You will treat the prisoner with the greatest regard; in short, at Sainte Marguerite one must be a man of the world, and not a jailer.
“M. Marchi arrives at Sainte Marguerite. The temporary superintendent makes him familiar with the service, and informs him, among other things, that, supposing it to be his duty to watch the condemned man whenever he went to walk upon the terrace, Lieutenant-Colonel Valley went to Paris to protest against the conduct of the keeper, wherefore the keeper had been reprimanded? It would take too long to tell you of all the instructions. Suffice it to know that cabinet ministers wrote to Bazaine, that they addressed him as Monsieur the Marshal, and that there was a question of pensioning him. Boats were allowed to come to the edge of the terrace, whence he conversed with visitors. On the eve of his escape he had obtained permission to go out with a guardian. Well, really, when I compare this tolerance, which is an outrage upon France and upon the army, with the hatred unchained against the prisoner on Devil’s Island; when I remember that an artillery officer named Triponé, who had not only delivered documents, but had delivered the Bourges detonator, of which we were the only possessors in Europe, by the complicity of the sub-officer Fessler, to the house of Armstrong, which then gave the benefit of it to Germany; when I see that Triponé was sentenced to five years in prison, and was pardoned after two years and a half, though his crime was certainly not less than that of Dreyfus,—I say that there is no equality of punishment between these Christians and this Jew.
“Again, there is another fact. Adjutant Chatelain, who is now in New Caledonia, perhaps is farming there and raising cattle; his crime, if I remember rightly, consisted in the sale of certain documents to Italy. He was not less guilty than Dreyfus. But what a difference in treatment! They talk of equality before the law. It is a phrase. We await the reality. They tell us that we have violated the law. I maintain, on the contrary, that we appear here in the interest of the law, and I say that we were unable to do otherwise. For the rectification of a judicial error application was made to the war department, to the executive power. You know how General Billot received the application; he refused to act. M. Trarieux applied to M. Méline; M. Scheurer-Kestner did the same; M. Méline would not even talk with them. In the senate, discussion, leading to nothing. In the chamber, discussion, leading to nothing. And similarly with the council of war, with the investigation by General de Pellieux, with the investigation by Major Ravary. Now, when all the powers that are the organs of the law fail in their legal duty, what was left for those who, like M. Zola, have undertaken the work of justice from which the powers of justice shrank? M. Zola’s idea is an appeal to the people, an appeal to the people represented by twelve jurors whom he does not know, whose opinions none of us know, to pass upon his act, and say whether they will allow him to bring out the light. If he must be struck, he is very proud to be struck for this confession of justice and truth.
“If the jury gives him its aid, the pacification of minds may be accomplished, and the agitation of this day finished by the legal reparation due to all who have been deprived of the guarantees of the law. Without truth, M. Zola can do nothing; he is powerless; he will be baffled on every hand. With a bit of the truth, M. Zola is invincible. It is for the jurors to answer to the appeal of truth.
“I have said that the government is fallible. The jurors also have no higher light. They are men. They do their best. They have the advantage of being for a time unbiased by esprit de corps, and of being able thus, in perfect liberty of mind, to act in accordance with that need of superior justice which we all feel. We are before you, gentlemen. Shortly you will pass judgment. I hope that you may not be governed by the argument which now controls too many minds. How many Frenchmen there are who say: ‘Possibly Dreyfus was condemned illegally, but he was condemned justly, and that is sufficient; so let us say no more about it.’ Sophism of the raison d’Etat, which has done us so much harm,—which hampered the magnificent movement of the French revolution by the guillotine and all sorts of violence. Ah! we have torn down the Bastille. Every 14th of July we dance to celebrate the abolition of the raison d’Etat. But a Bastille still remains within us, and, when we question ourselves, an illegality committed to the detriment of others seems to us acceptable, and we say, and we think, that this may be a little evil for a great good. Profound error. An illegality is a form of iniquity, since the law is guarantee of justice.
“Gentlemen, all the generals together have no right to say that the illegality which comes from a certain form of justice, since it is a denial of it; all the magistrates together,—have no right to say that illegality can be justice, because the law is nothing but the guarantee of justice. To do justice outside of the law no one has either the right or the power. If you wish to render the supreme service to the country under the present circumstances, establish the supremacy of the law, the supremacy of justice. Cause to disappear from our souls that respect for the raison d’Etat so absurd in a democracy. With Louis XIV, with Napoleon, with men who hold a people in their hands and govern according to their good pleasure, the raison d’Etat is intelligible. In a democracy the raison d’Etat is only a contradiction, a vestige of the past. ‘France is a high moral person,’ said Gambetta. I do not deny it, monarchy or republic. But I say that the tradition of the raison d’Etat has had its day, and that the hour has come for us to attach ourselves to the modern idea of liberty and justice. After the original duty of defence of the soil, nothing can be more urgent than to establish among us a régime of liberty and justice, which shall be in accordance with the ambition of our fathers, an example to all civilized nations.
“At the present hour, I admit, the problem presents itself to you in a bitter and sorrowful form. Oh! it is very sorrowful to sincere people to find themselves in hostility with brave soldiers who intended to do well, who wished to do well, and who, thinking to do well, have not done well. That happens to civilians not in uniform; that happens to civilians in uniform,—for soldiers are nothing else.
“From this point of view you are at a turning-point in our history, and you must submit military society to the control of the civil law, or abandon to it our most precious conquests. We have not to pass upon General de Boisdeffre or upon General de Pellieux. They will explain themselves to their superiors. It is not our affair. They have nothing to ask of us. But, however painful it may be to find ourselves for a day in conflict with them, take your course, since no danger can result, unless you yourselves abandon the cause of the law of justice which you represent. Thus you will render us the grand service, the inestimable service, of extinguishing at the beginning the religious war that threatens to dishonor this country. [Murmurs of protest.]
“Since you protest, so much the better. I am willing to believe that it is your intention to renew the wars of religion; but, when I see in France, in our France of Algeria, a pillaging of warehouses; when I see it boasted in the newspapers that safes have been thrown into the sea, and that contracts have been torn up; when I see that Jews, while going to get bread for their families, have been massacred,—I have a right to say that religious warfare offered no other aspect in the middle ages; and I say that the jurors of today, in rendering a verdict in favor of liberty and justice for all, even for Jews, will signify their intention of putting an end to these excesses by saying to those who have committed these barbarities: ‘In the name of the French people, you shall go no farther.’
“Gentlemen, we are the law; we are toleration; we are the defenders of the army, for we do not separate justice from patriotism, and the army will not be strong, it will not be respected, unless it derives its power from respect for the law. I add that we are the defenders of the army, when we ask you to drive Esterhazy from it. You have driven out Picquart, and kept Esterhazy. And, gentlemen of the jury, since there has been reference to your children, tell me who would like to belong to the same battalion that Esterhazy belongs to? Tell me if you will trust this officer to lead your children against the enemy? I need only ask the question. No one will dare reply.