“And there is one more passage that I wish to read, also by M. Rochefort, which appeared on Friday, April 12, 1894.
The people regret to see that this famous military spirit succeeds in a very short time in reducing the finest minds to a state of atrophy. Recent verdicts rendered by councils of war show that there is a real national danger in leaving longer to judges so ill prepared for judicial functions the right of life and death over accused persons whose guilt they are not capable of passing upon.
“And, if, gentlemen, we open ‘La Libre Parole’ of November 5, 1894, we find this from the pen of M. Drumont:
Look at that ministry of war which ought to be the sanctuary of patriotism, and which is a place of perpetual scandal, a cloaca that cannot be compared to the Augean stables, for as yet no Hercules has tried to clean it. In such an establishment honor and truth ought to be embalmed, but, in reality, there is always something there that stinks.
“And, finally, gentlemen, I read to you a letter that appears in ‘L’Autorité’ of this morning under the title ‘Billot.’
Paris, February 20, 1898.
Monsieur le Directeur:
You must be distressed by all the basenesses of the present hour. But once more let your voice be heard in the name of this poor France, who defends her last honor in the hands of those who betray her. A certain man is at this moment the target of public contempt. This man is the minister of war, a sinister figure, whose personality appears at the saddest hours in our history. If the Méline cabinet associates its cause with that of the minister of war, it is irrevocably lost in the esteem of the country and the army. Not a single one of the 27,000 officers would dare to defend the minister of war. You cannot imagine the contempt that his lies and empty declarations have engendered. How guilty, then, is this government that seeks out such men, knowing what they were and what they are. Every step of this man is marked by an injustice. Regular promotion no longer exists. Of the rights consecrated by the committees of classification he takes no heed. The promotion lists are modified in the office of the minister, who inserts or erases as he sees fit.
“Well, gentlemen, these are the supporters of the army. These are the patriots. I point them out to you.
“Did Emile Zola ever use such language? Undoubtedly he has spoken strongly, and, if, instead of being here in this echoing trial, we were in some parlor or some office, we might ask him perhaps to soften some corners of his letter. But he wanted it to go far; he wanted it to be heard. It has been heard, as he wished; and he was right. But at bottom what was his thought? He had arrived at the conclusion that a judicial error had been committed; that this judicial error was not criminal in its origin, but grew out of the credulity of a few: that it was confirmed by the malice and the blindness of a few others, as well as by the solidarity of brothers in arms; and that it was finally sealed by a violation of law. Well, gentlemen, this being the case, it was necessary, in the first place, to fix the limits of our proofs. Even in the strangulation to which we have been subjected, we have been treated with some regard, made necessary, I fancy, by the processes of justice, for here, it seems, outside of the Zola case, there are two other cases,—the Dreyfus case and the Esterhazy case. Of the Esterhazy case we may say everything. Of the Dreyfus case we may say nothing. Why this distinction? Is it based on the thing judged? Ah! I confess, gentlemen, that, when I first asked myself the explanation of this singular restriction upon a trial which M. Zola wished to be so open, I said to myself: ‘It is very simple; we shall be permitted to say nothing. In fact, there are decrees which prohibit all attack on the thing judged, even by demonstrating that the judges are liars. So, as we have to deal here with two things judged, the Dreyfus case and the Esterhazy case, they will strangle us in silence.’ Well, they have not done it. I know not why, because, in truth, in the path upon which they have entered they had the means. But they did not dare to use them, and in this affair, as in so many others in this country, they took half-measures, partial closed doors, partial explanations, partial thing judged.