An Officer and a Spy Read online

  ‘That’s all. If you let me know when you’ve finished with it, I can lock it up again.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it from now on.’

  Back in my office I lay the envelope on my desk and contemplate it for a moment. Odd that such a dreary-looking object should assume such significance. Do I really want to do this? Once one has read a thing, there is no un-reading it. There could be consequences – legal and ethical – that I can’t even guess at.

  I lift the flap and pull out the contents. There are five documents.

  I start with a handwritten deposition from Henry, providing the context for his theatrical testimony at the court martial:

  Gentlemen,

  In June 1893, the Statistical Section came into possession of a note written by the German military attaché Colonel von Schwartzkoppen. This note showed that he was in receipt, via an unknown informant, of the plans of the fortifications at Toul, Reims, Langres and Neufchâteau.

  In January 1894, another intercepted note revealed that he had paid this informant an advance of six hundred francs for the plans of Albertville, Briançon, Mézières and the new embankments on both sides of the Moselle and the Meurthe.

  Two months later, in March 1894, an agent of the Sûreté, François Guénée, acting on our behalf, met the Spanish military attaché, the marquis de Val Carlos, a regular informant of the Statistical Section. Among other intelligence, the marquis warned M. Guénée of a German agent employed on the General Staff. His exact words were: ‘Be sure to tell Major Henry on my behalf (and he may repeat it to the colonel) that there is reason to intensify surveillance at the Ministry of War, since it emerges from my last conversation with the German attachés that they have an officer on the General Staff who is keeping them admirably well informed. Find him, Guénée: if I knew his name, I would tell you!’

  I subsequently met the marquis de Val Carlos myself in June 1894. He told me that a French officer who worked specifically in the Second Department of the General Staff – or at any rate had worked there in March and April – had supplied information to the German and Italian military attachés. I asked for the name of this officer, but he could not tell me. He said: ‘I am sure of what I say but I do not know the officer’s name.’ Following my report of this conversation to Colonel Sandherr, new orders were issued for a much more rigorous surveillance. It was during this period, on 25 September, that the bordereau that forms the basis of the Dreyfus case came into our possession.

  (Signed)

  Henry, Hubert-Joseph (Major)

  The next three documents are original, glued-together papers purloined from Schwartzkoppen’s waste-paper basket: raw intelligence presumably included to buttress Henry’s statement. The first is written in German, in Schwartzkoppen’s own hand, and appears to be a draft memorandum, either for his own use or for his superiors in Berlin, jotted down after he was first approached by the would-be traitor. He has torn it into extra fine pieces; there are tantalising gaps:

  Doubt . . . Proof . . . Letter of service . . . A dangerous situation for myself with a French officer . . . Must not conduct negotiations personally . . . Bring what he has . . . Absolute . . . Intelligence Bureau . . . no relation . . . Regiment . . . only importance . . . Leaving the ministry . . . Already elsewhere . . .

  The second reassembled document is a letter to Schwartzkoppen from the Italian military attaché, Major Alessandro Panizzardi. It is written in French, dated January 1894, and begins My dear Bugger.

  I have written to Colonel Davignon again, and that is why, if you have the opportunity to broach this question with your friend, I ask you to do so in such a way that Davignon doesn’t come to hear of it . . . for it must never be revealed that one has dealings with another.

  Goodbye my good little dog,

  Your A

  Davignon is the deputy head of the Second Department – the officer responsible for briefing the various foreign military attachés and arranging their invitations to manoeuvres, receptions, lectures and so forth. I know him well. His integrity is, as they say, above reproach.

  The third reconstituted letter is a note from Schwartzkoppen to Panizzardi:

  P 16.4.94

  My dear friend,

  I am truly sorry not to have seen you before I left. Anyway, I will be back in eight days. I am enclosing twelve master plans of Nice which that lowlife D gave me for you. I told him that you did not intend to resume relations. He claims there was a misunderstanding and that he would do his utmost to satisfy you. He says that he had insisted you would not hold it against him. I replied that he was crazy and that I did not think you would resume relations with him. Do as you wish! I am in a hurry.

  Alexandrine

  Don’t bugger too much!!!

  The final document, again handwritten, is a commentary on Dreyfus’s alleged career as a spy signed by du Paty. It attempts to draw together all these various scraps of evidence into a coherent story:

  Captain Dreyfus began his espionage activities for the German General Staff in 1890, aged thirty, while undergoing instruction at the École Centrale de Pyrotechnie Militaire in Bourges, where he purloined a document describing the process for filling shells with melinite.

  In the second half of 1893, as part of the stagiaire system, Captain Dreyfus was attached to the First Department of the General Staff. While there he had access to the safe containing the blueprints of various fortifications, including those at Nice. His behaviour throughout his attachment was suspicious. Enquiries have established that it would have been an easy matter for him to remove these plans when the office was unattended. These were passed to the German Embassy, and later forwarded to the Italian military attaché (see attached document: ‘that lowlife D’).

  At the beginning of 1894 Dreyfus joined the Second Department. The presence there of a German spy was drawn to the attention of M. Guénée in March (see attached report by Major Henry) . . .

  And that is all. I take the envelope and shake it out again, just to make sure. Can that really be it? I feel a sense of anticlimax, and even some anger. I have been duped. There is nothing in the so-called ‘secret file’ but circumstance and innuendo. Not one document or witness directly names Dreyfus as a traitor. The nearest it comes to incriminating him is an initial letter: ‘that lowlife D’.

  I reread du Paty’s compilation of breezy non sequiturs. Does it actually make sense? I know the layout and procedures of the First Department. It would have been practically impossible for Dreyfus to have smuggled out undetected something the size of architectural plans. And even if he had, their absence would have been noticed immediately. And yet there have never been, to my knowledge, any complaints about stolen documents. So presumably Dreyfus must have copied them and then replaced them – is that the suggestion? But how did he have so many copies made so quickly? And how did he manage to smuggle the originals back into the safe again without being seen? The dates don’t fit, either. Dreyfus only joined the First in July 1893, yet according to Henry, Schwartzkoppen already had some stolen plans in his possession by June. And the German attaché’s description of D as ‘crazy’: is that a word one would apply to the meticulous Dreyfus, any more than one would call him ‘lowlife’?

  I lock the file away in my safe.

  Just before I go home, I call in at the ministry to make an appointment to see Boisdeffre. Pauffin de Saint Morel is the officer on duty. He tells me the Chief is not in until Tuesday. ‘Can I tell him what it’s about?’

  ‘I’d prefer not.’

  ‘Secret stuff?’

  ‘Secret stuff.’

  ‘Say no more.’ He enters my name in the diary for ten o’clock. ‘By the way,’ he asks, ‘did you follow up that business with old Foucault, about some German spy story?’

  ‘Yes I did, thank you.’

  ‘Nothing in it?’

  ‘Nothing in it.’

  I spend Saturday in my office writing a report for Boisdeffre: ‘Intelligence Service note on Major Esterha
zy, 74th Infantry’. It requires some delicate drafting. I make several false starts. I describe in guarded terms the interception of the petit bleu, the investigation into Esterhazy’s suspicious character, the information from Cuers that the Germans (whom I describe by the unoriginal code name ‘X’) still have a spy in the French army, and the similarity between the writing of the bordereau and that of Esterhazy (striking even to the least expert eye). The report runs to four closely written pages. I conclude:

  The facts indicated seem serious enough to merit a more detailed inquiry. Above all it is necessary to seek some explanations from Major Esterhazy about his relations with Embassy X and the use he made of the documents that he copied. But it is vital to operate by surprise, with both firmness and caution, because the major is known as a man of unequalled audacity and trickery.

  I burn my notes and discarded drafts in the fireplace, then lock the completed report away in my safe along with the secret file. It is much too explosive to entrust to the internal post. I shall deliver it by hand.

  The following morning I take the train out to Ville-d’Avray to join my cousins the Gasts for Sunday lunch. The red-roofed house, La Ronce, sits prettily in its own land on the main road to Versailles. The day is fine. Jeanne has prepared a picnic patriotically redolent of childhood days in Alsace – rillettes de canard, and flammekueche and sauerkraut with Munster cheese. All should be well. Yet I can’t shake off the shadows of the rue de l’Université. I feel agitated and pale beside my relaxed and suntanned friends, although I try not to show it. Edmond fetches an old pram from the stable and loads it up with a wicker hamper, blankets and wine, then wheels it down the lane while we follow in a procession.

  I keep a lookout for Pauline, and ask my sister, in an offhand way, if she happens to know if she’s coming, but Anna tells me she has decided to stay an extra week in Biarritz with Philippe and the girls. She scrutinises my complexion and says, ‘You look as though you could do with a vacation yourself.’

  ‘I’m fine. Anyway, it isn’t possible at the moment.’

  ‘But Georges, you simply have to make it possible!’

  ‘Yes, I know. I will, I promise.’

  ‘You wouldn’t work half so hard if you had a wife and family of your own to go home to.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ I laugh, ‘not this again!’ I light a cigarette to forestall further conversation.

  We leave the sandy track and walk on into the wood. Suddenly Anna says, ‘It’s really very sad. You do understand that Pauline will never leave Philippe? Because of the girls?’

  I glance at her, startled. ‘What are you talking about?’ She stares at me and I realise there’s no point in maintaining the pretence: she’s always been able to see right through me. ‘I didn’t think you knew.’

  ‘Oh, Georges, everybody knows! Everybody’s known for years!’

  Everybody! Years! I feel a spasm of irritation.

  ‘In any case,’ I mutter, ‘what makes you think I want her to leave him?’

  ‘No,’ she agrees. ‘No, you don’t. That’s what’s sad.’

  She walks on ahead of me.

  We spread the blankets in a clearing, on the edge of a slope leading down to a rocky stream. We exiles love the woods, I have noticed. Trees are trees, after all: it is easier to pretend one is still in one’s homeland, collecting mushrooms and insects in the forest of Neudorf. The children slither down with the bottles of wine and lemonade to chill in the water. They splash around in the mud. It’s hot. I take off my hat and jacket. Someone says, ‘Look at the colonel, stripping down for action!’ I smile and pretend to salute. I have been in my job for more than a year and still no one knows what I do.

  Over lunch, Edmond wants to talk about the impending visit of the Tsar. He takes the radical view. ‘I just think it is plain wrong,’ he says, ‘for our democratic republic to roll out the carpet for an absolute monarch who locks up people who disagree with him. That’s not what France exists for.’

  ‘France may not exist at all,’ I point out, ‘if we don’t have an ally who can help us defeat the Germans.’

  ‘Yes, but what if it’s the Russians who fight the Germans and we’re the ones who end up getting dragged in?’

  ‘It’s hard to imagine the scenario in which that might happen.’

  ‘Well, I hate to break it to a soldier, but things have a habit of not going according to plan.’

  Jeanne says, ‘Oh do shut up, Ed! Georges has come out to relax on his day off, not listen to a lecture from you.’

  ‘Very well,’ grumbles Edmond, ‘but you can tell your General Boisdeffre from me that alliances work both ways.’

  ‘I am sure the Chief of the General Staff will be fascinated to receive a lecture in strategy from the Mayor of Ville-d’Avray . . .’

  Everyone laughs, including Edmond. ‘Touché, Colonel,’ he says, and pours me some more wine.

  After we have eaten, we play hide-and-seek with the children. When it’s my turn I walk a hundred paces into the trees and search around until I find the perfect spot. I lie down in a small hollow behind a fallen tree and cover myself with dead leaves and twigs, just as I used to teach my topography students to do at the École Supérieure de Guerre. It is amazing how completely a human being can disappear if he is prepared to take the trouble. In the summer after my father died I would lie out in the forest like this for hours. I listen to the sounds of the children calling my name. After a while they get bored and move off; soon I can no longer hear them. There is only the cooing of the wood pigeons and the scent of the rich, dry earth and the softness of the moss against my neck. I savour the solitude for ten minutes, then brush myself down and go back smiling to join the others. They have already packed up the picnic and are waiting to leave.

  I say, ‘You see, that’s how a soldier learns to hide! Would you like me to teach you?’

  They look at me as if I have gone mad.

  Anna says irritably, ‘Where in heaven’s name have you been?’

  One of the children starts to cry.

  13

  AT PRECISELY TEN o’clock on the morning of Tuesday 1 September, I present myself in General Boisdeffre’s outer office, carrying my briefcase.

  Pauffin de Saint Morel says, ‘You can go straight in, Colonel. He’s expecting you.’

  ‘Thank you. Would you make sure we’re not disturbed?’

  I enter to find Boisdeffre leaning over his conference table, studying a map of Paris and making notes. He acknowledges my salute with a smile and a wave and then returns to the map. ‘Excuse me, Picquart, will you? I shan’t be a moment.’

  I close the door behind me. Boisdeffre is tracing the route of the Tsar’s ceremonial parade, marking it on the map in red crayon. For security reasons, their Imperial Majesties will pass through a succession of wide-open spaces – the Jardins du Ranelagh, the Bois de Boulogne, the Champs-Élysées and the place de la Concorde – where all the houses are screened by trees and stand well back from the road. Nevertheless, every occupant is being given a background check: the Statistical Section has been brought in to advise; Gribelin has been busy with our lists of aliens and potential traitors. Given our urgent need for an alliance with the Russians, if the Tsar were to be assassinated on French soil it would be a national disaster. And the threat is real: it is only fifteen years since his grandfather was blown in half by socialists, only two years since our own president was stabbed to death by an anarchist.

  Boisdeffre taps the map and says, ‘It’s this initial stretch here, between the Ranelagh railway station and the porte Dauphine, that causes me most concern. The First Department tells me we shall need thirty-two thousand men, including cavalry, simply to keep the crowd at a safe distance.’

  ‘Let’s hope the Germans don’t choose that moment to attack us in the east.’

  ‘Indeed.’ Boisdeffre finishes writing and looks at me with his full attention for the first time. ‘So, Colonel, what do we need to talk about? Please.’ He sits, and indicates that I
should take the chair opposite him. ‘Is it about the Russian visit?’

  ‘No, General. It’s about the matter we discussed in the automobile on your return from Vichy – the suspected traitor, Esterhazy.’

  It takes him a moment to search back through his memory. ‘Ah yes, I remember. Where do we stand on that?’

  ‘If I could just clear some space . . .’

  ‘By all means.’

  I roll up the map. Boisdeffre takes out his silver snuff box. He places a pinch on the back of his hand and takes two quick sniffs, one in either nostril. He watches as I open my briefcase and extract the documents I need for my presentation: the petit bleu, a photograph of the bordereau, Esterhazy’s letters requesting a transfer to the General Staff, the surveillance photographs of Esterhazy outside the German Embassy, the secret dossier on Dreyfus and my four-page report on the investigation to date. His expression grows increasingly astonished. ‘Good heavens, my dear Picquart,’ he says, half amused, ‘what have you been doing?’

  ‘We have quite a serious problem to confront, General. I feel it’s my duty to bring it to your attention right away.’

  Boisdeffre winces and casts a wistful look at the rolled map: plainly, he would prefer not to be dealing with this. ‘Very well, then,’ he sighs. ‘As you wish. Proceed.’

  I take him through it step by step: the interception of the petit bleu, my initial enquiries into Esterhazy, Operation Benefactor. I show him the pictures taken from the apartment in the rue de Lille. ‘Here you can see he takes an envelope into the embassy, and here he leaves without it.’

  Boisdeffre peers short-sightedly at the photographs. ‘My God, the things you fellows can do nowadays!’

  ‘The saving grace is that Esterhazy has no access to important classified material: what he offers them is so trivial even the Germans want to sever their connection with him. However,’ I say, sliding over the two letters, ‘Esterhazy is now trying to turn himself into a much more valuable agent, by applying for a position in the ministry – where of course he would have ready access to secrets.’