Then came Zola’s terrible letter in the Aurore, which Clemenceau had suggested, and gave up his daily article in order to give place to. He also supplied the title “J’Accuse.” Zola summed up the whole evidence relentlessly against the General Staff and its tools and forgers, Esterhazy, Henry, Paty du Clam and the rest of them.
Such an indictment, formulated by a novelist who was universally recognised as one of the leading men of letters in Europe, quite outside of the political arena, would have attracted attention at any time. In the midst of a period when all feelings and minds were wrought up to the highest point of tension, it came as a direct and heavy blow at the whole of the military party. It is difficult to realise to-day the sensation produced. It had all the effect of a combined attack of horse, foot and artillery for which preparation had been made long before by a successful bombardment. There was no effective answer possible in words. This the military cliques and their friends at once saw and acted upon. They abandoned discussion and forced Zola and l’Aurore into court on a charge of treason and libel. The action stirred all Europe and riveted attention throughout the civilised world. This was due not merely to Zola’s great reputation and popularity, to the political position held by Clemenceau, to the enthralling interest of the Dreyfus affair itself, to the excitement of the life-and-death struggle between freedom and reaction, but to the fact that behind all this lay the never-dying hostility of Germany to France.
All this was too much for the criminal champions of “the honour of the Army.” L’Aurore and Zola must be prosecuted. They were. And Clemenceau conducted his own defence. It was a crucial case, and the famous advocate Labori had previously done his best for Zola, pointing out that the whole drama turned on the prisoner then suffering at the Ile du Diable: perhaps the most infamous criminal, perhaps a martyr, the victim of human fallibility. He had shown, however, that “all the powers for Justice are combined against Justice,” and had called for the revision of a great case.
“After the jury have adjudicated, public opinion and France herself will judge you,” said Clemenceau himself. “You have been told that a document was privately communicated to the Court. Do you understand what that means? It means that a man is tried, is condemned, is covered with ignominy, his own name, that of his wife, of his children, of his father, of all his connections eternally blasted, on the faith of a document he had never been shown. Gentlemen, who among you would not revolt at the very idea of being condemned under such conditions? Who among you would not adjure us to demand justice for you if, brought before a tribunal, after a mockery of investigation, after a purely formal discussion, the judges, meeting out of your presence, decided on your honour and your life, condemning you, without appeal, on a document of whose very existence you were kept in ignorance? Who among you would quietly submit to such a decision? If this has been done, I tell you your one duty above all others is that such a case should be re-tried.”
That was the main point, as Clemenceau saw even more clearly than M. Labori. No man, guilty or innocent, could be justly condemned and sentenced on the strength of a written document the purport and even the existence of which had been deliberately concealed from the prisoner and his counsel. It scarcely needed further argument, not even the direct proof which was forthcoming that Colonel Sandherr, the president of the Court Martial, had a bitter and unreasoning prejudice against Jews. If the validity of the document had been beyond all possibility of question; if witnesses whose good faith had been unquestionable had seen Dreyfus write it with their own eyes: even then the trial was legally vitiated by the fact that it had not been shown to the accused. But if the document was forged——? All the other points, serious as some of them were, counted little by the side of this.
That, therefore, Clemenceau dealt with most persistently. That, therefore, the General Staff, with its coterie of Jesuits, anti-Semites and spies, was determined to cover up. The generals who bore witness in the case against Zola and l’Aurore showed by their threats and their admissions they knew that it was they themselves and the members of the secret Court Martial who were really on their trial at the bar of public opinion.
It was in this sense that Clemenceau closed his memorable defence. He declared against the forger of the bordereau, the Prussian spy, Esterhazy, who was sheltered and honoured by the chiefs of the French Army. “Yes, it is we,” he cried, amid derisive shouts and howls in court, “it is we who are the defenders of the army, when we call upon you to drive Esterhazy out of it. The conscious or unconscious enemies of the army are those who propose to cashier Picquart and retain Esterhazy. Gentlemen of the jury, a general has come here to talk to you about your children. Tell me now which of them would like to find himself in Esterhazy’s battalion? Tell me, would you hand over your sons to this officer to lead against the enemy? The very question is enough. Who does not know the answer before it is given?
“Gentlemen of the jury, I have done. We have passed through terrible experiences in this century. We have known glory and disaster in every form, we are even at this moment face to face with the unknown. Fears and hopes encompass us around. Grasp the opportunity as we ourselves have grasped it. Be masters of your own destinies. A people sitting in judgment on itself is a noble thing. A stirring scene also is a people deciding on its own future. Your task, gentlemen of the jury, is to pronounce a verdict less upon us than upon yourselves. We are appearing before you. You will appear before history.”