M. Labori.—“Monsieur le Président, all this has been told at length in the newspapers.”
The Judge.—“It cannot be very useful in your argument.”
M. Labori.—“I do not see why we should not explain ourselves on a matter with which everybody is familiar, and which the jurors ought to understand, in order to be able to judge with a full knowledge of the cause. Therefore I resume my argument. The dispatch is valuable only because it awakened the suspicion of the chief of the service of information, who said to himself: the place whence this dispatch comes is in correspondence with Major Esterhazy. Then Colonel Picquart began an investigation, at first a moral investigation, as he has told you, the results of which he has made known to you; then an investigation of another order, an investigation concerning handwriting. At that moment was he thinking of the Dreyfus case? Not at all. That was buried. It had nothing to do with this new matter. He began his investigation concerning handwriting, because it is customary to do so, whenever any trace of spying is observed. Then he went to find M. Bertillon, who said to him: ‘This time the forgers have attained identity.’ And thus, gentlemen, Colonel Picquart was confronted with the undeniable resemblance between the bordereau and Major Esterhazy’s writing. He spoke to his superiors about the matter, and I have a right to say, in view of his correspondence with General Gonse, that they encouraged him. Since then, they have made him the object of the most odious attacks. But these attacks have a single source, which is enough to ruin them at their foundation. That source is the major whom the army prefers to him, whom the army opposes to him, to whom it extends ovations while Colonel Picquart is put in a fortress—Major Esterhazy.
“Do you ask for proof that he was the source of these attacks? ‘La Libre Parole’ published on November 15, 1897, an article entitled ‘The Conspiracy,’ in which no name was mentioned, but in which everything was related in advance, and in which the rôle of Colonel Picquart was presented by Major Esterhazy, the author of the article, as it was presented afterward without change by Major Ravary himself before the council of war of 1898. You certainly did not fail to notice that, when the question of the famous searches of Major Esterhazy’s premises, and the circumstances under which they were made, came up here, General de Pellieux, summoned here by us, was obliged to say: ‘But I accepted the story of Major Esterhazy.’ Consequently no investigation on this point, no verification, no contradiction of any sort. The accuser of Colonel Picquart, he whose word they take, is he whom Colonel Picquart denounced, whether wrongly or rightly, as a traitor. And, if we examine the matter closely, gentlemen, what remains of the attacks upon Colonel Picquart? I have already done justice to that concerning the pretended communication of the secret file to M. Leblois. I have shown you that here the contradictions were such that it is absolutely impossible to accept the fact as having occurred in November, 1896. Indeed, Colonel Picquart addressed himself to M. Leblois in 1897, and he did so because he was threatened, as you know. For in June, 1897, he received from Colonel Henry a letter which I may now qualify as a threatening letter. At that time Colonel Picquart, who was on a mission, precisely for what reason he did not know, returned to Paris, and sought the advice, not of the first lawyer that he met, but of a lawyer who had been his friend from childhood. And it was in the course of conversations with this lawyer that, too reserved, too prudent,—I say it to you very respectfully, Colonel Picquart,—he made known to M. Leblois the reasons why he was attacked, and placed in his hands the documents that constituted his defence—that is, not only the two letters from General Gonse which you know, and his two replies, but another and later correspondence, of which we are not yet in possession, Colonel Picquart being unwilling to give it up, because of his excessive reserve and discretion.
“And then M. Leblois does this thing,—some may blame him for it, but, for my part, I salute him,—agitated by what he had learned, and without Colonel Picquart’s consent, he went to M. Scheurer-Kestner, who was no other than the vice-president of the senate, and in whom he had the most absolute confidence, and said to him: ‘Here is what I have learned through certain special events and circumstances.’
“Now we come to the complaint of the searching of Major Esterhazy’s premises. The only thing done was this. A police agent presented himself twice at Major Esterhazy’s under a pretext of looking at an apartment to let. He brought back a visiting-card of no importance, which Colonel Picquart told him to return; and he noticed that a considerable quantity of papers had been burned in the chimney. Here, in the first place, it is necessary to notice that Major Esterhazy is detected in flagrant inaccuracies of statement. He had declared that his apartments had been robbed several times under extremely serious circumstances, which he related before the council of war. I wish to call your attention to what Major Esterhazy said in his public examination in January, 1898.”
M. Labori then read the Esterhazy examination, in which, in answer to General de Luxer, he spoke of the robberies, and attributed them to Mathieu Dreyfus.
“Well, at what time did these searches take place? It was when Colonel Picquart was in Paris,—that is, before November, 1896. Was there any question at that time of M. Mathieu Dreyfus, who did not make his denunciation until November, 1897, a year later? Was there then any question of suspicion attaching to Major Esterhazy? Nothing of the kind was spoken of. But we know that, when the bordereau appeared in ‘Le Matin’ on November 10, 1896, Major Esterhazy was seen in a condition of extraordinary excitement. Why did he consider himself in danger? How could he then attribute the searches made in 1896 to Mathieu Dreyfus? He adds: ‘I could not believe that a French officer could go to such excesses.’ I ask you, gentlemen, if robbers were to visit your houses, or had visited them before this trial, would you attribute the robberies to Mathieu Dreyfus? Certainly not. Consequently it must have escaped the president of the council of war when Major Esterhazy said: ‘The first time I attributed it to servants, but afterward I attributed it to Mathieu Dreyfus.’ I should have liked to press him on this point at this bar. You remember that I asked him if he had not been robbed, and what he had to say thereupon. He took refuge in a policy of silence, the value and the prudence of which you can now understand. And at any rate, the fact remains that the charges made against Colonel Picquart in the Ravary report are nothing but the exact and faithful reproduction of the accusations of Major Esterhazy. General de Pellieux himself was obliged to admit it.
“But how did Colonel Picquart act? They have told you that he acted without a warrant. Without a warrant? Why, he had a permanent warrant. It is like saying that the prefect of police, when he proceeds to certain operations made necessary by the public safety, acts without a warrant. Do not his very functions confer a warrant upon him?
“You know how Colonel Picquart’s superiors were made familiar with his investigations. You remember that I asked General de Pellieux if he considered that a chief of the information service could conduct it usefully without the right to resort to such measures. He answered: ‘No, absolutely no; but he must have a warrant.’ Well, gentlemen, the proof that Colonel Picquart acted in a regular manner is that in the months of October and November, 1896, everybody at the staff offices was aware of the situation, as the Ravary report shows. No one in the bureau of information, M. Ravary tells us, was unaware that, on Colonel Picquart’s orders, Major Esterhazy’s correspondence had been seized in the mails, and that for many months; nor was anyone unaware that he had employed an agent to search without a legal warrant the premises of the accused during his absence. Well, gentlemen, of two things one: either this was irregular, and in that case it was necessary there and then to criticise Colonel Picquart’s attitude, and not cover him with congratulations and kindly words in the correspondence that was then going on between him and General Gonse; or else it must be confessed that it was not until later, and from the necessities of the situation, that they perceived the irregularity of the steps which were then known to the superiors and approved by all. Here again, then, as soon as we look and discuss, there is nothing left.