will condemn those who have outraged them, gentlemen of the jury. France awaits your verdict with confidence.”
Speech of M. Emile Zola.
At the conclusion of the attorney-general’s address, M. Zola read the following declaration to the jury:
“In the chamber, at its session of January 22, M. Méline, president of the cabinet, declared, amid the frantic applause of his obliging majority, that he had confidence in the twelve citizens to whose hands he entrusted the defence of the army. It was of you, gentlemen, that he spoke. And, just as General Billot dictated his decree to the council of war which was charged with the acquittal of Major Esterhazy, uttering from the tribune for the instruction of his subordinates the military countersign of unquestionable respect for the thing judged, so M. Méline has endeavored to give you an order to sentence me in the name of respect for the army, which he accuses me of having outraged. I denounce to the conscience of honest people this pressure of public power on the justice of the country. These are abominable political practices, dishonoring to a free nation.
“We shall see, gentlemen, if you will obey. But it is not true that I am here before you by the will of M. Méline. He yielded to the necessity of prosecuting me only in great agitation, in terror of the new step that truth in its march might take. That is known to everybody. If I am before you, it is by my own will. I alone have decided that the obscure, the monstrous matter should be brought before your jurisdiction, and I alone, in the full exercise of my will, have chosen you, the highest and most direct emanation of French justice, that France at last may know all, and decide. My act had no other object, and my person is nothing; I have sacrificed it, satisfied simply to have placed in your hands, not only the honor of the army, but the endangered honor of the entire nation.
“You will pardon me, then, if your consciences have not been thoroughly enlightened. It is not my fault. It seems that I was dreaming in expecting to bring you all the proofs,—in considering you alone worthy, alone competent. They began by taking from you with the left hand what they seemed to give you with the right. They made a pretence of accepting your jurisdiction, but, though they trusted you to avenge the members of one council of war, certain other officers remained unassailable, superior even to your justice. Understand it who can. It is absurdity in hypocrisy, and furnishes striking proof that they feared your good sense, and did not dare to run the risk of allowing us to say everything, and of allowing you to judge everything. They pretend that they desired to limit the scandal. And what do you think of this scandal, of my act, which consisted in laying the case before you, in desiring that the people, incarnate in you, should pass judgment upon it? They pretend, further, that they could not accept a disguised revision, thus confessing that they have only one fear at bottom,—that of your sovereign control. The law has in you its total representation, and it is this chosen law of the people that I have longed for, that I profoundly respect, as a good citizen, and not the equivocal procedure by which they have hoped to baffle you.
“Thus am I excused, gentlemen, for having turned you aside from your occupations without succeeding in flooding you with the total light of which I dreamed. Light, complete light, that has been my sole, my passionate desire. And this trial has just proved it to you; we have had to struggle step by step against a desire for darkness extraordinary in its obstinacy. For each shred of truth torn from the unwilling a fight has been necessary; they have disputed about everything, they have refused us everything, they have terrorized our witnesses in the hope of preventing us from proving our case. And it is for you alone that we have fought; that this proof might be submitted to you in its entirety, so that you could pass judgment without remorse and in your conscience. Therefore I am certain that you will take our efforts into consideration, and that, moreover, enough of light has been shed. You have heard the witnesses, you are going to hear my counsel, who will tell you the true story, the story that maddens everybody and that everybody knows. So I am at ease; the truth is now with you; it will do its work.
“M. Méline thought, then, to dictate your verdict in entrusting to you the honor of the army, and it is in the name of this honor of the army that I myself appeal to your justice. I deny M. Méline’s statement in the most formal manner; I have never insulted the army. On the contrary, I have expressed my tenderness, my respect, for the nation in arms, for our dear soldiers of France who would rise at the first threat, in defence of the French soil. And it is equally false that I have attacked the commanders, the generals who would lead them to victory. If certain individuals in the war offices have compromised the army by their conduct, is it an insult to the entire army to say so? Is it not, rather, the work of a good citizen to free the army from all compromise, to sound the alarm, in order that the misdeeds which have forced us to this fight may not be repeated and lead us to new defeats. However, I do not defend myself. I leave to history the judgment of my act, which was a necessary act. But I declare that they dishonor the army when they allow the gendarmes to embrace Major Esterhazy after the abominable letters that he has written. I declare that this valiant army is insulted daily by the bandits who, pretending to defend it, sully it with their base complicity, dragging in the mud everything good and great that France still has. I declare it is they who dishonor this great national army, when they mingle the cry of ‘Long live the Army!’ with the cry of ‘Death to the Jews!’ And they have cried ‘Long live Esterhazy!’ Great God! The people of St. Louis, of Bayard, of Condé, and of Hoche, the people that have won a hundred giant victories, the people of the great wars of the republic and the empire, the people whose strength, grace, and generosity have dazzled the universe, crying ‘Long live Esterhazy!’ It is a shame that only our effort in behalf of truth and justice can wipe out.