“‘Published? What? What are you talking about?’
“‘Why, the article in “L’Eclair”! what it says about the secret document is the truth. A few days after the verdict of the council of war I was dining with a few friends, among whom was one of the officers who had convicted Dreyfus. I said to him: “How is it that you were unanimous in your condemnation? How do you explain such a sentence, when Demange, whom I consider an honest man, tells me that there is nothing in the file, that there has not been a moment when he was not perfectly at ease regarding the innocence of his client, and that up to the last moment he was confident of an acquittal? How do you explain that?” “Oh!” answered the officer, “the reconciliation is easy. Demange had not seen what we have seen. If he had, he would think as we do. He would be convinced.”’
“There you have, then, what the article in ‘L’Eclair’ represented, so far as the practical fact is concerned; such is the truth that is at the bottom of it. The details are all lies, but the certain point is that, at the council of war, without the knowledge of the accused or his counsel, there was a communication of one or more secret documents, and that, on the strength of these, a verdict was arrived at which could not otherwise have been obtained. Was I right, then, in saying to you that what was at first a preoccupation became in the minds of some a source of anguish? Was such a communication possible, gentlemen? I have just told you it was only too true. At first, it seemed beyond belief, but the article was so well sustained! And, the declaration of Demange coming on top of it, doubt was no longer possible. A feeling of revolt was born in disturbed consciences. It was but a germ, yet this germ was going to grow. The anguish was on the point of changing into indignation when further confirmation came in ‘Le Matin’s’ publication of the bordereau, in no way resembling the writing of Dreyfus. And the indignation changed into stupefaction upon the appearance of the indictment with which you must be familiar—I mean the d’Ormescheville report, which astonished by its puerility all people who reason and think, all savants like M. Duclaux, like M. Paul Meyer, like M. Grimaux, who have come here to tell you of a scientific spirit that they expected to find in such a document, and which they did not find at all.
“Since then, gentlemen, we have witnessed the daily growth of the number of men who do not believe it their duty, I do not say before the army, but before certain commanders of the army, to abdicate their liberty of judgment. These think that no institution is above the law. They are convinced that, a right having been violated, Dreyfus having been illegally convicted, he must be tried again, whether he be guilty or not,—a question which we shall discuss presently. They are convinced that, in presence of such circumstances, no one is justified in keeping silence, because it is a concern, not of an individual interest, but of civilization itself. And, if I must tell you, gentlemen, the raison d’être of what is called the syndicate is this. The common purpose of the syndicate, regardless of the belief that one may entertain in the innocence of Dreyfus, at which one arrives only gradually, at which you will have arrived day after tomorrow,—regardless of that, the common object of the syndicate is justice, right, the wounded ideal which we, in our turn, take in our hands, and which, in spite of all furies, is our strength and our protection. Syndicate, yes, but a syndicate of faith, a syndicate of disinterestedness, a syndicate of hope. [A voice—“For money”.] If we had paid you, perhaps you would shout in our favor.”
The Judge.—“M. Labori, do not address the public.”
M. Labori.—“Monsieur le Président, I ask your pardon, but I am obliged to be my own policeman. And that astonishes me, gentlemen of the jury, for the people who raise these protests fail in respect for you, a group of judges, you who have had your anxieties, but who feel the grandeur of your mission. But I know that, after a certain time, threats will only strengthen you in your resolution to judge with impartiality. So I resume, leaving those who murmur when I speak of hope and disinterestedness to make such manifestations as they choose.
“Try, then, to explain otherwise what this man is doing here. What is he? I should lower him, and lower myself, and lower you also, in trying to represent him to you. He is not only a creative man of genius; he is, for those who are capable of understanding, for those who penetrate to the heart and substance of his works,—and his act of today is a sure proof of it,—he is a poet, in spite of all violences of form; and, as for his glory, it is not among these blind men that we must seek his measure, but throughout Europe. What had he to gain here? He had to gain a loss of time, a tempest of insults and outrages. Read the newspapers, and you will know what one gains by such an act. What moves him, then, if not the imperative necessity of acting in accordance with his convictions? Admirably conscious of the power of the pen and of the power of thought, he was determined, by a tremendous act, a violent act, if you will, to harmonize his conduct with the inmost conviction of his soul. That is what he wanted to do,—act.
“And action was necessary, gentlemen, on the morrow of the acquittal of Major Esterhazy. On the morrow of that singular prosecution, which ended in a verdict demanded from the tribune by the minister of war, who, proclaiming Dreyfus justly and legally condemned, was unwilling that another should be pronounced the author of the bordereau,—on the morrow of this judicial decision which fell like a second stone on the condemned man buried alive on Devil’s Island,—on the morrow of that prosecution, all who had doubted, all who had been anxious, all who had gradually arrived at certainty, all were struck with stupefaction. There had to be some one to feel enough confidence in himself, and enough authority over his fellow-citizens, to dare, in consciousness of his power, which I admire and which was not ill-founded, to proclaim loudly what many felt in secret, and to act. For it was an act, gentlemen,—that letter that burst like a terrible bomb. A revolutionary act, he called it; it was from him that the attorney-general got the word. Revolutionary, yes, in the sphere of thought. Nothing less than a revolution in this sphere was needed to recall men’s minds to common sense and truth. M. Zola has begun the revolution. It has not yet done much harm. You will finish it, gentlemen, finish it peacefully, finish it by the verdict of acquittal which I am going to ask of you, but not without first having a thorough understanding with you as to its value and significance.
“How was it received, this act of M. Emile Zola? Some, a few, saw in it a rallying-cry, and marched as at the sound of the cannon. The demoniacs, struck down by an attack so crushing, and feeling that they had no rivals in the art of insult, falsehood, and calumny, answered by deafening clamor. The majority, of good faith, but indifferent, suddenly aroused from their apathy by an act so unexpected, drew back in astonishment. Their reasoning was twofold, and I must do justice to it. They considered M. Zola’s letter too violent. They mistakenly saw in it insults to the army. Dreyfus, they say, was condemned by his peers. Esterhazy was acquitted by his. Behind all stands the staff. We can never admit that an entire staff is guilty; rather admit that Dreyfus is guilty than accept the conclusion that the others are guilty. That is their argument; they have no other. But it has another branch, which is this: There are men in the cabinet whom we can trust. They know the truth. They do not ask for a revision. Therefore the Dreyfus verdict was well rendered. Therefore Dreyfus is guilty, and was justly condemned. That is their whole case.
“They forget, gentlemen, that things do not present themselves so simply; that questions generally do not take the form of a dilemma; that Dreyfus may be innocent, and yet they who condemn him may not have been knowingly responsible and really guilty of any infamy. They do not remember that their reasoning would apply to all judicial errors, from the conviction of Jesus Christ to that of Pierre Vaux, including that of Jeanne d’Arc herself. They forget that the raison d’Etat can be pleaded in behalf of the worst acts of government, from the massacre of St. Bartholomew to the massacre of the hostages, including the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the reign of terror, and the legal murder of the duc d’Enghien, also committed by a military tribunal.