Robert Harris - An Officer and a Spy

My own options seem non-existent. Obviously I cannot report what I know to my superiors, since I must assume they already know it. For a few days I consider appealing directly to the President, but then I read his latest speech, delivered in the presence of General Billot — The army is the nation’s heart and soul, the mirror in which France perceives the most ideal image of her self-denial and patriotism; the army holds the first place in the thoughts of the government and in the pride of the country — and I realise that he would never take up arms on behalf of a despised Jew against ‘the nation’s heart and soul’. Obviously also I cannot share my discoveries with anyone outside the government — senator, judge, newspaper editor — without betraying our most secret intelligence sources. The same applies to the Dreyfus family; besides, the Sûreté is watching them night and day.

Above all, I recoil from the act of betraying the army: my heart and soul, my mirror, my ideal.

Paralysed, I wait for something to happen.

I notice it on a newsstand on the corner of the avenue Kléber early one morning in November, when I am on my way to work. I am just about to step off the kerb and it stops me dead: a facsimile of the bordereau printed slap in the middle of the front page of Le Matin .

I glance around at the people reading it in the street. My immediate instinct is to snatch their newspapers off them: don’t they realise this is a state secret? I buy a copy and retreat into a doorway. The full-size illustration is plainly taken from one of Lauth’s photographs. The article is headlined ‘The Proof’; its tone is unremittingly hostile to Dreyfus. Immediately it reads to me like the work of one of the prosecution’s handwriting experts. The timing is obvious. Lazare’s pamphlet, A Judicial Error: the Truth about the Dreyfus Affair , was published three days ago. It contains a violent attack on the graphologists. They have a professional motive to want everyone still to believe that Dreyfus was the author of the bordereau ; more to the point, they have all hung on to their facsimiles.

I hail a cab to get to the office as quickly as possible. The atmosphere is funereal. Even though the report appears to vindicate Dreyfus’s conviction, it is a calamity for our section. Schwartzkoppen, like the rest of Paris, will be able to read the bordereau over his breakfast table; when he realises his private correspondence is in the hands of the French government he will choke, and then presumably he will try to work out how it reached them. The long career of Agent Auguste may well be over. And what of Esterhazy? The thought of how he will react to seeing his handwriting emblazoned over the newsstands is the only aspect that gives me any pleasure, especially when Desvernine comes to see me late in the morning to report that he has just observed the traitor rushing bare-headed out of the apartment of Four-Fingered Marguerite into a rainstorm, ‘looking as if all the hands of hell were after him’.

I am summoned by General Billot. He sends a captain with a message that I am to come to his office at once.

I would like time to prepare for this ordeal. I say to the captain, ‘I’ll be there directly. Tell him I’m on my way.’

‘I’m sorry, Colonel. My orders are to escort you to him now.’

I collect my cap from the hatstand. When I step into the corridor I notice Henry loitering outside his office with Lauth. Something about their stance — some combination of shiftiness and curiosity and triumph — tells me that they knew beforehand that this summons was coming and wanted to watch me leave. We nod to one another politely.

The captain and I walk round to the street entrance of the hôtel de Brienne.

I have Colonel Picquart to see the Minister of War. .

As we climb the marble staircase, I recall how I trotted up here so eagerly after Dreyfus’s degradation — the silent garden in the snow, Mercier and Boisdeffre warming the backs of their legs at the blazing fire, the delicate fingers smoothly turning the globe and picking out Devil’s Island. .

Boisdeffre once again waits in the minister’s office. He is seated at the conference table with Billot and Gonse. Billot has a closed file in front of him. The three generals side by side make a sombre tribunal — a hanging committee.

The minister smooths his walrus moustaches and says, ‘Sit down, Colonel.’

I assume I am to be blamed for the leak of the bordereau , but Billot takes me by surprise. He begins without preliminaries: ‘An anonymous letter has been passed to us. It alleges that Major Esterhazy will shortly be denounced in the Chamber of Deputies as an accomplice of Dreyfus. Have you any idea where the author of this letter could have obtained the information that Esterhazy was under suspicion?’

‘None.’

‘I presume I don’t have to tell you that this represents a serious breach in the confidentiality of your inquiry?’

‘Of course not. I’m appalled to hear of it.’

‘It’s intolerable, Colonel!’ His cheeks redden, his eyes pop. Suddenly he has become the choleric old general beloved of the cartoonists. ‘First the existence of the dossier is revealed! Then a copy of the bordereau is printed on the front page of a newspaper! And now this! Our inescapable conclusion is that you have developed an obsession — in fact a dangerous fixation — with substituting Major Esterhazy for Dreyfus, and that you are willing to go to any lengths to fulfil it, including leaking secret information to the press.’

Boisdeffre says, ‘It’s a very poor business, Picquart. Very poor. I’m disappointed in you.’

‘I can assure you, General, I have never disclosed the existence of my inquiry to anyone, certainly not to Esterhazy. And I’ve never leaked information to the press. My inquiry is not a matter of personal obsession. I have simply followed a logical trail of evidence which leads to Esterhazy.’

‘No, no, no!’ Billot shakes his head. ‘You have disobeyed specific orders to keep clear of the Dreyfus business. You have gone around acting like a spy in your own department. I could call one of my orderlies now and have you taken to Cherche-Midi on a charge of insubordination.’

There is a pause, and then Gonse says, ‘If it really is a question of logic, Colonel, what would you do if we showed you cast-iron proof that Dreyfus was a spy?’

‘If it were cast-iron, then obviously I’d accept it. But I don’t believe such proof can be found.’

‘That is where you are wrong.’

Gonse glances at Billot, who opens the file. It appears to contain only a single sheet of paper.

Billot says, ‘We have recently intercepted a letter, via Agent Auguste, from Major Panizzardi to Colonel Schwartzkoppen. This is the relevant passage: I have read that a deputy is going to ask questions about Dreyfus. If someone asks in Rome for new explanations, I will say that I have never had any dealings with this Jew. If someone asks you, say the same, for no one must ever know what happened to him. It’s signed “Alexandrine”. There,’ says Billot, closing the file with great satisfaction, ‘what do you say about that ?’

It is a forgery, of course. It has to be. I keep my composure. ‘When exactly did this reach us, may I ask?’

Billot turns to Gonse, who says, ‘Major Henry collected it in the usual way about two weeks ago. It was in French, so he pieced it together.’

‘Could I see the original?’

Gonse bridles. ‘Why is that necessary?’

‘Only that I would be interested in seeing what it looks like.’

Boisdeffre says, with great chilliness, ‘I would sincerely hope, Colonel Picquart, that you are not doubting the integrity of Major Henry. The message was retrieved and reconstructed — and that is that. We are sharing it with you now in the expectation that its existence will not be disclosed to the press, and that finally you will drop your pernicious insistence that Dreyfus is innocent. Otherwise the consequences for you will be grave.’