An Officer and a Spy

told with relish, in the very same cell in which poor Dreyfus used to bash his head against the wall exactly four years before.
    I am kept in solitary confinement, forbidden most visitors and let out for only an hour a day into a tiny yard, six paces square, surrounded by high walls. I criss-cross it, back and forth, from corner to corner, and circle the edge, like a mouse trapped in the bottom of a well.
    The accusation is that I scratched off the original addressee of the telegram-card and wrote in Esterhazy’s name myself. The offence carries a sentence of five years. The questioning goes on for weeks.
    Tell us the circumstances in which you came into possession of the petit bleu  . . .
    Fortunately, I haven’t forgotten that I asked Lauth to make photographic copies of the petit bleu soon after it was pieced together: eventually these are fetched and show clearly that the address had not been tampered with at that time; only subsequently was it altered as part of the conspiracy to frame me. Still I am kept in Cherche-Midi. Pauline writes, asking to visit me; I tell her not to – it might get into the papers, and besides, I don’t want her to see me in this condition; I find it easier to endure it alone. Occasionally the boredom is alleviated by trips to court. In November I lay out the whole of my evidence yet again, this time to the twelve senior judges of the Criminal Chamber, who are beginning the civil process of considering whether the verdict against Dreyfus is safe.
    My continued detention without trial becomes notorious. Clemenceau, who is allowed to visit me, proposes in L’Aurore ‘the nomination of Picquart to the post of Grand Prisoner of State, vacant since the Man in the Iron Mask’. At night, after they have turned out my light and I can no longer read, I can hear demonstrations both for and against me in the rue Cherche-Midi. The prison has to be protected by seven hundred troops; the hooves of the cavalry clatter down the cobbled streets. I receive thousands of letters of support, including one from the old Empress Eugénie. So embarrassing does this become to the government that Labori is told by officials of the Ministry of Justice that he should ask the civil courts to intervene and release me. I refuse to permit him to do so: I am more useful as a hostage. Every day that I am locked up, the more desperate and vindictive the army looks.
    Months pass, and then on the afternoon of Saturday 3 June 1899, Labori comes to see me. Outside the sun is shining strongly, penetrating even the grime and bars of the tiny window; I can hear a bird singing. He puts a large and inky palm to the metal grille and says, ‘Picquart, I want to shake your hand.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Must you always be so damned contrary?’ He rattles the steel mesh with his long, thick fingers. ‘Come: for once, just do as I ask.’ I place my palm to his and he says quietly, ‘Congratulations, Georges.’
    ‘On what?’
    ‘The Supreme Court of Appeal has ordered the army to bring Dreyfus back for a retrial.’
    I have waited for this news for so long, and yet when it comes I feel nothing. All I can say is, ‘What reasons did they give?’
    ‘They cite two, both drawn from your evidence: first, that the “lowlife D” letter doesn’t actually refer to Dreyfus and shouldn’t have been shown to the judges without informing the defence, and second, that – how do they put it? Oh yes, here’s the line: “facts unknown to the original court martial tend to show that the bordereau could not have been written by Dreyfus.”’
    ‘What language you lawyers talk!’ I savour the legalese on my tongue as if it were a delicacy: ‘“facts unknown to the original court martial tend to show . . .” And the army can’t appeal against this?’
    ‘No. It’s done. A warship is on its way to pick up Dreyfus now and bring him back for a new court martial. And this time it won’t be in secret – this time the whole world will be watching.’

23
    I AM RELEASED from gaol the following Friday, on the same day that Dreyfus is disembarked from Devil’s Island and begins the long voyage back to France aboard the warship Sfax . In light of the Supreme Court ruling, all charges against me are dropped. Edmond is waiting for me with his latest toy, a motor car, parked outside the prison gates to drive me back to Ville-d’Avray. I refuse to speak to the journalists who surround me on the pavement.
    The abrupt change in my