Part 49

He seemed astonished that I did not know what a bordereau was. "It is a list of secret documents. He gave this three years ago."

"Who discovered it?" I inquired.

"It was found in the paper-basket of the German Embassy, and Monsieur Paty du Clam knew about it."

"And then?"

"Well, then he was arrested and brought before the conseil de guerre, found guilty, and degraded before the army."

"Did he confess that he wrote the bordereau?"

"No! On the contrary, he swore he had not, but the generals decided that he had. So he must have!"

"The generals may have been mistaken," I said. "Such things have happened."

"Oh no. It is impossible that these officers could have been mistaken."

"What did he say when he was accused?" I continued.

"I hardly think that he was told of what he was accused."

"Do you mean to say," I cried, "that he did not know that he was suspected of high treason?"

"He must have known that he wrote the bordereau," he replied.

"If he wrote it," I interrupted. "Was he not condemned only on his handwriting?"

"Yes," replied my elderly friend, whose head I had thought level. "But to discover the truth one had to resort to all sort of ruses in order to convict him and convince the public."

"Why did the generals want to condemn him, if he was not guilty?" I asked.

"They had to condemn some one," said my friend, who was beginning to be dreadfully bored. "The generals found Dreyfus guilty, therefore Dreyfus was guilty without doubt."

"Do you think that if an injustice has been done it will create a great indignation in other countries and will affect the coming Exposition?" I inquired.

"Ah," said my wise friend, "that is another thing. I think myself that it would be prudent to do something toward revising the judgment; everything ought to be done to make the Exposition a success."

And there the matter rested.

I doubt if his friendship stood this test. Any one who takes Dreyfus's defense is looked upon as an enemy in the camp. I devour the papers. Le Matin seems to be the only unprejudiced one. J. reads the others, but I have no patience with all their cooked-up and melodramatic stories.

On the 11th of September the King of Siam gave the diplomats an opportunity to meet him at a reception in the new and beautiful Siamese Legation.

The King is good-looking, and tall for a Siamese. He talked English perfectly and showed the greatest interest in everything he had seen. When he left Paris a few days later he bought three hundred dozen pairs of silk stockings for his three hundred wives. Quite a sum for the royal budget! One can't imagine bigamy going much further than that, can one? And he is only forty-two years old!

I was very glad to meet Colonel Picquard at a dinner in a Dreyfusard house. All that I had heard of him made me feel a great admiration for him. I was not disappointed. He is a most charming man, handsome, with such an honest and kind face. I hoped he would talk with me about Dreyfus, and said as much to my hostess, who in her turn must have said "as much" to him, for he came and sat by me. I did not hesitate to broach the tabooed subject. He said: "I do not and have never thought that Dreyfus was guilty. He may have done something else, but he never, in my belief, wrote the bordereau. I had not known him before. I was the officer who was sent to his cell to make him write his name; they forced him to write it a hundred times. He was perfectly calm, but it was so cold in his room that his fingers were stiff and his hands trembled. He kept saying, 'Why am I to do this?' I was convinced then and there of his innocence. I could have wept with compassion when I saw how unconscious the poor fellow was. I was also on duty," he added, "when Dreyfus was conducted to the Ecole Militaire the day he was degraded before the troops: his epaulettes were torn from his shoulders and his sword was broken in two. I never could have imagined that any one could endure so much. My heart bled for him."

Dreyfus was imprisoned two weeks and subjected every day to mysterious questionings, of which he could not divine the purpose. Neither he nor his counsel knew on what grounds he was arrested.

Forzinetti, who was in charge of Dreyfus's prison, also believed him innocent, and said he had never seen a man suffer as he did. He kept repeating, "My only crime is having been born a Jew." He has been confined ever since on the Ile du Diable under the strictest surveillance. His jailer was not allowed to speak to him. When airing himself in the little inclosure, exposed to the awful heat, there was always a gun pointed at him. Sometimes he was chained to his bed with irons, and a loaded pistol was always placed by his side in case he became weary of life. Colonel Picquard said:

"It can only be the strong desire to prove his innocence that keeps his courage up." Colonel Schwartkopfen (the German military attaché in Paris) declares solemnly to any one who will listen that the German Embassy has never had anything to do with Dreyfus, and the bordereau is unknown there.

We are very anxious about the news we get from Denmark. The dear Queen is very ill, and there is little hope of her recovery.