“Major Picquart to see the Minister of War …”
The sentry on the rue Saint-Dominique steps out of his box to open the gate and I run through a whirl of snow across the windy courtyard into the warm lobby of the hôtel de Brienne, where a sleek young captain of the Republican Guard rises to salute me. I repeat, with greater urgency: “Major Picquart to see the Minister of War …!”
We march in step, the captain leading, over the black-and-white marble of the minister’s official residence, up the curving staircase, past suits of silver armour from the time of Louis the Sun King, past that atrocious piece of Imperial kitsch, David’s Napoleon Crossing the Alps at the Col du Grand-Saint-Bernard, until we reach the first floor, where we halt beside a window overlooking the grounds and the captain goes off to announce my arrival, leaving me alone for a few moments to contemplate something rare and beautiful: a garden made silent by snow in the centre of a city on a winter’s morning. Even the yellow electric lights in the War Ministry, shimmering through the gauzy trees, have a quality of magic.
“General Mercier is waiting for you, Major.”
The minister’s office is huge and ornately panelled in duck-egg blue, with a double balcony over the whitened lawn. Two elderly men in black uniforms, the most senior officers in the Ministry of War, stand warming the backs of their legs against the open fire. One is General Raoul le Mouton de Boisdeffre, Chief of the General Staff, expert in all things Russian, architect of our burgeoning alliance with the new tsar, who has spent so much time with the Imperial court he has begun to look like a stiff-whiskered Russian count. The other, slightly older at sixty, is his superior: the Minister of War himself, General Auguste Mercier.
I march to the middle of the carpet and salute.
Mercier has an oddly creased and immobile face, like a leather mask. Occasionally I have the odd illusion that another man is watching me through its narrow eye-slits. He says in his quiet voice, “Well, Major Picquart, that didn’t take long. What time did it finish?”
“Half an hour ago, General.”
“So it really is all over?”
I nod. “It’s over.”
And so it begins.
“Come and sit down by the fire,” orders the minister. He speaks very quietly, as he always does. He indicates a gilt chair. “Pull it up. Take off your coat. Tell us everything that happened.”
He sits poised in expectation on the edge of his seat: his body bent forwards, his hands clasped, his forearms resting on his knees. Protocol has prevented him from attending the morning’s spectacle in person. He is in the position of an impresario who has missed his own show. He hungers for details: insights, observations, colour.
“What was the mood on the streets first thing?”
“I would say the mood was … expectant.”
I describe how I left my apartment in the predawn darkness to walk to the École Militaire, and how the streets, to begin with at least, were unusually quiet, it being a Saturday—“The Jewish Sabbath,” Mercier interrupts me, with a faint smile—and also freezing cold. In fact, although I do not mention this, as I passed along the gloomy pavements of the rue Boissière and the avenue du Trocadéro, I began to wonder if the minister’s great production might turn out to be a flop. But then I reached the pont de l’Alma and saw the shadowy crowd pouring across the dark waters of the Seine, and that was when I realised what Mercier must have known all along: that the human impulse to watch another’s humiliation will always prove sufficient insulation against even the bitterest cold.
I joined the multitude as they streamed southwards, over the river and down the avenue Bosquet—such a density of humanity that they spilled off the wooden pavements and into the street. They reminded me of a racecourse crowd—there was the same sense of shared anticipation, of the common pursuit of a classless pleasure. Newspaper vendors threaded back and forth selling the morning’s editions. An aroma of roasting chestnuts rose from the braziers on the roadside.
At the bottom of the avenue I broke away and crossed over to the École Militaire, where until a year before I had served as professor of topography. The crowd streamed on past me towards the official assembly point in the place de Fontenoy. It was beginning to get light. The École rang with the sound of drums and bugles, hooves and curses, shouted orders, the tramp of boots. Each of the nine infantry regiments quartered in Paris had been ordered to send two companies to witness the ceremony, one composed of experienced men, the other of new recruits whose moral fibre, Mercier felt, would benefit by this example. As I passed through the grand salons and entered the cour Morland, they were already mustering in their thousands on the frozen mud.
I have never attended a public execution, have never tasted that particular atmosphere, but I imagine it must feel something like the École did that morning. The vastness of the cour Morland provided an appropriate stage for a grand spectacle. In the distance, beyond the railings, in the semicircle of the place de Fontenoy, a great murmuring sea of pink faces stirred behind a line of black-uniformed gendarmes. Every centimetre of space was filled. People were standing on benches and on the tops of carriages and omnibuses; they were sitting in the branches of the trees; one man had even managed to scale the pinnacle of the 1870 war memorial.
Mercier, drinking all this up, asks me, “So how many were present, would you estimate?”
“The Préfecture of Police assured me twenty thousand.”
“Really?” The minister looks less impressed than I had expected. “You know that I originally wanted to hold the ceremony at Longchamps? The racetrack has a capacity of fifty thousand.”
Boisdeffre says flatteringly, “And you would have filled it, Minister, by the sound of it.”
“Of course we would have filled it! But the Ministry of the Interior maintained there was risk of public disorder. Whereas I say: the greater the crowd, the stronger the lesson.”
Still, twenty thousand seemed plenty to me. The noise of the crowd was subdued but ominous, like the breathing of some powerful animal, temporarily quiescent but which could turn dangerous in an instant. Just before eight, an escort of cavalry appeared, trotting along the front of the crowd, and suddenly the beast began to stir, for between the riders could be glimpsed a black prison wagon drawn by four horses. A wave of jeers swelled and rolled over it. The cortège slowed, a gate was opened, and the vehicle and its guard clattered over the cobbles into the École.
As I watched it disappear into an inner courtyard, a man standing near to me said, “Observe, Major Picquart: the Romans fed Christians to the lions; we feed them Jews. That is progress, I suppose.”
He was swaddled in a greatcoat with the collar turned up, a grey muffler around his throat, his cap pulled low over his eyes. I recognised him by his voice at first, and then by the way his body shook uncontrollably.
I saluted. “Colonel Sandherr.”
Sandherr said, “Where will you stand to watch the show?”
“I haven’t thought about it.”
“You’re welcome to come and join me and my men.”
“That would be an honour. But first I have to check that everything is proceeding in accordance with the minister’s instructions.”
“We will be over there when you have finished your duties.” He pointed across the cour Morland with a trembling hand. “You will have a good view.”
My duties! I wonder, looking back, if he wasn’t being sarcastic. I walked over to the garrison office, where the prisoner was in the custody of Captain Lebrun-Renault of the Republican Guard. I had no desire to see the condemned man again. Only two years earlier he had been a student of mine in this very building. Now I had nothing to say to him; I felt nothing for him; I wished he had never been born and I wanted him gone—from Paris, from France, from Europe. A trooper went and fetched Lebrun-Renault for me. He turned out to be a big, red-faced, horsey young man, rather like a policeman. He came out and reported: “The traitor is nervous but calm. I don’t think he will kick up any trouble. The threads of his clothing have been loosened and his sword has been scored half through to ensure it breaks easily. Nothing has been left to chance. If he tries to make a speech, General Darras will give a signal and the band will strike up a tune to drown him out.”
Mercier muses, “What kind of tune does one play to drown a man out, I wonder?”
Boisdeffre suggests, “A sea shanty, Minister?”
“That’s good,” says Mercier judiciously. But he doesn’t smile; he rarely smiles. He turns to me again. “So you watched the proceedings with Sandherr and his men. What do you make of them?”
Unsure how to answer—Sandherr is a colonel, after all—I say cautiously, “A dedicated group of patriots, doing invaluable work and receiving little or no recognition.”
It is a good answer. So good that perhaps my entire life—and with it the story I am about to tell—may have turned upon it. At any rate, Mercier, or the man behind the mask that is Mercier, gives me a searching look as if to check that I really mean what I say, and then nods in approval. “You’re right there, Picquart. France owes them a lot.”
All six of these paragons were present that morning to witness the culmination of their work: the euphemistically named “Statistical Section” of the General Staff. I sought them out after I had finished talking with Lebrun-Renault. They stood slightly apart from everyone else in the southwest corner of the parade ground, in the lee of one of the low surrounding buildings. Sandherr had his hands in his pockets and his head down, and seemed entirely remote—
“Do you remember,” interrupts the Minister of War, turning to Boisdeffre, “that they used to call Jean Sandherr ‘the handsomest man in the French Army’?”
“I do remember that, Minister,” confirms the Chief of the General Staff. “It’s hard to believe it now, poor fellow.”
On one side of Sandherr stood his deputy, a plump alcoholic with a face the colour of brick, taking regular nips from a gunmetal hip flask; on the other was the only member of his staff I knew by sight—the massive figure of Joseph Henry, who clapped me on the shoulder and boomed that he hoped I’d be mentioning him in my report to the minister. The two junior officers of the section, both captains, seemed colourless by comparison. There was also a civilian, a bony clerk who looked as if he seldom saw fresh air, holding a pair of opera glasses. They shifted along to make room for me and the alcoholic offered me a swig of his filthy cognac. Presently we were joined by a couple of other outsiders: a smart official from the Foreign Ministry, and that disturbing booby Colonel du Paty de Clam of the General Staff, his monocle flashing like an empty eye socket in the morning light.
By now the time was drawing close and one could feel the tension tightening under that sinister pale sky. Nearly four thousand soldiers had been drawn up on parade, yet not a sound escaped them. Even the crowd was hushed. The only movement came from the edges of the cour Morland, where a few invited guests were still being shown to their places, hurrying apologetically like latecomers at a funeral. A tiny slim woman in a white fur hat and muff, carrying a frilly blue umbrella and being escorted by a tall lieutenant of the dragoons, was recognised by some of the spectators nearest the railings, and a light patter of applause, punctuated by cries of “Hurrah!” and “Bravo!,” drifted over the mud.
Sandherr, looking up, grunted, “Who the devil is that?”
One of the captains took the opera glasses from the clerk and trained them on the lady in furs, who was now nodding and twirling her umbrella in gracious acknowledgement to the crowd.
“Well I’ll be damned if it isn’t the Divine Sarah!” He adjusted the binoculars slightly. “And that’s Rochebouet of the Twenty-eighth looking after her, the lucky devil!”
Mercier sits back and caresses his white moustache. Sarah Bernhardt, appearing in his production! This is the stuff he wants from me: the artistic touch, the society gossip. Still, he pretends to be displeased. “I can’t think who would have invited an actress…”
At ten minutes to nine, the commander of the parade, General Darras, rode out along the cobbled path into the centre of the parade ground. The general’s mount snorted and dipped her head as he pulled her up; she shuffled round in a circle, eyeing the vast multitude, pawed the hard ground once, and then stood still.
At nine, the clock began to strike and a command rang out: “Companies! Attention!” In thunderous unison the boots of four thousand men crashed together. At the same instant, from the far corner of the parade ground a group of five figures appeared and advanced towards the general. As they came closer, the tiny indistinct shapes resolved themselves into an escort of four gunners, surrounding the condemned man. They came on at a smart pace, marching with such perfect timing that their right feet hit the stroke of the chime exactly on every fifth step; only once did the prisoner stumble, but quickly he corrected himself. As the echo of the last strike died away, they halted and saluted. Then the gunners about-turned and marched away, leaving the convict to face the general alone.
Drums rolled. A bugle sounded. An official stepped forward, holding a sheet of paper up high in front of his face, like a herald in a play. The proclamation flapped in the icy wind, but his voice was surprisingly powerful for so small a man.
“In the name of the people of France,” he intoned, “the first permanent court-martial of the military government of Paris, having met in camera, delivered its verdict in public session as follows. The following single question was put to the members of the court: Is Alfred Dreyfus, captain of the Fourteenth Artillery Regiment, a certified General Staff officer and probationer of the army’s General Staff, guilty of delivering to a foreign power or to its agents in Paris in 1894 a certain number of secret or confidential documents concerning national defence?
“The court declared unanimously: ‘Yes, the accused is guilty.’
“The court unanimously sentences Alfred Dreyfus to the penalty of deportation to a fortified enclosure for life, pronounces the discharge of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, and orders that his military degradation should take place before the first military parade of the Paris garrison.”
He stepped back. General Darras rose in his stirrups and drew his sword. The condemned man had to crane his neck to look up at him. His pince-nez had been taken from him. He wore a pair of rimless spectacles.
“Alfred Dreyfus, you are not worthy to bear arms. In the name of the French people, we degrade you!”
“And it was at this point,” I tell Mercier, “that the prisoner spoke for the first time.”
Mercier jerks back in surprise. “He spoke?”
“Yes.” I pull my notebook from my trouser pocket. “He raised both his arms above his head, and shouted …” And here I check to make sure I have it exactly right: “ ‘Soldiers, they are degrading an innocent man … Soldiers, they are dishonouring an innocent man … Long live France … Long live the army …’ ” I read it plainly, without emotion, which is appropriate, because that is how it was delivered. The only difference is that Dreyfus, as a Mulhouse Jew, flavoured the words with a slight German accent.
The minister frowns. “How was this allowed to happen? I thought you said they planned to play a march if the prisoner made a speech?”
“General Darras took the view that a few shouts of protest did not constitute a speech, and that music would disturb the gravity of the occasion.”
“And was there any reaction from the crowd?”
“Yes.” I check my notes again. “They began to chant: ‘Death … death … death …’ ”
When the chanting started, we looked towards the railings. Sandherr said: “They need to get a move on, or this could get out of hand.”
I asked to borrow the opera glasses. I raised them to my eyes, adjusted the focus, and saw a giant of a man, a sergeant major of the Republican Guard, lay his hands on Dreyfus. In a series of powerful movements he yanked the epaulettes from Dreyfus’s shoulders, wrenched all the buttons from his tunic and the gold braid from his sleeves, knelt and ripped the red stripes from his trousers. I focused on Dreyfus’s expression. It was blank. He stared ahead as he was tugged this way and that, submitting to these indignities as a child might to having its clothes adjusted by an irritable adult. Finally, the sergeant major drew Dreyfus’s sword from its scabbard, planted the tip in the mud, and snapped the blade with a thrust of his boot. He threw the two halves on to the little heap of haberdashery at Dreyfus’s feet, took two sharp paces backwards, turned his head towards the general and saluted, while Dreyfus gazed down at the torn symbols of his honour.
Sandherr said impatiently: “Come on, Picquart—you’re the one with the glasses. Tell us what he looks like.”
“He looks,” I replied, handing the binoculars back to the clerk, “like a Jewish tailor counting the cost of all that gold braid going to waste. If he had a tape measure around his neck, he might be in a cutting room on the rue Auber.”
“That’s good,” said Sandherr. “I like that.”
“Very good,” echoes Mercier, closing his eyes. “I can picture him exactly.”
Dreyfus shouted out again: “Long live France! I swear I am innocent!”
Then he began a long march, under escort, around all four sides of the cour Morland, parading in his torn uniform in front of every detachment, so that the soldiers could remember for ever how the army deals with traitors. Every so often he would call out, “I am innocent!” which would draw jeers and cries of “Judas!” and “Jewish traitor!” from the watching crowd. The whole thing seemed to drag on endlessly, though by my watch it lasted no more than seven minutes.
When Dreyfus started to walk towards our position, the man from the Foreign Ministry, who was taking his turn with the binoculars, said in his languid voice: “I don’t understand how the fellow can allow himself to be subjected to such humiliation and still maintain he’s innocent. Surely if he really was innocent he would put up a struggle, rather than allow himself to be led around so tamely? Or is this a Jewish trait, do you suppose?”
“Of course it’s a Jewish trait!” retorted Sandherr. “This is a race entirely without patriotism, or honour, or pride. They have done nothing but betray the people they live among for centuries, starting with Jesus Christ.”
When Dreyfus passed where we were standing, Sandherr turned his back to demonstrate his contempt. But I could not take my eyes from him. Whether because of the past three months in prison or the bitter cold of that morning, his face was greyish-white and puffy: the colour of a maggot. His buttonless black tunic was hanging open, revealing his white shirt. His sparse hair was sticking up in tufts; something gleamed in it. He did not break step as he marched by with his guards. He glanced in our direction and briefly his gaze locked on to mine and I saw straight into his soul, glimpsed the animal fear, the desperate mental struggle to keep himself together. As I watched him go, I realised the gleam in his hair was saliva. He must have wondered what part I had played in his ruin.
Only one stage of his Calvary remained: for him the worst part of it, I am sure, when he had to pass along the railings in front of the crowd. The police had linked arms to try to keep the public at a distance. But when the spectators saw the prisoner approaching, they surged forwards. The police line bulged, tautened and then burst apart, releasing a flood of protesters, who poured across the pavement and spread along the railings. Dreyfus stopped, turned and faced them, raised his arms and said something. But he had his back to me and I couldn’t hear his words, only the familiar taunts of “Judas!,” “Traitor!” and “Death to the Jew!” that were thrown back in his face.
Finally, his escort pulled him away and steered him towards the prison wagon, waiting just ahead with its mounted outriders. The condemned man’s hands were cuffed behind his back. He stepped up into the wagon. The doors were closed and locked, the horses whipped, and the cortège jolted forwards, out of the gate and into the place de Fontenoy. For a moment I doubted if it would escape the surrounding crowd, stretching out their hands to strike the sides of the wagon. But the cavalry officers used the flats of their swords to drive them back. I heard the whip crack twice. The driver shouted a command. The wagon accelerated free of the mob, turned left and disappeared.
An instant later the order was given for the parade to march past. The stamp of boots seemed to shake the ground. Bugles were blown. Drums beat time. As the band struck up “Sambre-et-Meuse” it started to snow. I felt a great sense of release. I believe we all did. Spontaneously we turned to one another and shook hands. It was as if a healthy body had purged itself of something foul and pestilential, and now life could begin anew.
I finish my report. The minister’s room falls silent, apart from the crackle of the fire.
“The only pity,” Mercier says eventually, “is that the traitor will continue to remain alive. I say this more for his sake than anyone else’s. What kind of life is left to him? It would have been kinder to finish him off. That’s why I wanted the Chamber of Deputies to restore the death penalty for treason.”
Boisdeffre nods ingratiatingly. “You did your best, Minister.”
With a creak of knee joints, Mercier stands. He walks over to a large globe, which stands in a mount beside his desk, and beckons me to join him. He puts on a pair of spectacles and peers down at the Earth, like a short-sighted deity.
“I need to put him in a place where it’s impossible for him to talk to anyone. I don’t want him smuggling out any more treasonous messages. And just as important, I don’t want anyone communicating with him.”
The minister places a surprisingly delicate hand on the northern hemisphere and gently turns the world. The Atlantic slides past. He halts the sphere and points to a spot on the coast of South America, seven thousand kilometres from Paris. He looks at me and raises an eyebrow, inviting me to guess.
I say, “The penal colony at Cayenne?”
“Close, but more secure than that.” He leans in and taps the globe. “Devil’s Island: fifteen kilometres off the coast. The sea around it is infested with sharks. The immense waves and strong currents make it hard even to land a boat.”
“I thought that place had been closed down years ago.”
“It was. The last inhabitants were a colony of convict lepers. I will need to seek approval in the Chamber, but this time I will get it. The island will be reopened especially for Dreyfus. Well, what do you think?”
My immediate reaction is surprise. Mercier, married to an English-woman, is considered a republican and a free-thinker—he refuses to attend Mass, for example—qualities I admire. And yet, for all that, there lingers about him something of the Jesuit fanatic. Devil’s Island? I think. We’re supposed to be on the brink of the twentieth century, not the eighteenth …
“Well?” he repeats. “What’s your view?”
“Isn’t it a trifle …” I choose the word carefully, wishing to be tactful, “Dumas?”
“Dumas? What do you mean, Dumas?”
“Only that it sounds like a punishment from historical fiction. I feel an echo of The Man in the Iron Mask. Won’t Dreyfus become known as ‘The Man on Devil’s Island’? It will make him the most famous prisoner in the world …”
“Exactly!” cries Mercier, and slaps his thigh in a rare display of feeling. “That’s exactly what I like about it. The public’s imagination will be captured.”
I bow to his superior political judgement. At the same time I wonder what the public has to do with it. Only when I am collecting my coat and about to leave does he offer a clue.
“This may be the last time that you will see me in this office.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, General.”
“You understand I take little interest in politics—I am a professional soldier, not a politician. But I gather there is great dissatisfaction among the parties, and the government may only last another week or two. There may even be a new president.” He shrugs. “Anyway, there it is. We soldiers serve where we are ordered.” He shakes my hand. “I have been impressed by the intelligence you have shown during this wretched affair, Major Picquart. It will not be forgotten, will it, Chief?”
“No, Minister.” Boisdeffre also rises to shake my hand. “Thank you, Picquart. Most illuminating. One might almost have been there oneself. How are your Russian studies, by the way?”
“I doubt I’ll ever be able to speak the language, General, but I can read Tolstoy now—with a dictionary, of course.”
“Excellent. There are great things happening between France and Russia. A good knowledge of Russian will be very useful to a rising officer.”
I am at the door and about to open it, feeling suitably warmed by all this flattery, when Mercier suddenly asks: “Tell me, was my name mentioned at all?”
“I’m sorry?” I’m not sure what he means. “Mentioned in what sense?”
“During the ceremony this morning.”
“I don’t think so …”
“It doesn’t matter at all.” Mercier makes a dismissive gesture. “I just wondered if there was any kind of demonstration in the crowd …”
“No, none that I saw.”
“Good. I didn’t expect there would be.”
I close the door softly behind me.
Stepping back out into the windy canyon of the rue Saint-Dominique, I clutch my cap to my head and walk the one hundred metres to the War Ministry next door. There is nobody about. Clearly my brother officers have better things to do on a Saturday than attend to the bureaucracy of the French army. Sensible fellows! I shall write up my official report, clear my desk, and try to put Dreyfus out of my mind. I trot up the stairs and along the corridor to my office.
Since Napoleon’s time, the War Ministry has been divided into four departments. The First deals with administration; the Second, intelligence; the Third, operations and training; and the Fourth, transport. I work in the Third, under the command of Colonel Boucher, who—also being a sensible fellow—is nowhere to be seen this winter’s morning. As his deputy, I have a small office to myself, a monk’s bare cell, with a window looking out on to a dreary courtyard. Two chairs, a desk and a filing cabinet are the extent of my furniture. The heating is not working. The air is so cold I can see my breath. I sit, still wearing my overcoat, and contemplate the drift of paperwork that has accumulated over the past few days. With a groan, I reach for one of the dossiers.
It must be a couple of hours later, early in the afternoon, when I hear heavy footsteps approaching along the deserted corridor. Whoever it is walks past my office, stops, and then comes back and stands outside my door. The wood is thin enough for me to hear their heavy breathing. I stand, cross quietly to the door, listen, and then fling it open to discover the Chief of the Second Department—that is, the head of all military intelligence—staring me in the face. I am not sure which of us is the more flustered.
“General Gonse,” I say, saluting. “I had no idea it was you.”
Gonse is famous for his fourteen-hour days. I might have guessed that if anyone else was likely to be in the building, it would be him. His enemies say it is the only way he can keep on top of his job.
“That’s quite all right, Major Picquart. This place is a warren. May I?” He waddles into my office on his short legs, puffing on a cigarette. “Sorry to interrupt you, but I just had a message from Colonel Guérin at the place Vendôme. He says that Dreyfus confessed at the parade this morning. Did you know that?”
I gape at him like a fool. “No, General, I did not.”
“Apparently, in the half-hour before the ceremony this morning, he told the captain who was guarding him that he did pass documents to the Germans.” Gonse shrugs. “I thought you ought to know, as you were supposed to be keeping an eye on it all for the minister.”
“But I’ve already given him my report …” I am aghast. This is the sort of incompetence that can wreck a man’s career. Ever since October, despite the overwhelming evidence against him, Dreyfus has refused to admit his guilt. And now I’m being told that finally he has confessed, practically under my nose, and I missed it! “I had better go and get to the bottom of this.”
“I suggest you do. And when you have, come back and report to me.”
Once again I hurry out into the chilly grey half-light. I take a cab from the rank on the corner of the boulevard Saint-Germain, and when we reach the École Militaire I ask the driver to wait while I run inside. The silence of the vast empty parade ground mocks me. The only sign of life is the workmen clearing the litter from the place de Fontenoy. I return to the cab and ask to be driven as fast as possible to the headquarters of the military governor of Paris in the place Vendôme, where I wait in the lobby of that gloomy and dilapidated building for Colonel Guérin. He takes his time, and when he does appear he has the air of a man who has been interrupted in the middle of a good lunch to which he is anxious to return.
“I’ve already explained all this to General Gonse.”
“I’m sorry, Colonel. Would you mind explaining it to me?”
He sighs. “Captain Lebrun-Renault was detailed to keep an eye on Dreyfus in the guardroom until the ceremony started. He handed him over to the escort, and just as the degradation started he came over to where a group of us were standing and said something like ‘Well I’ll be damned, the scum just admitted everything.’ ”
I take out my notebook. “What did the captain say Dreyfus had told him?”
“I don’t recall his actual words. The essence of it was that he’d handed over secrets to the Germans, but they weren’t very important, that the minister knew all about them, and that in a few years’ time the whole story would come out. Something like that. You need to talk to Lebrun-Renault.”
“I do. Where can I find him?”
“I’ve no idea. He’s off duty.”
“Is he still in Paris?”
“My dear Major, how would I know that?”
“I don’t quite understand,” I say. “Why would Dreyfus suddenly admit his guilt to a total stranger, at such a moment and with nothing to gain by it, after denying everything for three months?”
“I can’t help you there.” The colonel looks over his shoulder in the direction of his lunch.
“And if he’d just confessed to Captain Lebrun-Renault, why did he then go out and repeatedly shout his innocence into a hostile crowd of tens of thousands?”
The colonel squares his shoulders. “Are you calling one of my officers a liar?”
“Thank you, Colonel.” I put away my notebook.
When I get back to the ministry, I go straight to Gonse’s office. He is labouring over a stack of files. He swings his boots up onto the desk and tilts back in his chair as he listens to my report. He says, “So you don’t think there’s anything in it?”
“No, I do not. Not now I’ve heard the details. It’s much more likely this dim captain of the Guard got the wrong end of the stick. Either that or he embellished a tale to make himself look important to his comrades. Of course I am assuming,” I add, “that Dreyfus wasn’t a double agent planted on the Germans.”
Gonse laughs and lights another cigarette. “If only!”
“What would you like me to do, General?”
“I don’t see there’s anything much you can do.”
I hesitate. “There is one way of getting a definite answer, of course.”
“What’s that?”
“We could ask Dreyfus.”
Gonse shakes his head. “Absolutely not. He’s now beyond communication. Besides, he’ll soon be shipped out of Paris.” He lifts his feet from the desk and sets them on the floor. He pulls the stack of files towards him. Cigarette ash spills down the front of his tunic. “Just leave it with me. I’ll go and explain everything to the Chief of Staff and the minister.” He opens a dossier and starts to scan it. He doesn’t look up. “Thank you, Major Picquart. You are dismissed.”