“And now, gentlemen, pay all your attention to this:
Major du Paty de Clam.—“The minister is ready to receive you, if you have anything to say in the direction of confession.”
Captain Dreyfus.—“I tell you again that I am innocent, and that I have nothing to confess. It is impossible for me within the four walls of a prison to arrive at an explanation of this frightful enigma. But, if I may be allowed to work with the police, all my fortune and all my life shall be devoted to the unravelling of this mystery.”
“Well, that is what they did to get confessions. I say boldly that they went to the point of fraud, for they said to this man, after reminding him of his last words: ‘You ask to be sent away under police supervision; you wish to explain yourself to the minister; he will receive you if you confess.’ That meant: ‘Perhaps he will comply with your request.’ It was a trap. Dreyfus met it by repeating his declaration: ‘I will not confess; I have nothing to confess, though I should not see the minister.’ And this is the man against whom they would produce today confessions said to have been received by Captain Lebrun-Renault,—confessions whose exactness I dispute. The president of the cabinet is a prudent man, when he says that these confessions, if published, would be debated, because everything is debated in this affair,—and, I add, because everything in this affair is debatable. Of such material is the edifice constructed that we have to bear on our shoulders,—an edifice of hypocrisy on the part of those highest in place, who are the most guilty. Let them remember that, in history, the most humiliating name on the pillory is that of Pontius Pilate.”
The usual hour of adjournment having arrived, the conclusion of M. Labori’s argument was postponed until the following day.
Fifteenth Day—February 23.
The Judge.—“M. Labori, you have the floor to continue your argument.”
M. Labori.—“I have shown you the value of all the lies scattered through the trial. I have endeavored also to establish the value of the famous secret document. Before entering into the heart of the discussion, it remains for me to speak to you of the pretended proofs—absolute this time, they declare—of which General de Pellieux and General de Boisdeffre have spoken at one of the later sessions. No more importance attaches to this proof than to the rest, as I shall prove to you irrefutably, though I have not the document before my eyes. I would not have complained of General de Pellieux’s sensational declaration, if I had been permitted, not to answer him, but to question the witnesses. But I was not permitted, and that is the saddest incident of this trial,—an incident which threatened for a moment to turn aside the course of the trial by a species of moral violence practised upon the defence. We asked ourselves what we should do, and then we said to ourselves that, whatever might happen, it was necessary to go to the end,—sadly, but courageously. If we could have asked General de Pellieux and General de Boisdeffre to explain themselves more in detail, the proof of the emptiness of their statements would have been made on the spot. We should have asked the original of the pretended documents. Now I am going to prove to you that, while one of the two documents, the visiting-card, is authentic, the note that accompanied it is a forgery.
“What are these two documents? There is, first, the visiting-card of a military attaché;—I will name him, if I am obliged to;—it is authentic. It makes a rendezvous with another military attaché. Only, at the bottom of this visiting-card, there is a borrowed name,—no matter what; call it Claude, if you like,—whereas the visiting-card is that of M. de X——. We will say that the rendezvous is signed ‘Claude’; then, beside this card, there is a note, which says: ‘We have nothing in common with this Jew.’ Or perhaps this: ‘There is to be an interpellation concerning the Dreyfus case. It is always understood, of course, that, even vis-à-vis of our governments, we have never had dealings with this Jewry,’ signed ‘Claude,’ like the card.
“It is in a counterfeited handwriting, a note not authenticated in any way, the card being a puerile device for lending an appearance of truth to the note. But, gentlemen, I ask you: Is it likely, is it possible, that two military attachés would feel any necessity of recommending to each other the policy of silence concerning this matter? Why? Who is going to question them? To whom must they render accounts? Have not their governments known the whole truth about this matter ever since 1894? A propos of what do they thus write in 1896? And why add to this anonymous note a card, and an authentic card, upon which an insignificant rendezvous is made? It was not difficult to procure such a card. You can pick up the card of a military attaché—or of an ambassador, for that matter—anywhere. Would it not have been an easy matter for a police spy to procure it? Among the police spies there are sometimes sharpers. Policemen, you know, are not the finest flower of humanity. I refer, not to their chiefs, but to the subordinates who necessarily make a trade of treason. Do you not suppose that, when a public trouble like this comes up, they are too glad to find an opportunity of making money out of anybody? There are police spies—and, if the department of foreign affairs wants more complete information, I will furnish it,—there are police spies who imitate, who forge, the handwriting of military attachés. What has the forger done? He has placed upon the card of the military attaché the false signature ‘Claude,’ and then, imitating the writing or not imitating it, he has affixed the name ‘Claude’ to the anonymous paper. That, gentlemen, is the whole swindle.