Testimony of Alfred Dreyfus at His 1899 Rennes Court Martial
Source: Le Proces Dreyfus devant le conseil de Guerre de Rennes. Paris, Stock, 1900.
Translated: from the original by Mitchell Abidor
Photo taken at the 1899 court-martial of Dreyfus in Rennes
President: Will the accused please rise? You are accused of high treason, of having turned over to a foreign power the pieces enumerated in a document called the bordereau. I inform you that the law gives you the right to say all that is of use in your defense. I inform the defenders that they must express themselves with decency and moderation. As I just said, you are accused of having turned over to an agent of a foreign power the pieces enumerated in the following document:
The original of the bordereau is presented to Captain Dreyfus
President: This piece has already been presented to you. Do you recognize it?
Dreyfus: It was presented to me in 1894. As for recognizing it, I affirm that I don’t. I again affirm that I am innocent, as I already affirmed, as I shouted it in 1894. I have borne everything for the past two years, but again, for the honor of my name and that of my children, I am innocent, my colonel.
President: So you deny it?
Dreyfus: Yes, my colonel
President: We will examine the different documents enumerated in this piece. In the first place, this piece is in a handwriting that very much resembles yours. The first individuals to see it were struck by this resemblance. It was this very resemblance which led to you being designated at the ministry as the piece in question. It is first a matter of a note on a 120 mm hydraulic brake and the way it functioned. The question of a 120 mm hydraulic brake would obviously interest an artillery officer. You are an officer who graduated from the École de Guerre and so there is nothing impossible about your having occupied yourself with this, that you had information on this subject. In 1890 you were in Bourges
D: Yes, my colonel
P: At the school of pyrotechnics?
D: Yes, the school of pyrotechnics.
P: You must have frequented officers of the garrison?
D: Yes, my colonel.
P: And consequently the officers of the foundry at Bourges... It is precisely in 1890 that the first hydropneumatic brakes for the 120 were constructed. There is thus nothing impossible about your heaving learned of this in your conversations with the officers of the garrison.
D: I knew the concept of the hydropneumatic brake since 1889. But I knew neither its detailed structure nor its construction.
P: But in your conversations did you not have information on the subject of this brake?
D: No, my colonel. No information on any details.
P: But you had certain indications concerning it?
D: Yes, I knew the principle of the brake for the 120, but as for the piece, I neither saw it, fired it, nor maneuvered it.
P: Did they talk about this 120 mm piece at École de Guerre?
D: I don’t remember. But we saw it once in the courtyard of the artillery school in Calais during a trip there by officers of the École de Guerre.
P: It was in the spring of 1894 that the 120 mm pieces were the object of battery experiments. Reports were immediately sent to the ministry. Were you at the ministry at that time?
D: Yes, my colonel. On the general staff.
P: At the beginning of 1894 you were part of the first bureau?
D: No, my colonel, the second bureau.
P: Indeed, the second bureau. It is thus not at all impossible that you knew how the 120 had acted. In any case, it was a question that was spoken of at the ministry and which your relations with officers of either the third section or the technical direction could lead to you know of.
D: I never had any conversations either with an artillery officer or with any officer of the technical section. Consequently I was never able to repeat it to an officer. As for my time in the first bureau in 1893, we had absolutely nothing to do with technical questions.
P: But it is not impossible that in your hallway conversations you knew details about this piece?
D: But we never dealt with technical questions in the first bureau. It’s not impossible that an officer at the ministry heard of these things.
P: “A few modifications will be made to the new plan” is a question completely within the competence of the ministry. These questions were studied at the ministry, in the bureau you worked in, that is, the fourth bureau.
D: It wasn’t in 1894; it was during the first part of 1893.
P: You were then at the fourth bureau, assigned to transport on the eastern lines. You were very well informed on this matter. Major Bertin was struck by the particular interest you showed in these questions. You absolutely knew the transport situation. So when they modified the organization of the covering troops in 1894 the principal difficulty was ensuring their transport without upsetting the means of transport of the others. This is what caused the taking of provisional dispositions which had to be changed in order to take definitive ones. It was thus entirely likely that you could, that you did know the transport plan, knew its difficulties, knew what had to be done to pass from the old dispositions to the new ones.
D: Excuse me, but there were no new plans in 1893.
P: I'm speaking to you about 1894.
D: It was only in 1894 that the new plan was decided on.
P: Let’s not mix up the questions. The knowledge you acquired in 1893 in the fourth bureau allowed you to totally understand these questions.
D: But I was not charged with this. It was only in 1894 that I was charged with overseeing the printing of documents concurrently with the other ministries.
P: What were these documents?
D: The supply tables.
P: You had them for a certain amount of time?
D: Yes, but I didn’t keep them. I immediately returned these documents to the bureau chief.
P: But the previous year you brought these documents to the printer?
D: Yes, because the previous year I was charged with overseeing their printing.
P: You had them in your hands. You had to take them to the printers of the geographic service. You had them in your hands twice.
D: I returned them that very evening. All that is printed at each session is a table. The table of the supply service of the covering troops is composed of a certain number of tables. At each session a certain number of tables are printed.
P: Not only could you have precious information on the effectives of the troops, but this work on covering troops was prepared, in part at least, at the third bureau where you had been since 1894. Consequently, you must have known of the part of the work the third bureau was charged with.
D; I was in the third bureau at the end of 1894. I asked my section chief if he had been charged with confidential work in May 1894. He said no.
P: In any case, you were in a position to have information on covering troops.
D: It’s certain that if I would have asked for it I could have had it, but I never asked.
P: People speak of you as having run after information. It’s probable that you were informed concerning the covering troops.
D: I never asked anybody anything.
P: The third document is a note on modifications to artillery formations. After the suppression of the pontoon service there were two regiments that were now available. Consequently it was necessary to distribute the batteries either among the army corps or the new formations. The general staff officers alone could know about these questions of general mobilization. You were perfectly placed to have this information. Did you know anything on the subject of the movements of the artillery regiments?
D: At the beginning of 1894 I was in the second bureau. All that I knew of this situation was the suppression of two regiments of pontooneers and the creation of new batteries. The discussion was open on the suppression of the pontoon regiments. That’s all I knew.
P: You didn’t know the destination to give to these new batteries?
D: I was in the second bureau at the beginning of 1894, in the first half.
P: But in the second, since the bordereau was sent at the end of August? It was then that Major Mercier-Milon of the second bureau communicated information to the personnel.
D: At the beginning of 1894, in June.
P: The communication was made between July 15-20, a month before the bordereau was established.
D: The suppression of the pontooneers occurred in March.
P: That’s possible, but the transfer of the batteries only occurred in June. That’s when Major Mercier-Milon sent a note to the officers.
D: A note wasn’t communicated to the trainees.
P: When something is communicated to the officers the trainers also know of it. At the end of 1893 did you not know of information sent by the third bureau to the fourth on the subject of the effectives of the 120 mm batteries?
D: No, my colonel.
P: Yet it was the third bureau that sent this information to the fourth. Consequently you could have known them.
D: I was in the maneuvers section.
P: That’s possible, but in those conditions one knows what’s happening between one section and another.
D: You never go from one section to another except when there’s information you need.
P: At the first bureau you were the deputy of Major Besse.
D: I was under his orders for three weeks.
P: At that time he studied the distribution of the batteries of 120s among the different army corps; he wrote a note on this subject that you knew of.
D: I didn’t know it.
P: You worked with him. This note disappeared; it was never able to be found in the archives of the ministry. You didn’t know about it?
D: No one ever spoke of it in 1894.
P: The fourth document is “a note on Madagascar.” When you were in the ministry, in 1894, two studies of Madagascar were carried out. The first, which was of a purely geographical character, was done in the bureau. It was copied by a corporal who worked in Colonel Sancy’s antechamber. You were seen going to see this colonel several times.
D: I would like to point out that the antechamber is in front of the colonel’s door and that consequently everyone must pass through it.
P: Since it was there that the corporal copied the note it’s not impossible that it was the people who passed through the antechamber that knew of it. It’s not an impossibility. In any case, this note is of no great importance: it was a simple geographical study. But in the month of July 1894 a more serious study was done, a study on the expedition properly speaking. The route to be followed was studied, the means to be employed, the materiel to be concentrated. It was, in summary, a study of the expedition. It was done by different bureaus, but in particular by the third, where you were. Did you know of it?
D: Not at all.
P: So there were things that occurred in your bureau you knew nothing about? You were not aware of what was being done?
D: I was in the maneuvers section.
P: And you didn’t know what was going on in the other bureaus?
D: Absolutely not. No officer ever communicated anything to me.
P: The work was finished on August 20. The final proofs were drawn on August 29, at the moment the bordereau was written by its author. There is thus a complete coincidence between this information and the definitive establishing of the work on Madagascar. Since you were in the third bureau it is not impossible that you knew of it.
D: Under those conditions nothing is impossible, my colonel.
P: No, but all these things together at least form presumptions. Let us pass to the fifth issue. It’s a question of a “proposed firing manual.” Did you know about this manual?
D: No, my colonel
P: You never knew of it?
D: Never.
P: There is a witness who claims to have placed at your disposal for forty-eight hours a copy of this firing manual.
D: I am convinced this is an error, given that at the court martial of 1894 I asked during both the pre-trial investigation and at the hearing that the witness appear to settle this point, and neither at the investigation nor the hearing did this witness appear.
P: He will appear during the questioning.
D: I would also like to point this out: in Major d'Ormescheville’s report that you just heard it is said that I had conversations with this officer in February or March. But I saw in the deposition of the Appeals Court that this manual dates from March 14 and was only handed over to the General Staff of the army in May. Consequently I couldn’t have had a conversation about it in March.
P: It was in July 1894 that Major Jeannel must have given you a copy of the manual.
D: But we were talking about conversations I would have had with him.
P: No matter. What I am asking you is not what M. d'Ormescheville said but your responses. Allow me to interrogate you and don’t ask any questions. It was you yourself who complained to Major Jeannel that the trainees of the General Staff didn’t know about the firing manual which was in the hands of all the regimental officers, who had asked that it be delivered to them. Well then, ten copies were delivered, two of them to the bureau where you were working. Do you recognize that since the manual had to be shared among different officers Major Jeannel loaned you a copy?
D: No, my colonel.
P: You deny this?
D: Yes, my colonel. Will you allow me an observation?
P: Yes.
D: I would like to point out that in July 1894 I was no longer a part of the second bureau of the General Staff, where Major Jeannel was, but in the third bureau. But according to the depositions at the appeals court firing manuals were given to all the bureaus and I don’t understand...
P: You will discuss the question with the witness.
D: Yes, but I just wanted to make this observation.
P: In the bordereau the author says that it is very difficult to obtain this manual. This wasn’t true for officers in the artillery corps, while the officers in the ministry to whom the manual was sent after a delay were precisely in that situation, that of not having the firing manual at their disposal. This too is just like your personal situation.
D: My colonel, as I said at the court martial of 1894 it was easy to obtain this firing manual. It is certain that an officer could have requested this manual and it would have been given him. I didn’t have it and didn’t ask for it for the reason that I wasn’t going to go to the firing school and because my work was different. Consequently, if I didn’t request the firing manual it was because I had no need of it, but it was quite easy for an artillery officer to have this manual. Consequently, this could only apply to an officer foreign to the arm...
P: All this is nothing but discussion. The bordereau ends with these words: “I'm leaving on maneuvers.” So you weren’t on maneuvers?
D: No, my colonel.
P: It was the usage that the trainees always go on them. When were you notified that you wouldn’t go on maneuvers in 1894?
D: It was at the end of May or the beginning of June, my colonel.
P According to our information it would have been a much later date. It would have been August 28, 1894 that the minister took the decision not to send the trainees of 1894 to maneuvers for internal reasons.
D: I beg your pardon.
P: That is it was perhaps a few days after the creation of the so-called bordereau.
D: I beg your pardon, my colonel. In any case, at the 1894 trial I requested the producing of an official circular of May 1894 in which we were informed that we were not to go on maneuvers and that we would train with infantry regiments, those of the first bureau in July, August, and September, those of the second in October, November, and December.
P: In any case, there was a ministry decision in September 1894 that trainees would not go on maneuvers.
D: There were maneuvers in May 1894.
P: This has to be looked up.
Mr Demange [government lawyer]: There must be a mistake.
Major Carrière (government commissioner): There’s no mistake. In May there were instructions issued notifying the service in principle. But the trainees had nevertheless to go on maneuvers. They only renounced sending trainees on maneuvers in September because of special work that fell to them following the preparation of a new plan.
P: That’s just what I said, and that’s just what I read. Tell us a bit about your different tasks at the fourth bureau of the general staff. What did you do in the fourth bureau?
D: I was busy in the fourth bureau with the preparation of the plan, my colonel. In 1893 there was no plan. Consequently there was work on the plan when I was there. And at the end of training we were made to do fictitious tasks using fictitious transport work, precisely because the service wasn’t charged with this.
P: Was it in relation to this fictitious transport work that you requested to do work based not on fictive data, but work based on real facts?
D: I don’t at all recall that fact, my colonel.
P: A witness testified to this fact: you insisted on doing work not based on fictitious data but based on real data.
D: I don’t remember that at all, my colonel.
P: What were your other tasks at the fourth bureau?
D: There were no others.
P: And afterwards you went to...
D: The first bureau, my colonel.
P: The second bureau?
D: First to the first bureau.
P: It makes no difference.
D: At the first bureau I passed through all of its sections. We trainees spent three or four weeks in each section. This is the only bureau where we passed through all the sections. We participated in the daily services of all the sections I passed through.
P: Did you do any special work?
D: I did no special work in the first bureau. In any case, after five years my memory is quite vague. The fact I just cited goes back six years.
P: So you don’t recall the studies you engaged in?
D: Not precisely.
P: What work did you do when you passed through the other bureaus?
D: In the second bureau I did a comparison between foreign artillery and our own and I translated a book on the cannon of the future.
P: And in the third bureau?
D: I was employed for three months in the maneuvers section.
P: We've exhausted this order of questions. We'll now pass on to another order of ideas. During your time at the École de Guerre you were reproached for having made statements unworthy of a French officer. You are supposed to have said that France would be happier under German domination.
D: I never said that.
P: We'll return to this. When you left École de Guerre you were number nine after having climbed many ranks. Nevertheless you demonstrated discontent which was expressed through strong words. What was the reason for this discontent?
D: I established the fact during the investigation ion 1894. I requested the summoning of the individuals involved in this affair who would have heard these statements. One of my examiners at École de Guerre is supposed to have declared that they didn’t want officers of our religion on the general staff, but this was nothing personal concerning me. These words were spoken in general.
P: How did you learn of these words?
D: Through one of my comrades.
P: That’s quite strange.
D: When I heard these words, after the examinations I went to the director of the École but I didn’t protest my situation. The director received me benevolently; he told me he knew about this and regretted it, but that it didn’t change my situation. I was in any event happy with my rank.
P: So you attributed your poor grade to your religion? When you left the École de Guerre you requested leave to go to Italy. Did you go there?
D: No.
P: Why not?
D: Mme Dreyfus was ill.
P: Where were you during that time?
D: I didn’t leave Paris.
P: You didn’t go to Mulhouse in 1894 during this leave?
D: I don’t think so, my colonel.
P: However our information seems to establish this. You were in Mulhouse. Not only were you there, but you requested a visa from the German embassy, which was refused.
D: In 1894?
P: No, when you left the École de Guerre in 1892.
D: That I don’t remember at all.
P: Yet you went there?
D: In 1893, yes, after my father’s death.
P: Why was your presence there tolerated when the German authorities show themselves to be so severe?
D: I beg your pardon, but for seven years passports were refused me.
P; And yet you went there?
D: I went there three times, my colonel. I went there three times in secrecy, passing through Switzerland, through Basle. I stayed with my family.
P: And once you got there?
D: I never left the house.
P: Did you not go to Mulhouse in September 1886?
D: In September 1886? I spent my leave with my father every year.
P: Did you go there in 1886?
D: I have no recollection of that. Until the passports I went there every year.
P: Well then, in September 1886 didn’t you follow the German maneuvers in Mulhouse.
D: No my colonel, never!
P: Did you not follow on horseback the maneuvers near the Habsheim polygon?
D: No, my colonel.
P: You didn’t have a conversation with a dragoon officer?
D: I never spoke to a German officer.
P: You didn’t speak with them about the 1886 rifle?
D: Even less, my colonel!
P: So you deny this absolutely. A witness claims to have seen you. At the fourth bureau you are spoken of as having wanted to know these details.
D: My goal was to educate myself.
P: A young officer, especially when he leaves school, has the right to learn, but there are limits. One must not push the desire to learn to the point of indiscretion, and you were at times indiscreet. Your investigations were particularly concerned with the eastern lines. You knew all these questions, to such a point that you were able to giver talks ab abrupto on all these points. You knew all this so well that you verbally brought Captain Boullenger up to date. Why did you want to know all these details?
D: I did indeed give all this information to Captain Boullenger because I knew the numbers of the transport lines.
P: And the mobilization?
D: In the fourth bureau we knew all the transport lines, and consequently I knew them
P: You showed much interest in these subjects because you no doubt had reasons to know them, and this at a time when your service chief much regretted your nonchalance and your presence in the bureau because of this investigative spirit. You went quite far in this, for they were obliged to call you to order. One day at the ministry there was a conference on an extremely confidential point of our military organization. They wanted to give you an idea of this but didn’t want you to take notes. General Vanson even recommended that you not take notes, but you did.
D: I don’t know of this conference.
P: Nevertheless there is mention of it in the court documents. I don’t know when it took place, but you were at the ministry.
D: I know neither these facts nor that conference.
P: You affirm that you didn’t know General Vanson’s conference in which was indicated the zones of concentration and on the subject of which he said to you, “Look at all this but take no notes, for it’s extremely confidential.”
D: I don’t recall that at all.
P: You so loved knowing confidential information and hidden things that you sometimes employed devious methods to obtain them. And so you wrote to Captain Rémusat to obtain information.
D: Not at all. I can affirm that I did not write to Captain Rémusat; I don’t recall this fact.
P: You don’t deny it?
D: I would be very curious to see this letter.
P: Not only did you write to him, but he said that you explained to him that this information was wanted by a professor at the École de Guerre.
D: It is precisely that fact, my colonel, which seems to me unlikely.
P: Once the information was obtained, it is incorrect that it had been requested under those conditions?
D: I am convinced of this. It is not admissible that this would have been requested of me for there were other ways to learn about this.
P: We'll hear the witnesses on this subject. Several general staff officers have said in their depositions that you posed them indiscrete questions which they refused to answer, sometimes changing the subject. Do you recall this? Captain Boullenger, for example?
D: I only recall one thing, and that’s that one day I asked Captain Boullenger, “What’s new in the fourth bureau?” That is all.
P: Did you not go to Brussels in 1894?
D: No, my colonel.
P: Are you sure of this?
D: I am certain?
P: And yet a witness saw you.
D: The place is correct, but I took this trip in 1885-86 when returning from a visit to the Amsterdam Worlds Fair.
P: Did you see this witness? Who is it?
D: M. Lonquéty.
P: He claims to have seen you in a restaurant.
D: That’s correct, but we have to look up the date of the Amsterdam Worlds Fair.
P: You had relations with a woman who lived on the rue Bizet. Do you acknowledge these relations?
D: They were not intimate relations.
P: But in any case you went to her house. What was this person’s name?
D: W...
P: What was this woman’s nationality?
D: Austrian.
P: So she naturally spoke German.
D: Yes
P: It is said she had brothers in the Austrian army?
D: I don’t know.
P: No one told you about this?
D: No, my colonel.
P: In any case, she did. That woman was suspected of espionage. How is it that you, a French officer, part of the general staff, who because of this was bound to show great discretion, frequented an individual of foreign nationality having brothers in the Austrian army and herself suspected of espionage?
D: In the first place I was unaware of espionage and I would like to point out to you that when Major Gendron deposed at the 1894 trial he said he never saw that person on the list of suspect individuals.
P: Did you not spend large amounts of money that you concealed in your accounts
D: Never, my colonel
P: Did you frequent several women?
D: No.
P: Nevertheless people speak of a person who you offered to rent a villa for to turn her away from a relationship. Is this true?
D: Yes, my colonel, a private relationship, but I didn’t do it.
P: It was thus an expense you could allow yourself?
D: I had the means for it.
P: But that didn’t seem to you to be an expense.
D: I never hid anything, my colonel. My private accounts were in my house and no one ever found anything along this order of ideas.
P: Well maintained accounts were found in your house. So if you had expenses of this kind you had to have had private resources. Did you gamble?
D: Never.
P: Nevertheless, in 1894 you returned from a general staff voyage.
D: In June 1894?
P: You were charged along with another officer, Captain Duchâtelet with bringing back the column, and passing through the Champs Élysées you said to an officer, “Here is where a certain woman lives...”
D: It was regrettable
P: “...And if we went to see her she would be surprised to see us at this hour.” Captain Duchâtelet said to you that you couldn’t go see that person at that hour and you said to him, “In any case, I don’t really want to, for a few days ago I lost a lot of money at her house.”
D: I affirm that I did not gamble.
P: Is that statement exact? Did you say this?
D: No, my colonel, for the simple reason that I have never gambled.
P: We will hear Captain Duchâtelet. Did you bet on the horses?
D: Never.
P: And yet you said to an officer that a horse that belonged to you in part was a failure and that you hoped to soon catch up with two young horses that you were going to race.
D: Never.
P: You deny saying this?
(Dreyfus does not respond.)
P: We have now arrived at what has happened since your arrest. Did you know Colonel du Paty de Calm before your arrest?
D: Only by sight. I had no other relationship with him.
P: Did he have any reason to wish you harm?
D: I know of none.
P: Did you know Major Henry?
D: No, my colonel.
P: There was no cause for dislike between you?
D: None.
P: Did you know Lieutenant Colonel Picquart?
D: No more than the others. I know him under the same conditions.
P: No private relations?
D: No, my colonel.
P: But also without difficulties? In summary, your relations with these individuals were either good or non-existent.
D: Yes, my colonel.
P: Did you know Major Esterhazy?
D: Not at all, my colonel.
P: You never saw him?
D: Never.
P: You never wrote him?
D: Never.
P: Major Esterhazy declared that he received a letter written under an assumed name asking for information on the role of the cavalry brigade his father commanded in the Crimea. This letter was signed Brault. And this name is the precisely that of an officer whose handwriting you drew our attention to when you were shown the bordereau.
D: When I spoke of the handwriting of the bordereau I didn’t know which letter was the incriminated one. I was shown bits of handwriting.
P: It wasn’t a photograph that you were shown?
D: I was not at all aware of the incriminated document. I was asked, “Do you know a handwriting resembling this one?” I said, “Take me to the ministry.” I was told, “Search through your memory.” I searched and I said, “It seems to me that this handwriting vaguely resembles that of Captain Brault.” But I quickly withdrew this allegation for I hadn’t intended to incriminate any of my colleagues.
P: Do you think you have any personal enemies who could have cooked up a machination against you?
D: No, my colonel.
P: One day Major du Paty de Clam had you go to the ministry under the pretext of a general inspection. He had you write a letter beginning with insignificant things, and then he dictated to you more or less the content of the bordereau. The beginning of this letter is in your normal handwriting, but beginning where it speaks of the short 120 mm cannon your handwriting changes; it is less clear and firm.
D: It has never changed, my colonel.
P: When you look at that letter, a photo of which I have here, it can be easily seen that the handwriting after the words “1: A note on the hydraulic brake” until the end is much larger and more spaced out than the beginning.
(The President presents the photograph in question to Captain Dreyfus)
D: The handwriting is larger, my colonel.
P: It changes; it is larger, less well formed. This can be explained by emotion...
D: In the first place I'd like to point out that the letters become bigger beginning with “I recall;” But “I recall” has no relation to the bordereau. Would you like me to show you the piece?
P: Yes.
(Captain Dreyfus passes the piece to M. Labori)
P: Now, after your condemnation and the rejection of your appeal before the appeals council Lieutenant-Colonel du Paty de Calm went to see you at [the prison of] Cherche-Midi. Would you please tell us what transpired during this conversation?
D: This conversation lasted nearly an hour, my colonel. These more are less are the terms Major du Paty used in interrogating me. He began by asking for information of no importance...I'm trying to remember the words.
P: Reconstruct the scene.
D: He began by asking me information of no importance, saying, “Did you not answer in order to proceed to an exchange?” I answered that no, that I had neither direct nor indirect relations with any agent of a foreign power, that I didn’t even know any. It as then that I said that an iniquity was being committed in condemning me; that it was impossible to understand and that there was a government that had powerful means of investigation and that it was not permissible to admit that an innocent man could be condemned for a crime he didn’t commit. It was then that I requested that the government employ all the investigative means at its disposal to shed light on this. It was then that Major du Paty de Clam replied, “There are considerations that prevent certain investigations.” I then answered, “I hope that within two or three years my innocence will be recognized.”
P: During that conversation, did you not note that Major du Paty de Calm threatened the military attaches of a foreign power?
D: Precisely.
P: A dagger to the throat was spoken of?
D: I said to him that I didn’t understand how they could condemn an innocent man; that there were military attaches who knew the guilty party, and that if I had to put a knife to their throat I would learn who the criminal was. That was when I said those words.
P: On January 5, that date of the execution march, you were taken from Cherche-Midi to the École Militaire by Captain Lebrun-Renault. What happened in the waiting room? And first, who was present?
D: Captain Lebrun-Renault.
P: Were there two, three, or more of you in the room?
D: I don’t remember.
P: Wasn’t there a general staff captain there?
D: I don’t remember.
P: Captain Attel?
D: I don’t recall. I recall seeing always alongside me Captain Lebrun-Renault.
P: What was your conversation with him?
D: The conversation was a broken up monologue. I said to him, “I'm innocent,” I sensed that there was an emotional crowd outside to which they were going to show off a man who had committed the most abominable crime a soldier could commit. I felt the patriotic anguish that gripped the crowd and I would have liked to shout: “It is not I who am guilty!” I said, “I would like to shout in the face of the people that it isn’t I who am guilty. I would like to make the crowd feel the shiver I felt. I want to make them understand that the man they think committed this crime is not the one who was condemned. I am going to shout my innocence in the face of the people.” I added, “The minister knows this full well.” This had to do with what I'd said to Lieutenant Colonel du Paty de Clam during his visit. I had said to him: “Tell the minister that I am not guilty.”
P: Did you not say to Lieutenant colonel du Paty de Clam, “The minister knows full well that if I handed over documents they were of no importance and that I did it in order to get more important ones.”
D: I recall the conversation I had with Lieutenant Colonel du Paty de Clam and I said, “The minister sent me Lieutenant Colonel du Paty de Clam to ask me if I handed over unimportant documents in order to obtain important ones.”
P: According to you these were Lieutenant Colonel du Paty de Clam’s words... You also said, “In three years my innocence will be recognized.” Why this amount of time? If you were innocent you would hope that your innocence would be immediately recognized. What did that period mean?
D: As I just said, I asked Lieutenant Colonel du Paty de Clam to use of all the means of investigation at his disposal. I was answered, “There are methods greater than yours and we can’t use them. At the same time that they couldn’t use these methods of investigation they refused to immediately shed light on the situation. Since the government had the means to carry out these investigations and refused my use of them I couldn’t hope that my innocence would be revealed in less than two or three years.
P: But why the figure of two or three years? An innocent man should want his innocence to be recognized as soon as possible.
D: I asked for it and I was refused.
P: Why the figure of three years?
D: I was setting an approximate limit.
Source: Le Proces Dreyfus devant le conseil de Guerre de Rennes. Paris, Stock, 1900;
Translated: from the original for marxists.org by Mitchell Abidor;
CopyLeft: Creative Commons (Attribute & ShareAlike) marxists.org 2011.
Translator’s note: After Dreyfus was again found guilty at his second military trial, held in Rennes in 1899, Émile Zola wrote in the September 12, 1899 edition of “L'Aurore” that “when the transcript in extenso of the Rennes trial is finally published there will not exist a more execrable monument to human infamy...Ignorance, stupidity, madness, cruelty falsehood, and crime are all laid out there with such impudence that future generations will tremble with shame. Within it are avowals of our baseness which will make all of humanity blush.” Dreyfus’s interrogation at the trial amply confirms Zola’s opinion. His interrogation by the president of the tribunal is as pure an example of dishonesty and bad faith as have ever occurred in a court of law.
President: Will the accused please rise? You are accused of high treason, of having turned over to a foreign power the pieces enumerated in a document called the bordereau. I inform you that the law gives you the right to say all that is of use in your defense. I inform the defenders that they must express themselves with decency and moderation. As I just said, you are accused of having turned over to an agent of a foreign power the pieces enumerated in the following document:
The original of the bordereau is presented to Captain Dreyfus
President: This piece has already been presented to you. Do you recognize it?
Dreyfus: It was presented to me in 1894. As for recognizing it, I affirm that I don’t. I again affirm that I am innocent, as I already affirmed, as I shouted it in 1894. I have borne everything for the past two years, but again, for the honor of my name and that of my children, I am innocent, my colonel.
President: So you deny it?
Dreyfus: Yes, my colonel
President: We will examine the different documents enumerated in this piece. In the first place, this piece is in a handwriting that very much resembles yours. The first individuals to see it were struck by this resemblance. It was this very resemblance which led to you being designated at the ministry as the piece in question. It is first a matter of a note on a 120 mm hydraulic brake and the way it functioned. The question of a 120 mm hydraulic brake would obviously interest an artillery officer. You are an officer who graduated from the École de Guerre and so there is nothing impossible about your having occupied yourself with this, that you had information on this subject. In 1890 you were in Bourges
D: Yes, my colonel
P: At the school of pyrotechnics?
D: Yes, the school of pyrotechnics.
P: You must have frequented officers of the garrison?
D: Yes, my colonel.
P: And consequently the officers of the foundry at Bourges... It is precisely in 1890 that the first hydropneumatic brakes for the 120 were constructed. There is thus nothing impossible about your heaving learned of this in your conversations with the officers of the garrison.
D: I knew the concept of the hydropneumatic brake since 1889. But I knew neither its detailed structure nor its construction.
P: But in your conversations did you not have information on the subject of this brake?
D: No, my colonel. No information on any details.
P: But you had certain indications concerning it?
D: Yes, I knew the principle of the brake for the 120, but as for the piece, I neither saw it, fired it, nor maneuvered it.
P: Did they talk about this 120 mm piece at École de Guerre?
D: I don’t remember. But we saw it once in the courtyard of the artillery school in Calais during a trip there by officers of the École de Guerre.
P: It was in the spring of 1894 that the 120 mm pieces were the object of battery experiments. Reports were immediately sent to the ministry. Were you at the ministry at that time?
D: Yes, my colonel. On the general staff.
P: At the beginning of 1894 you were part of the first bureau?
D: No, my colonel, the second bureau.
P: Indeed, the second bureau. It is thus not at all impossible that you knew how the 120 had acted. In any case, it was a question that was spoken of at the ministry and which your relations with officers of either the third section or the technical direction could lead to you know of.
D: I never had any conversations either with an artillery officer or with any officer of the technical section. Consequently I was never able to repeat it to an officer. As for my time in the first bureau in 1893, we had absolutely nothing to do with technical questions.
P: But it is not impossible that in your hallway conversations you knew details about this piece?
D: But we never dealt with technical questions in the first bureau. It’s not impossible that an officer at the ministry heard of these things.
P: “A few modifications will be made to the new plan” is a question completely within the competence of the ministry. These questions were studied at the ministry, in the bureau you worked in, that is, the fourth bureau.
D: It wasn’t in 1894; it was during the first part of 1893.
P: You were then at the fourth bureau, assigned to transport on the eastern lines. You were very well informed on this matter. Major Bertin was struck by the particular interest you showed in these questions. You absolutely knew the transport situation. So when they modified the organization of the covering troops in 1894 the principal difficulty was ensuring their transport without upsetting the means of transport of the others. This is what caused the taking of provisional dispositions which had to be changed in order to take definitive ones. It was thus entirely likely that you could, that you did know the transport plan, knew its difficulties, knew what had to be done to pass from the old dispositions to the new ones.
D: Excuse me, but there were no new plans in 1893.
P: I'm speaking to you about 1894.
D: It was only in 1894 that the new plan was decided on.
P: Let’s not mix up the questions. The knowledge you acquired in 1893 in the fourth bureau allowed you to totally understand these questions.
D: But I was not charged with this. It was only in 1894 that I was charged with overseeing the printing of documents concurrently with the other ministries.
P: What were these documents?
D: The supply tables.
P: You had them for a certain amount of time?
D: Yes, but I didn’t keep them. I immediately returned these documents to the bureau chief.
P: But the previous year you brought these documents to the printer?
D: Yes, because the previous year I was charged with overseeing their printing.
P: You had them in your hands. You had to take them to the printers of the geographic service. You had them in your hands twice.
D: I returned them that very evening. All that is printed at each session is a table. The table of the supply service of the covering troops is composed of a certain number of tables. At each session a certain number of tables are printed.
P: Not only could you have precious information on the effectives of the troops, but this work on covering troops was prepared, in part at least, at the third bureau where you had been since 1894. Consequently, you must have known of the part of the work the third bureau was charged with.
D; I was in the third bureau at the end of 1894. I asked my section chief if he had been charged with confidential work in May 1894. He said no.
P: In any case, you were in a position to have information on covering troops.
D: It’s certain that if I would have asked for it I could have had it, but I never asked.
P: People speak of you as having run after information. It’s probable that you were informed concerning the covering troops.
D: I never asked anybody anything.
P: The third document is a note on modifications to artillery formations. After the suppression of the pontoon service there were two regiments that were now available. Consequently it was necessary to distribute the batteries either among the army corps or the new formations. The general staff officers alone could know about these questions of general mobilization. You were perfectly placed to have this information. Did you know anything on the subject of the movements of the artillery regiments?
D: At the beginning of 1894 I was in the second bureau. All that I knew of this situation was the suppression of two regiments of pontooneers and the creation of new batteries. The discussion was open on the suppression of the pontoon regiments. That’s all I knew.
P: You didn’t know the destination to give to these new batteries?
D: I was in the second bureau at the beginning of 1894, in the first half.
P: But in the second, since the bordereau was sent at the end of August? It was then that Major Mercier-Milon of the second bureau communicated information to the personnel.
D: At the beginning of 1894, in June.
P: The communication was made between July 15-20, a month before the bordereau was established.
D: The suppression of the pontooneers occurred in March.
P: That’s possible, but the transfer of the batteries only occurred in June. That’s when Major Mercier-Milon sent a note to the officers.
D: A note wasn’t communicated to the trainees.
P: When something is communicated to the officers the trainers also know of it. At the end of 1893 did you not know of information sent by the third bureau to the fourth on the subject of the effectives of the 120 mm batteries?
D: No, my colonel.
P: Yet it was the third bureau that sent this information to the fourth. Consequently you could have known them.
D: I was in the maneuvers section.
P: That’s possible, but in those conditions one knows what’s happening between one section and another.
D: You never go from one section to another except when there’s information you need.
P: At the first bureau you were the deputy of Major Besse.
D: I was under his orders for three weeks.
P: At that time he studied the distribution of the batteries of 120s among the different army corps; he wrote a note on this subject that you knew of.
D: I didn’t know it.
P: You worked with him. This note disappeared; it was never able to be found in the archives of the ministry. You didn’t know about it?
D: No one ever spoke of it in 1894.
P: The fourth document is “a note on Madagascar.” When you were in the ministry, in 1894, two studies of Madagascar were carried out. The first, which was of a purely geographical character, was done in the bureau. It was copied by a corporal who worked in Colonel Sancy’s antechamber. You were seen going to see this colonel several times.
D: I would like to point out that the antechamber is in front of the colonel’s door and that consequently everyone must pass through it.
P: Since it was there that the corporal copied the note it’s not impossible that it was the people who passed through the antechamber that knew of it. It’s not an impossibility. In any case, this note is of no great importance: it was a simple geographical study. But in the month of July 1894 a more serious study was done, a study on the expedition properly speaking. The route to be followed was studied, the means to be employed, the materiel to be concentrated. It was, in summary, a study of the expedition. It was done by different bureaus, but in particular by the third, where you were. Did you know of it?
D: Not at all.
P: So there were things that occurred in your bureau you knew nothing about? You were not aware of what was being done?
D: I was in the maneuvers section.
P: And you didn’t know what was going on in the other bureaus?
D: Absolutely not. No officer ever communicated anything to me.
P: The work was finished on August 20. The final proofs were drawn on August 29, at the moment the bordereau was written by its author. There is thus a complete coincidence between this information and the definitive establishing of the work on Madagascar. Since you were in the third bureau it is not impossible that you knew of it.
D: Under those conditions nothing is impossible, my colonel.
P: No, but all these things together at least form presumptions. Let us pass to the fifth issue. It’s a question of a “proposed firing manual.” Did you know about this manual?
D: No, my colonel
P: You never knew of it?
D: Never.
P: There is a witness who claims to have placed at your disposal for forty-eight hours a copy of this firing manual.
D: I am convinced this is an error, given that at the court martial of 1894 I asked during both the pre-trial investigation and at the hearing that the witness appear to settle this point, and neither at the investigation nor the hearing did this witness appear.
P: He will appear during the questioning.
D: I would also like to point this out: in Major d'Ormescheville’s report that you just heard it is said that I had conversations with this officer in February or March. But I saw in the deposition of the Appeals Court that this manual dates from March 14 and was only handed over to the General Staff of the army in May. Consequently I couldn’t have had a conversation about it in March.
P: It was in July 1894 that Major Jeannel must have given you a copy of the manual.
D: But we were talking about conversations I would have had with him.
P: No matter. What I am asking you is not what M. d'Ormescheville said but your responses. Allow me to interrogate you and don’t ask any questions. It was you yourself who complained to Major Jeannel that the trainees of the General Staff didn’t know about the firing manual which was in the hands of all the regimental officers, who had asked that it be delivered to them. Well then, ten copies were delivered, two of them to the bureau where you were working. Do you recognize that since the manual had to be shared among different officers Major Jeannel loaned you a copy?
D: No, my colonel.
P: You deny this?
D: Yes, my colonel. Will you allow me an observation?
P: Yes.
D: I would like to point out that in July 1894 I was no longer a part of the second bureau of the General Staff, where Major Jeannel was, but in the third bureau. But according to the depositions at the appeals court firing manuals were given to all the bureaus and I don’t understand...
P: You will discuss the question with the witness.
D: Yes, but I just wanted to make this observation.
P: In the bordereau the author says that it is very difficult to obtain this manual. This wasn’t true for officers in the artillery corps, while the officers in the ministry to whom the manual was sent after a delay were precisely in that situation, that of not having the firing manual at their disposal. This too is just like your personal situation.
D: My colonel, as I said at the court martial of 1894 it was easy to obtain this firing manual. It is certain that an officer could have requested this manual and it would have been given him. I didn’t have it and didn’t ask for it for the reason that I wasn’t going to go to the firing school and because my work was different. Consequently, if I didn’t request the firing manual it was because I had no need of it, but it was quite easy for an artillery officer to have this manual. Consequently, this could only apply to an officer foreign to the arm...
P: All this is nothing but discussion. The bordereau ends with these words: “I'm leaving on maneuvers.” So you weren’t on maneuvers?
D: No, my colonel.
P: It was the usage that the trainees always go on them. When were you notified that you wouldn’t go on maneuvers in 1894?
D: It was at the end of May or the beginning of June, my colonel.
P According to our information it would have been a much later date. It would have been August 28, 1894 that the minister took the decision not to send the trainees of 1894 to maneuvers for internal reasons.
D: I beg your pardon.
P: That is it was perhaps a few days after the creation of the so-called bordereau.
D: I beg your pardon, my colonel. In any case, at the 1894 trial I requested the producing of an official circular of May 1894 in which we were informed that we were not to go on maneuvers and that we would train with infantry regiments, those of the first bureau in July, August, and September, those of the second in October, November, and December.
P: In any case, there was a ministry decision in September 1894 that trainees would not go on maneuvers.
D: There were maneuvers in May 1894.
P: This has to be looked up.
Mr Demange [government lawyer]: There must be a mistake.
Major Carrière (government commissioner): There’s no mistake. In May there were instructions issued notifying the service in principle. But the trainees had nevertheless to go on maneuvers. They only renounced sending trainees on maneuvers in September because of special work that fell to them following the preparation of a new plan.
P: That’s just what I said, and that’s just what I read. Tell us a bit about your different tasks at the fourth bureau of the general staff. What did you do in the fourth bureau?
D: I was busy in the fourth bureau with the preparation of the plan, my colonel. In 1893 there was no plan. Consequently there was work on the plan when I was there. And at the end of training we were made to do fictitious tasks using fictitious transport work, precisely because the service wasn’t charged with this.
P: Was it in relation to this fictitious transport work that you requested to do work based not on fictive data, but work based on real facts?
D: I don’t at all recall that fact, my colonel.
P: A witness testified to this fact: you insisted on doing work not based on fictitious data but based on real data.
D: I don’t remember that at all, my colonel.
P: What were your other tasks at the fourth bureau?
D: There were no others.
P: And afterwards you went to...
D: The first bureau, my colonel.
P: The second bureau?
D: First to the first bureau.
P: It makes no difference.
D: At the first bureau I passed through all of its sections. We trainees spent three or four weeks in each section. This is the only bureau where we passed through all the sections. We participated in the daily services of all the sections I passed through.
P: Did you do any special work?
D: I did no special work in the first bureau. In any case, after five years my memory is quite vague. The fact I just cited goes back six years.
P: So you don’t recall the studies you engaged in?
D: Not precisely.
P: What work did you do when you passed through the other bureaus?
D: In the second bureau I did a comparison between foreign artillery and our own and I translated a book on the cannon of the future.
P: And in the third bureau?
D: I was employed for three months in the maneuvers section.
P: We've exhausted this order of questions. We'll now pass on to another order of ideas. During your time at the École de Guerre you were reproached for having made statements unworthy of a French officer. You are supposed to have said that France would be happier under German domination.
D: I never said that.
P: We'll return to this. When you left École de Guerre you were number nine after having climbed many ranks. Nevertheless you demonstrated discontent which was expressed through strong words. What was the reason for this discontent?
D: I established the fact during the investigation ion 1894. I requested the summoning of the individuals involved in this affair who would have heard these statements. One of my examiners at École de Guerre is supposed to have declared that they didn’t want officers of our religion on the general staff, but this was nothing personal concerning me. These words were spoken in general.
P: How did you learn of these words?
D: Through one of my comrades.
P: That’s quite strange.
D: When I heard these words, after the examinations I went to the director of the École but I didn’t protest my situation. The director received me benevolently; he told me he knew about this and regretted it, but that it didn’t change my situation. I was in any event happy with my rank.
P: So you attributed your poor grade to your religion? When you left the École de Guerre you requested leave to go to Italy. Did you go there?
D: No.
P: Why not?
D: Mme Dreyfus was ill.
P: Where were you during that time?
D: I didn’t leave Paris.
P: You didn’t go to Mulhouse in 1894 during this leave?
D: I don’t think so, my colonel.
P: However our information seems to establish this. You were in Mulhouse. Not only were you there, but you requested a visa from the German embassy, which was refused.
D: In 1894?
P: No, when you left the École de Guerre in 1892.
D: That I don’t remember at all.
P: Yet you went there?
D: In 1893, yes, after my father’s death.
P: Why was your presence there tolerated when the German authorities show themselves to be so severe?
D: I beg your pardon, but for seven years passports were refused me.
P; And yet you went there?
D: I went there three times, my colonel. I went there three times in secrecy, passing through Switzerland, through Basle. I stayed with my family.
P: And once you got there?
D: I never left the house.
P: Did you not go to Mulhouse in September 1886?
D: In September 1886? I spent my leave with my father every year.
P: Did you go there in 1886?
D: I have no recollection of that. Until the passports I went there every year.
P: Well then, in September 1886 didn’t you follow the German maneuvers in Mulhouse.
D: No my colonel, never!
P: Did you not follow on horseback the maneuvers near the Habsheim polygon?
D: No, my colonel.
P: You didn’t have a conversation with a dragoon officer?
D: I never spoke to a German officer.
P: You didn’t speak with them about the 1886 rifle?
D: Even less, my colonel!
P: So you deny this absolutely. A witness claims to have seen you. At the fourth bureau you are spoken of as having wanted to know these details.
D: My goal was to educate myself.
P: A young officer, especially when he leaves school, has the right to learn, but there are limits. One must not push the desire to learn to the point of indiscretion, and you were at times indiscreet. Your investigations were particularly concerned with the eastern lines. You knew all these questions, to such a point that you were able to giver talks ab abrupto on all these points. You knew all this so well that you verbally brought Captain Boullenger up to date. Why did you want to know all these details?
D: I did indeed give all this information to Captain Boullenger because I knew the numbers of the transport lines.
P: And the mobilization?
D: In the fourth bureau we knew all the transport lines, and consequently I knew them
P: You showed much interest in these subjects because you no doubt had reasons to know them, and this at a time when your service chief much regretted your nonchalance and your presence in the bureau because of this investigative spirit. You went quite far in this, for they were obliged to call you to order. One day at the ministry there was a conference on an extremely confidential point of our military organization. They wanted to give you an idea of this but didn’t want you to take notes. General Vanson even recommended that you not take notes, but you did.
D: I don’t know of this conference.
P: Nevertheless there is mention of it in the court documents. I don’t know when it took place, but you were at the ministry.
D: I know neither these facts nor that conference.
P: You affirm that you didn’t know General Vanson’s conference in which was indicated the zones of concentration and on the subject of which he said to you, “Look at all this but take no notes, for it’s extremely confidential.”
D: I don’t recall that at all.
P: You so loved knowing confidential information and hidden things that you sometimes employed devious methods to obtain them. And so you wrote to Captain Rémusat to obtain information.
D: Not at all. I can affirm that I did not write to Captain Rémusat; I don’t recall this fact.
P: You don’t deny it?
D: I would be very curious to see this letter.
P: Not only did you write to him, but he said that you explained to him that this information was wanted by a professor at the École de Guerre.
D: It is precisely that fact, my colonel, which seems to me unlikely.
P: Once the information was obtained, it is incorrect that it had been requested under those conditions?
D: I am convinced of this. It is not admissible that this would have been requested of me for there were other ways to learn about this.
P: We'll hear the witnesses on this subject. Several general staff officers have said in their depositions that you posed them indiscrete questions which they refused to answer, sometimes changing the subject. Do you recall this? Captain Boullenger, for example?
D: I only recall one thing, and that’s that one day I asked Captain Boullenger, “What’s new in the fourth bureau?” That is all.
P: Did you not go to Brussels in 1894?
D: No, my colonel.
P: Are you sure of this?
D: I am certain?
P: And yet a witness saw you.
D: The place is correct, but I took this trip in 1885-86 when returning from a visit to the Amsterdam Worlds Fair.
P: Did you see this witness? Who is it?
D: M. Lonquéty.
P: He claims to have seen you in a restaurant.
D: That’s correct, but we have to look up the date of the Amsterdam Worlds Fair.
P: You had relations with a woman who lived on the rue Bizet. Do you acknowledge these relations?
D: They were not intimate relations.
P: But in any case you went to her house. What was this person’s name?
D: W...
P: What was this woman’s nationality?
D: Austrian.
P: So she naturally spoke German.
D: Yes
P: It is said she had brothers in the Austrian army?
D: I don’t know.
P: No one told you about this?
D: No, my colonel.
P: In any case, she did. That woman was suspected of espionage. How is it that you, a French officer, part of the general staff, who because of this was bound to show great discretion, frequented an individual of foreign nationality having brothers in the Austrian army and herself suspected of espionage?
D: In the first place I was unaware of espionage and I would like to point out to you that when Major Gendron deposed at the 1894 trial he said he never saw that person on the list of suspect individuals.
P: Did you not spend large amounts of money that you concealed in your accounts
D: Never, my colonel
P: Did you frequent several women?
D: No.
P: Nevertheless people speak of a person who you offered to rent a villa for to turn her away from a relationship. Is this true?
D: Yes, my colonel, a private relationship, but I didn’t do it.
P: It was thus an expense you could allow yourself?
D: I had the means for it.
P: But that didn’t seem to you to be an expense.
D: I never hid anything, my colonel. My private accounts were in my house and no one ever found anything along this order of ideas.
P: Well maintained accounts were found in your house. So if you had expenses of this kind you had to have had private resources. Did you gamble?
D: Never.
P: Nevertheless, in 1894 you returned from a general staff voyage.
D: In June 1894?
P: You were charged along with another officer, Captain Duchâtelet with bringing back the column, and passing through the Champs Élysées you said to an officer, “Here is where a certain woman lives...”
D: It was regrettable
P: “...And if we went to see her she would be surprised to see us at this hour.” Captain Duchâtelet said to you that you couldn’t go see that person at that hour and you said to him, “In any case, I don’t really want to, for a few days ago I lost a lot of money at her house.”
D: I affirm that I did not gamble.
P: Is that statement exact? Did you say this?
D: No, my colonel, for the simple reason that I have never gambled.
P: We will hear Captain Duchâtelet. Did you bet on the horses?
D: Never.
P: And yet you said to an officer that a horse that belonged to you in part was a failure and that you hoped to soon catch up with two young horses that you were going to race.
D: Never.
P: You deny saying this?
(Dreyfus does not respond.)
P: We have now arrived at what has happened since your arrest. Did you know Colonel du Paty de Calm before your arrest?
D: Only by sight. I had no other relationship with him.
P: Did he have any reason to wish you harm?
D: I know of none.
P: Did you know Major Henry?
D: No, my colonel.
P: There was no cause for dislike between you?
D: None.
P: Did you know Lieutenant Colonel Picquart?
D: No more than the others. I know him under the same conditions.
P: No private relations?
D: No, my colonel.
P: But also without difficulties? In summary, your relations with these individuals were either good or non-existent.
D: Yes, my colonel.
P: Did you know Major Esterhazy?
D: Not at all, my colonel.
P: You never saw him?
D: Never.
P: You never wrote him?
D: Never.
P: Major Esterhazy declared that he received a letter written under an assumed name asking for information on the role of the cavalry brigade his father commanded in the Crimea. This letter was signed Brault. And this name is the precisely that of an officer whose handwriting you drew our attention to when you were shown the bordereau.
D: When I spoke of the handwriting of the bordereau I didn’t know which letter was the incriminated one. I was shown bits of handwriting.
P: It wasn’t a photograph that you were shown?
D: I was not at all aware of the incriminated document. I was asked, “Do you know a handwriting resembling this one?” I said, “Take me to the ministry.” I was told, “Search through your memory.” I searched and I said, “It seems to me that this handwriting vaguely resembles that of Captain Brault.” But I quickly withdrew this allegation for I hadn’t intended to incriminate any of my colleagues.
P: Do you think you have any personal enemies who could have cooked up a machination against you?
D: No, my colonel.
P: One day Major du Paty de Clam had you go to the ministry under the pretext of a general inspection. He had you write a letter beginning with insignificant things, and then he dictated to you more or less the content of the bordereau. The beginning of this letter is in your normal handwriting, but beginning where it speaks of the short 120 mm cannon your handwriting changes; it is less clear and firm.
D: It has never changed, my colonel.
P: When you look at that letter, a photo of which I have here, it can be easily seen that the handwriting after the words “1: A note on the hydraulic brake” until the end is much larger and more spaced out than the beginning.
(The President presents the photograph in question to Captain Dreyfus)
D: The handwriting is larger, my colonel.
P: It changes; it is larger, less well formed. This can be explained by emotion...
D: In the first place I'd like to point out that the letters become bigger beginning with “I recall;” But “I recall” has no relation to the bordereau. Would you like me to show you the piece?
P: Yes.
(Captain Dreyfus passes the piece to M. Labori)
P: Now, after your condemnation and the rejection of your appeal before the appeals council Lieutenant-Colonel du Paty de Calm went to see you at [the prison of] Cherche-Midi. Would you please tell us what transpired during this conversation?
D: This conversation lasted nearly an hour, my colonel. These more are less are the terms Major du Paty used in interrogating me. He began by asking for information of no importance...I'm trying to remember the words.
P: Reconstruct the scene.
D: He began by asking me information of no importance, saying, “Did you not answer in order to proceed to an exchange?” I answered that no, that I had neither direct nor indirect relations with any agent of a foreign power, that I didn’t even know any. It as then that I said that an iniquity was being committed in condemning me; that it was impossible to understand and that there was a government that had powerful means of investigation and that it was not permissible to admit that an innocent man could be condemned for a crime he didn’t commit. It was then that I requested that the government employ all the investigative means at its disposal to shed light on this. It was then that Major du Paty de Clam replied, “There are considerations that prevent certain investigations.” I then answered, “I hope that within two or three years my innocence will be recognized.”
P: During that conversation, did you not note that Major du Paty de Calm threatened the military attaches of a foreign power?
D: Precisely.
P: A dagger to the throat was spoken of?
D: I said to him that I didn’t understand how they could condemn an innocent man; that there were military attaches who knew the guilty party, and that if I had to put a knife to their throat I would learn who the criminal was. That was when I said those words.
P: On January 5, that date of the execution march, you were taken from Cherche-Midi to the École Militaire by Captain Lebrun-Renault. What happened in the waiting room? And first, who was present?
D: Captain Lebrun-Renault.
P: Were there two, three, or more of you in the room?
D: I don’t remember.
P: Wasn’t there a general staff captain there?
D: I don’t remember.
P: Captain Attel?
D: I don’t recall. I recall seeing always alongside me Captain Lebrun-Renault.
P: What was your conversation with him?
D: The conversation was a broken up monologue. I said to him, “I'm innocent,” I sensed that there was an emotional crowd outside to which they were going to show off a man who had committed the most abominable crime a soldier could commit. I felt the patriotic anguish that gripped the crowd and I would have liked to shout: “It is not I who am guilty!” I said, “I would like to shout in the face of the people that it isn’t I who am guilty. I would like to make the crowd feel the shiver I felt. I want to make them understand that the man they think committed this crime is not the one who was condemned. I am going to shout my innocence in the face of the people.” I added, “The minister knows this full well.” This had to do with what I'd said to Lieutenant Colonel du Paty de Clam during his visit. I had said to him: “Tell the minister that I am not guilty.”
P: Did you not say to Lieutenant colonel du Paty de Clam, “The minister knows full well that if I handed over documents they were of no importance and that I did it in order to get more important ones.”
D: I recall the conversation I had with Lieutenant Colonel du Paty de Clam and I said, “The minister sent me Lieutenant Colonel du Paty de Clam to ask me if I handed over unimportant documents in order to obtain important ones.”
P: According to you these were Lieutenant Colonel du Paty de Clam’s words... You also said, “In three years my innocence will be recognized.” Why this amount of time? If you were innocent you would hope that your innocence would be immediately recognized. What did that period mean?
D: As I just said, I asked Lieutenant Colonel du Paty de Clam to use of all the means of investigation at his disposal. I was answered, “There are methods greater than yours and we can’t use them. At the same time that they couldn’t use these methods of investigation they refused to immediately shed light on the situation. Since the government had the means to carry out these investigations and refused my use of them I couldn’t hope that my innocence would be revealed in less than two or three years.
P: But why the figure of two or three years? An innocent man should want his innocence to be recognized as soon as possible.
D: I asked for it and I was refused.
P: Why the figure of three years?
AlfredD: I was setting an approximate limit. . . .