Excerpts from the Interrogation of Alfred Dreyfus
Interrogated by Commandant Armand du Paty de Clam, October 18- November 29, 1894
Commandant du Paty de Clam
Source: Archives Nationales, BB/19 128, Cour de Cassation 1905
QUESTION: You believe that you are the victim of a plot. Could the vengeance of some woman lay behind it?
ANSWER: I have no basis for that. I can only say one thing. That a woman, with whom I had no intimate relations, wrote a final letter to me in July or August, which closed with these words: "in life and in death."
Q: Have you had relations with a person residing at 1 rue Bizet, and what do you know about this person?
A: I never had intimate relations with her. I have visited her home two or three times and have not returned since the end of 1893....
Q: How did you know Madame Cron at the horse races?
A By speaking to her at the horse races....
Q: Do you know other women besides the two mentioned above?
A: No....
Q: How do you explain that a letter announcing the delivery of secret documents to a foreign power-documents that only an officer of the army General Staff could obtain-is recognized as having been written in your hand?
A: I deny, as I have from the first day, that I have ever written any agent of a foreign power. I know no such agent and have never spoken to one. I can only imagine one thing, that someone has copied my handwriting....
Q: Here is a photograph of a letter that is attributed to you [the bordereau]. This picture was taken abroad, by means of a pocket-size camera, and we have the negative. Do you recognize this letter as being in your handwriting?
A: First I declare that I never wrote that infamous letter. A certain number of words resemble my handwriting, but it is not mine. The letter as a whole bears no resemblance to my handwriting. They have not even tried to imitate it. As for its content: (1) It would be impossible for me to furnish any precise information on the subject of the hydraulic brake of the 120- millimeter gun, for I have not even seen it since my time at the Ecole de Guerre; (2) I did know, through my work with the General Staff, about covering troops; (3) as for "a note on the modification of artillery formations," I do not know what it means; if it concerns the new artillery organization, then yes, I would have been familiar with that; (4) a note about Madagascar - I have never had my hands on a document dealing with that subject and never dealt with the question; (5) I have never heard a word about this preliminary Firing Manual of Field Artillery....
Q: During your last interrogation, you asked to be heard by the minister of war, in order to propose that you be sent somewhere, anywhere, for a year under police surveillance, while a thorough investigation is conducted by the War Ministry?
A: Yes....
Q: The minister is ready to receive you if you want to consider a confession.
A: I tell you again, I am innocent and have nothing to confess. It is impossible for me, within the four walls of a prison, to understand this horrible mystery. Put me with the chief of criminal investigations, and my entire fortune, my entire life will be devoted to explaining this affair....
Q: The first time that you spoke of a woman named Dery you said she received spies. Is that correct?
A: I never said that. Perhaps after my arrest, in a moment of rage, I may have said about her: Has that filthy spy played a trick on me?
Q: Is Dery a courtesan?
A: Yes, I believe so; I am even quite sure of it.
Q: Why did you stop your relations with Dery?
A: I love my wife, and I was afraid that she would not understand that. . . .
Q: Do you write in German to one or more persons?
A: No, but I have added a few words, once or twice, to a letter my wife has written to my father for New Year's Day.
Q: Does Madame Dreyfus speak and write German?
A: She speaks German very well. I know she writes it, because she wrote to my father a number of times before his death.
Q: How do you explain the fragments of phrases written in German on blotting paper found in your home?
A: As part of my work, I often translated German at home. Words that I needed to look up in the dictionary, I would put on a scrap of paper, in order to learn them....
Q: Are you affiliated with the Washington Club? Who were your sponsors?
A: I am affiliated with no club.
Q: Are you affiliated with the Betting Club of Paris? Who were your sponsors?
A: No. . . .
Q: Are you a gambler, and have you lost money gambling?
A: Never. I am not a gambler.
Q: But we have turned up in your account book for 1893 an expenditure dated July 1, with the note, "supplement Alfred, 150 francs" (with fifty francs lost gambling). What do you have to say?
A: I frequently visit the home of my in-laws and my uncle's family, where some game probably took place one evening. I have never gambled outside the family....
Q: Yesterday, at the end of your interrogation, you declared that you would give one hundred thousand francs to your lawyer, indeed even your entire fortune, to discover the author of the incriminating letter, that if you were set free you would succeed in finding him. How would you achieve that? You added that the incriminating letter was the work of a forger. You have just been able to give it another good look; on what basis do you reach this opinion?
A: I have built a thousand hypotheses on the origin of that letter. Certainly, I cannot unravel this affair all alone. But, to be sure, I would gladly devote all my fortune and life to discover the miserable wretch Is it a forger or someone else? I am not the one who can resolve that enigma....
Q: Do you still have something to say?
A: For more than six weeks, I have been in solitary confinement, six weeks during which I have suffered the most horrific martyrdom that an innocent man can tolerate. Alsatian, from a family that protested the German occupation, I left my situation in Alsace to come and serve my country with devotion. Today, as yesterday, I am worthy of leading my soldiers under fire.