Affaire Dreyfus. Reprise politique parlementaire

TWENTIETH CAHIER OF THE FOURTH SERIES

THE DREYFUS AFFAIR

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PARLIAMENTARY POLITICAL RESUMPTION

I had known for a long time that they were preparing a beginning, or, as it has been called, a resumption of the Dreyfus Affair; I think I knew it among the first, perhaps before Jaures; I had good reasons to know it; but as I do not care to know secrets, and as open action amply suffices for our activity, I asked no more; I did not ask what they had; I thus let myself drift into the impression that they had more, and more solid, cleaner, more complete, than Jaures brought forth. For the speech of Jaures was finished; but his proofs were not finished. They remained to be constructed. They were elements of proof, material to be worked, demonstrations to be elaborated.

At the funeral of Zola, at the obsequies of M. David Hadamard, father-in-law of M. Dreyfus, allusions quite clear, for those who knew, had been made to the recommencement that was being meditated. In our twenty-first cahier of the third series, ready for press on Saturday 2 August 1902, if one will kindly refer to the consultation that our collaborator Bernard-Lazare gave us on the law and the congregations, dated Paris, 6 August 1902, one will find there several phrases that already announced, no less clearly, for those who knew, the intention of recommencement. Page 207: “I am convinced,” Bernard-Lazare said, “I am convinced even that if we observe so much incoherence among the majority of those, and not the least, who participated in the movement of former days, whose entire rhythm moreover is not yet accomplished, it is because they have forgotten those rules and principles of which I was speaking to you.” --- Page 214 and page 215, in a capital paragraph:

“A notable fact, if we set aside the Catholic Committee, its adherents, and M. Goblet, all the reactionaries, from M. Drumont to M. de Mackau, from M. Meline to M. de Cassagnac, from M. Francois Coppee to M. Jules Roche, from the Abbe Gayraud to M. Jules Lemaitre, from M. Cavaignac to M. Aynard, protested in the name of violated liberty. The diverse fractions of the Republican party approved in the name of the rights of civil society and applauded the legitimacy of force put in the service of those rights. That is a grave fact, for it constitutes nothing less than the reversal of positions taken in recent years. It allows one to establish that the attitude of politicians in an affair where we thought justice alone was engaged was motivated by exterior considerations, foreign to justice itself; and this will henceforth be a reason, valid for all those who wish to think freely and logically develop their thought, to separate radically from the professionals of politics and to accomplish their work outside of them.”

This truly prophetic phrase dominates the debate, the double debate of anticatholic demagoguery and anti-Dreyfusard demagoguery. The situation of Bernard-Lazare, which was ours, which was that of all the old and true Dreyfusards --- provided they were of no General Staff --- was from that time the one we have exactly preserved. From that time Bernard-Lazare thought, we thought, that the politicians, outrageously copying the Radical and Radical-Socialist demagoguery, the Radical and Radical-Socialist government, Radical and Radical-Socialist policy, Radical and Radical-Socialist authority of command upon the nationalist, reactionary, Catholic, Melinist, antisemitic and anti-Dreyfusard demagoguery, government, policy and authority of command, had disqualified themselves for the beginning or the continuation of the Affair. Events showed that they were not disqualified from dishonoring it.

If Bernard-Lazare’s words had been heeded, the interested parties, Dreyfusism, the world would have spared themselves a sad recommencement.

Having enough ordinary work to do, I waited for public information and events; I asked no more. One morning our collaborator Bernard-Lazare, who was still keeping to his bed, or his room, told me: You know, it is agreed, Jaures is going to act, he will commit himself in the discussion of the Syveton invalidation. I tell you for your personal guidance. But keep it to yourself. --- The next morning I opened my newspapers and, in the Petite Republique, I read in good position that Jaures had made the same confidence in a public meeting, in I no longer know which great hall of the provinces, or in the hall of the Municipal Theater, to I no longer know how many thousands of inhabitants of Montlucon, Vierzon, or Commentry or elsewhere. Gerault-Richard abruptly declared in his newspaper that he had had enough, that they were going to act. The resumption had begun.

When I knew that the interested parties were preparing a recommencement of the Affair, the first thing I did not ask myself was whether the cahiers would march or would not march, to speak as the head of the House of France used to speak some years ago. Our old subscribers have not forgotten, our new subscribers may have heard, that our attitude toward the Dreyfus Affair, or to speak exactly that our mental and moral situation in the Affair has never varied. It was not to be altered. It could not vary. Dreyfusards of the first hour, perhaps before Jaures, of the hour when there were not many of them, universally, totally, perpetually, continuously, continually, constantly, exactly Dreyfusards, Dreyfusards of every hour, and even of the hours when there are almost no more Dreyfusards, we have never accepted the amnesty, any amnesty, not only this legal and parliamentary amnesty that the politicians, Jaures first of all, imposed upon us, but this universal mental and moral amnesty that the Dreyfusards and the anti-Dreyfusards found themselves in agreement to grant each other mutually.

I permit myself to recall, to begin, that we were Dreyfusards of the very first hour. If one will kindly refer to the first of those famous lists --- petitions, subscriptions, and endorsements of demarches --- to the very first lists, to those that were dangerous, one will find there not only my name, but those of almost all the constant friends who have been the strength and the life of these cahiers, authors, collaborators, subscribers, supporters. We derive no vanity from it. We were particularly well situated, for the most part, to have the information, to know the events as they occurred. We wish to derive from it no authority of command either. We know that no anteriority confers any authority of command. Nothing confers any authority of command. There cannot be, in such an affair, an authority of first occupancy. If we took as pretext that we were Dreyfusards of the first hour to demand an authority of command over all these Dreyfusards of the twelfth hour, we would not be justified. But reciprocally we do not admit that these Dreyfusards of the twelfth hour should exercise over us the authority of command that we do not demand over them. It would be singular that an authority of command that anteriority does not confer should be conferred by posteriority, inaccuracy, cowardice, weakness, lateness.

We defend generally all our liberties against all authorities of command. We defend in particular all our Dreyfusard liberties against all so-called Dreyfusard authorities of command that have wished to establish themselves among us and over us.

It is well known that in almost all campaigns and in almost all debates, in almost all labors, the combatants or the workers of the last hour, the latecomers, who are generally the bad combatants and the bad workers, claim for themselves the favor and the injustice of exercising an authority of command that the combatants and the workers of the first hour, who are generally the good combatants and the good workers, do not even have the thought of claiming. Beyond the evil need, which seems almost universal, to exercise an authority of command, there is established in them a sort of evil need for equilibrium, for ransom, for retaliation, for unjust equivalence; beyond the false zeal and the excess of the latecomer, the latecomers compensate for their former weakness, their former cowardice, defend themselves, save themselves from the deserved reproaches they foresee or hear, compensate for their initial absence by insisting on their new role and their obsessive presence and the authority of command they wish to exercise in their new attitudes.

Perhaps before Jaures. The great orator had from the very first beginning of the Affair political hesitations. Already then he imagined that the most useful thing was to bring people along with him, and especially to bring along his party. I still recall, I shall always recall the short visit I paid him at his home at the very beginning of the Affair. I was very young then. I had gone to see him with Jerome Tharaud. Living in a closed school where they had installed for Jaures a veritable cult, one cannot today imagine with what innocent, affectionate and respectful veneration we surrounded him. We went to see him in his narrow apartment on the rue Madame, I believe at number 15, at the very beginning of the Affair. He showed us into his narrow study. He had on his desk, he showed us one or more albums bearing specimens of the handwriting of the bordereau, of the handwriting of Dreyfus, and of that of Esterhazy. I was already a frenzied Dreyfusard. It was the hour; we accompanied him to the Chamber. He walked to get air and exercise, because he was tired; he had congestion. It was in the final months of that former legislature. He had then, in that former Chamber, to struggle against almost everyone. He held firm as long as he could. He was tired, hoarse, red, raspy, pained, sad. He was about to fail to be reelected. That was his time of pain and true honor. On the boulevard, a little before arriving at the Chamber, we crossed on the sidewalk a little old man, with a vivid eye, a lively gaze, tight forehead, thin, stubborn, clean-shaven chin, pinched nose, the nose of a solicitor or an attorney, graying or white side-whiskers, horizontal lips, tight, pinched, malicious, willful, churlish, thin; the air at once crafty and prim, nosy and sprightly; walking in small steps beside someone. Jaures said: That is Meline; he still has life in him, the old man.

We accompanied him to the Chamber by the boulevard Saint-Germain. He was happy to see young people. He told us his troubles. I commit no indiscretion in reporting today these distant remarks. Everyone has known or guessed them since.

Everyone knows what the situation was then. There was a Socialist group. The ambition, the method, the hope of Jaures was to bring the entire group officially and as a group into the newly begun Dreyfusard action. We said to him, from that time anarchist, in a sense that is not at all that of M. Sebastien Faure: What do these men matter, what do these parties matter; what do these deputies, these ministers matter; what do these politicians matter; what does this group matter? Let us march alone. One does not need to be several. Since we are right, since we are just, since we are true, let us begin by marching, let us continue by marching, let us finish by marching. If the others follow, so much the better. If they do not follow, or if they oppose, it is better to march without them, to advance, than to stay behind with them, and to retreat with them to please them.

--- Do not believe, he told us, that it is for my pleasure that I strive to bring the whole group along. You cannot imagine to what degree I am beset. The work I furnish in session and that you know from the newspapers --- [he had recently spoken at the tribune, and under particularly exhausting conditions] --- is nothing compared to the work I am forced to furnish in the meetings of the group. The enemies and adversaries are nothing. It is the friends. You cannot know to what degree I am exhausted. They eat me, they devour me, they are all afraid of not being reelected. They tear the tails of my coat to prevent me from mounting the tribune. When I mount the tribune, I am already emptied, I am hollowed out, I am exhausted by these internal devorations. I am worn out in advance. The other day, while I was speaking, against that cowardly and hostile Chamber, it was as if I had had a thousand needles piercing my brain. I think I am going to fall ill. I do not know if I shall have the strength to hold out until the end of the legislature.

Thus perhaps before Jaures. We derive no vanity from it. We were perhaps better situated than he to have the first information, to know and to follow events as they occurred. Already the deputies were not, by a long way, the best-informed citizens. We were not as he was entangled in party difficulties. We were not slowed by the normal parliamentary delay.

We wish to derive from it no authority of command. We have often urged Jaures, verbally or in writing, vigorously, strongly. We do not regret it. But we have never had the thought of making him march. We have never had the thought of making anyone march; in particular Jaures. We have published him several times in the complete freedom of his text. We respect the total liberty of all our collaborators. We exercise no authority of command. We do management and administration; and no governing. We respected his liberty as long as he was our collaborator; and we respected it no less when he was not our collaborator. People come and go in these cahiers; they enter, they leave; and in our relations never intervene the economic sanctions of retaliations that would be unjust. We bear no more grudge against those of our former collaborators who have become our adversaries than we bear against those of our adversaries who have never been our collaborators. Or, to speak precisely, our collaborators can become our adversaries and remain our collaborators, since all opinions can appear freely in these cahiers. Personally, I have often asked Radicals, partisans of the monopoly, to write us cahiers where they would present their doctrine. It is curious, they never want to. They prefer to work in the daily paper. The pamphlet is suspect to them.

But reciprocally we do not admit that Jaures should exercise an authority of command over us that we do not demand over him. We defend generally all our Dreyfusard liberties against all so-called Dreyfusard authorities of command that have wished to establish themselves among us and over us. We defend in particular all our Dreyfusard liberties against the authority of command that Jaures wished to establish among us and over us. Nothing confers any authority of command. Neither the brilliance nor the solidity of services, nor oratorical genius, nor rarer or more profound qualities, nor rarer or more essential geniuses confer an authority of command.

It is well known that for a long time, from before the beginning of the Affair, since the amnesty and for the recommencement of the Affair, the method, the action of Jaures and of several has been constituted, confirmed and then carried to excess in the sense of an authority of command.

It is a habitual slope for almost all men, to slide into exercising an authority of command. It is a habitual slope for many Meridionals, in lands of warmth and enthusiasm --- and our Meridional subscribers often complain to us of encountering among them more than anywhere else many authorities of command --- in lands of assembly, of speech, of song and of music, of tenors, of verbiage, of crowd-gathering, in lands of festivity, in lands of sunshine, in Roman lands, in lands of Roman command, of the Roman peace and of Roman authority, of Roman empire and Roman domination, in lands of senate and of consuls; it is a habitual slope in truly and profoundly parliamentary lands, in lands originative of politics, in municipalities, in cities of the forum, in cities of the agora. It is therefore also a habitual slope for orators above all. What is the true orator in an assembly, what is the great orator in a congress, what is Jaures in a meeting, if not a man who by virtue of his eloquence exercises an empire, an authority of command, the most sudden and in that sense the least dynastic authority of command --- but the least dynastic authorities of command are not always the least absolute --- since it is born improvised as the voice of the orator is born to the ear, and his gesture to the gaze --- the most profound and the most inevitable authority of command as well, since instead of seizing goods, like an authority of economic command, instead of seizing bodies alone, like a temporal authority of command, this authority of oratorical command, like a religious authority, like an authority of the Church, like the new authority that they wish to impose upon us of a State that alone teaches, alone philosophizes, alone knows, alone creates art, this authority of oratorical command, intellectual, mental, and, much more profoundly, sentimental authority, seizes in order to govern them and enslave them the personal sentiments, the deep passions, the intimate emotions, the instincts themselves, the reserves of life, and the obscure and sleeping organic foundations of the instincts.

The authority of oratorical command is all the more formidable in that it is interior. Let us know to remind ourselves of it and to confess it, we who have so often and so profoundly, with such a voice and such a heart, acclaimed Jaures in the greatest meetings, in capital assemblies, and first of all in that great first meeting at the Tivoli. A great orator, a true orator, an orator of genius in an assembly, a Jaures in an assembly, dominating the crowd, is a king. Let us recall our old acclamations, and the sentiments of our old acclamations. How much authority of command was there not in the voice of the great orator, in his effort, in his hammered gesture, in his hammer fist, in his strong and grave phrase of command. And above all how much obedience, how much following and submission, honest but submissive, was there not in our acclamations. The exercise of an oratorical genius is the exercise of a government.