The Dreyfus Affair
Source: Le Proces Dreyfus devant le conseil de Guerre de Rennes. Paris, Stock, 1900;
Translated: for marxists.org by Mitch Abidor 2012;
CopyLeft: Creative Commons (Attribute & ShareAlike) marxists.org 2012.
Colonel Hubert Henry was responsible for fabricating forged documents used in the condemnation of Dreyfus. His role revealed he was arrested on August 30, 1898 and the following day committed suicide in his cell. He became a hero to the anti-Semitic right, the royalist Charles Maurras describing the forger as “this great man of honor.”
The widow Henry, twenty-six years old, no profession, takes the oath.
President: Madame, you have not yet been called on to depose, but we thought that in your life in common with your husband you might have gathered from him much information of interest concerning this affair. I request that you make them known to the court.
(Mme Henry testifies in a weak voice that barely reaches the public)
Mme Henry: I will tell you how my husband received and reconstituted the bordereau. It was late September 1894, I don’t remember (she speaks a few words impossible to hear). One evening after dinner my husband went through the papers that had been given him a few minutes before, at around 9:30. I withdrew, leaving my husband to his task. It was nearly 11:00 when, worried that I hadn’t seen him, I went and asked him why he was working later than usual. He answered me by pointing at some papers scattered before him and a letter he was finishing the reconstitution of by means of a small roll of narrow and transparent adhesive paper. “I found some serious things here that I must finish looking at this evening.” And in fact he did finish. A few moments later he entered the bedroom holding in his hand a piece of paper and the letter he'd just reconstituted. He put all of this in his hat, as he generally did, to be sure not to forget it the next morning. He put all of this on the night table. The next morning he didn’t go horseback riding, as he usually did. I asked him why. He answered that he had to see the colonel as soon as possible.
President: Colonel Sandherr?
Mme Henry: Yes, sir. Later, on an evening when my husband was engaged in the same task of going through the documents, when I asked him if he sometimes uncovered intimate matters he said, “Yes, sometimes intimate things; funny, but also sometimes serious things. That’s how I found the bordereau. You recall the evening I worked later than usual?” I then asked him what his impression was when he found the bordereau. He answered that he had been stunned, but that for some time there had been leaks at the ministry of war and that it was through this bordereau that the guilty party was found, in the course of the investigation that followed its discovery. But when he found the bordereau he didn’t know that it was Dreyfus. It was later that Colonel Fabre I think recognized the handwriting, but my husband didn’t know who had written the bordereau.
President: Your husband didn’t know Dreyfus?
Mme Henry: When my husband returned from Cherche-Midi after having accompanied Dreyfus I asked him why he had gone out in uniform, contrary to his custom. He said to me, “I have just completed the most painful mission a soldier can fulfill, that of taking an officer to Cherche-Midi.” And since I didn’t understand him he added, “I just took an officer there who was accused of the horrible crime of treason.” And without naming Captain Dreyfus, “I beg you, don’t talk about this. This is an affair that must remain secret for a certain time. He’s an unfortunate, a father with a family.” So he didn’t know Dreyfus.
President: In the last letter your husband wrote you it says, “What a misfortune to have met such wretches.”
Mme Henry: My husband wrote me, “Aside from you I see that everyone is going to abandon me, and yet you know in whose interests I acted.” But he didn’t speak of wretches.
President: Fine. In that phrase, “you know whose interests I acted in” who do you think he was speaking of?
Mme Henry: My husband didn’t mean to designate anyone in particular. He acted in the interests of the country. In any case, in his preceding letter he said,” You know that in the past thirty-three years I have only acted in the country’s interests.” In addition, I knew his sentiments. I knew he would act in the country’s interests. He had allowed a few expressions to escape that indicated the state of his spirits. He had written a forgery in the face of the activities of Colonel Picquart in order to save the army, which found itself in a terrible impasse due to its enemy’s bad faith.
President: Do you know if Colonel Henry knew Esterhazy in 1894?
Mme Henry: He had neither seen nor heard of Major Esterhazy before he was mentioned in the newspapers. I saw Major Esterhazy: he came to the house five or six times at the time of his duel with Colonel Picquart. Before then my husband had never heard of him. And when I asked him if he knew him he said, “I once knew him at the ministry of war when I was General Zurlinden’s batman, but a lot of time has passed and I haven’t seen him.”
President: Did you ever hear of debts the colonel owed Major Esterhazy?
Mme Henry: Never! Never!
A member of the court martial: The paper your husband was going over late in the evening, was it thick paper?
Mme Henry: I only saw the bordereau up close.
The member of the court martial: You didn’t see him working on this paper?
Mme Henry: He had all kinds of paper... It was 11:00 at night, I didn’t see.
Another member of the court martial: Can you please tell us if there was a table in the office where Colonel Henry worked?
Mme Henry: It was in the dining room.
The member of the court martial: When you were there at around 11:00 and Colonel Henry was working, were there papers in the table?
Mme Henry: The papers were spread out on the table, which was covered with a wax tablecloth.
The same member of the court martial: Was there a part of the table that wasn’t covered by the tablecloth?
Mme Henry: No. As for the forgery, I want to say that my husband believed that in the country’s interests he believed he could make use of verbal elements given him a few days before in order to add new convincing and material proofs to a dossier that already existed. Do you understand me?
Mr Demange: No.
Mme Henry: Information that had been given him verbally a few days before.
President: You are referring to the accused, here present? Had your husband spoken to you of this verbal information previously? But again: who provided him with this information?
Mme Henry makes a gesture of ignorance
President: Accused, please rise. Do you have anything you'd like to say?
Dreyfus: No, nothing.
President: The session is suspended for fifteen minutes.