Penn, from the Garden—É. Zola, Miss & Mrs. Vizetelly
He had entrusted his defence to an advocate still young in years, esteemed by all who knew him, but not as yet of high public reputation. Born at Rheims, of Alsatian parents, his father being one of the chief inspectors of the East of France Railway Company, Maître Labori had married a lady of Irish extraction, at one time well known in London musical circles. He was possessed of a tall, commanding figure, a bright, sunny face, a warm, penetrating voice. And he was not only very talented and extremely courageous, but he had the best of qualifications for the task he undertook: he believed absolutely in the innocence of Dreyfus; and thus he threw himself into the struggle with a whole-hearted devotion. The reader who knows something of the great fight he made both for Zola and for the unhappy Jewish officer, may be surprised to learn that if Maître Labori made himself a great name during that struggle, he reaped little or no immediate pecuniary gain. Zola's being a genuine political case, he would take no fee; he was only willing to accept a comparatively modest sum for his expenses and the services of the young advocates, his secretaries. In this he was following one of the lofty traditions on which the French bar prides itself. Berryer asked no fee when he defended either the ministers of Charles X or Louis Napoléon before the peers of Louis Philippe's time; Jules Favre asked none, whether he defended Orsini or other conspirators, or one of the many journalists or politicians arraigned during the Second Empire. The same may be said of Joly, who defended Henri Rochefort; of Gambetta when he defended Delescluze, and of many others. Occasionally a present in kind may be accepted by counsel; and from a few words that Zola once let fall, the writer thinks that Maître Labori may have been eventually persuaded to accept the title-deed of a little property which several of those indebted for his services thought of purchasing and presenting to him.
At the suit of Zola and his fellow-defendant nearly a hundred witnesses—ministers, officers, deputies, senators, diplomatists, authors, journalists, handwriting experts, and others—were summoned to appear at the approaching trial; but great efforts were made to prevent many from attending. Directly the jury-roll was issued, the names and addresses of those who might have to pronounce on the case were published by "Le Petit Journal" and other scurrilous prints; and numerous threatening letters were sent to these men, intimating that vengeance would follow if they should dare to acquit "the Italian." Moreover the Nationalist and Clerical leaders prepared for demonstrations on a large scale. A kind of employment office was established on the boulevards, where hirelings were engaged at the rate of five francs a day or two francs an evening to shout "Vive l'armée," "À bas les Juifs," and "Conspuez Zola!" These men met with little or no interference from the authorities, who contented themselves with massing police and municipal guards in and around the Palais de Justice.
The trial began on February 7. The Assize Court was crowded, Nationalists and anti-Semites preponderating among the audience. There were fifteen sittings altogether, the last being held on February 23. The presiding judge, M. Delegorgue,[19] did his utmost to prevent the witnesses from giving evidence respecting the Dreyfus case; and again and again, when Maître Labori wished to ask a question, Delegorgue snappishly exclaimed: "The question shall not be put!" Nevertheless the judge could not prevent the witnesses and Labori from establishing a number of facts—among others the illegality of Dreyfus's condemnation, the insignificance of the evidence upon which he had been officially condemned, the error committed by the military judges in respect of the bordereau, and the certainty that it was Esterhazy's work. The evidence was, indeed, of such immense significance that the General Staff thought it necessary to strike a decisive blow. General de Pellieux gave the jury a summary of a forged correspondence between Colonels von Schwarzkoppen and Panizzardi, the former German and Italian military attachés, this correspondence, in which Dreyfus was mentioned, having been manufactured by a certain Lemercier-Picard with the knowledge of the notorious Colonel Henry. General de Boisdeffre, however, virtually certified its authenticity, and at the same time threatened the jury with the resignation of the whole General Staff if Zola were acquitted. Then Colonel Henry and Major Lauth accused Picquart of having asserted Dreyfus's innocence without knowledge of the papers in the case, and of having invented one of them in order to ruin Esterhazy. Maître Labori was not allowed to question the generals, or answer them. Great indignation was expressed when Picquart had the courage to say that a Panizzardi-Schwarzkoppen letter mentioned by General de Pellieux was a forgery. Yet not only was such the case, but some weeks previously the forgery had been revealed to the embassies of Italy and Germany, most probably by Lemercier-Picard, the forger himself. Count Tornielli and Count Münster in their turn had revealed it to M. Hanotaux, the French Foreign Minister, demanding his word of honour that no use should be made of it. M. Hanotaux communicated this revelation to his colleagues, and even sent a written note about it to the Ministry of War. It has been said, too, that on the day after General de Pellieux's deposition M. Hanotaux proposed to suspend the proceedings in Zola's trial in order to look for and prosecute the forgers, but that his fellow-ministers hesitated from fear of a military movement. Anyhow, the episode ended disastrously for Lemercier-Picard. On March 3 he was found hanging in his room, his feet dangling on the floor. All his papers had disappeared before the police came to take possession of the corpse. Yet, according to the authorities, it was a case of suicide![20] The trial was full of stirring episodes. The Nationalists who crowded the court vented their passions freely, shouting, jeering, and groaning at almost everybody who expressed any view favourable to Dreyfus or derogatory to the swaggering, gold-laced officers, who when questioned either refused to answer or perjured themselves with the audacity of men confident of impunity. Zola, who was insulted day after day, put a brave face on it all, and only on a few occasions did he give utterance to his disgust, protesting against the manner in which he was mobbed in the streets, and against the denial of justice which he encountered in court, where he claimed the same liberty to defend himself as was accorded to thieves and assassins. At one sitting, when General de Pellieux made a slighting remark, the novelist turned on him haughtily: "There are several ways of serving France," said he. "A man may do so with the sword or with the pen. If you have won victories, so have I. I bequeath the name of Émile Zola to posterity, which will choose between us!" De Pellieux made no retort to those proud words. In that hour of mendacious triumph he did not foresee the day when he would be virtually disgraced, consigned to an obscure garrison in Brittany, to die there, tortured, as we know, by the deepest remorse. Again, at one moment towards the close of the trial, when the storm of execration thundered more loudly than usual in Zola's ears, the novelist turned towards the bellowers, and with one word branded them: "You cannibals!" he cried, "you cannibals!"
Except on two or three occasions when the rain fell in torrents, great precautions had to be taken for Zola's safety. Senator Ranc, an old conspirator and no mean judge of danger, subsequently stated that to his knowledge the novelist repeatedly had some very narrow escapes. The carriage in which he drove to and from the Palais de Justice was often pursued by a hostile mob, which the police had to charge and disperse. On some occasions policemen mounted on bicycles escorted the carriage, and Zola was always accompanied by a little body-guard of friends: M. Fasquelle, his publisher, M. Bruneau, the composer, and particularly M. Fernand Desmoulin, the accomplished engraver, to whom one owes a fine portrait of Zola, produced at the time when the Rougon-Macquart series was completed. Throughout the tumultuous period of the trial M. Desmoulin was invariably by his friend's side with a six-shooter in readiness. Madame Zola, who also attended the proceedings, was in like way escorted by vigilant friends. The horror of it all had at first seemed more than she could bear, but she strove to be brave and calm. After all, as she repeated, her husband was doing his duty.
On the thirteenth day of the trial, after the speech for the prosecution, Zola read an address to the jury, in which, after referring to all the pressure employed to secure his conviction, he sketched broadly and graphically the situation into which the Affair had cast France. He denied that he had insulted the army: those who had done so were the men who mingled with their acclamations the cry of "Down with the Jews!" "And they have even shouted, 'Vive Esterhazy!'" he added. "Great God! the nation of Saint Louis, of Bayard, of Condé, and of Hoche; the nation that can boast a hundred gigantic victories; the nation of the great wars of Republican and Imperial days; the nation whose strength, grace, and generosity have dazzled the world, has shouted 'Long live Esterhazy!' That is a stain of which only our effort for truth and justice can wash us clean." Then after speaking sarcastically of the alleged "Jewish Syndicate," said to have been formed to bribe people and buy evidence, he appealed to the common sense of the jury, warning them they would make a great mistake if they imagined that the campaign would be stopped by any verdict of guilty in his case. As for himself, he shrugged his shoulders at the insinuations that he had sold himself to the Jews, that he was a liar and a traitor. Then he continued:
"I have no political, no sectarian passions. I am a writer. I have toiled all my life, and shall return to the ranks to-morrow to resume my interrupted work. How stupid it is of some to call me an Italian, I the son of a French mother, brought up by Beauceron grandparents.... I lost my father when I was seven years old and did not visit Italy till I was fifty-four.... Still that does not prevent me from feeling very proud that my father belonged to Venice, the resplendent city whose ancient glory rings through every mind. But, even if I were not French, would not the forty volumes in the French language which I have scattered by millions of copies throughout the world, would not they suffice to make me a Frenchman, one useful to the glory of France?"
Having thus dealt with the personal question, Zola proceeded to plead for Dreyfus, for equity and enlightenment which alone could restore peace and order in France. And, asking the jurymen if they wished to see France isolated in Europe, he showed them the foreign nations already casting doubts on French humanity and equity. Next, amid increasing interruptions, he continued as follows:
"Alas! gentlemen, like so many others, you await perhaps a flash of lightning, the proof of the innocence of Dreyfus descending from heaven like a thunderbolt. Truth does not come upon us in that way; as a rule, some research and intelligence are needed to find her. (Jeers.) The proof! Ah! we well know where it might be found. But it is only in the depths of our souls that we think of that, and our patriotic anguish proceeds from a dread lest France should have exposed herself to receiving that proof as a slap, after compromising the honour of her army by a lie. (Loud protests.) But I wish to declare plainly that if we notified to the prosecution the names of certain members of foreign embassies as witnesses, we had no intention of summoning those persons to this court. Some people smiled at our audacity. But I do not think that anybody smiled at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, for there they must have understood our object. (Protests.) We merely wished to indicate to those who know the whole truth that we knew it also. It is circulating in all the embassies, it will soon be known to everybody.... The Government which is ignorant of nothing, the Government which, like ourselves, is convinced of the innocence of Dreyfus (Loud protests.) can, without any risk, and whenever it pleases, find witnesses who will at last throw light on everything.
"Dreyfus is innocent, I swear it. (The proof! The proof!) I stake my life on it, I stake my honour on it. At this solemn hour, in presence of this tribunal which represents human justice, before you, gentlemen of the jury, who personify the nation, before all France, before the whole world, I swear that Dreyfus is innocent. (Uproar.) And by my forty years of labour, by the authority which that labour may have given me, I swear that Dreyfus is innocent. (Violent protests.) And by all I have acquired, by the name I have made for myself, by my works which have contributed to the expansion of French literature, I swear that Dreyfus is innocent. (Protests and hisses.) May all that crumble, may my works perish, if Dreyfus is not innocent. He is innocent! (Prolonged uproar.)
"Everything seems to be against me, the two Chambers, the civil authorities, the military authorities, the newspapers which circulate the most widely, and public opinion which they have poisoned. And on my side I have only an ideal of truth and justice. And I am quite easy in mind, for I shall conquer. I did not wish my country to remain amid mendacity and injustice. You may strike me here. France will some day thank me for having helped to save her honour." (General tumult. Repeated shouts of "The proof! Give the proof!")
Zola, as we know, was not an orator. Emotion made his voice tremble as he began to read his declaration, but composure gradually came to him, followed towards the close by real strength of manner. And though, as the foregoing extracts indicate, many sentences were followed by violent protests and ridiculous shouts of "Proof! proof!"—ridiculous by reason of the fact that the judge and the military witnesses had done their utmost to prevent any proof from being supplied—the audience listened with great attention. Once Zola's voice cracked as he tried to give emphasis to a word, and his listeners then jeered him, but, on the whole, he did far better than had been expected by those who knew how difficult it was for him to speak in public.
He was followed by Maître Labori, who had fought most manfully and skilfully throughout the whole proceedings, and who now speedily subdued the hostile and noisy audience. Whenever, at the outset of his great speech, the Nationalists laughed at a statement or an argument, counsel repeated it in a yet more emphatic manner than before. Groans arose when, referring to his client, he said: "A patriot like Zola"; and at once, turning like a lion, he repeated the words: "Yes, a patriot like Zola—a patriot with a braver heart, a clearer vision, a loftier love of his own land than is owned by any of the shallow-minded swallowers of phrases who rage at him. One of these days you will recognise your own folly and his greatness." Then the brave advocate paused for a few seconds, as if challenging a new outburst. But there was complete silence. "Ah, well, then," he said, with a touch of fighting laughter in his voice, "I will continue." And having conquered his audience he reverted to his argument. His address was continued on the morrow, February 22, when, demonstrating the accuracy of Zola's assertion that Dreyfus was innocent, he showed that the whole procedure of the 1894 trial had been carried out by officers whose excitement of mind had verged on positive derangement, and that it was consequently valueless. Towards the end of his argument, which was very close and pregnant, the anti-Semites once more became uproarious, but the manifestations against the advocate brought on counter-manifestations in his favour from the Dreyfusites, who had mustered in some force that day. The account of Dreyfus's degradation, the unhappy man's letters and protests, which Maître Labori read, produced a powerful impression. When he referred to the extraordinary traps which Du Paty de Clam had set in the hope of extracting from his prisoner something which might be interpreted as a confession, everybody seemed suddenly won over to the Dreyfusite cause, and acclamations again followed a passage in which counsel reminded those in high places, who assumed such a hypocritical "non possumus" attitude towards the case, that the most pilloried and execrated name in all history was that of Pontius Pilate. Again, on the morrow, Maître Labori took up the thread of his discourse, which ended with a fine peroration. But this time, the Dreyfusites being altogether outnumbered, vehement protests mingled with the applause which saluted him. After M. Clemenceau had spoken amid frequent tumultuous interruptions for Zola's fellow-defendant, M. Perrenx of "L'Aurore," the jurors withdrew to consider their verdict which, by a majority of seven to five,[21] was one of guilty. It was seven o'clock in the evening, the court-room, the whole Palais de Justice indeed, its precincts and the adjoining streets, were crowded with people among whom the professional anti-Semites and many officers were conspicuous. Yells of triumph greeted the news of the verdict, and were renewed when it was known that in Zola's case the maximum penalty of a year's imprisonment with a fine of three thousand francs had been applied.[22] And there came loud and ominous shouts of "Death to the Jews! death to the dirty Jews!" followed by scuffles and affrays which the police, two thousand in number, could scarcely check.
Zola took his sentence quietly, his wife fell weeping on his neck and his friends surrounded him, pressing his hands. At last he was smuggled out of court and carried to a friend's house, where he spent the evening, while half Paris was demonstrating in one and another direction. The verdict and sentence were naturally approved by the great majority of people who, having as yet no notion that several officers of the General Staff had deliberately perjured themselves, still put all their trust in those brave defenders of the country. On the following day, however, the foreman of the jury stated, significantly enough, that the verdict had been given on the sole ground that Zola had gone beyond what was permissible by insulting a court-martial. As for the revision of the Dreyfus case, he, the foreman, was not opposed to it, indeed he hoped it would be brought about by legal means. Thus the triumph of the Militarists was really only surface deep.
Zola gave notice of appeal on various grounds, and then turned to his novel "Paris," the last proofs of which he had quietly corrected during the interval between his letter, "J'Accuse," and his trial. The work was originally to have appeared in January, but was delayed by Zola's participation in the Dreyfus case. Writing to Vizetelly on February 6, the evening before he went into court, he said: "'Paris,' will only be published on March 1. Please therefore warn Mr. Chatto at once and tell him that this date is final.... I am not of your opinion.[23] I think that the book will be more successful if we allow the public emotion to calm down a little. Besides, we shall not be ready till March 1."
"Paris," which had been appearing serially in "Le Journal," was issued, then, on that date.[24] In France the sales were small, for many who had long read Zola with approval now turned from the alleged insulter of the army, the defender of Jewish traitors. But the demand from abroad, whence addresses of sympathy had been raining upon the novelist for six weeks past, was a large one, and thus he did not immediately suffer any great pecuniary loss from his championship of an obnoxious cause. Unfortunately the lessons which the work inculcated scarcely reached those for whom they were primarily intended, that is the Parisians themselves, all "good patriots" having now agreed to shun Zola and his works.
A period of less disorder but of much controversy, marked by some more revelations, followed his trial. Then on April 2, the Cour de Cassation, having examined his appeal, quashed his conviction on the ground that the proceedings ought to have been instituted, not by the Minister of War, but by the court-martial which he had been accused of libelling. This decision quite enraged the military authorities. The court-martial in question became alarmed and almost shrank from taking proceedings, but pressure was put on it by General de Pellieux and others who on April 8 prevailed on its members to take the necessary action, and at the same time apply to the Grand Chancellor of the Legion of Honour to strike Zola off the roll—a suggestion which the ineffable Drumont had repeatedly made in "La Libre Parole." When on April 11 Zola received a fresh citation, he found that he was summoned before the Versailles Assizes, and that only three lines of his famous letter, "J'Accuse," were now incriminated! The trial was fixed for May 23, on which day anti-Semites and Dreyfusites flocked to Versailles. But Maître Labori impeached the jurisdiction of the court on the ground that Zola's offence had been committed in a newspaper printed and published in Paris, and on a decision being given against him, the Cour de Cassation was again appealed to. A further delay then ensued.
On May 29, however, an ignoble attack was made on Zola by a certain Ernest Judet of "Le Petit Journal," in which he had been carrying on an unscrupulous campaign against the cause of justice. The attack took the form of some alleged revelations respecting the novelist's father, who was said to have been a thief. Judet printed documents derived from somebody at the War Office—presumably Colonel Henry—which were subsequently shown to have been doctored or forged; and the story which he told, in his own fashion, was that of François Zola's connection with the French Foreign Legion. It has been dealt with in the first chapter of this volume; but the incident must be mentioned here, for it gave the accused man's son a great and painful shock. The undoubted object of this infamous publication was to discredit his efforts on behalf of Dreyfus and to damn him in public opinion. But Zola retorted with a glowing protest in "L'Aurore," and before long he and Judet were prosecuting one another for libel. The sequel will be told hereafter.
Pending the decision in the second appeal made to the Cour de Cassation, the turmoil in France continued. Numerous illegal and iniquitous acts were perpetrated, professors who had espoused the cause of justice were summarily dismissed, Colonel Picquart was turned out of the army, M. Joseph Reinach lost his rank as an officer of reserves, the General Staff virtually ruling the country in spite of the various discoveries and revelations which tended, in an increasing degree, to prove the innocence of Dreyfus and the guilt of Esterhazy. At the general elections, which supervened about this time, only a few candidates, such as M. Jaurès and M. Reinach, dared to speak of justice. It was a fear of those elections and the constituencies that had previously led many deputies to shrink from the cause of revision. However, though the Nationalists gained by the elections, they did not swamp the Republic. M. Méline, falling from power, was replaced as Prime Minister by M. Brisson, and General Billot as War Minister by M. Cavaignac. This politician, a man of some ability but much greater self-conceit, imagined that he would put an end to the Affair once and for all. On July 7, primed with papers provided by Colonel Henry and in which he foolishly believed, he delivered an extraordinary speech which the Chamber of Deputies enthusiastically ordered to be placarded throughout France. In this effusion, in which Dreyfus was alleged to have confessed his guilt, use was again made of the Schwarzkoppen-Panizzardi forgeries, as well as of the paper about a spy called D, to which reference has been made previously. According to Cavaignac, those documents ended the affair for ever, and Zola therefore might be finally judged and condemned.
The novelist's appeal on the question of jurisdiction had been rejected on June 16, a new trial at Versailles being fixed for July 18. In the interval, that is on July 9, two days after Cavaignac's declarations, the three handwriting experts succeeded in the proceedings they had brought against Zola for libel. He was sentenced to undergo two months' imprisonment, to pay a fine of two thousand francs, and damages to the extent of five thousand francs to each plaintiff. But an appeal being entered, execution did not follow immediately. On July 16, two days before returning to Versailles, Zola issued a fresh manifesto, this time in the form of a letter to M. Brisson, the new Prime Minister, whom he upbraided for lending himself to Cavaignac's mock inquiry into the Dreyfus case and attaching importance to the alleged confession of the unhappy prisoner of Devil's Island. Since then we have learnt from M. Brisson himself[25] that he had to contend with many difficulties, the pressure exercised by President Faure, who was entirely on the side of the Militarists, the deceit and trickery of his colleague Cavaignac, the diffidence of other ministers, and the mendacity of various officers. M. Brisson was sincerely desirous of doing his duty by furthering the revision of the Dreyfus case, and would have done it sooner than he did if so many obstacles had not been placed in his way. One part of the novelist's letter he certainly took to heart. Zola protested against being mobbed by hireling anti-Semites, and as he knew that a great expedition of those roughs to Versailles had been planned for the day of the new trial, he asked that proper measures might be taken for the preservation of order. This was done, gendarmes and troops, as well as police, being assembled.
The novelist returned, then, to Versailles with his counsel and his co-defendant, M. Perrenx, the publisher of "L'Aurore," who remained a kind of lay figure throughout the whole proceedings, being properly remunerated by his newspaper for the inconvenience he incurred. Zola and his advisers had now resolved to keep the Affair open as long as possible, this being the more advisable as Esterhazy, in consequence of the denunciations of a relative, had now been arrested with his mistress by order of an investigating magistrate; a similar fate also befalling Colonel Picquart, against whom M. Cavaignac had preferred a frivolous charge in consequence of his public declaration that two of the documents read by the minister to the Chamber on July 7 did not apply to Dreyfus at all and that a third was a forgery. Those incidents pointed to further developments, and moreover, already at this date, Zola and others had reason to suspect that the forgery in question might be the work of Colonel Henry,[26] whom they had come to regard with great suspicion, he being at the head of that Secret Intelligence Bureau whence so many strange documents emanated.
Thus on July 18, at Versailles, Maître Labori raised a fresh demurrer, claiming that as a court-martial was not a civil personality holding property it could not sue. This being disallowed, an application for leave to prove the whole of Zola's "J'Accuse" instead of merely the three indicted lines was submitted. Again came an adverse ruling, whereupon Zola, Perrenx, and their counsel quitted the court, allowing judgment to go by default.
There was some commotion, but as soon as the novelist and Maître Labori had entered their carriage, a squadron of cavalry swept down on the crowd, and this enabling the vehicle to escape, its occupants were driven to the residence of M. Charpentier, Zola's friend and former publisher, in the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne, Paris. There, Madame Zola and M. Clemenceau being present, a council of war was held. It was shown that Zola must not remain in France, for if the sentence by default were signified to him personally he would have to enter an appearance against it within a few days, and would not be entitled to make default a second time. In order to keep the Affair open he must avoid service for a while, which was only to be done by quitting France. He consented to that course, and London was chosen as his destination.[27] A few toilet articles were pressed upon him, and his wife emptied her purse into his; then, after dining, he drove to the Northern Railway Station, where he caught the express starting for Calais at nine P. M. He secured a compartment which had no other occupant, and journeyed to London without mishap, putting up at the Grosvenor Hotel, which M. Clemenceau had recommended to him.[28] The same day (July 19) he posted the following note to Ernest Vizetelly at Merton:
"Tell nobody in the world, and particularly no newspaper, that I am in London. And oblige me by coming to see me to-morrow, Wednesday, at Grosvenor Hotel. You will ask for M. Pascal And, above all, absolute silence, for the most serious interests are at stake."
Vizetelly kept the appointment, and found Zola with M. Desmoulin and M. Bernard Lazare, who had followed him to London. The last named returned to Paris immediately, but M. Desmoulin, who spoke a little English, remained with his friend for about a fortnight. The first question that arose was whether the English law would afford any facilities for the service of the sentence on Zola, and Vizetelly therefore fetched a legal friend, Mr. F. W. Wareham,[29] with whom a consultation was held at the Grosvenor Hotel Mr. Wareham had already dealt indirectly with the Dreyfus case at a time when a mysterious adventurer had proposed to Vizetelly to fit out a ship at Bristol, and attempt (à la Captain Kettle) to rescue the prisoner from Devil's Island. Vizetelly had then had some reason to doubt the bona fides of the proposer of the scheme, who, it had seemed to him, might be an emissary of Dreyfus's enemies, anxious to inveigle Zola through his English representative into some illegal action which might ruin the cause. And indeed, after being subjected to a severe examination, the man vanished, as Hans Breitman would have said, into the Ewigkeit.
At the consultation with Mr. Wareham it was found that, quite apart from the English laws, the French authorities claimed the right to serve process on their own subjects all the world over; and it therefore seemed best to remove Zola from London immediately, particularly as that very day he had been recognised by an English lady in the Buckingham Palace Road,[30] besides which some suspicion seemed to have been roused at the Grosvenor Hotel. Finally Mr. Wareham, whose services at this time were of great value, offered his own house, 1 Prince's Road, Wimbledon, as a provisional retreat. Zola's stay there was brief, however, for Wimbledon soon seemed to be too populous a place and too near both to London and to Merton, where Vizetelly resided, for it was virtually a certainty that the latter would soon be besieged by journalists eager to know what had become of Zola. His disappearance from France had created an extraordinary sensation. His presence was reported now in Switzerland, now in Norway, now in Holland, now in Belgium, now in other parts of the world, but at last some English newspapers found the right track, which they were good enough to follow no farther than the Oatlands Park Hotel, near Weybridge, whither Zola and his friend Desmoulin were removed on quitting Wimbledon.
Through the agency of Mr. Wareham, a furnished country-house was next secured for the novelist, this being Penn, Oatlands Chase, the residence of Mr. E. G. Venables, and it was there that Zola settled down to write his novel "Fécondité," the first volume of his new series, "Les Quatre Évangiles," which he had been quietly planning amid all the turmoil of the Dreyfus Affair,—a positive proof of the superiority of his mind, for not one man in a hundred would have had the courage, the coolness, or the power to take up a great literary task and isolate himself in study at every available moment in such extraordinary circumstances as those in which Zola had found himself,—insulted, befouled, and condemned. He had now also been suspended from the Legion of Honour, he had sacrificed large sums of money, and his prospects were by no means bright. He could only hope that time might elicit the truth and bring about a revulsion of feeling in his favour. Meanwhile, he turned to his usual panacea, work, diverted his mind as far as possible from the great campaign, which he knew would be conducted ably by all his fellow-fighters in Paris, and began to pen his book on the causes of the depopulation of France.
M. Desmoulin went to Paris to fetch the materials for "Fécondité"; servants were engaged and other arrangements made by Mrs. Vizetelly; and her daughter, Violette,—a Parisienne by birth, whose first words had been lisped in French,—went to live with Zola to act as his interpreter, and so far as her youthfulness permitted, take charge of housekeeping matters. A bicycle was provided for Zola, and when he was not writing or reading he and his young ward pedalled through the country around Walton and Weybridge. On those occasions Zola made frequent use of a camera which M. Desmoulin had brought from France, and the writer holds a large collection of photographs taken by him,—little views of villages, commons, farms, churches, reaches of the Thames, glimpses of the Wye, Windsor Castle, the Crystal Palace, and so forth.
Eventually, to give him some solace amid his loneliness, it was arranged that the little boy and girl to whom reference has been made in a previous chapter should be brought to England and stay with him for a short time. Madame Zola also managed to travel backward and forward on various occasions. When the tenancy at Penn expired, another house called "Summerfield," with large secluded grounds, on Spinney Hill at Addlestone, was secured for Zola. Here, still writing "Fécondité," he remained until late in the autumn of 1898. M. Charpentier was for a few days a visitor; an excursion was made to Windsor and a few other places; but the novelist's life would have been not only very retired but also quite peaceful if it had not been for the acute emotion into which he was thrown, the shocks he experienced every now and then, as the result of some important news from Paris. The friends who wished to communicate with him had to forward their letters to Mr. Wareham, Zola's actual address being known only to the latter, the Vizetellys, M. Charpentier, and a Wimbledon gentleman, Mr. A. W Pamplin, whose services had been required. The "master," as one often called him, assumed at that time a variety of names which were suggested by Vizetelly,—the latter objecting to "Pascal," the first Zola had taken, for it might have proved a guide to any French process-server acquainted with "Le Docteur Pascal," the novelist's well-known book. Vizetelly therefore proposed some names which would not attract much attention and might pass as being either English or French. At Oatlands Park and Penn, therefore, Zola was known as Beauchamp; at Summerfield as Roger (akin to Rogers); and at the Queen's Hotel, Norwood, whither he ultimately removed, as Richard, which suggested Richards. Vizetelly was in constant communication with him and frequently at Penn and Summerfield. At other times hardly a day passed without an exchange of notes, mostly, however, on trivial little matters connected with Zola's requirements,—his bicycle, his photographs, the books he wanted, a supply of manuscript paper, some passing trouble with a servant, the difficulty of getting fish, or the replies to be given to journalists or others. Here is a rather more interesting note which Zola wrote on July 29, when he was moving from the Oatlands Park Hotel, where he had attracted some little attention:
I am worried that I cannot occupy Penn until Monday, for I feel that my stay here without Madame Beauchamp,[31] whose arrival I announced, is beginning to seem strange. However it is necessary to accept the situation. To throw people off the scent this is what we must do. Let me be fetched on Monday between two and three in the afternoon with one of the conveyances at the station [Walton-on-Thames], not one belonging to the hotel. The vehicle can wait while I pay my bill, and afterwards we can all drive to the station as if I were going to London. At the station you will have left the trunk which will then certainly have arrived from Paris at Wareham's house or yours. On reaching the station from the hotel, one can claim the valise, wait awhile, then take another conveyance and drive to the house [Penn]. For my part I will not get into that second conveyance, I will go to the house on foot. I think that will be the wisest course.
On the other hand, we shall have to tell a little tale here. For instance, you might say that as Madame Beauchamp is detained in France beside a sick relative for a longer time than I anticipated and I feel very much bored alone [M. Desmoulin had gone to France], I am going back to London to stay with some friends till she arrives. And you might add that if we wish to come back and spend a month here, we will warn them by letter, inquiring if they have a suitable room. When you come you might bring me forty postage stamps for France and ten for London. Again thanks for your devotion, and very cordially yours.
EM. BEAUCHAMP.
If you read any serious news from France in the newspapers, let me know at once—Desmoulin has arrived at this very moment with the trunk. I shall be better able to wait now that my friend is here.
Among other notes of about the same date are the following:
My dear Confrère—What French books have you? Can you lend me La Bruyère's "Caractères" and Stendhal's "Chartreuse de Parme"—not his "Rouge et Noir"?
I have received the books, and thank you infiniment, for they helped me to spend a good day yesterday. I shall expect you to-morrow at six o'clock, and we will take a decision about the house. My homage to Madame Vizetelly. Affectionately yours.[32]
My dear Confrère,—Please let me have six boxes of photographic plates similar to the others. Can you lend me "Les Chouans," "César Birotteau," "La Recherche de l'Absolu," "Les Illusions perdues," by Balzac. If not, please buy them—the edition at 1 fr. 25 c.
In addition to books, Zola was of course kept well supplied with newspapers, both French and English. Vizetelly procured him an English grammar for French students and other works, and with this help he picked up sufficient knowledge of the English language to understand the news telegraphed from Paris about the Dreyfus case. In all such news he naturally took the keenest interest. On August 31 Vizetelly received from Paris a telegram to be transmitted to him,—a telegram to this effect: "Be prepared for a great success." It greatly puzzled Zola when it reached him, for there was nothing in the newspapers he had seen to which it could refer. However, a score of possibilities in connection with the Dreyfus case immediately occurred to him, and he spoke of them in presence of Vizetelly's daughter, passing from one surmise to another and becoming quite feverish as his impatience to know the meaning of the mysterious "wire" increased. His young companion was undoubtedly upset by his strange excitement, which gained on her also, in such wise that she passed a very restless night, beset repeatedly by a dream in which she fancied herself in some strange, big, dark place where a man lay on the ground surrounded by people who raised numerous exclamations in the French language. In the midst of it all, moreover, she saw Zola waving his arms and looking well satisfied. He, on the following morning, having heard her calling in her sleep, spoke to her of it with some concern, and she then told him of her dream, of which at first he could make neither head nor tail. But shortly afterwards, when the newspapers arrived, he found in them an account of the arrest and confession of Colonel Henry, the forger, followed by a brief telegram "Paris, Midnight. Colonel Henry has been found dead in his cell at Mont Valérien."
The telegram which Vizetelly had transmitted to him was then explained: it had certainly referred to Henry's arrest and confession. As for the announcement of the colonel's death following the story of Violette Vizetelly's curious dream, one can only say that this may have been merely a coincidence, though Zola and others were certainly impressed by it. When the writer related the incident in a previous work,[33] in a more detailed manner than he has done here, some critics declared that he taxed their credulity, particularly as he was unwilling to allow the case to be tested. But he must adhere to what he stated then. If he deprecated investigation it was solely because, as a parent, he did not wish to perturb or to encourage any morbidity of mind in a curiously impressionable girl of sixteen, on whose account, and in much the same connection, he had previously experienced some anxiety, which later years have happily dispelled.
After Henry's death Zola was in hopes of soon returning to France, but his friends urged him to remain where he was, for his name was still like a torch which might rekindle the conflagration. Moreover, as the revision of the Dreyfus case was delayed for some weeks longer, Zola again began to feel anxious. Important incidents were certainly occurring in France. Scarcely had General Zurlinden replaced M. Cavaignac as War Minister when Esterhazy took to flight, anticipating, no doubt, the important communications respecting certain forgeries in the Dreyfus case which Colonel Picquart made to the Minister of Justice a few days later. At last, on Sunday, September 15, some indication of what was about to occur in Paris appeared in a few of the London papers which Vizetelly sent to Zola, who replied:
"Thank you for sending the papers by René.[34] Details are wanting evidently; but, to my mind, the report is decisive, revision is certain. It is now only necessary to have patience,—patience which will perhaps have to be of some duration.... I am rather poorly to-day, it is one of those nervous crises which torture me whenever I work too much or when I have undergone too great a shock."
Two days later General Zurlinden, who had stubbornly opposed revision at the Council of Ministers, resigned the office of War Minister (in which he was succeeded by General Chanoine) and resumed the duties of Military Governor of Paris; in which capacity, to revenge himself for the recent disclosures of Colonel Picquart, he cast the latter into a military prison. Then, on September 23, a process-server appeared at Zola's house to levy execution in virtue of the judgment obtained by the handwriting experts.[35] All those incidents—and also the Fashoda trouble, which if it had ended badly would have compelled Zola to leave England—affected the novelist's health, but he fretted more particularly on account of the ailing state of a pet dog,—a toy Pomeranian named the Chevalier de Perlinpinpin, but familiarly called Pinpin only—which he had been obliged to leave in Paris, foreign dogs not being admitted into England. Madame Zola was then in Paris in charge of the little animal and did everything possible for it, but it pined for its master, whose constant companion it had been, on whose writing-table and in whose wastepaper basket it had been for years accustomed to lie.
Zola was passionately attached to his dogs and other animals, as his writings testify;[36] and when he learnt the truth about Pinpin, which was kept from him for a time, he grieved exceedingly and became quite ill, experiencing an attack of the angina from which he suffered periodically. As he would not see a doctor some medicine he was accustomed to take in such cases was obtained from France. But more than once Vizetelly became alarmed respecting him, for the stifling fits left him quite exhausted. "I shall die like this some day," he said more than once, "but it is useless to get a doctor. There is nothing to be done beyond what I do."
Thus, still and ever, he fretted about his dog, particularly if a day or two passed without the receipt of a letter or a telegram respecting its condition. On or about September 26 Vizetelly went to him with the important news that M. Brisson had at last referred the revision of the Dreyfus case to the Cour de Cassation. Such tidings seemed likely to cheer him; but directly he caught sight of Vizetelly he exclaimed, "A telegram! About Pinpin?" And when Vizetelly answered no, his face fell, and scarcely listening to the good news he sank back on the sofa, muttering, "Ah! if it had only been about my poor dog!" A few days later he learnt that Pinpin was dead. Then for a moment he remained grieving piteously. But all at once, shaking his fist, he shouted, "The scoundrels! it was they who killed him!"—referring of course to the anti-Dreyfusites.
But it was only suspense that unnerved Zola either with regard to the episodes of the Affair or in connection with his dog. Confronted by the inevitable in the case of Pinpin, he braced himself and began to mend. Soon afterwards (October 10), an execution having been duly levied at his house in the Rue de Bruxelles, a sale took place there. In the throng which then assembled were many admirers who hoped to be able to purchase souvenirs. But Zola had previously arranged that whatever might be the article first offered for sale, M. Fasquelle, his publisher, should bid the full amount of the execution. This was done; the auctioneer put up a Louis XIII table and M. Fasquelle bid thirty-two thousand francs[37] for it, at which price it became nominally his property. The sale was then finished, and the would-be buyers of souvenirs retired disappointed.
