An Officer and a Spy

Minister of War! But not just that – I was to be his ‘eyes and ears’! I trotted down those marble steps with a broad smile on my face.
    Dreyfus’s court martial was scheduled to start on Wednesday 19 December in the military courthouse, a grim old building directly across the street from the Cherche-Midi prison, and to last three or four days. I very much hoped it would be over by Saturday night: I had tickets to the Salle d’Harcourt, to attend the first public performance of Monsieur Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune .
    I made sure to be at the court building early. It was not yet light when I made my way into the crowded vestibule. The first person I met was Major Henry: when he saw me, he jerked his head back in surprise.
    ‘Major Picquart! What are you doing here?’
    ‘The minister has asked me to attend as his observer.’
    ‘Has he, by God?’ Henry pulled a face. ‘Aren’t we grand these days? So you’re to be his stool pigeon? We’ll have to watch what we say when you’re around!’ He tried to make it sound as if he was making a joke, but I could tell he was affronted, and from that moment on he was always wary of me. I wished him good luck and climbed the stone staircase to the courtroom on the first floor.
    The building was a former convent with low, thick arched doors and roughly plastered whitewashed walls that had little nooks built into them for icons. The chamber set aside for the hearing was barely larger than a classroom and already packed with reporters, gendarmes, soldiers and those peculiar members of the general public whose pastime is attending trials. At the far end, on a platform erected beneath a mural of the Crucifixion, was a long table for the judges, covered with green baize. Carpets had been nailed up over the windows – whether to shut out prying eyes or the December cold I never did discover, but the effect was claustrophobic and curiously sinister. There was a plain wooden chair facing the judges for the accused, a small desk behind it for his lawyer and another nearby for the prosecutor. A chair just to the side of and behind the judges was reserved for me. There was nowhere for the spectators to sit; they could only press themselves against the walls. I took out my notebook and pencil and sat down to wait. At one point du Paty pushed his way in briefly, followed by General Gonse. They surveyed the scene, then left.
    Soon afterwards the main players began to appear. There was Maître Edgar Demange, Dreyfus’s attorney, exotic in his black robes and cylindrical black cap but otherwise the epitome of a dull middle-aged farmer with a broad, clean-shaven face and straggling wispy sideburns. The prosecutor was Brisset, thin as a sabre, in the uniform of a major. And finally there came the seven military judges, also in uniform – a colonel, three majors and two captains, led by the president of the court, Colonel Émilien Maurel. He was a shrivelled and unhealthy-looking elderly figure: I learned later he was suffering from piles. He took his place in the centre of the long table and addressed the court in a peevish voice: ‘Bring in the accused!’
    All eyes went to the back of the court and the door opened and in he came. He was slightly bent from lack of exercise, grey from exhaustion and the darkness of his cell, thin from his poor diet: in ten weeks he had aged ten years. And yet, as he advanced into the room, escorted by a lieutenant of the Republican Guard, he held his head at a defiant angle. I even detected a hint of anticipation in his step. Perhaps Mercier was right to be worried. Quite the grand seigneur , I noted, & eager to begin . He halted in front of Colonel Maurel and saluted.
    Maurel coughed to clear his throat and said, ‘State your name.’
    ‘Alfred Dreyfus.’
    ‘Place of birth?’
    ‘Mulhouse.’
    ‘Age?’
    ‘Thirty-five.’
    ‘You may sit.’
    Dreyfus lowered himself into his place. He took off his cap and placed it under his seat. He adjusted his pince-nez and glanced around. I was in his direct line of sight. Almost at once his gaze settled on me. I must have held his stare for perhaps half a minute. What was in his expression? I couldn’t tell. But I sensed that to look away would be to concede that I had played a shabby trick on him, and so I wouldn’t do it.
    In the end, it was the prosecutor, Brisset, who made us break our contest and look away at the same time. He rose and said, ‘Monsieur President, in