The Judge [sadly].—“Since the defence demands it, speak.”
M. Leblois.—“The following telegram: ‘We have proofs that the dispatch was manufactured by Georges. Blanche,’ suggests to me this reflection: Who, outside of the war department, could then know that an inquiry was in progress concerning Major Esterhazy, and especially that the basis of this inquiry was a dispatch? That was an absolute secret. The two telegrams of which I have spoken were not the only elements of this complicated plot against Colonel Picquart. There were many other telegrams sent by third parties. For instance, an individual sent from Paris a telegram signed ‘Baron Keller’ and addressed to a pretended Baroness Keller at Sousse. All these telegrams were intended to compromise Colonel Picquart. The two which I have cited are the only ones that reached him, but they are only the centre of a very complicated network. He referred to all of this in an article in ‘La Libre Parole’ of November 16, 1897.”
M. Labori.—“M. Leblois has told us that Colonel Picquart left the war department November 16, 1896. Could he tell us what was the attitude of his superiors, and especially of General Gonse, toward him at that time? Did Colonel Picquart go in disgrace, and how has he been treated since, up to the time of his recall to Paris, under circumstances with which the jurors must be familiar, at the beginning of the Esterhazy inquiry?”
M. Leblois.—“Colonel Picquart’s superiors behaved toward him in the most kindly manner throughout his inquiry concerning Major Esterhazy,—an inquiry which began toward the end of spring and continued until September. According to Colonel Picquart, it was not until the moment had come for a decision in this matter that a difference of opinion was revealed between his superiors and himself. This difference did not assume an acute form at first. In the beginning it was simply an exchange of opposite views, such as often takes place between inferiors and superiors. The solution of the matter, clearly stated in a letter from Colonel Picquart bearing date of September 5, 1896, remained in suspense until November, 1896. At that moment things were growing worse under influences which I do not exactly know myself. Perhaps the government, upon the question being laid before it, decided that there was no occasion to review the Dreyfus case. I know nothing about it; I can only form hypotheses. Answering M. Labori’s question, I will say this: when Colonel Picquart left the war department, they gave him not the slightest hint that he was sent away in disgrace. On the contrary, they represented to him as a favor the rather vague mission with which he was entrusted. They said to him: ‘You are to go away for a few days. You will go to Nancy, to do certain things.’ When once he was at Nancy, they said to him: ‘Go elsewhere.’ Thus from day to day they gave him new orders, continually prolonging his mission; and the colonel, who had left Paris without extra clothing, was told, when he asked permission to return to get his linen, that his mission was too important to warrant a diversion of even a few hours; and they sent him to Besançon. Thus, without suspecting the fate that was in store for him, he was sent along the frontier, and then to Algeria and Tunis, where, in March, 1897, he was made lieutenant-colonel of the Fourth Sharpshooters. They pretended that he was given this appointment as a favor. General Gonse told him positively, in a letter, that the regiment was a very select one, and that he should consider himself fortunate in belonging to it. The general’s letters are full of expressions of sympathy.”
M. Labori.—“M. Leblois referred just now to a threatening letter which intervened at a certain moment, and which apparently modified the state of mind prevailing in the office of the minister of war. Could he tell us when this letter was addressed to Colonel Picquart, from whom it came, and in what spirit it was conceived?”
M. Leblois.—“I have already said that this letter was dated June 3, 1897. It came from Lieutenant-Colonel Henry, who had been Colonel Picquart’s subordinate, and it was couched in terms almost insulting.”
M. Albert Clemenceau.—“The witness has said that at the same time when Colonel Picquart’s letters were being seized in the war department he was suffered to receive forged telegrams, and that at the same time also General Gonse, sub-chief of the general staff, acted in a very kindly manner toward him. I ask him if these three matters were really contemporaneous.”
M. Leblois.—“The reply is simple enough. You must distinguish between two utterly distinct orders of events,—the events at the end of 1896, which was the time of Colonel Picquart’s departure, and the events at the end of 1897. I know of only one letter intercepted at the bureau of information in 1896,—namely, the letter signed ‘Speranza.’ It was at that time that General Gonse showed the greatest sympathy for Colonel Picquart. Coming to the conspiracy of 1897, it is my opinion that letters were then intercepted, but I prefer that the testimony on this point should come from Lieutenant-Colonel Picquart.”
M. Clemenceau.—“Yet the witness said just now that they sent a letter to Lieutenant-Colonel Picquart after having opened it.”
M. Leblois.—“That was in 1896. It was in December of that year that the Speranza letter was sent.”