Robert Harris - An Officer and a Spy

At the beginning of 1894 Dreyfus joined the Second Department. The presence there of a German spy was drawn to the attention of M. Guénée in March (see attached report by Major Henry). .

And that is all. I take the envelope and shake it out again, just to make sure. Can that really be it? I feel a sense of anticlimax, and even some anger. I have been duped. There is nothing in the so-called ‘secret file’ but circumstance and innuendo. Not one document or witness directly names Dreyfus as a traitor. The nearest it comes to incriminating him is an initial letter: ‘that lowlife D’.

I reread du Paty’s compilation of breezy non sequiturs. Does it actually make sense? I know the layout and procedures of the First Department. It would have been practically impossible for Dreyfus to have smuggled out undetected something the size of architectural plans. And even if he had, their absence would have been noticed immediately. And yet there have never been, to my knowledge, any complaints about stolen documents. So presumably Dreyfus must have copied them and then replaced them — is that the suggestion? But how did he have so many copies made so quickly? And how did he manage to smuggle the originals back into the safe again without being seen? The dates don’t fit, either. Dreyfus only joined the First in July 1893, yet according to Henry, Schwartzkoppen already had some stolen plans in his possession by June. And the German attaché’s description of D as ‘crazy’: is that a word one would apply to the meticulous Dreyfus, any more than one would call him ‘lowlife’?

I lock the file away in my safe.

Just before I go home, I call in at the ministry to make an appointment to see Boisdeffre. Pauffin de Saint Morel is the officer on duty. He tells me the Chief is not in until Tuesday. ‘Can I tell him what it’s about?’

‘I’d prefer not.’

‘Secret stuff?’

‘Secret stuff.’

‘Say no more.’ He enters my name in the diary for ten o’clock. ‘By the way,’ he asks, ‘did you follow up that business with old Foucault, about some German spy story?’

‘Yes I did, thank you.’

‘Nothing in it?’

‘Nothing in it.’

I spend Saturday in my office writing a report for Boisdeffre: ‘Intelligence Service note on Major Esterhazy, 74th Infantry’. It requires some delicate drafting. I make several false starts. I describe in guarded terms the interception of the petit bleu , the investigation into Esterhazy’s suspicious character, the information from Cuers that the Germans (whom I describe by the unoriginal code name ‘X’) still have a spy in the French army, and the similarity between the writing of the bordereau and that of Esterhazy (striking even to the least expert eye ). The report runs to four closely written pages. I conclude:

The facts indicated seem serious enough to merit a more detailed inquiry. Above all it is necessary to seek some explanations from Major Esterhazy about his relations with Embassy X and the use he made of the documents that he copied. But it is vital to operate by surprise, with both firmness and caution, because the major is known as a man of unequalled audacity and trickery.

I burn my notes and discarded drafts in the fireplace, then lock the completed report away in my safe along with the secret file. It is much too explosive to entrust to the internal post. I shall deliver it by hand.

The following morning I take the train out to Ville-d’Avray to join my cousins the Gasts for Sunday lunch. The red-roofed house, La Ronce, sits prettily in its own land on the main road to Versailles. The day is fine. Jeanne has prepared a picnic patriotically redolent of childhood days in Alsace — rillettes de canard , and flammekueche and sauerkraut with Munster cheese. All should be well. Yet I can’t shake off the shadows of the rue de l’Université. I feel agitated and pale beside my relaxed and suntanned friends, although I try not to show it. Edmond fetches an old pram from the stable and loads it up with a wicker hamper, blankets and wine, then wheels it down the lane while we follow in a procession.

I keep a lookout for Pauline, and ask my sister, in an offhand way, if she happens to know if she’s coming, but Anna tells me she has decided to stay an extra week in Biarritz with Philippe and the girls. She scrutinises my complexion and says, ‘You look as though you could do with a vacation yourself.’

‘I’m fine. Anyway, it isn’t possible at the moment.’

‘But Georges, you simply have to make it possible!’

‘Yes, I know. I will, I promise.’

‘You wouldn’t work half so hard if you had a wife and family of your own to go home to.’

‘Oh my God,’ I laugh, ‘not this again!’ I light a cigarette to forestall further conversation.

We leave the sandy track and walk on into the wood. Suddenly Anna says, ‘It’s really very sad. You do understand that Pauline will never leave Philippe? Because of the girls?’

I glance at her, startled. ‘What are you talking about?’ She stares at me and I realise there’s no point in maintaining the pretence: she’s always been able to see right through me. ‘I didn’t think you knew.’

‘Oh, Georges, everybody knows! Everybody’s known for years!’

Everybody! Years! I feel a spasm of irritation.

‘In any case,’ I mutter, ‘what makes you think I want her to leave him?’

‘No,’ she agrees. ‘No, you don’t. That’s what’s sad.’

She walks on ahead of me.

We spread the blankets in a clearing, on the edge of a slope leading down to a rocky stream. We exiles love the woods, I have noticed. Trees are trees, after all: it is easier to pretend one is still in one’s homeland, collecting mushrooms and insects in the forest of Neudorf. The children slither down with the bottles of wine and lemonade to chill in the water. They splash around in the mud. It’s hot. I take off my hat and jacket. Someone says, ‘Look at the colonel, stripping down for action!’ I smile and pretend to salute. I have been in my job for more than a year and still no one knows what I do.

Over lunch, Edmond wants to talk about the impending visit of the Tsar. He takes the radical view. ‘I just think it is plain wrong,’ he says, ‘for our democratic republic to roll out the carpet for an absolute monarch who locks up people who disagree with him. That’s not what France exists for.’

‘France may not exist at all,’ I point out, ‘if we don’t have an ally who can help us defeat the Germans.’

‘Yes, but what if it’s the Russians who fight the Germans and we’re the ones who end up getting dragged in?’

‘It’s hard to imagine the scenario in which that might happen.’

‘Well, I hate to break it to a soldier, but things have a habit of not going according to plan.’

Jeanne says, ‘Oh do shut up, Ed! Georges has come out to relax on his day off, not listen to a lecture from you.’

‘Very well,’ grumbles Edmond, ‘but you can tell your General Boisdeffre from me that alliances work both ways.’

‘I am sure the Chief of the General Staff will be fascinated to receive a lecture in strategy from the Mayor of Ville-d’Avray. .’

Everyone laughs, including Edmond. ‘Touché, Colonel,’ he says, and pours me some more wine.

After we have eaten, we play hide-and-seek with the children. When it’s my turn I walk a hundred paces into the trees and search around until I find the perfect spot. I lie down in a small hollow behind a fallen tree and cover myself with dead leaves and twigs, just as I used to teach my topography students to do at the École Supérieure de Guerre. It is amazing how completely a human being can disappear if he is prepared to take the trouble. In the summer after my father died I would lie out in the forest like this for hours. I listen to the sounds of the children calling my name. After a while they get bored and move off; soon I can no longer hear them. There is only the cooing of the wood pigeons and the scent of the rich, dry earth and the softness of the moss against my neck. I savour the solitude for ten minutes, then brush myself down and go back smiling to join the others. They have already packed up the picnic and are waiting to leave.