Everywhere the forces of darkness are in control.
But I am not entirely ostracised. Parisian society is divided, and for each door that is now slammed in my face, another opens. On Sundays I begin regularly to go for lunch at the home of Madame Geneviève Straus, the widow of Bizet, on the rue de Miromesnil, along with such new comrades-in-arms as Zola, Clemenceau, Labori, Proust and Anatole France. On Wednesday evenings it is often dinner for twenty in the salon of Monsieur France’s mistress, Madame Léontine Arman de Caillavet, ‘Our Lady of the Revision’, in the avenue Hoche – Léontine is an extravagant grande dame with carmine-rouged cheeks and orange-dyed hair on which sits a rimless hat of stuffed pink bullfinches. And on Thursdays I might walk a few streets west, towards the porte Dauphine, for the musical soirées of Madame Aline Ménard-Dorian, in whose scarlet reception rooms decorated with peacock feathers and Japanese prints I turn the pages for Cortot and Casals and the three ravishing young sisters of the trio Chaigneau.
‘Ah! You are always so cheerful, my dear Georges,’ these grand hostesses say to me. They flutter their fans and their eyelashes at me in the candlelight, and touch my arm consolingly – for a gaolbird is always a trophy for a smart table – and call across to their fellow guests to take note of my serenity. ‘You are a wonder, Picquart!’ their husbands exclaim. ‘Either that or you are mad. I am sure I should not retain my good humour in the face of so much trouble.’
I smile. ‘Well, one must always wear the mask of comedy for society . . .’
And yet the truth is I am not wearing a mask: I do feel quite confident about the future. I am sure in my bones that sooner or later, although by what means I cannot foresee, this great edifice the army has constructed – this mouldering defensive fortress of worm-eaten timber – will collapse all around them. The lies are too extensive and ramshackle to withstand the pressures of time and scrutiny. Poor Dreyfus, now entering his fourth year on Devil’s Island, may not live to see it, and nor for that matter may I. But vindication will come, I am convinced.
And I am proved right, even sooner than I expected. That summer, two events occur that change everything.
First, in May, I receive a note from Labori summoning me urgently to his apartment in the rue de Bourgogne, just around the corner from the Ministry of War. I arrive within the hour to find a nervous young man of twenty-one, obviously up from the provinces, waiting in the drawing room. Labori introduces him as Christian Esterhazy.
‘Ah,’ I say, shaking his hand somewhat warily, ‘now that is an infamous name.’
‘You mean my cousin?’ he responds. ‘Yes, he has made it so, and a blacker rogue never drew breath!’
His tone is so vehement I am taken aback. Labori says, ‘You need to sit down, Picquart, and listen to what Monsieur Esterhazy has to tell us. You won’t be disappointed.’
Marguerite brings in tea and leaves us to it.
‘My father died eighteen months ago,’ says Christian, ‘at our home in Bordeaux, very unexpectedly. The week after he passed over, I received a letter of condolence from a man I’d never met before: my father’s cousin, Major Walsin Esterhazy, expressing his sympathy and asking if he could be of any practical assistance in terms of financial advice.’
I exchange glances with Labori; Christian notices. ‘Well, Monsieur Picquart, I can see that you know what must be coming! But please bear in mind that I had no experience in these matters and my mother is a most unworldly and religious person – two of my sisters are nuns, in fact. To tell the tale briefly, I wrote back to my chivalrous relative and explained that I had an inheritance of five thousand francs, and my mother would receive one hundred and seventy thousand through the sale of property, and that we would welcome advice in making sure it was safely invested. The major replied, offering to intercede with his intimate friend Edmond de Rothschild, and naturally we thought, “What could be safer than that?”’
He sips his tea, gathering his thoughts before continuing. ‘For some months all went well, and we would receive regular letters from the major enclosing cheques which he said were the dividends from the money the Rothschilds had invested on our behalf. And then last November he wrote to me asking me to come to Paris urgently. He said he was in trouble and needed my help. Naturally I came at once. I found him in a terrible state of anxiety. He said he was about to be denounced in public as a traitor, but that I was not to believe any of the stories. It was all a plot by the Jews, to put him in Dreyfus’s place, and that he could prove this because he was being helped by officers from the Ministry of War. He said it had become too dangerous for him to meet his principal contact, and therefore he asked if I would meet him on his behalf and relay messages between them.’
‘And who was this contact?’ I ask.
‘His name was Colonel du Paty de Clam.’
‘You met du Paty?’
‘Yes, often. Usually at night, in public places – parks, bridges, lavatories.’
‘Lavatories?’
‘Oh yes, although the Colonel would take care to be disguised, in dark glasses or a false beard.’
‘And what sort of messages did you relay between du Paty and your cousin?’
‘All sorts. Warnings of what might be about to appear in the newspapers. Advice on how to respond. I remember there was once an envelope containing a secret document from the ministry. Some messages concerned you.’
‘Me?’
‘Yes, for example there were two telegrams. They’ve stayed in my mind because they were very odd.’
‘Can you remember what they said?’
‘I remember one was signed “Blanche” – that was written by du Paty. The other – a foreign name . . .’
‘Speranza?’
‘Speranza – that’s it! Mademoiselle Pays – she wrote that one out, on the colonel’s instructions, and took it to the post office in the rue Lafayette.’
‘Did they give a reason why they were doing this?’
‘To compromise you.’
‘And you helped because you believed your cousin was innocent?’
‘Absolutely – at least I did then.’
‘And now?’
Christian takes his time replying. He finishes his tea and replaces the cup and saucer on the table – slow and deliberate gestures that do not quite conceal the fact that he is quivering with emotion. ‘A few weeks ago, after my cousin stopped paying my mother her monthly money, I checked with the Rothschilds. There is no bank account. There never was. She is ruined. I believe that if a man could betray his own family in such a fashion, he could betray his country without any conscience. That is why I have come to you. He must be stopped.’
It is obvious what should be done with the information, once it has been verified: it must be passed to Bertulus, the dapper magistrate with the red carnation in his buttonhole, whose slow investigation into the forged telegrams is still proceeding. Because I am the one who laid the original complaint, it is agreed that I should write to him, alerting him to the crucial new witness. Christian agrees to testify, then changes his mind when his cousin discovers he has been to see Labori, and then changes it back again when it is pointed out that he can be subpoenaed in any case.
Esterhazy, obviously aware now that disaster is closing in on him, renews his demands that I should fight him in a duel. He lets it be known in the press that he is prowling the streets near to my apartment in the hopes of meeting me, carrying a heavy cane made of cherry wood and painted bright red with which he proposes to stove in my brains. He claims to be an expert in the art of savate, or kickboxing. Finally he sends me a letter and releases it to the newspapers:
In consequence of your refusal to fight, dictated solely by your fear of a serious meeting, I vainly looked for you for several days as you know, and you fled like the coward that you are. Tell me what day and where you will finally dare to find yourself face to face with me in order to receive the castigation which I have promised you. As for me I shall, for three days in succession, from tomorrow e
vening at 7 p.m., walk in the rues de Lisbonne and Naples.
I do not reply to him personally, as I have no desire to enter into direct correspondence with such a creature; instead I issue a statement of my own to the press:
I am surprised that M. Esterhazy has not met me if he is looking for me, as I go about quite openly. As for the threats contained in his letter, I am resolved if I fall into an ambush fully to use the right possessed by every citizen for his legitimate defence. But I shall not forget that it is my duty to respect Esterhazy’s life. The man belongs to the justice of the country, and I should be to blame if I took it upon myself to punish him.
Several weeks pass and I cease to keep my eyes open for him. But then one Sunday afternoon at the beginning of July, on the day before I am due to hand Christian’s evidence to Bertulus, I am walking along the avenue Bugeaud after lunch when I hear footsteps running up behind me. I turn to see Esterhazy’s red cane descending on my head. I duck away and put up an arm to shield my face so that the blow falls only on my shoulder. Esterhazy’s face is livid and contorted, his eyes bulging like organ stops. He is shouting insults – ‘Villain! Coward! Traitor!’ – so close that I can smell the absinthe on his breath. Fortunately I have a cane of my own. My first strike at his head knocks his bowler hat into the gutter. My second is a jab to his stomach that sends him sprawling after it. He rolls on his side, then drags himself up on to his hands and knees and crouches, winded, on the cobbles. Then, supporting himself with his ridiculous cherry-red cane, he starts to struggle to his feet. Several passers-by have stopped to watch what is going on. I grab him in a headlock and shout for someone to fetch the police. But the promeneurs, not surprisingly, have better things to do on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, and at once everyone moves on, leaving me holding the traitor. He is strong and wiry, twisting back and forth, and I realise that either I will have to do him serious damage to quieten him down or else let him go. I release him, and step back warily.
‘Villain!’ he repeats. ‘Coward! Traitor!’ He staggers about trying to pick up his hat. He is very drunk.
‘You are going to prison,’ I tell him, ‘if not for treason, then for forgery and embezzlement. Now don’t come near me again, or next time I’ll deal with you more severely.’
My shoulder is stinging badly. I am relieved to walk away. He doesn’t try to follow, but I can hear him shouting after me – ‘Villain! Coward! Traitor! Jew!’ – until I am out of sight.
The second event that summer is much more significant and takes place four days later.
It is early in the evening, Thursday, 7 July, and as usual at that time of the week I am at Aline Ménard-Dorian’s neo-Gothic mansion: to be exact, I am standing in the garden prior to going into the concert, sipping champagne, talking to Zola, whose appeal against his conviction is being heard in a courtroom in Versailles. A new government has just been formed and we are discussing what effect this is likely to have on his case when Clemenceau, with Labori at his heels, suddenly erupts on to the patio carrying an evening newspaper.
‘Have you heard what’s just happened?’
‘No.’
‘My friends, it is a sensation! That little prig Cavaignac1 has just made his first speech in the chamber as Minister of War, and claims to have proved once and for all that Dreyfus is a traitor!’
‘How has he done that?’
Clemenceau thrusts the paper into my hands. ‘By reading out verbatim three intercepted messages from the secret intelligence files.’
‘It cannot be possible . . .!’
It cannot be possible – and yet here it is, in black and white: the new Minister of War, Godefroy Cavaignac, who replaced Billot barely a week ago, claims to have ended the Dreyfus affair with a political coup de théâtre. ‘I’m going to show to the Chamber three documents. Here is the first letter. It was received in March 1894, when it came into the intelligence department of the Ministry of War . . .’ Omitting only the names of the sender and the addressee, he goes through them one by one: the infamous message from the secret file (I am enclosing twelve master plans of Nice which that lowlife D gave me for you), a second letter which I do not recognise (D has brought me many very interesting matters), and the ‘absolute proof’ that turned the course of Zola’s trial:
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.
I hand the paper on to Zola. ‘He really declaimed all of this rubbish out loud? He must be crazy.’
‘You wouldn’t have thought so if you’d been in the Chamber,’ replies Clemenceau. ‘The entire place rose in acclamation. They think he’s settled the Dreyfus issue once and for all. They even passed a motion ordering the government to print thirty-six thousand copies of the evidence and post them in every commune in France!’
Labori says, ‘It’s a disaster for us, unless we can counter it.’
Zola asks, ‘Can we counter it?’
All three look at me.
That evening, after the concert, which includes the two great Wagner piano sonatas, I make my excuses to Aline and instead of staying for dinner, and with the music still playing in my head, I go to find Pauline. I know that she is lodging with an elderly cousin, a spinster, who has an apartment not far away, close to the Bois de Boulogne. At first, the cousin refuses to fetch her to the door: ‘Have you not done her enough harm already, monsieur? Is it not time to let her be?’
‘Please, madame, I need to see her.’
‘It is very late.’
‘It’s not yet ten, still light—’
‘Good night, monsieur.’
She closes the door on me. I ring the bell again. I hear whispered voices. There is a long pause and this time when the door opens Pauline is standing in her cousin’s place. She is dressed very soberly in a white blouse and dark skirt, her hair pulled back, no make-up. She might almost be a member of a religious order; I wonder if she is still going to confession. She says, ‘I thought we had agreed not to meet until things were settled.’
‘There may not be time to wait.’
She purses her lips, nods. ‘I’ll get my hat.’ As she goes into her bedroom, I see on the table in the little sitting room a typewriter: typically practical, she has taken the money I gave her and invested part of it in learning a new skill – the first time she has ever had an income of her own.
Outside, when we are round the corner and safely out of sight of the apartment, Pauline takes my arm and we walk into the Bois. It is a still, clear summer evening, the temperature so perfectly poised that there seems to be no climate, no barrier between the mind and nature. There are simply the stars, and the dry scent of the grass and the trees, and the occasional faint splash from the lake where two lovers drift in a boat in the moonlight. Their voices carry louder than they realise in the motionless air. But we have only to walk a few hundred paces, strike out from the sandy paths and enter the trees, and they, and the city, cease to exist.
We find a secluded place beneath an immense old cedar. I take off my tailcoat and spread it on the ground for us, loosen my white tie, sit down beside her and put my arm around her.
‘You’ll ruin your coat,’ she says. ‘You’ll have to get it cleaned.’
‘It doesn’t matter. I won’t need it for a while.’
‘Are you going away?’
‘You could put it that way.’
I explain to her then what I intend to do. I made my mind up listening to the concert; listening to the Wagner, in fact, which always has a heady effect on me.
‘I am going to challenge the government’s version of events in public.’
I have no illusions about what will happen to me as a result – I can hardly complain that I haven’t been given fair warning. ‘I suppose I should regard my month in Mont-Valérien as a kind of trial run.’ I put a brave face on it, for her sake.
Inwardly I am less confident. What is the worst I can expect? Once the prison doors close on me, I will be in some physical jeopardy – that has to be taken into account. Incarceration will not be pleasant, and may be prolonged for weeks and months, possibly even a year or more, although I do not mention that to Pauline: it will be in the government’s interests to try to spin out legal proceedings as long as they can, if only in the hope that Dreyfus may die in the interim.
When I’ve finished explaining, she says, ‘You sound as though you have made up your mind already.’
‘If I pull back now, I may never get a better chance. I’d be obliged to spend the rest of my life with the knowledge that when the moment came, I couldn’t rise to it. It would destroy me – I’d never be able to look at a painting or read a novel or listen to music again without a creeping sense of shame. I’m just so very sorry to have mixed you up in all of this.’
‘Don’t keep apologising. I’m not a child. I mixed myself up in it when I fell in love with you.’
‘And how is it, being alone?’
‘I’ve discovered I can survive. It’s oddly exhilarating.’
We lie quietly, our hands interlaced, looking up through the branches to the stars. I seem to feel the turning of the earth beneath us. It will just be starting to get dark in the tropics of South America. I think of Dreyfus and try to picture what he is doing, whether they still manacle him to his bed at night. Our destinies are now entirely intertwined. I depend upon his survival as much as he depends on mine – if he endures, then so will I; if I walk free, then he will too.