 |
Business | Industries | Finance | Tax |
| Index: > A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z |
|
|||||
| First Prev [ 1 2 3 4 ] Next Last |
| This article is part of the Dreyfus Affair series. |
| Investigation and arrest |
| Trial and Conviction |
| Picquart's Investigations |
| Other Investigations |
| Public Scandal |
| Resolution |
| Alfred Dreyfus |
| Edit this box |
While Alfred Dreyfus was serving his sentence on Devil's Island back in France a number of people began to question his guilt. The most notable of these was Major Georges Picquart .
Not long after the condemnation of Dreyfus the Intelligence Office had changed its chief. Sandherr , incapacitated by general paralysis, had resigned his post simultaneously with his assistant, Cordier (July 1, 1895); Major Henry , who aspired to the position although he did not speak a single foreign language, was not appointed Sandherr's successor; but in his stead Georges Picquart, who had been ordered to report the debates in the Dreyfus case in order to send an account of the proceedings to the minister and to the chief of the staff, received the appointment. He was a young and brilliant officer, of Alsatian origin, hard-working, well-informed, with a clear intellect, a ready speech, and who, moreover, appeared to share all the prejudices of his surroundings; he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant-colonel on April 6, 1896, and was the youngest officer of that grade in the army. Immediately upon his arrival at the office he reorganized the service, which the prolonged illness of Sandherr had caused to be neglected. He required in particular that the paper bags in which Madame Bastian continued to collect the waste papers from the German embassy, and which she brought to Major Henry, should pass through his hands before being confided to Captain Lauth , whose work it was to piece and paste them together. These bags, however, never brought anything of importance to light, though they showed that the leakage of secret information had not ceased since the condemnation of Dreyfus.
The chief of the staff, Boisdeffre , on transferring the service into Picquart's hands, had declared to him that in his opinion the Dreyfus affair was not definitely settled. They must be on the lookout for a counter-attack from the Jews. In 1894 they had not been able to discover a motive for the treason; there was therefore every reason for continuing the researches to "strengthen the dossier."
In the month of March, 1896, Henry, much occupied by the state of his mother's health and by different matters he had to attend to in the country, made only short and infrequent visits to Paris. One day he sent Madame Bastian's paper bag, particularly bulky on this occasion, to Picquart without even having had time to glance at it. Picquart, also without inspecting it, passed it on to Lauth. Lauth later brought his chief a pneumatic-tube telegram (commonly known as a "petit bleu"), the fragments of which he had found in the bag; pasted together, they contained the following words:
To Major Esterhazy, 27 Rue de la Bienfaisance, Paris.
Sir: I am awaiting first of all a more detailed explanation [than] that which you gave me the other day on the subject in question. Consequently I beg you to send it to me in writing that I may judge whether I can continue my relations with the firm R. or not. C.
The writing of this note was disguised, but the place it came from left no room for doubting that it emanated from Colonel Schwarzkoppen ; the office possessed another document, known to have been written by him, and signed with the same initial "C." The "petit bleu" had not been sent by mail; apparently, after having written or dictated it, Schwarzkoppen reconsidered his determination and had thrown the note into the waste-paper basket, taking care to tear it up into very small pieces?there were more than fifty of them; he had foreseen neither the tricks of Madame Bastian nor the patient industry of the Intelligence Department.
"It is fearful," said Captain Lauth on delivering it. "Can there possibly be another one?" (meaning another traitor among the officers). Picquart could share only the same impression; but determined upon avoiding the indiscretions and the blunders which had been committed in 1894, he resolved to undertake personally a secret inquiry before spreading abroad the news of his discovery. He put the "petit bleu" away in his strong-box, and shortly afterward had photographs of it taken by Lauth, in which he strove to remove the traces of the rents.
The object of this precaution was both to make the reading of the photograph easier and to prevent the officers who would handle these photographs later on from guessing the origin of the document.
| Politics | Business | Finance |
 |
 |
 |
|