Affaire Dreyfus. Débats parlementaires

The Dreyfus Affair: Parliamentary Debates

PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES

JAURÈS’S INTERVENTION. — INVALIDATION OF SYVETON. — CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES. — SITTINGS OF MONDAY 6 AND TUESDAY 7 APRIL 1903. — STENOGRAPHIC RECORD IN FULL AFTER THE JOURNAL OFFICIEL. — COMPLETE EDITION

stenographic record

Chamber of Deputies, eighth legislature, ordinary session of 1903, full record, sixty-fifth sitting, sitting of Monday 6 April. — Journal officiel of Tuesday 7 April 1903.

Presidency of M. ÉTIENNE, vice-president.

Discussion of the conclusions of the report of the commission charged with conducting an inquiry into the electoral operations of the second arrondissement of Paris and tending to the validation of these operations: MM. Jaurès, Lucien Millevoye, Henri Brisson, Godefroy Cavaignac, Syveton, Massabuau, Paul Beauregard, rapporteur. Adjournment, by ballot, of the continuation of the discussion until the following day.

M. THE PRESIDENT. — The order of the day calls for the discussion of the conclusions of the report of the commission charged with conducting an inquiry into the electoral operations of the second arrondissement of Paris. The Chamber concludes for the validation of the electoral operations. The floor is given to M. Jaurès.

M. JAURÈS. — Gentlemen, it is against the conclusions of the report, and still more against the manner in which the commission conducted the inquiry, that I have asked for the floor.

During the electoral period, M. Syveton appropriated the poster of the Patrie française denouncing to good citizens the ministry of the foreigner; he made it his own, he took responsibility for it.

I do him this justice that throughout the inquiry he kept clearly the same attitude. He did not make himself humble; he sought neither to equivocate nor to trick; he tried to demonstrate that he had the right to denounce the Republican Government of that time as the ministry of the foreigner, and, consequently, his adversary, M. Mesureur, who had supported that Government, as the candidate of the foreigner.

The thesis of M. Syveton and his friends is this. An attempt was made after the Rennes trial to have the civil justice quash the decision of the military justice. This attempt miscarried because M. General de Galliffet, Minister of War, opposed it. M. de Galliffet marked his opposition by a letter written to the president of the council; he said to him: “If you risk this attempt, there will be, on one side, the legislator, I think, the army; and, on the other, the Dreyfusards, the ministry, and M. Syveton.” And M. Syveton says: “To justify the poster of the Patrie française and the use I made of it, it suffices for me to demonstrate that the sentence in the letter of General de Galliffet is authentic.”

It is first this demonstration of authenticity that, through his witnesses, MM. Lemaître, Judet, and Cochin, he brought before the commission.

Gentlemen, I do not in any way contest the authenticity of the sentence attributed to M. General de Galliffet; it is indeed necessary that from time to time authentic documents be used against us. (Applause and laughter on the extreme left and on the left.) This one is among them. One might ask, even if the whole letter of M. de Galliffet were reduced to that sentence, whether you had the right to exploit it to say that a whole party, the whole great Republican party, was the party of the foreigner.

Perhaps one might be surprised that the entire letter was not produced before the commission. I do not wish to seek to attenuate the meaning of this sentence; I am only somewhat astonished at the facility, the complaisance with which the commission accepted General de Galliffet’s explanations. He invokes against it, in order not to give it the complete text of the letter, professional secrecy, when that letter which professional secrecy forbids him to show to M. Jules Lemaître, he had shown to M. Judet and to others.

I expected that the commission would express, on this point, in its report, at least an astonishment and a regret; it did not think of it.

M. PAUL BEAUREGARD, rapporteur. — You are not explaining things as they happened!

M. JAURÈS. — Monsieur Beauregard, I apply myself to pronouncing no word which could, by the violence of words, add to the gravity of the debate, and as I have undertaken a long career to run, I beg you to reserve your replies and your rectifications for the tribune. (Very good! very good! on the left.)

M. Syveton’s witnesses and M. Syveton himself did not stop there, and here first is what M. Judet says, commenting on General de Galliffet’s sentence:

I asked him — [M. de Galliffet] — for an interview. He knew what its object would be and hastened to indicate to me a rendezvous. I went to it, for I had taken too ardent a part against the Dreyfus agitation not to wish to be informed of the real mandate and the maneuvers of the Waldeck cabinet. For three years I had suffered, with all Frenchmen, the oppression of a policy that disregards in our eyes two certain influences, the one directly issued from the foreigner wishing to impose upon us at all costs the solution that pleased it in a trial for treason, the other emanating from a faction of opinion to be destroyed under the name of the Dreyfus syndicate.

For us, the Waldeck ministry was at once the Dreyfus ministry and the foreigner’s ministry. For three years we proclaimed it, because we were morally certain of it; but in an era when criminals so easily become innocent when they are not caught in flagrant delict, every proof of accusation is of exceptional importance.

In this long series of shady incidents, carefully hidden from the nation, we from now on followed the series of audacities and ruses played out exceptionally multiplied for the salvation, then for the rehabilitation of Dreyfus. Perhaps it would be denied despite the categorical assertions of M. General de Galliffet, if his letter, launched at the decisive hour, of imperturbable significance, did not survive the storm.

There is the conclusion that is to be drawn from M. General de Galliffet’s sentence, there is the right that is claimed; there is the right that is founded on a testimony consigned to the annexes of his report, M. Syveton and the witnesses afterward — that of Galliffet, the political party which submits to the direction of the foreigner. (Applause on the left. — Denials in the centre.)

There is the brand; and to the brand is added the threat:

M. de Galliffet is assuredly armed. His intact treasure of observations, notes, and precious documents is not of the kind that one violates in a few improvised conversations. I pay tribute to the prudence with which he defends his responsibility; I wish that he may reap its fruits, that he may at last have the right to speak with an open heart before the only jurisdiction that suits him, that he calls for with all his wishes, before the High Court, for which he has the wisdom and the courage to have the formidable secrets of which he is the holder patiently wait.

M. Syveton, in his turn, took responsibility for these conclusions; he said that the demonstration made against the ministry of the foreigner gave him the right to say that M. Mesureur, who had supported this ministry, was the candidate of the foreigner.

It is in these terms that the inquiry was conducted. And do you know, gentlemen, what judgment the commission passes on these procedures of defamation against our whole party, against the whole Republican party? (Interruptions in the centre. — Applause on the left and on the extreme left.)

M. THE COUNT DU PÉRIER DE LARSAN. — You are not the only ones in the Republican party.

M. JAURÈS. — I thank you for protesting and for joining me in hastening to recognize you: I place you outside M. Judet’s insults. (Renewed applause on the left and on the extreme left.)

M. JULES-LOUIS BRETON. — And outside the Republican party. (Exclamations in the centre.)

M. JAURÈS. — I exclude no one, I judge no one, I am trying to continue my demonstration. I say that the commission has made, on these procedures of polemic, on these procedures of defamation against a whole party, no serious reservation. It has confined itself to regretting the violence of the posters exchanged, as if it were a matter of one of the banal violences of the electoral period, as if the accusation brought by Frenchmen against a whole party and against the power that governs in the name of that party of systematically submitting to the direction of the foreigner were one of those banal insults that it suffices to efface by a regret. (Very good! very good! on the left and on the extreme left.)

Gentlemen, the question that arises is this: it is a matter of knowing whether the Chamber will not deem it useful to make the reply that the commission has not made; it is a matter of knowing whether we shall indefinitely accept this system of calumnies, and, when we raise our voice here to reply and to protest, there are men, even in the party to which I belong, who say to us: “Take care, an agitation that has been closed must not be reopened!”

Well, I say that we must not be the dupes of the perfidious tactic of the enemy. (Very good! very good! on the extreme left and on the left.) He claims to consider the agitation closed for us and to continue it for himself, he has given the amnesty a one-sided interpretation. He demands of us, he claims to forbid us to continue, in the interest of what we have believed and what we believe to be the truth and the right, legitimate investigations; and he, he lets no occasion pass to exploit against us what he wishes to leave still of obscurity in people’s minds.

There are the elections: ministry of the foreigner, party of the foreigner; there is the Humbert affair which opens. An attempt is made, through the deposition of M. du Paty de Clam, to attach the Dreyfus affair to it and to drown us all in the mire of the Humbert affair. (Applause on the left and on the extreme left. — Murmurs in the centre and on the right.)

That is how the amnesty is understood, that is how appeasement is practiced.

I say that this perfidious policy gives us the right and creates for us the duty to reply to all these calumnies by a vigorous offensive.

You have claimed, it has been said in the testimonies inspired in the report, that the presumed intervention of the government, after the Rennes trial, was a sort of episode in a long series of shady operations — and these are the very words of M. Judet, M. Syveton’s witness. It was said in the very depositions that this shady action had been exerted first to try to falsify the very verdict of the council.

Gentlemen, I could reply that if something at the Rennes trial could astonish and scandalize, it was the weakness of that government whose alleged violences you denounce. (Exclamations on the right and in the centre.)

There was this unprecedented fact that the magistrate of the Court of Cassation proclaimed, all Chambers united, that everything — the handwriting, the paper — indicated that the bordereau on which Dreyfus was condemned… (Renewed murmurs in the centre and on the right. — Applause on the left and on the extreme left.)

It is astonishing that before men who have so long demanded against us respect for the res judicata, I cannot recall the decisions of the Court of Cassation. (Applause on the left.)

It is extraordinary and unprecedented for you that the decree which attributed to Esterhazy the bordereau on which in 1895 Dreyfus had been condemned did not find in the organ of the public prosecution at Rennes the defender that was owed to the Court of Cassation. (Applause on the extreme left and on the left.)

I do not wish to dwell on the details of the procedure and I do not wish to touch the functioning of the judicial mechanism, but I wish to say here, clearly, all the way to the end, to those who have accused us of being the party of the foreigner, to those who in the inquiry itself renewed this accusation, to those who triumph now if your weakness lets pass without protest and without sanction this brand inscribed against us in official documents (Applause on the same benches), I wish to remind those who accuse us of being the party of the foreigner that, less than others perhaps, they have the right to bring this accusation against us, for if I too wished, after you, to resort to these violences of vocabulary, I would say that the true party of the foreigner is that which for four years, in the interest of its combinations, made appeal by means of forgery to the signature of a foreign sovereign. (Renewed applause.)

I wish to demonstrate before this Chamber and before the country that, indeed, for four years, the whole nationalist press, several of the orators of the nationalist party, the whole great Catholic press, affirmed that there existed, charged to the condemned man of 1895, a letter, a letter written and signed by the hand of Wilhelm II himself and overwhelming for the accused.

Gentlemen, it is the history of the monstrous legend created around this forgery, and it is the history of this forgery itself, that, for clarity’s sake, I must lay out to you step by step. I shall be obliged to inflict upon the Chamber, against my will, too numerous and too long readings. I hope that I shall be able to compensate it, in the course of my exposition, by the communication of an unpublished and brief document. (Interruptions on various benches. — Various movements.)

I beg our friends not to be moved by a few interruptions, and I beg my adversaries themselves not to hasten; for if they protested too quickly, it would not be against me, it would not be against my assertions, it is against the multiplied and prolonged assertions in which their political friends have engaged their responsibility and their honor that they would find themselves to have protested.

Gentlemen, the text of the alleged note of the emperor of Germany was written in German, but the translation has been given and certified by guarantors whom our adversaries will not challenge, and you will see that across very slight variants in the translation, the text is identical. M. Millevoye, at a public meeting on 15 February 1898 at Suresnes, affirms that there exists, charged to the condemned man, a letter from the emperor of Germany, of which he gives the text: “Let that scoundrel Dreyfus send at the earliest the promised documents. Signed: Wilhelm.”

M. LUCIEN MILLEVOYE. — I made allusion to that letter, but I did not give the text of it.

M. JULES-LOUIS BRETON. — I have already recalled this incident at the tribune.

M. JAURÈS. — I very willingly take note of M. Millevoye’s half-rectification; I had moreover the intention of being precise in a moment, for you well understand that I shall return to this incident.

The account of the meeting is found in a report in the newspaper le Temps, which M. Millevoye has no need to seek and which it may be he does not have, to reproduce the literal text of the letter of Wilhelm II as M. Millevoye gave it; but it suffices for me at this hour to note that M. Millevoye does not deny — and could not deny — that he made allusion at Suresnes, before thousands of citizens, to the existence of this letter, and that he indicated the meaning and the approximate text of it.

La Libre Parole of 6 September 1899 gives the following text:

Send as quickly as possible the mentioned documents. Make sure that the scoundrel Dreyfus hastens.

signed thus:

Send me as soon as possible the designated documents. Make sure that this scoundrel Dreyfus hurries.

M. Rochefort, under his own signature and his own responsibility, on the date of 15 December 1900, gives the following text:

Send me as soon as possible the designated documents. Make sure that this scoundrel Dreyfus hurries.

M. Ferlet de Bourbonne, one of those who were the most active propagators of the legend, gave to madame Séverine, who reproduced it in her article of 20 December 1900, and very recently to the Russian journalist, correspondent of the Novosti, M. Séménof, who published in l’Européen the following text:

Send me as soon as possible the designated documents. Make sure that this scoundrel Dreyfus hurries. Signed: Wilhelm.

Finally, the two great Catholic newspapers la Croix and la Vérité affirm the existence… (Noise on the right.) — I take up again (Applause on the extreme left and on the left): these two great Catholic newspapers, la Croix and la Vérité, affirm the authenticity of this letter of Wilhelm II and give the same text of it.

La Croix of 20 September 1899:

Send me as quickly as possible the indicated documents. Make sure that this scoundrel Dreyfus hurries.

La Vérité of 17 October 1899 confirms it in an absolute manner.

At what moment did this document, of which the entire great nationalist and Catholic press affirms the existence and gives the text, appear? Was it as early as 1894?

In the antisemitic press there were, as early as the month of December 1894, obscure and ambiguous notes. La France of 10 December 1894 affirms that the principal documents…

M. THE MARQUIS DE DION. — One might speak of the Syveton election! What you are saying has nothing to do with the election. (Protests on the extreme left.)

M. THE PRESIDENT. — Pardon, this is the discussion of the report.

Let the Dreyfus affair be reopened! The country will hear no more of it. (Noise.)

M. THE PRESIDENT. — I invite you, gentlemen, to listen to the speaker.

In the centre and on the right. — We are listening to him.

M. JAURÈS. — I do not complain of the attention of the Chamber, I thank it for it on the contrary; but I would have the right to complain if there were a systematic attempt to hinder the course of my discussion.

M. THE MARQUIS DE DION. — There has been talk of the Dreyfus affair for three years. That is enough! It is not admissible that it should be prolonged indefinitely! The affair is closed. Leave us alone now! (Noise on the left.)

M. JAURÈS. — I reply to those who think they ought to recall me to the question that when M. Syveton’s witnesses brought before the commission of inquiry a judgment on the whole policy of the Republican majority for three years, when our colleague M. Morel observed: “The commission of inquiry has a narrow mission to fulfill; it is not charged with the retrospective review of political events; it must enlighten itself only on the facts that concern specifically the electoral policy of the second arrondissement,” the president of the commission intervened and said: “The facts that are being spoken of are connected.”

I claim for myself the benefit of this connexity. (Applause on the left and on the extreme left.)

I have given, according to all our adversaries, the text of the alleged letter of the emperor of Germany. You note that it is a presumed reply to an announced sending of documents. The text is therefore a presumed reply to the bordereau on which the accused of 1894 had been condemned; and the whole system that has been developed for us obscurely for three years and which will at last weigh upon the very trial of Rennes to trouble the minds of the judges, this whole system is this:

The note of Wilhelm II is, indeed, a reply to the bordereau which announced the sending of documents. This bordereau was not written on thin paper, on the onion-skin paper that was submitted to the judges of 1894; it was written on stout paper, on thick paper; it arrived at Berlin; the emperor of Germany inscribed on it with his own hand in the margin the note which is there cited and reproduced; but it had been necessary, on the demand of the German embassy, to restore to the embassy a document compromising for international peace and for the foreign sovereign. Photographs of it were kept and copies of it were made on thin paper, upon which it was traced. It is by tracing, performed perhaps by Esterhazy’s hand, that the bordereau of 1894 was fabricated. The original bordereau sent to Berlin was a bordereau on thick paper on which the emperor Wilhelm inscribed the note thus cited. (Interruptions on the right.)

It is not my fault if this system seems monstrous to you: it has been that of all your newspapers, of all your orators. (Vigorous applause on the left and on the extreme left.)

M. LASIES. — But after that, the council of war at Rennes pronounced!

M. THE MARQUIS DE DION. — We read that for three years in the newspapers.

M. THE PRESIDENT. — Please keep silent, monsieur de Dion.

M. JAURÈS. — I fear that this system was that of your judges.

At what date, I was saying, did this document appear? In some of the antisemitic newspapers, as early as 1894, there is, as it were, a first trace, still obscure and uncertain, of the legend that was being prepared; but it is certain, by the very testimony of the judges — I shall cite Captain Freystætter — who have denounced the illegal communication of the secret documents to the judges of 1894, it is certain, I say, that at the trial of 1894 this system was not supported and this document was not produced. It appeared officially, in some sort, for the first time in November 1897; and it is in a deposition of M. Paléologue, representative of the ministry of foreign affairs, that one finds the first trace of it.

M. Paléologue was officially in charge of the relations of the ministry of foreign affairs with the intelligence service of the ministry of war. Already, in September and October 1897, at the moment when people were beginning to be concerned about the doubts formulated by M. Scheurer-Kestner and about the inquiry begun by him, there were between M. Paléologue and Lieutenant-Colonel Henry several conversations.

M. Paléologue testifies before the Court of Cassation:

In the month of September or October 1897, I had occasion to see Colonel Henry again, at the moment when people were beginning to speak again of the Dreyfus affair. I brought the conversation around to the telegram of 2 November 1894. I reminded him of its importance, particularly by reason of the date, agent B… having been arrested at the end of the month of November, the day after the arrest of Dreyfus; if the accused had made confessions, Henry replied to me that the document seemed to him of little importance, given the overwhelming proofs on the other hand against Dreyfus. He pointed out to me that day the existence in the file of a letter from agent B… in which Dreyfus was nominally designated.

It is the document, gentlemen, which is now known, and forever, in history under the name of the Henry forgery. But Henry did not stop there with M. Paléologue; as he saw that the production of the document which is the Henry forgery did not suffice to convince him, he pushed his demonstration further, and here is what M. Paléologue deposes before the Court of Cassation:

The president of the Court asks him:

Can you say what truth there is in the allegations relating to a letter of the emperor of Germany to his ambassador in France in which mention was made of Dreyfus as having been in relations with the German government, and to a certain number of letters which Dreyfus is said to have addressed to that government?

And M. Paléologue replies:

To my knowledge, there never was any document of that sort. The first and only time that I heard speak of a document of this kind, it was on 2 or 3 November 1897, by Colonel Henry, who moreover only made allusion to the existence of such a document.

Thus, gentlemen, in the official conversations engaged for the constitution and the putting in order of the dossier against Dreyfus, when the service of foreign affairs, represented by M. Paléologue, and the intelligence service, directed in fact at that time by Lieutenant-Colonel Henry, Lieutenant-Colonel Henry ventures to oppose to M. Paléologue’s arguments the existence of the alleged letter of the emperor Wilhelm. It is the first official appearance of the forgery, and I say that it is impossible that at the moment when Lieutenant-Colonel Henry ventured to speak thus of the existence of this document to the official representative of foreign affairs, he had not in his hands, materially, this very document, for he was exposed to being asked for the material communication of a document so grave. And, in the same way as he was ready to produce…

M. THE MARQUIS DE DION. — It is a crime of high treason, what is going on here! (Exclamations on the left.)

M. THE PRESIDENT. — You do not have the floor, monsieur de Dion.

M. THE MARQUIS DE DION. — I certainly have the right to protest.

M. JAURÈS. — … and in the same way as Lieutenant-Colonel Henry was ready to produce materially to M. Paléologue the document which he had presented to him and which would surely later be called the Henry forgery, he was ready surely also to produce materially to him the document allegedly emanated from Wilhelm II and whose existence he affirmed to him.

How could the head of the intelligence service venture, in 1897, on so monstrous an affirmation? How could he make use of so prodigious a forgery? For I scarcely need to demonstrate to the Chamber in a few rapid words that it can only be a false document.

M. LASIES. — When was it discovered?

M. JAURÈS. — M. Drumont told us that we were strange to contest a priori the authenticity of a document written thus by a foreign sovereign; he reminded us in a powerful article in the Libre Parole that all the great laborious sovereigns went into the detail of affairs, that Louis XIV had the police reports communicated to him daily, that Napoleon I also went into the smallest details of the administration of his immense empire, that Louis XV had a whole police and a whole occult diplomacy; he might have added that there remain to us from the Committee of Public Safety police notes annotated by the hand of Robespierre himself.

But, gentlemen, if we contest the possible authenticity of the document attributed to Wilhelm II, it is not because sovereigns cannot interest themselves in matters of police, it is because, when they employ instruments of police, they treat them as instruments, as things, and they do not lower themselves to insult them, because by doing so they lower themselves; (Very good! very good! on the extreme left. — Various movements.) it is next because it is impossible to attribute to a foreign sovereign an imprudence that his accredited agents in France did not commit.

The bordereau is not signed by the one who wrote it. The correspondents, the foreign chiefs of espionage Panizzardi and Schwarzkoppen, of whom in this whole affair so numerous dispatches and so numerous letters have been cited, when it was a question of insulting him, did so under false names. And here it is that there is only one man who forgets these elementary precautions, there is only one man who takes the trouble to inscribe, on a compromising bordereau that he sends to Paris, at one and the same time the name of the traitor and the name of the emperor, and that is Wilhelm II! (Applause on the left and on the extreme left. — Interruptions on the right.)

I add, gentlemen, that if such a document had existed, it relates to the events of 1894, to the first trial of the affair; it would therefore have, from the very arrival of this bordereau, revealed to the offices of the war ministry the true name of the guilty party. Now, it results from all the official and judicial documents that, for three weeks, an inquiry had to be made by groping before causing suspicion to fall on this or that man.

Therefore, the document had not arrived then; therefore, it is a false document; therefore Colonel Henry was adding to the forgery that General de Pellieux produced later in the cour d’assises the more monstrous, the more colossal forgery of an alleged letter from the German emperor. (Applause on the left. — Interruptions on the right.)

How could Colonel Henry have ventured to produce a document so monstrously false? He was driven to it, gentlemen. He knew that the proof was going to be made that an error had been committed in 1894; he knew that the document known under the name of the Henry forgery, recited by M. General Pellieux in solemn hearing in the month of July 1897, as M. Scheurer-Kestner has inscribed in his memoirs of which a page has been communicated to me, and that the communication of this first forgery had not sufficed to crush M. Scheurer-Kestner, who had at once unraveled the fraudulent character of it, and so it was necessary to go further and higher.

Instead of imagining a false document attributed merely to military attachés and that one could discuss, it was necessary to imagine a false document attributed to a foreign sovereign, so that one might at once make use of it but withdraw it from public discussion by alleging the peril that this formidable communication would cause to peace. (Applause on the extreme left and on the left.)

So that this forgery was imagined, if it was constructed, it is by reason of its very monstrousness and its enormity, which placed it above debate.

And then it was very well known that when the bordereau would be published, when the facsimiles of the handwriting would appear, Germany, perceiving the error committed in 1894, would have an official communication made. And in fact, as early as 17 November 1897, the German embassy had the solemn affirmation made that it had never known the man condemned in 1894. (Various movements.)

M. GASTON GALPIN. — It was its duty.

M. DE L’ESTOURBEILLON. — It could not say otherwise.

M. JAURÈS. — And Colonel Henry wanted to be in a position to oppose to this German affirmation a written proof to the contrary.

It was necessary for the production of this forgery that Colonel Henry should count, and that is what is grave, that is what, politically, is grave, it was necessary that he should count on the complicity of the general staff of that time. (Interruptions and noise on the right. — Applause on the left.)

M. LASIES. — I ask for the floor.

M. JAURÈS. — By what right, gentlemen, would one claim that the policy of forgery would necessarily have stopped at a certain grade and that it could not have risen above the grade of lieutenant-colonel? (Laughter and applause on the left and on the extreme left.)

M. LIEUTENANT-COLONEL ROUSSET. — That is an insinuation.

M. JAURÈS. — I told you just now that I would communicate to you an unpublished and true document.

M. THE MARQUIS DE DION. — Show it to us!

M. JAURÈS. — It will come at its hour.

I say and I demonstrate that such a document, thus officially thrown by Lieutenant-Colonel Henry into the balance where the affair was again going to be judged, I say that this document could only have been affirmed by the complaisance of Lieutenant-Colonel Henry’s superiors.

Yes! for what was called the Henry forgery — although in my opinion that is neither true nor just — one might limit the responsibility to Lieutenant-Colonel Henry alone. The Henry forgery is a dispatch which is supposed to have been written in 1896. When it arrives at the ministry, Lieutenant-Colonel Henry can say to his superiors, to General Gonse, to General de Boisdeffre: “Here is a document which was brought by the intelligence service,” and General de Boisdeffre may, at a stretch, logically, be himself the first deceived by the affirmation of Lieutenant-Colonel Henry. (Noise on the right.)

But, for the false letter of Wilhelm II, it cannot be so. This false letter did not serve at the trial of 1894, that is to say, at its true date; it appears only in 1897, and, in order that Lieutenant-Colonel Henry may produce it, he must have had its hypothesis accepted by those who directed the trial in 1894… (Exclamations on the right.) Listen, gentlemen…, by General de Boisdeffre and by General Mercier.

This letter, which is affirmed in 1897, is supposed by its date to go back to 1894. It is therefore necessary that the men who conducted the trial of 1894, and who know that this document did not figure in it, should accept from Lieutenant-Colonel Henry an explanation that renders plausible the late appearance, in 1897, of a letter which, by its date, its nature, and its object, goes back to 1894. (Applause on the extreme left.)

Otherwise, it would have been too easy for General de Boisdeffre or for another chief of the general staff to say in 1894: I did not know this document, I ought to have known it then, since it is supposed to have been written at that time, I do not know it, it is a forgery.

It would have been too easy for General Mercier, who directed the trial, who had himself before the council of war at Rennes admitted having addressed to the judges the secret documents, it would have been too easy for him to say: But no, this document which was the capital document, the decisive document, I did not know in 1894; I would not have groped in 1894 if I had known this document.

Therefore, invincibly, as soon as Lieutenant-Colonel Henry affirmed in 1897 the existence of a letter of Wilhelm II going back to 1894, the first cry of General de Boisdeffre, the first cry of General Mercier should have been: It is a false document; unless he had obtained from them the complaisant silence that covered everything. (Applause on the left and on the extreme left.)

And thus, well assured that he had firmed up the ground under his feet, well assured that he would not be disavowed by superiors to whom, since 1894, he was bound by I know not what mysterious pact of common error, having thus assured the ground, Lieutenant-Colonel Henry could undertake the formidable campaign of publicity of the forgery to which you are going to be witnesses.

The day after the day when M. Paléologue received from Colonel Henry the confidence of the false letter of Wilhelm II, the Libre Parole said — the conversation is of 3 November, the article of the Libre Parole is of 4 November… (Interruptions and noises on the right.)

You will see, gentlemen, that we have all been very imprudent and very thoughtless not to attach sufficient importance to the articles of your press. People have been content far too much with shrugging their shoulders before the violence and the enormity of certain affirmations; but this campaign is only the prolongation, throughout this country, of the lie and of the forgery organized by Lieutenant-Colonel Henry at the centre of the general staff.

The Libre Parole of the 4th says:

The accusing document of which so much has been spoken was not produced in original before the council of war. It constituted an overwhelming proof of Dreyfus’s guilt, so much so that Münster came to find Mercier and summoned him to restore it. The minister refused, it was war. General Mercier yielded, but he had the document photographed. The original was returned, and it is the photograph that was placed before the eyes of the judges.

There is the first tracing, in the press, of the forgery imagined at the general staff. It is by a counter-stroke, by a really extraordinary repercussion, on the next day, 5 November, that Esterhazy writes to M. the President of the Republic Félix Faure:

The woman who informed me of the horrible machination woven against me handed me a document which is a protection for me, since it proves the scoundrelishness of Dreyfus…

You recognize there a part of the very text of the letter of Wilhelm II.

… since it proves the scoundrelishness of Dreyfus and a danger for my country, because publication with the facsimile of the handwriting will force France to humiliate herself or to make war.

Gentlemen, you knew, we knew, by the documents seized at Esterhazy’s and brought before the Court of Cassation, that there was collusion between Esterhazy and the general staff; we knew, by the letter in the two handwritings, that M. du Paty de Clam warned him of the course of the inquiry and suggested to him the replies he should make to General Pellieux as investigator; we knew by the very confessions of M. du Paty de Clam that he had collaborated on the letters of threats and blackmail that Esterhazy addressed to the president of the Republic; but what we had not sufficiently noted is that Lieutenant-Colonel Henry had supplied Esterhazy, as early as 5 November, with the letter of which he had spoken to M. Paléologue. Esterhazy was supplied with a false document, but because it bore the formidable signature of the emperor of Germany, Esterhazy the patriot could blackmail the President of the Republic, the Government, and the Chamber! (Applause on the extreme left.)

There is the use that was made of the annotated bordereau, there is the use that was made of the letter of Wilhelm II.

When Mathieu Dreyfus denounced Esterhazy, when he named him as the author of the bordereau on 16 November, it was necessary to redouble efforts, and the general staff thought of securing not only the support of la Croix and the Libre Parole, but the support of l’Intransigeant. And it was then that Major Pauffin de Saint-Morel, chief of staff of General de Boisdeffre, was sent to M. Rochefort himself. La Patrie of 18 November published under this title: The Truth about the Dreyfus Affair, an interview with M. Rochefort:

I do not in any way wish to repeat to you the words of that officer. He said to me almost word for word: Not only is Major Esterhazy the victim of an infamous plot; but, as regards Dreyfus, I am authorized to tell you that we possess absolutely conclusive documents which peremptorily establish the guilt of the prisoner of Devil’s Island. These documents, the Dreyfus syndicate is even ignorant of their existence: when the moment has come they will be served up to him.

Gentlemen, what were these documents to which Major Pauffin de Saint-Morel, chief of staff of General de Boisdeffre, was alluding before M. Rochefort? It is l’Intransigeant itself which indicates it to us in the article of 13 December 1897 under the title: The Truth about the Traitor. — The Secret Document.

Here is what l’Intransigeant publishes:

One of the famous secret documents is a letter from the emperor of Germany himself. It was stolen, photographed, and replaced where it had been taken. There is this letter addressed to M. de Münster, Wilhelm II named in full Captain Dreyfus, commented on certain pieces of information, and charged the agent of the embassy communicating with him with indicating to the traitor the other pieces of information to gather, necessary for the German general staff.

Such is the origin of the principal secret document. We have for a long time possessed a version that had been furnished to us by a military personality among the best placed to be admirably informed, analogous to that which we publish today in complete certainty.

Thus l’Intransigeant proclaims that one of the documents of which a military personality among the best placed to be admirably informed had spoken to M. Rochefort — it is evidently the major who had paid a visit to M. Rochefort — is the alleged letter of Wilhelm II. You see, gentlemen, that it has come a long way.

The government of M. Méline was stirred and, by a communiqué from the Havas agency, it declared that there was nothing well-founded in the allegations relating to alleged letters from a foreign sovereign. M. Rochefort replies to it under this title: Negligible Denial:

Billot had before his eyes the secret document with which it would have been so easy for him to put Scheurer-Kestner in his place, when that old imbecile came to his office to spread out before him the incoherent papers of his alleged dossier.

La Patrie says:

The nature of our colleague’s revelations obliges the Government to an official denial. Already, in the Dreyfus affair, an analogous denial had been given. But the facts remain the facts.

La France says:

It is known that M. Rochefort is well and surely informed. These are not hypotheses, they are facts, and the embarrassed and somehow necessary denial of the Havas agency will change nothing.

L’Intransigeant adds that:

The emotion produced is very keen, [that] the exchange of dispatches between the German embassy and Wilhelm II has been a sign. It is only too certain, from the haste with which the ambassador opposed a denial, that our account is the expression of truth.

You see, it is always the same system: an enormous invention is set going; it is denounced and it is said: “Yes, but it is so enormous that the government is obliged to deny it.” And the whole nationalist press: la France, la Patrie, l’Intransigeant, which you will not, I imagine, brutally disavow today, the whole nationalist press takes the pretext of the official denial of the government to affirm anew the truth of the legend and the reality of the false document.

M. Méline had it announced by a new note that the government was going to ask, if need be, of Parliament the necessary means to put a term to this press campaign. But, let me say it, M. General Billot had in his hands more rapid and more decisive means that he strangely neglected.

First, when Major Esterhazy claimed to have in his hands documents capable of throwing Europe into commotion and boasted that he was bringing this document or another to the minister of war, he ought at least to have been interrogated.

M. JULES MÉLINE. — I ask for the floor.

M. JAURÈS. — One ought at least to have asked the general staff, which had communicated to M. Paléologue the existence of this letter, whence came this campaign. It is prodigious that you should have thought of threatening the press which only reproduced the affirmations of the general staff, and that your minister of war did not think of carrying the question to the very heart of the general staff. (Applause on the extreme left and on the left.)

And then, here is an officer whose status is important enough — an officer who had just been attached to the person of the President of the Republic during the journey in Russia, an officer who is the chief of staff of your chief of general staff; here he is in the newspapers, the legend which, little by little, spreads, communicates itself, shakes the whole press, and, at the same time, shakes the country.

You demand an account from the irresponsible and scattered press which you cannot seize, but this officer whom you have there, under your orders, whom you could summon to tell you what communication he went to bring to M. Rochefort, you do not interrogate him, you do not question him, and why? because you have need of his silence to continue your policy of equivocation. (Vigorous applause on the extreme left and on the left.)

M. LIEUTENANT-COLONEL ROUSSET. — He was punished with thirty days of strict arrest by the minister.

M. JAURÈS. — I receive the disciplinary observation of our colleague, M. Lieutenant-Colonel Rousset. He tells me: but this officer was punished with thirty days of strict arrest! (Laughter on the left and on the extreme left.)

There is a problem that moves the country, and there is an officer who makes himself, in the nationalist press, the vehicle of a false document, of a formidable document; oh! he is confined to quarters; but he is not questioned! Let him remain well shut up, but let him keep silent and let the world forget him!

Is that what General Billot was asking for at this hour?

M. LIEUTENANT-COLONEL ROUSSET. — Nothing says he was not questioned.

M. LASIES. — Monsieur Jaurès, Major Cuignet asked to be questioned; did you ask, for your part, that questions be put to him? You took good care not to.

M. JAURÈS. — Thus covered by the complaisance of M. Méline’s Government, the intrigue continues; the legend develops and the false document circulates. And, at the Zola trial, Lieutenant-Colonel Henry has the audacity to make public allusion to the existence of the false letter of Wilhelm II.

Gentlemen, sufficient care has not been taken because the sensational false document against you that was the Henry forgery, and which for Henry was only a forgery of secondary order, this sensational false document has taken the place of the true Henry forgery, of the one to which Henry himself attached decisive importance, the only one of which he made mention before the jurors of the cour d’assises. Here, indeed, is what he says on 14 February, at an hour when he was driven into a corner by their questions on the subject of the communication of the secret dossier:

Well! let us go to it! I must tell you, when Colonel Sandherr handed me this dossier on 16 December 1894, I reread it, and I said: “But how is it that you have no further need of this dossier?” He replied to me: “I have one more important, and I am going to show you a letter from this dossier.” He had me see a letter, making me swear never to speak of it. I swore; he showed me a letter even more important than the one in the dossier. He said to me: “I have along with that some documents, but I keep them by me, and I shall make use of them if need be.”

You see, it is not here a matter of the document known under the name of the Henry forgery and which is of 1896; it is a matter of a letter more important than all the others, of a letter so formidable that Colonel Sandherr had had Lieutenant-Colonel Henry swear never to speak of it, a letter that goes back to 1894 and that is evidently the false letter of Wilhelm II of which Colonel Henry had already, on 3 November, spoken to M. Paléologue.

What is Colonel Henry’s tactic?

It is first, by affirming thus, in implicit but certain form, the existence of this document before the jury, to bind his superiors if they still hesitated, to oblige them either to recognize it and thus disavow the trial of 1895 which they wished to maintain and of which M. Henry had been the principal agent, or to oblige them either to disavow it or to suffer in silence the monstrous forgery that Henry had constructed for the common guarantee. And I wonder, at this moment, whether Henry was not by this means trying to construct a bridge that would allow General Mercier to pass from the system of accusation of 1894, founded on the onion-skin paper bordereau, to the new system of accusation founded on the false letter of Wilhelm II. He wanted, through the mystery in which Colonel Sandherr had enveloped from all in 1894 this false letter of Wilhelm II, to suggest to General Mercier a plausible hypothesis that would allow him to accept the existence of this false document which had not figured in the trial of 1894. (Applause on the extreme left and on the left.)

There is the affirmation, and here now is the echo:

On 3 November, Colonel Henry had spoken of the letter to M. Paléologue; on 4 November began the press campaign. On 14 February, Colonel Henry solemnly makes allusion to the letter of Wilhelm II at the cour d’assises; on 15 February, at the public meeting at Suresnes, M. Millevoye affirms the existence of this document and gives approximately the text of it. Here is the account published then in the newspaper le Temps.

M. LUCIEN MILLEVOYE. — The question has already been carried to the tribune by our colleague, M. Breton. I replied.

M. JULES-LOUIS BRETON. — You did not reply.

M. LUCIEN MILLEVOYE. — Now I owe to say that the tribune is not a confessional, and that if I had to choose a confessor, monsieur Jaurès, it is not you whom I should choose. (Laughter on the right.)

I am completely unaware what you may have received from the other side of the frontier. (Exclamations on the left.) You are no more an investigating magistrate, and it is only to a single investigating magistrate, legally seized of the case, that it would be incumbent upon me to reply.

M. JAURÈS. — I have no pretension to demand an inquiry. (Laughter on the left.)

I recognize that M. Millevoye had already asked me, by way of interruption, in formal fashion, when in fact my friend M. Breton brought a part of the debate for the first time to the tribune. Let M. Millevoye allow me to tell him: we are not here in matters of civil and private order; this is a matter of political responsibility (Very good! very good! on the extreme left and on the left), and we have the right to ask for explanations from a political party on public affirmations that it has produced before the country. (Applause on the same benches.)

M. Millevoye tells me that he would not take me as a confessor; let me say to him that it is a little late to have recourse to private confession when one has begun with public confession before thousands of citizens assembled at Suresnes. (Applause on the extreme left and on the left.)

In any case, whether you reply or not, I shall borrow formulas that you have applied in connection with this very affair to M. Casimir-Perier: if you do not reply, I shall say, according to your own formula, that your silence is eloquent. (Smiles on the left.) But I wish to read the report of le Temps, leaving it to you to rectify it or not to rectify it. There was no rectification at that time.

M. Millevoye, giving the history of the Dreyfus affair, comes to the secret document. — Does it exist? is the cry from all sides. — Well, yes! citizens, it exists, said the speaker..

(Laughter on the extreme left.)

We were wrong to laugh, gentlemen.

Do you wish to know its tenor, citizens? — Yes! yes! — Well, here it is. It says: “Let that scoundrel Dreyfus send at the earliest the promised documents: signed Wilhelm.”

This revelation is greeted with general laughter. For five minutes there are deafening clamors…

The speaker ends by saying that, given the declarations of M. de Bülow, the publication of the secret document would prove the perjury of the emperor of Germany and it would be war.

It is always the application of the same system, the production of monstrous forgeries sheltered by the threat of war. (Applause on the extreme left and on the left.)

So that, by this prodigious jurisprudence which one would claim to institute, it would now suffice to produce false documents overwhelming for adversaries, under the signature of foreign sovereigns of Italy, of England, of Germany, to escape any explanation and any responsibility. (Applause on the same benches.)

Well! gentlemen, whatever may be the reservations that M. Millevoye opposes to me, I wish to submit a scruple to him, I wish to say to him in all sincerity, he knows it: You are — and your adversaries themselves recognize it without our needing to ask — you are an honest man; even when you are under the empire, even your colleagues and us your —, you are an honest man; but it is a misfortune to bring to this tribune false documents…

M. LUCIEN MILLEVOYE. — Unworthily deceived by your minister of foreign affairs.

M. JAURÈS. — Monsieur Millevoye, and this is not, I assure you, an oratorical precaution; I give you my word of honor that I am stating my whole thought and that, in my mind, I see your good faith fully out of the question, and I even say that, in the error you committed, there are two traits that do you honor. The first is that at a troubled hour when calumny spreads impersonally, anonymously, unavowedly, you had the courage to take the individual responsibility, the personal responsibility, of a precise and formidable accusation; you were mistaken, but it was an act of courage and good faith. Then there is another trait that does you honor. When you believed that your country was being delivered to the foreigner by miserable shirkers, you not only flung a gulf of infamy upon your adversaries like Clemenceau, you did not fear to bring forward a list of treason on which was inscribed the name of your friend and your ally of the day before, M. Rochefort. You had the courage to sacrifice to what you judged to be the interest of the whole nation, even your alliances and your friendships.

M. GABRIEL SYVETON. — The very name of Rochefort rendered that list improbable.

M. JAURÈS. — But let me tell you that at the moment when, at Suresnes, you affirmed the existence of a letter from emperor Wilhelm II, overwhelming if it were authentic, there were men in cause, there was M. Zola, accused, who was appearing before the justice of his country, and there was on Devil’s Island a condemned man whose fate was being debated; the document brought by you to make the conviction of the country, both against Zola and against the condemned man Dreyfus, this document was important, it could be decisive, it could determine either the conviction or the acquittal; and I can well imagine that, with the cruel experience you had had of the facility with which one can be deceived by false documents, you had sworn to yourself to produce no mysterious document without having verified its authenticity and origin. You were therefore surely covered by men who had guaranteed to you from on high the authenticity of this document. You will one day owe it to yourself, before history, to name them, to justify yourself. (Vigorous prolonged applause on the left and on the extreme left.)

M. LUCIEN MILLEVOYE. — I thank M. Jaurès for the tribute that he has been good enough to pay to my character. I suppose that we have no intention of reopening the debate on the Norton affair, which would bring into question some of the ministers of the Republic.

As to the invitation you address to me, monsieur Jaurès, I shall reply with the sincerity that is in my character.

You ask me for a precise indication; you ask me to indicate here, at the tribune, under what conditions a revelation or a piece of information that concerns my country may have been given to me. I refuse in the most absolute fashion (Exclamations on the left and on the extreme left), because the debate raised at this moment, and which you wish to reduce to proportions which I do not accept, to the proportions of a sort of party duel or of a group duel, is infinitely more extended.

You forget that what is at stake at this moment is your country, France (Applause on the right and in the centre. — Noise on the left), to which for four years you have done much harm by going to seek arguments in foreign newspapers. (Protests on the extreme left.)

In saying this, I am speaking for you no doubt, but above all for those of your auxiliaries…

M. ARISTIDE BRIAND. — We have never committed forgeries, we! We have not told lies! (Noise.)

M. LUCIEN MILLEVOYE. — I speak of those who for four years have gone to seek in newspapers directly inspired by the foreigner floods of mud under which they have tried to soil the uniform and the French flag (Applause on the right. — Protests and interruptions on the extreme left and on the left); I speak of that abominable campaign which still endures and which has had as consequence this unheard-of thing of allowing it to be believed that one may plant the French flag with impunity in dung (Protests and interruptions on the extreme left and on the left); I speak of that Manuel du soldat, of all those printed works, of all those encouragements to desertion.

I do not wish to stir this river of mud.

I do not recognize my right, by way of an incidental matter, to reopen here the Dreyfus affair, and I leave you all the responsibility of it. (Applause on the right.)

M. JAURÈS. — I note, indeed, that you leave me all the responsibility of it (Approving laughter on the left), and I take note of your refusal to reply. I take note of this fact, that after having publicly produced — not surely to crush a man, but to overwhelm me a whole party — a document of so formidable a gravity, at the hour when it appears, from innumerable symptoms, that this document is false, and when you owe to yourself, to the country, when you owe to France whose name should not constantly be usurped to cover forgeries (Vigorous applause on the left and on the extreme left), you refuse to say from what hidden source you drew accusations of this kind.

Whatever may be the case, gentlemen, you see the legend develop, affirm itself, spread out more and more; from the general staff it passes into the courtroom, from the courtroom into the newspapers, from the newspapers into public meetings, and the monstrous system which was imagined by Colonel Henry and his accomplices takes possession little by little of the country.

Now here is the Henry forgery bursting forth. It seemed that this forgery, confessed by its author, ought finally to put a term to the polemics. If the good sense of this country had been left to itself, if the conscience of this country had been left to itself, the unanimous conviction would have been formed the next day that a cause which one was reduced to serving by means of false documents was an unjust and bad cause.

There was, gentlemen, in many consciences a movement of revolt; at this hour, I say, if the country had opened those that had until then remained obstinately closed, and among the men who manifested not their disturbance but their anger, among the men who cried out to the machinators of forgery: you have deceived the country and you have deceived me, there is, in the first rank, the one who had been your most popular representative, the one who had conducted the inquiry on Esterhazy, the one who, at the Zola trial, had spoken in the name of the army with the most authority and the most brilliance — it is General de Pellieux I mean.

Well, when General de Pellieux learned of Henry’s confession, he wrote from the ministry of war a letter that was hidden from the country, a letter that was shown neither to the judges of the Court of Cassation nor to the judges of the Rennes council…

M. MASSABUAU. — Has it been shown to you since? (Noise on the left.)

M. JAURÈS. — … A letter the terms of which called for a necessary inquiry. This letter — persons who lived in the entourage of General de Pellieux and who collected his despairing confidences gave me the text of it, which I communicate to the Chamber:

The brigadier general, adjutant to the general of division commanding Paris, to M. the Minister of War.

Paris, 31 August 1898.

Duped by men without honor, no longer able to hope to count on the confidence of subordinates without which command is impossible, and, on my side, no longer able to have confidence either in them or in my superiors who have let me work on forgeries, I request to be placed on the retired list. (Vigorous applause on the extreme left and on the left.)

M. HENRI BRISSON. — I ask for the floor.

M. THE PRESIDENT. — The floor is given to M. Brisson, with the assent of M. Jaurès.

M. HENRI BRISSON. — Monsieur Jaurès, pardon my emotion in interrupting you. (Murmurs on the right. — Applause on the left and on the extreme left.) You said, and I had heard well — and I give you, you may believe it, all my attention — that this letter of General de Pellieux was dated 31 August 1898.

M. JAURÈS. — Yes.

M. HENRI BRISSON. — President of the council at that time, I declare that the government of which I was part had no knowledge of it. (Renewed applause on the left and on the extreme left.)

M. GEORGES BERRY. — It appeared in all the newspapers.

M. ROULAND. — That is a theatrical effect; a prepared scenario. (Noise.)

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — I ask for the floor.

M. THE PRESIDENT. — The floor is given to M. Cavaignac.

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — I should like to know what conclusions you intend to draw from a letter that you claim was hidden and which was accompanied at the same hour by a similar interview that appeared in all the newspapers. (Noise.)

When you come to speculate on these facts, I say that you are playing a pure comedy… (Prolonged noise on the left.)

M. THE PRESIDENT. — No comedy is played here.

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — … and as for the judgment which you claim to make use of here and which General de Pellieux is said to have passed on his superiors, I declare that I took no account of it. (Noise.)

Since the fact is there, I take the responsibility of bringing here, to the men who have been called into question and against whom one directs vaguely I know not what insinuations or accusations of which one does not even dare to take the complete responsibility, the testimony of my entire confidence in their loyalty and their good faith. (Applause on the right and on various benches in the centre.)

M. HENRI BRISSON. — Gentlemen, I wish here only to make a statement. I already knew, from the deposition of M. Captain Cuignet before the Court of Cassation, that M. Cavaignac, minister of war, was, as of 14 August — it is the very expression of M. Captain Cuignet — convinced that what has been called the Henry forgery was a forgery. Now, he warned the president of the council of it only on 30 August, and I now learn that on 31 August, the day when Colonel Henry died under your bolts, you wrote this letter of General de Pellieux!

M. GEORGES BERTHOULAT. — It was published in all the newspapers.

M. HENRI BRISSON. — You knew, on 31 August, that General de Pellieux had written this letter; you declare that you took no account of it, and you informed of it neither the president of the council nor the Government, whose opinion this letter could have helped to form. (Very good! very good! on the left.)

Ah! I see clearly the sequence of your acts. Between 14 August, the day when you were convinced of the Henry forgery and when you had brought it to this tribune, between 14 August and 30 August, you went to Le Mans to preside over the general council, says M. Captain Cuignet; but at Le Mans you met and no doubt had occasion to concert on the line to follow with the general commanding the army corps, M. General Mercier. (Vigorous applause on the left and on the extreme left.)

The sequel of this concert would have been to push you to hide decisive documents from the Government of which you were part and whose loyalty rested upon your reputation. (Applause on the left and on the extreme left. — Murmurs in the centre and on the right.)

That is what you did, monsieur Cavaignac. There it is! (Renewed applause on the left and on the extreme left.)

Well! bless the amnesty, for had it not been voted, you would deserve to be impeached. (Vigorous applause on the left and on the extreme left. — Noise on the right and in the centre.)

But what need would there be of material chastisement in the presence of the moral chastisement that weighs upon you and reaches you? (Applause on the left and on the extreme left.) That party which covered you with its acclamations a few years ago, when you deposited democratic reform projects — that party, look at it, hear it, listen to it! (Renewed applause on the left and on the extreme left.)

Among those who praised you, I have the right to rank myself. In June, at the tribune, I recalled that, a few days before, you had deposited a proposal of fiscal and social reform, of democratic reform, and I congratulated you on walking in the footsteps of the one whose name and first name you bore, of that Godefroy Cavaignac whose tradition you seemed to follow. For long days, alas! I pass at the cemetery of Montmartre before his statue and I sadly salute that bronze. Well! I ask myself at this hour when the revelation that you have just heard resounds in this tribune, whether that bronze is not going to rise up and, holding between its clenched fingers the pen and the sword that Rude had placed there as if to express that this paladin of the Republic gave to his cause both his soul and his life — I ask myself whether it is not going to rise up before you and cry to you: “You are no longer in the Republic; you are no longer of our lineage!” (Vigorous applause on the left and on the extreme left. — Noise on various benches in the centre and on the right.)

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — I have three things to reply to M. Henri Brisson… (Interruptions.)

On the right. — From Bouches-du-Rhône. (Exclamations on the left.)

M. KRAUSS. — Paris answered you yesterday!

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — He did not fear to say that on the question of the Henry forgery my conviction was formed on 14 August; that is not true.

M. CHARLES BOS. — It was made before. (Noise in the centre.)

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — My conviction was made on the Henry forgery only on the day when, after having gone voluntarily out of the regular procedures, I had brought before me the man who had committed this act, and when, by the force of my resolution and my will, I obtained from him an avowal that no one other than I could have torn from him.

Ah yes! if I had wished to do what you appear to insinuate without daring to say it, if I had wished to set aside or to dissimulate the avowal, do you know what I would have done? The day when the first doubt came into my mind, yes, I would have delivered, instead of going to the end of my inquiry, I would have delivered Lieutenant-Colonel Henry…

M. PAJOT. — That is what you had the intention of doing!

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — … to one, monsieur Henri Brisson, of those judicial proceedings in which you have known how to multiply the guarantees for the accused to such an extent that there remain no further any for the search for truth. (Applause on various benches in the centre and on the right. — Exclamations on the extreme left.)

M. ARISTIDE BRIAND. — You preferred to send him a razor. (Noise.)

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — Perhaps also, monsieur Henri Brisson, to one of those parliamentary inquiries of which one speaks to us today, one of which you have directed and in which you know so well how easily truth escapes those who seek it. (Applause and laughter on the same benches in the centre and on the right.)

Well, no! I went voluntarily out of the regular paths; I brought the guilty man before me, and I obtained from him what those voices issued from your ranks have one day called, in fits of frankness, the only atom of proved truth there is in this affair; I tore from him by my resolution and by my will the avowal which you are trying today to exploit against us. (Noise on the extreme left.)

You have again, monsieur Henri Brisson, insinuated or affirmed that I had established a concert here with the commandant of the fourth corps. On that point, it is quite simple: I oppose to you the most clear and most formal denial. (Applause on various benches, in the centre and on the right.)

As to that other affirmation which you have been singularly imprudent to put forward here, monsieur Henri Brisson, according to which I would have dissimulated from you the document of which M. Jaurès has spoken, I never, for my part, knew of this document; none of the persons with whom I was in relation at the ministry of war ever breathed to me a single word of it.

M. JEAN CODET. — Monsieur Cavaignac, you said a moment ago the contrary!

M. MAURICE VIOLLETTE. — You said that you yourself had no knowledge of it.

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — I thought that M. Henri Brisson was alluding to the alleged letter of the emperor of Germany, upon which M. Jaurès has based his argumentation.

M. JAURÈS. — But you do not contest the letter of General de Pellieux? No! That is understood!

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — But if it is a matter of the letter of General de Pellieux, in what was this letter a piece of the dossier? (Exclamations on the left and on the extreme left.)

M. JAURÈS. — I ask for the floor! (Laughter.)

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — I ask in what an appraisal produced, formulated by M. General de Pellieux — you do not even know whether he maintained it in his mind (Exclamations on the extreme left), and I believe I know that he regretted it immediately after having written it — I ask in what this letter of M. General de Pellieux constituted a piece of the dossier? (Interruptions on the left.)

I repeat that the entire dossier was placed at the disposal of M. Henri Brisson, who recognized it himself at this tribune, in the sitting of 18 December.

M. Henri Brisson ended by mixing into this affair politics and party excommunications. (Ironic exclamations on the same benches.) He pronounced judgments in the name of the universal conscience, as if our conscience, ours, were not worth at least as much as his. (Applause in the centre and on the right. — Noise on the left.)

You are not judges; you are political adversaries, and political adversaries whom we shall combat without relaxation.

M. Henri Brisson evoked here the memory of the Republicans of yesteryear, of the Republicans whose traditions we honor ourselves in claiming, and appealed to their testimony. Yes, I should like much that they be called here, the men who founded in former times the Republic against regimes of corruption; I should like much that they be called here…

M. JULES-LOUIS BRETON. — They would send you to the scaffold, those men!

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — I have perhaps more rights than M. Henri Brisson to speak in the name of those whom he had the audacity to evoke a moment ago. Yes, I should like that there be recalled here the men who founded the Republic of old in the face of the monarchies, and who created that party of political honesty and national pride which was the Republican party. I should like much that there be recalled here… (Interruptions and noise on the extreme left and on the left.)

M. JULES-LOUIS BRETON. — If we were the Convention, you would have been guillotined long ago! (Noise.)

M. THE PRESIDENT. — Monsieur Breton, I call you to order.

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — … those who founded the Republican party in the face of the parliamentary monarchy of July — I should like that they could be asked whether the regime of today resembles more the one of which they had dreamed or those they fought and overthrew. (Applause in the centre.)

M. THE PRESIDENT. — The floor is given to M. Jaurès.

M. JAURÈS. — I shall not add to M. Cavaignac on this incident.

I never said that M. Cavaignac had knowledge of the letter of Wilhelm II; but I take note of his declaration relating to the letter of General de Pellieux: he has recognized it as authentic and he recognizes having received it.

What this letter has of gravity, monsieur Cavaignac, and what is truly strange, is that you did not remark…

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — Will you allow me a word? (Exclamations on the left.)

M. JAURÈS. — So be it! speak!

I believe, gentlemen, that the documents I bring can sustain contradiction, and I shall, without regret — that they did not submit to the same trial those that M. Cavaignac formerly brought to this tribune. (Very good! on the extreme left and on the left.)

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — I have taken, and I take, I repeat it, the responsibility of everything that may have been done in regard to the letter of General de Pellieux.

However, as it is a matter of memories which go back five years, I cannot say whether it arrived at the ministry or whether it did not arrive before or after my departure.

The meaning of my words is this: I declare that, even if this letter had reached the ministry while I was there, I would have taken no account of it. (Very good! very good! on the right and on various benches. — Noise on the left and on the extreme left.)

M. JAURÈS. — There is a fact that it will really be worthwhile to clear up.

It will be a matter of knowing who took the responsibility, in this crisis, of keeping for himself a document which, in our view, could have illuminated the problem with a decisive light. What seems to have escaped — unless they saw it too well — those who kept this document for themselves, is that it is grave, particularly grave, in that General de Pellieux, who had conducted the Esterhazy inquiry which served as the basis for all the later development, in that General de Pellieux, recalling his memories, enlightening them in the light of Henry’s avowal, accuses certain of his superiors, not of having been mistaken like himself, but of having systematically and deliberately deceived him… (Various movements.)

When he says: “Duped by men without honor,” and when he adds that “he cannot retain his confidence in those of his superiors who made him work on forgeries,” it is the direct accusation of moral complicity with Henry that General de Pellieux brings. (Applause on the left and on the extreme left. — Exclamations in the centre and on the right.)

And note that he says he was “made to work on forgeries,” that is, that the inquiry from which light and appeasement were to result for this country was led astray on false documents.

There is what was grave at the moment when Henry confessed the crime committed by him, and when it was important to know whether it was an isolated crime or whether it was bound up with a whole system of lying and forgery. This document could have had capital importance. Or this letter: it was the duty of those who had received it to call General de Pellieux to explain himself on its contents not only before themselves, but before the whole responsible Government which had to take decisions and responsibilities jointly. That is a duty that was not fulfilled; and, when we say that you do not know whether General de Pellieux did not in part withdraw the thought expressed by him in this letter, I have reasons to believe that he maintained it, I have reasons to believe that he insisted that the document that was returned to him should return to the point to which he had wished to address it; but I shall be in agreement with you, if you ask with us on this point where it matters that light be made, that the minister, the Government, bring us, after inquiry, the necessary result which the Republican country must await.

But, gentlemen, let me tell you — and this is closely bound up with the plan I have developed here — let me tell you that by hiding this letter of General de Pellieux which aggravated the significance of the Henry forgery and the import of his avowals, one allowed the party of forgery, the party of lying to recollect itself, to recover itself, and, after a few days of stupor, to begin again, around another forgery — the letter of Wilhelm II — the same campaign, more audacious still and more cynical. (Applause on the extreme left.)

M. GEORGES GROSJEAN. — General de Pellieux’s testimony was not lacking to Dreyfus, since it was collected in the inquiry of the Criminal Chamber.

M. JAURÈS. — I ask the Chamber, being tired today, permission to put off until tomorrow, at the beginning of the sitting, the continuation of this discussion. (Vigorous applause on the extreme left and on various benches on the left. — Exclamations on various benches on the right and in the centre.)

M. GABRIEL SYVETON. — I ask for the floor.

M. THE PRESIDENT. — The floor is given to M. Syveton.

M. GABRIEL SYVETON. — If the Chamber wishes to continue tomorrow to occupy itself with the Dreyfus affair, I for my part see no inconvenience in it; but it seems to me that we must not forget the point of departure, which is the election of the second arrondissement of Paris. (Very good! very good! on the right and in the centre. — Interruptions on the extreme left.)

You might perhaps, gentlemen, by judging the electoral case at once give satisfaction to universal suffrage, which, after all, has sent me here. (Noise on the left.)

M. MASSABUAU. — I ask for the floor. (Exclamations on the left.)

M. THE PRESIDENT. — It is customary that the Chamber accord to the speaker who requests it the adjournment to the next day. (Very good! very good!)

M. DE BOURY. — Not always! M. Prache was once forced to continue his discourse.

M. THE PRESIDENT. — The floor is given to M. Massabuau.

M. MASSABUAU. — I make no opposition to the postponement until tomorrow of the continuation of M. Jaurès’s discourse, but on condition that it be well understood that once M. Jaurès has spoken, the Chamber shall not pronounce the closure of the debate and that it shall permit us to reply to him. (Noise on the left.)

M. PAUL BEAUREGARD, rapporteur. — I ask for the floor.

M. THE PRESIDENT. — The floor is given to M. the rapporteur.

M. PAUL BEAUREGARD, rapporteur. — In the name of the commission, allow me to say, gentlemen, that it is incomprehensible that opposition should be made to what we propose.

It is quite natural that M. Jaurès should request the postponement until tomorrow, and that this postponement be voted, but nothing prevents us from completing this evening the examination of the electoral operations of the second arrondissement. (Interruptions on the extreme left and on the left.)

I am saying nothing here that could wound anyone. I am anxious to clear the responsibility of the commission… (Renewed interruptions on the same benches.)

It is a question of relief: the commission asks that the Chamber decide on the postponement of this discussion until tomorrow, and that it then pronounce on the election in question. (Very good! very good! in the centre and on various benches. — Various movements.)

M. THE PRESIDENT. — I consult the Chamber on the request for the postponement of the continuation of the discussion.

There is a request for a ballot signed by MM. Féron, Bagnol, Aristide Briand, de Pressensé, Desfarges, Genet, Colliard, Levraud, Lafferre, Raymond Leygue, Basly, Baudon, Rouby, Dubief, Pajot, Lesage, Dasque, etc.

The ballot is opened.

(The votes are collected. — MM. the secretaries make the count.)

M. THE PRESIDENT. — Here is the result of the count of the ballot:

Number of voters … … … … 529 Absolute majority … … … … 265

For adoption … … … … . . 327 Against … … … … … . . 202

The Chamber of Deputies has adopted.

In consequence, the continuation of the discussion is postponed until tomorrow.

Annex to the minutes of the sitting of Monday 6 April

BALLOT On the postponement of the sitting until tomorrow

Number of voters … … … … 478 Absolute majority … … … … 237

For adoption … … … … . . 309 Against … … … … … . . 164

The Chamber of Deputies has adopted.

VOTED IN FAVOR:

MM. Abel-Bernard. Albert-Poulain. Aldy. Allard. Andrieu. Antoine Gras. Arbouin. Arène (Emmanuel). Aristide Briand. Astier. Aubry. Augé. Authier.

Bachimont. Bagnol. Balandreau. Baron (Gabriel) (Bouches-du-Rhône). Barthou. Basly. Baudet (Charles) (Côtes-du-Nord). Baudet (Louis) (Eure-et-Loir). Baudin (Pierre). Baudon (Oise). Beauquier. Begey. Bellier. Bénézech. Bepmale. Bersez. Berteaux. Berthet. Bertrand (Lucien) (Drôme). Bertrand (Paul) (Marne). Bichon. Bizot. Bony-Cisternes. Boothey-Allex. Bouveri. Bouxin. Breton (Bouches-du-Rhône). Brunet. Buisson (Jules-Louis). Brisson (Henri) (Bouches-du-Rhône). Buisson (Ferdinand) (Seine). Bussière. Buyat.

Cadenat. Camuzet. Capéran. Cardet. Carnaud. Carnot (François). Caron. Castellane (comte Stanislas de). Catalogne. Cazauvieilh. Caze (Edmond). Cazeaux-Cazalet. Cazeneuve. Cère (Émile). Chaigne. Chazabige. Chambon. Chanal. Chandioux. Chapuis. Charles Bos. Charles Chabert (Drôme). Charonnat. Charpentier. Charruyer. Chastenet (Guillaume). Chaumet. Chaussier. Chautemps (Alphonse) (Indre-et-Loire). Chautemps (Émile) (Haute-Savoie). Chauvière. Chavoix. Chenavaz. Clament (Clément) (Dordogne). Clément (Martinique). Clément. Cloarec. Cochery (Georges). Codet (Jean). Colin. Colliard. Compayré (Émile). Constans (Paul) (Allier). Constant (Émile) (Gironde). Cordeyroy. Cornet (Lucien). Coulondre. Coutant (Jules) (Seine). Cruppi.

Dansou. David (Alban) (Indre). David (Fernand) (Haute-Savoie). Debanne (Louis). Debève (François). Debiève (Anatole). Debussy. Decker-David. Defontaine. Defumade. Dejeante. Delarue. Delanne (Marcel). Delcer. Delcléze. Delmas. Delombre (Paul). Delory. Delsécheaux. Denis (Théodore). Déribéré-Desgardes. Desfarges (Antoine). Deshayes. Devèze. Dorney. Doumer (Paul). Dron. Dubief. Dubois (Émile). Dufour (Eugène). Dujardin-Beaumetz. Dunaime. Dupuy (Pierre). Durand. Dussuel.

Éliez-Évrard. Émile Chauvin. Empereur. Escanyé. Euzière.

Fernand-Brun. Féron. Ferrero. Ferrier. Fiquet. Fitte. Fleury-Ravarin. Fournier (François).

Gabriel Denis. Gabrielli. Galy-Gasparrou. Gauvin. Genet. Gentil. Gérault-Richard. Gervais (Seine). Gerville-Réache. Girod. Godet (Frédéric). Gontaut-Biron (comte Joseph de). Goujat. Gouzy. Grosdidier. Grousset (Paschal). Guieysse. Guingand. Guyot-Dessaigne.

Harriague Saint-Martin. Henrique-Duluc. Herbet. Hubbard. Hubert. Hugon. Hugues (Clovis) (Seine).

Iriart d’Etchepare (d’). Isambard. Isnard.

Janet (Léon) (Doubs). Jaurès. Jeanneney. Jehanin. Jourdan (Louis). Judet. Jules Legrand (Basses-Pyrénées). Jumel.

Krauss.

La Batut (de). Labussière. Lachaud. Lacombe (Louis). Lafferre. Lamendin. Lanessan (de). Lannes de Montebello. Lassalle. Lauraine. Laurençon. Lebrun. Lechevallier. Leffet. Lepez. Lesage. Le Troadec. Levet (Georges). Levraud. Leygue (Honoré) (Haute-Garonne). Leygue (Raymond) (Haute-Garonne). Lhopiteau. Lockroy. Loque. Loup.

Magniaudé. Malaspina. Malizard. Mando. Maret (Henry). Martin (Bienvenu) (Yonne). Martin (Louis) (Var). Mas. Massé. Manjan. Maure. Menier (Gaston). Merlou. Meslier. Messimy. Michel (Henri) (Bouches-du-Rhône). Mil (Louis). Minier (Albert). Mirman. Monfeuillart. Morel. Morlot. Mulac. Mutean.

Noël.

Ozun.

Pajot. Pams. Pasqual. Pastre. Paul Meunier. Pavie. Périer (Germain). Perreau. Perrin. Perroche. Petit. Petitjean. Peureux. Pichery. Pierre Baudin. Piger. Pradet-Balade. Pressensé (Francis, de). Puech.

Rabier (Fernand). Ragot. Rajon (Claude). Razimbaud. Régnier. Renault-Morlière. René Renoult. Réveillaud (Eugène). Rey (Émile). Ribonnard. Rivet (Gustave). Rouanet. Rouby. Rougier. Rousé. Rozet (Albin). Ruau.

Sabaterie. Salis. Sandrique. Sarraut (Albert). Sarrazin. Saumande. Sauzède. Schneider (Charles) (Haut-Rhin). Selle. Sembat. Sénac. Serres (Honoré). Sibille. Siegfried. Simonet. Simyan. Sireyjol.

Tavé. Théron. Thierry-Delanoue. Thivrier. Thomson. Tiphaine. Tourgnol. Tournier (Albert).

Urslour.

Vacherie. Vaillant. Vazeille. Veber (Adrien). Vialis. Vigne (Octave) (Var). Vigné (Paul) (Hérault). Vigouroux. Villault-Duchesnois. Villejean. Viollette. Vival.

Walter.

VOTED AGAINST:

MM. Adam (Achille). Alsace (comte d’), prince d’Hénin. Amodru. Anthime-Ménard. Archdeacon. Argeliès. Arnal. Andiffred. Audigier. Auffray (Ursin).

Bansard des Bois. Baron (Jules) (Maine-et-Loire). Baudry d’Asson (de). Beauregard (Paul) (Seine). Beauregard (de) (Indre). Benoist (de) (Meuse). Berger (Georges). Berry (Georges). Bignon (Paul). Boissien (baron de). Bonnevay. Bonvalot. Borgnet. Bouctot. Bougère (Ferdinand). Bougère (Laurent). Bourgeois (Paul) (Vendée). Brice (Jules) (Meurthe-et-Moselle). Brindeau. Brisson (Joseph) (Gironde). Broglie (duc de).

Cachet. Caffarelli (comte). Caraman (comte de). Castelnau (de). Cavaignac (Godefroy). Chambrun (marquis de). Chesnay-Benoist (Seine). Cibiel. Cochin (Henry) (Nord). Cornudet (vicomte). Corrart des Essarts. Coutant (Paul) (Marne).

Dansette (Jules). Darblay. Daudé. Dèche. Delafosse (Jules). Delarbre. Derrien. Desjardins (Jules). Dion (marquis de). Drake (Jacques). Dubuisson. Duquesnel. Dutreil.

Elva (comte d’). Engerand (Fernand). Ermant. Estourbeillon (marquis de l’).

Fabien-Cesbron. Faillot. Faure (Firmin). Ferrette. Flandin (Ernest) (Calvados). Fontaines (de). Fouché. Fouquet (Camille).

Gaillard-Bancel (de). Gaillard (Jules). Galot (Jules). Galpin (Gaston). Gauthier (de Clagny). Gautier (Léon) (Vosges). Gayraud. Gérard (baron Maurice) (Calvados). Gérard (Edmond) (Vosges). Gervaize (Meurthe-et-Moselle). Gévelot. Ginoux-Defermon. Gonidec de Traissan (comte de). Goujon (Julien). Gourd. Grandmaison (de). Grosjean. Groussaux. Guillotaux. Guyot de Villeneuve.

Halguet (lieutenant-colonel du). Hémon.

Jacquey (général). Jules Jaluzot.

Kerjégu (J. de). Krantz (Camille).

Labourdonnaye (comte de). La Chambre. La Ferronnays (marquis de). Lamy. Laniel (Henri). Lanjuinais (comte de). Largentaye (Riourt de). Laroche-Joubert. La Rochethulon (comte de). Lasies. Laville. Lebaudy (Paul). Lefas. Legrand (Arthur). Le Hérissé. Lemire. Lepelletier (Edmond). Lerolle. Lespinay (marquis de). Lévis-Mirepoix (comte de). Limon. Loiseau. Lorin (comte Ferri de).

Mackau (baron de). Marot (Félix). Maurice Binder. Maurice Spronck. Maussabré (marquis de). Michel (Adrien) (Haute-Loire). Millevoye. Miossec. Montaigu (comte de). Montalembert (comte de). Montjou (de). Moustier (marquis de). Mun (comte Albert de).

Ollivier. Ornano (Cuneo d’). Osmoy (comte d’).

Pain. Passy (Louis). Paulmier. Pichat. Pins (marquis de). Plichon. Pomereu (marquis de). Prache. Proust. Pugliesi-Conti.

Ramel (de). Rauline. Reille (baron Amédée). Reille (baron Xavier). Ripert. Roche (Ernest) (Seine). Roche (Jules) (Ardèche). Roger-Ballu. Rohan (duc de). Roscoat (vicomte du). Rouland. Rouvre (Bourdon de). Rudelle.

Saint-Martin (de). Saint-Pol (de). Savary de Beauregard. Schneider (Eugène) (Saône-et-Loire). Suchetet.

Tailliandier. Tournade.

Villiers.

DID NOT TAKE PART IN THE VOTE:

MM. Arago (François). Astima (colonel). Aynard (Édouard).

Ballande. Barrois. Bartissol. Bérard (Alexandre). Berthoulat (Georges). Bischoffsheim. Bonte. Boucher (Henry). Bourgeois (Léon) (Marne). Boury (de). Brice (René) (Ille-et-Vilaine).

Cardon. Cassagne.

Décassé. Delelis. Deloncle (François). Doumergue (Gaston). Duclaux-Monteil. Dujardin-Beaumetz. Dulau (Constant).

Étienne.

Fabre (Léopold). Flourens. Fruchier.

Gaffier. Gellé. Guillain.

Haudricourt. Holtz.

Lachièze. Laurens-Castelet (marquis de). Léglise. Lozé. Mahy (de). Maruéjouls. Massabuau. Méline. Motte. Mougeot.

Pelletan (Camille). Périer de Larsan (comte du). Raiberti. Ribot. Riotteau. Rose. Rousset (lieutenant-colonel).

Thierry. Trannoy. Trouillot (Georges). Tronin. Tarigny.

DID NOT TAKE PART IN THE VOTE the deputies whose election is submitted to the inquiry:

MM. Congy. Syveton.

ABSENT ON LEAVE:

MM. Ancel-Seitz. Arnez.

Babaud-Lacroze. Balitrand. Beharelle. Bouveri. Boyer (Antide).

Caillaux. Castellane (comte Boni de). Castillard. Cauvin (Ernest). Chabert (Justin) (Rhône). Chamerlat. Chanoz. Chevalier. Cochin (Denys) (Seine). Conyba.

David (Henri) (Loir-et-Cher). Decrais. Dervéloy. Deschanel (Paul). Devins. Disleau.

Estournelles (d’).

Flandin (Étienne) (Yonne).

Gérald (Georges).

Hugues (François) (Aisne). Jonnart.

Klotz.

Larquier. Le Bail. Le Marc. Le Moigne. Leroy (Modeste). Leygues (Georges) (Lot-et-Garonne).

Mercier (Jules). Millerand. Mollard.

Noulens.

Péret. Plissonnier. Poullan. Pourteyron.

Quilbeuf.

Richard (Pierre). Robert Surcouf. Roch.

Sarrien.

Thierry-Cazes. Torchut.

Vallée. Vogeli.

The numbers announced in the sitting had been:

Number of voters … … … 529 Absolute majority … … … 265

For adoption … … … . . 327 Against … … … … . . 202

But, after verification, these numbers were rectified in conformity with the list of the ballot above.

[The rectifications of the ballot of this day are recorded, in the following number of the Officiel, after the ballots of the next day.]

Chamber of Deputies, eighth legislature, ordinary session of 1903, full record, sixty-sixth sitting, sitting of Tuesday 7 April. — Journal officiel of Wednesday 8 April 1903.

Presidency of M. ÉTIENNE, vice-president.

Continuation of the discussion of the conclusions of the report of the commission charged with conducting an inquiry into the electoral operations of the second arrondissement of Paris and tending to the validation of these operations: MM. Jaurès, Syveton, Georges Grosjean, the Minister of War, Camille Krantz, Godefroy Cavaignac, Henri Brisson, Lasies, de Pressensé, Paul Beauregard, rapporteur. Ballot. Tally. Rejection. — Annulment of the electoral operations.

Resolution proposals: 1° from M. Jaurès and several of his colleagues; 2° from M. Paul Constans and several of his colleagues; 3° from M. Magniaudé. — Request for priority in favor of M. Jaurès’s order of the day. — Request for the plain order of the day: MM. Ribot, Chapais, Cavaignac, the president of the council, Minister of the Interior and of Public Worship; Walter, Magniaudé, Charles Bos, Émile Chautemps, Astier. — Resolution proposals: 1° from M. Astier and 2° from M. Chapais and several of his colleagues. — Request for the plain order of the day: MM. the president of the council, Ribot, Chapais, Vaseille. Withdrawal. — Rejection, by ballot, of the first in favor of the resolution proposal of M. Jaurès and several of his colleagues. — On the priority in favor of the resolution proposal of M. Chapais and several of his colleagues: MM. Magniaudé, Massabuau. Adoption, by ballot. — Adoption, by ballot, on the merits, of the first part of this resolution proposal. — Adoption, by ballot, of the second part. — Adoption, of the whole.

Continuation of the verification of credentials

M. THE PRESIDENT. — The order of the day calls for the continuation of the discussion of the conclusions of the report of the commission charged with conducting an inquiry into the electoral operations of the second arrondissement of Paris. The floor is given to M. Jaurès to continue his discourse.

M. JAURÈS. — Gentlemen, yesterday, in the swell raised by the incident between M. Brisson and M. Cavaignac, I did not hear two observations presented by two of our colleagues. M. Cavaignac said: the letter is moreover not new; an interview gave a very exact idea of it as early as 5 September.

I reply three things to that: there is no relation between an interview whose authenticity cannot be assured, where the terms cannot be controlled, and an authentic, official letter signed by a man like General de Pellieux. (Very good! very good! on the left.)

In the second place, between the terms of the interview and those of the letter, there are notable differences. The strongest expressions of the letter are not found in the interview, and finally one searches in vain how an interview published on 3 September could dispense the minister of war, if he received the letter, from communicating it to the president of the council and to the responsible Government. (Applause on the left.)

M. FERNAND ENGERAND. — Did he receive it?

On the extreme left. — He has recognized it!

M. GABRIEL SYVETON. — Allow me to fix this point of the debate.

I believe that the press has not only given an interview with General de Pellieux, but has further signaled his letter by giving the general sense of it and even one of the principal sentences. For here is what le Gaulois of 2 September 1898 published:

The document which General de Pellieux was called upon to use…

This is the Henry forgery.

… is today recognized as false. It is established that General de Pellieux was unworthily deceived. He has explained himself with brutal frankness in the letter he addressed yesterday to M. the military governor of Paris. — The letter was addressed to the minister; but, following the hierarchical channel, it reached the general governor of Paris — and by which he requested to be placed on the retired list to avoid being confounded with men without honor.

This text establishes that the existence of the letter, its general sense, and even principal sentences were known by 2 September 1898. (Very good! very good! on the right and on various benches in the centre. — Noise on the left.)

M. JAURÈS. — My observation remains entirely intact. I maintain in the most clear fashion that there is an abyss… (Noise on the right.)

M. THE MARQUIS DE DION. — He is dead!

M. THE PRESIDENT. — Everyone knows it, but please let the speaker explain himself.

M. THE MARQUIS DE DION. — If M. Jaurès judges that the Dreyfus affair is, like the Triple Alliance, a necessary counterweight to French chauvinism, that is his affair; but we cannot let such words pass without protest.

M. THE PRESIDENT. — Monsieur de Dion, if you persist in interrupting, I shall be obliged to apply to you the penalties of the rules.

M. THE MARQUIS DE DION. — I have the right to give my opinion.

M. THE PRESIDENT. — I call you to order and I beg you once again to keep silent.

M. THE MARQUIS DE DION. — I repeat that if M. Jaurès… (Noise on the left.)

M. THE PRESIDENT. — Monsieur de Dion, do not force me to call you to order with inscription in the minutes.

M. THE MARQUIS DE DION. — M. Jaurès has already said that the Triple Alliance was a necessary counterweight to French patriotism, and he tries to demonstrate that the Dreyfus affair must play the same role. (Exclamations and murmurs on the extreme left.)

M. THE PRESIDENT. — I call you to order with inscription in the minutes. (Very good! very good! on the extreme left.)

M. THE MARQUIS DE DION. — Yes! you can expel me from your Parliament, I shall feel very honored when I have been shown the door by all of you. (Noise.)

M. JAURÈS. — When the adversary cries out, it is because he feels himself touched. (Applause on the left and on the extreme left.)

I maintain that there is a decisive difference, from the point of view of the effect on opinion and from the point of view of the immediate decisions that the Government had to take, between an interview where allusion might be made to General de Pellieux’s letter and the vigorous letter itself.

M. GABRIEL SYVETON. — Pardon, monsieur Jaurès!…

M. JAURÈS. — Oh! monsieur Syveton! I beg you.

M. THE PRESIDENT. — The speaker prefers to continue.

M. THE MARQUIS DE DION. — It is a maneuver to paralyze and destroy our country.

M. PRACHE. — In short, is it a question of the election of Dreyfus?

M. THE COUNT DE LA ROCHETHULON. — Let the speaker say whatever he wishes. None of this has any importance.

M. THE MARQUIS DE DION. — It is a challenge thrown at the country!

M. JAURÈS. — Let me tell you that these concerted, noisy, and insulting demonstrations come a little late… (Noise on the right.)

Yesterday, you listened to me in silence, because you did not imagine that I would deal you the blows that I deal you. (Applause on the left. — Exclamations on the right.)

You have given yourselves the watchword to try to cover my voice today; I assure you… (Noise.)

M. THE MARQUIS DE DION. — We certainly have the right to manifest our opinion!

M. THE PRESIDENT. — The speaker cannot continue thus, I beg you to keep silent.

M. JAURÈS. — … I assure you that by acting thus, you do not serve your cause before the country.

M. THE MARQUIS DE DION. — It is not our cause, it is that of the country that we serve.

M. THE PRESIDENT. — This attitude is intolerable!

M. LASIES. — Monsieur Jaurès, will you allow me an observation?…

M. JAURÈS. — Willingly.

M. LASIES. — Today, M. Jaurès is good enough to exchange courtesies with me, and I thank him for it. M. Jaurès said that there had been concerting to prevent him from speaking. Each one attends the discussion, monsieur Jaurès, with his temperament. I have friends who have an ardent temperament, and they prove it. But there is nothing concerted.

We do not fear the blows you deal us. I shall prove it to you in a moment by trying to deal you some that will trouble you much more than I trouble you. (Applause on the right. — Murmurs on the left.)

M. THE PRESIDENT. — I hope that now your good counsels will be listened to, monsieur Lasies, and that everyone will be silent.

M. JAURÈS. — It is therefore understood that M. Lasies’s friends will not delay the moment when he can deal us decisive blows.

M. MASSABUAU. — He will not be allowed to speak.

M. JAURÈS. — M. Grosjean — and this is the second observation that had escaped me and which I take up in a word, I saw it afterwards in the Journal officiel — said to me: but what does it matter that the letter of M. General de Pellieux was not first known in its authentic text? M. General de Pellieux was nevertheless heard by the Court of Cassation, which was able to collect his testimony.

Gentlemen, in very good faith M. Grosjean has committed a material error which, in a moment, I make it my duty to point out to him. There are in the annexes of the Court of Cassation incidents in which M. General de Pellieux intervenes; but they relate to disciplinary inquiries on Esterhazy prior to the discovery of the Henry forgery. M. General de Pellieux was not heard as a witness before the Court of Cassation; it is probable that he would have been at the request of the defense if the latter had been seized of the authentic text of the letter; — and there is one of the effects of the silence kept by the honorable M. Cavaignac.

M. GEORGES GROSJEAN. — Will you allow me a word, monsieur Jaurès? (Exclamations on the left and on the extreme left.)

M. JAURÈS. — Very willingly. (Noise on the right.) Gentlemen, I ask M. Grosjean to explain himself.

M. GEORGES GROSJEAN. — The interest the Criminal Chamber had in collecting the testimony of M. General de Pellieux consisted in knowing from him what had happened in the course of the Esterhazy inquiry, which he had conducted. It was not necessary, in order to call upon this testimony, to know the letter the text of which M. Jaurès read to you yesterday at this tribune. I add that if this letter deprived you of a means of emotion on opinion, it did not deprive the judges of an element of appreciation, and here is why: As considerable as is the interest you attach to this document, you will nonetheless recognize that Henry’s avowals had a much more considerable force. In that connection I remind you that the decree of the Court set aside, as new fact, the forgery, the avowals, and the death of Henry.

M. JAURÈS. — You do not contest having been materially mistaken yesterday?

M. GEORGES GROSJEAN. — I recognize it.

M. JAURÈS. — We shall discuss next the consequences of your error. (Noise on the right.)

M. THE MARQUIS DE DION. — Then the Chamber is transformed into a Court of Cassation! Let them give us the red robe!

M. THE PRESIDENT. — And when your orators are interrupted, you will complain!

M. JAURÈS. — Henry’s avowal suddenly gave to the letter of emperor Wilhelm a new importance and a greater role.

After the avowal of the forger recognizing that he had fabricated a document to charge a condemned man, there were only two attitudes to take: either those who had until then maintained the guilt of the man condemned in 1894 had to recognize that the proofs on which they had relied, weighed, doubted, were buttressed by false documents; or they had to explain that if Lieutenant-Colonel Henry had fabricated a false document, it was not to support a false accusation, it was to supply, before opinion, by means of a document that could be produced, another document more grave that could not be shown; and since by hypothesis the Henry forgery could be shown, since the Henry forgery represented a correspondence between the military attachés of two great countries, it was necessary, in order to explain that the other document could not be produced, to give it a much higher origin.

And that is why one then went back as far as the imperial letter, that is why the day after the Henry forgery, those who wished to maintain the condemnation of 1894 adopted as fundamental system that the Henry forgery was destined to supply the false letter of Wilhelm II, which could not be produced. Before Henry’s avowal this false letter constituted only a sort of reserve and, according to the expression of Esterhazy himself, an “imperial guard”; but after Henry’s avowal, this reserve became the true army corps; it is the letter of Wilhelm II that becomes as it were poured into the battle.

Gentlemen, the new chief, the one who inherits the powers of direction and the documents of the vanished Henry, the one who is now going to give the watchword to all the nationalist press, organize and dominate all its movements, M. General Mercier, was not mistaken about it, and from the day after or the day after the day after the avowal of Henry, as soon as the nationalist party, at first overwhelmed, recovered itself and found itself again, it is the letter of Wilhelm II which becomes its supreme means of defense.

What does M. Rochefort say on 1 September? He has not yet, at that moment, had time to recover himself entirely; he makes reservations, but he begins to indicate the system:

The crime of Colonel Henry is at once odious and stupid. To what miserable sentiment or to what crooked idea could the head of the intelligence service have yielded? I seek in vain. Perhaps, if he had not committed suicide yesterday, he would have tried to explain that he had fabricated an apocryphal document in order to avoid furnishing authentic ones the divulgation of which might have compromised the security of the State; this is in any case a strange excuse, considering that this testimony could serve only to indicate the sincerity of the others.

M. Rochefort is crossed by doubt; but doubt will not long inhabit him. (Smiles on the left.)

La Patrie of 3 September makes the system precise and puts it in some sort under the patronage of Henry himself:

We owe to an indiscretion the knowledge of the following declaration which Colonel Henry is said to have made:

“I was obsessed by the impossibility of making public the documents establishing in indisputable fashion the guilt of Dreyfus. This publication would mix the foreigner into the affair and would be heavy with consequences for France. It was nevertheless necessary to make the counterpart of the lying propaganda made with a view to proving the innocence of the traitor. Before this imperious necessity, I fabricated a document, I made a forgery, I did it in my soul and conscience, allowing myself

(Ironic exclamations on the extreme left and on several benches on the left.)

in the interest of justice, driven into a corner by the impossibility in which we find ourselves of delivering to publicity secret documents.”

He could, without peril, deliver to publicity the secret documents emanating from Schwarzkoppen or from Panizzardi. What then was, if not the imperial letter, the secret document that could not without peril be delivered to publicity? (Applause on the same benches.)

M. THE MARQUIS DE DION. — Only the dead speak!

M. JAURÈS. — That is why you speak! (Laughter on the extreme left. — Interruptions on the right.)

M. THE MARQUIS DE DION. — That is not very witty.

M. JAURÈS. — On 3 September, in the Petit Journal, M. Judet, who came in the inquiry to formulate M. Syveton’s defense system, says:

The explanation of the forgery he committed, which so dismally breaks an entire career of duty and valor, is drawn from the exaggerated sentiment of personal responsibilities before a threat of revision. He knew that the Dreyfus dossier contained documents capable, by their divulgation, of leading to international complications and to war. That is why he wished to put into circulation documents that dispense with recourse to others, to the more grave, sorts of banknotes whose fiduciary value rests in the eyes on the existence of authentic documents prudently kept hidden.

M. DE BOURY. — It is the Argus de la presse! (Laughter on the right.)

M. JAURÈS. — La Libre Parole of 3 September reproduces M. Judet’s article, and adds:

This note formulates so happily, so exactly the explanation of the forgery.

And la Patrie of the 3rd announces that, to give value to this system, to make the country accept the idea of a formidable secret forgery that had obliged the general staff to substitute false documents of lesser gravity for it, a veritable syndicate of officers is going to constitute itself; it will be the square battalion of the national defense around the false letter of Wilhelm II:

We believe we know,

says this newspaper,

that a general who has played a preponderant role in the latest affairs relating to Dreyfus would be disposed to leave the army, if it is not already done, and to declare all the truths. The idea of a grouping of superior officers and generals who would resign their functions and then proclaim the truth is making its way. These officers know the secret of the Dreyfus affair; they consider that if the revision of the Dreyfus trial must take place, the new debates cannot be held in camera and everything will have to be told to France. “It is certain war,” said one of them this morning. Why is it war, if not because there would have to be produced a document personally implicating a foreign sovereign?

Gentlemen, the system was being propagated so abundantly in the nationalist press of France that it was answered by an officious communication from the Gazette de Cologne of 7 September.

The so-called French general staff sheets continue to wish to have it believed that France, by all the documents of the Dreyfus trial, is going toward a menace with Germany. People know more or less today, thanks to the communications of certain sheets, to what documents allusion is made, and that it is certainly a matter of the alleged letters of the German emperor.

We can await here with great calm these publications. For, it is not necessary to say it, it is only a question of forgeries; a German emperor does not correspond with spies in the service of Germany. If some subaltern agent or even a superior officer has falsified the name of the emperor, we would not see in this any reason for Germany, on that head, to declare war on France. It would be at most painful for the officers who had let themselves be caught for an instant in the trap of a forgery as gross as it is ridiculous.

You will allow me to say, since very often vehement declarations of patriotism are thrown into our debates, that there would have been perhaps some patriotism in not organizing our general staff in such fashion that we oblige the foreigner to recall us in so humiliating a fashion to elementary good sense and to common sense. (Protests on the right. — Applause on the extreme left and on the left.)

M. PUGLIESI-CONTI. — Speak then of the opinion that Liebknecht professes on your account.

M. LASIES. — You find that very good, monsieur the Minister of War; for myself, I find it disgusting. (Applause on the right. — Interruptions and noise.)

M. JAURÈS. — But, gentlemen, it is the newspaper la Croix which formulated the system with the most consistency, with the most perfidy in the months of September and October that followed the avowals of Henry.

La Croix tries, with an entirely perfidious science, to exploit the diplomatic equivocation that had been produced in 1894. This equivocation had been created at once by the fault of the German embassy and by the fault of the French ministry of 1894.

The German embassy had taken, in connection with an earlier affair of espionage, the engagement that none of the organs of the embassy would continue at Paris to engage in this sort of operation. The engagement was forgotten, or one of the military attachés engaged in some of these operations without having warned the ambassador himself, so that, when in 1894 a bordereau was found at the German embassy, the embassy denied it; the denial of the embassy was not only for reasons of national pride and susceptibility, there was also mixed in the chagrin of the observation made that the rules of international propriety had not been observed.

On its side, the French government, the ministry of that time, while having the wisdom to consent to communiqués to the Havas agency that attenuated whatever might be regrettable in the events being produced, had the fault of employing ambiguous forms which seemed not to attenuate but to deny the truth, and in which it seemed to be denied that a bordereau had been found in a foreign embassy.

Gentlemen, this equivocation, the démarche made by M. de Münster to the president of the Republic, were knowingly exploited. And as, at the Zola trial, M. Casimir-Perier, adopting a rule of exaggerated prudence, from which fortunately he departed before the Court of Cassation and before the council of war at Rennes, where he told the whole truth, as M. Casimir-Perier had said at the Zola trial: “My duty prevents me from telling the whole truth,” the clerical party tried to profit from this reticence and from the obscurity which remained in the country on the diplomatic incidents of 1894 to slip into them the legend of the false letter of Wilhelm II.

It was understood that if, at that time, communiqués were exchanged, if there was a visit by the German ambassador to the president of the Republic, it was because the document seized bore a signature and an annotation of the emperor of Germany himself, that the ambassador had come to demand the restitution of this document and that thereafter only an expurgated photograph of this formidable document could be produced at the trial.

There is how, with the help of the obscurity which had remained in 1894 on the diplomatic relations of France and Germany, a great part of the Catholic press tried to acclimate the legend of the letter of Wilhelm II. (Various movements.)

La Croix of Sunday 4 and Monday 5 September says:

However, the revision of the Dreyfus trial imposes itself, and everyone knows that this revision is war. It is no longer a secret to anyone that M. Casimir-Perier’s unexplained retreat was provoked after the scene of M. de Münster reclaiming under threat of war the stolen papers. The papers were restored against the advice of the president; they are of a nature to excite popular rumors, given the demands made by M. de Münster as a trial. So it is war when we are not ready and when the enemy who awaits this explosion has camps of 200,000 men massed at our frontier.

La Croix of 28 September 1898, under this title: Casimir-Perier and the Secret Documents, recounts this:

M. Casimir-Perier declares in private: Münster having taken me aside to communicate a document to me — but I no longer remember the date.

But that one could not do without it at the trial. So be it, but I absolutely demand that it be returned.

And, added the former president: It was restored.

This document was photographed. It contains, it appears, detailed instructions, perhaps from the hand of the emperor himself, instructions the whole of which gives complete authenticity and, incidentally, names the traitor Dreyfus in full letters. A good number of persons have seen it. Someone who has seen this dossier declared that with a single document one could convince the most blind.

(Interruptions on the right.)

Gentlemen, it is with the help of this system that, during all of September and all of October, the Catholic press tries to wear away little by little in this country the effect produced by Henry’s avowal.

It is by means of this system that, denouncing the ministry which seemed to want to take the initiative of revision as a ministry of both treason and adventures, which would not fear, to rehabilitate a guilty man, to expose France to war by the production of formidable documents — it is by means of this system that, during all of September and all of October, the clerical party combated the Brisson ministry, the ministry of revision.

If you read la Croix of that period, you will see in it the implacable hatred (Murmurs on the right. — Applause on the extreme left and on the left), the appeal to the kill against the ministry of light and of revision.

And it is with the system I have just shown you of the false letter of Wilhelm slipped in under cover of the obscurity and the diplomatic equivocation of 1894, it is with this system that they tried to batter the conviction of truth and good sense that had begun to be produced in the country. It is with this system that they battered the Government which wished to give to the revelation of the Henry forgery, by means of revision, its necessary sanction. (Interruptions on the right. — Applause on the extreme left and on the left.) Today, when I bring you the quotations from your own newspapers, when I seize, when I denounce your system not according to the imaginings of your adversaries, but according to the permanent publications of your own friends, it is easy for you to mock and to speak of a sort of retrospective review and of an Argus de la presse! It is yours, it is the one you used! (Protests on the right. — Vigorous applause on the extreme left and on the left.)

M. PUGLIESI-CONTI. — No! no!

M. GASTON GALPIN. — No, no, I do not know this press, I do not know la Croix! I have never opened an issue of la Croix.

M. THE PRESIDENT. — Monsieur Galpin, M. Jaurès is not addressing you personally, nor you, monsieur Pugliesi-Conti. Please keep silent!

M. JAURÈS. — No, M. Galpin tells me, I do not know la Croix; what is that newspaper? Where does it appear? Perhaps it is published in Germany? (Applause on the extreme left and on the left.) Ah! says M. Pugliesi-Conti too. In truth, gentlemen, let me… (Lively interruptions and noise on the right.)

M. PUGLIESI-CONTI. — Speak to us then of M. Urbain Gohier and of his opinion on the affair. It would be agreeable to us to know it. (Noise.)

M. THE PRESIDENT. — Monsieur Pugliesi-Conti, I call you to order.

M. JAURÈS. — You give here, gentlemen, a singular spectacle! (Applause on the extreme left and on the left. — Interruptions on the right.)

Various members on the right. — It is you who give it.

M. THE COUNT DE LANJUINAIS. — It is a very saddening spectacle that you give us. (Very good! very good! on the right. — Interruptions on the left.)

M. JULES-LOUIS BRETON. — We understand that!

M. DE L’ESTOURBEILLON. — You are in the process of martyring the fatherland!

M. PUGLIESI-CONTI. — You are the worst enemies of the fatherland.

M. THE PRESIDENT. — I shall be obliged to call you to order, with inscription in the minutes, if you persist in interrupting.

M. JAURÈS. — In the quotations I have made, in the extracts I have brought to this tribune since the beginning of the debate, I have not taken, by a sort of too-clever selection, this or that newspaper exclusively representing this or that category of the nationalist, conservative, or Catholic opposition; I have borrowed quotations, articles from all your great newspapers of all your shades, of all your categories; I have borrowed decisive quotations from la France, la Presse, le Jour, la Patrie, l’Intransigeant, la Libre Parole, la Croix, la Vérité, from all your newspapers.

M. THE COUNT DE LA ROCHETHULON. — From the Gazette de Cologne?

M. JAURÈS. — And now, I say that it is a strange spectacle, when in all your newspapers there is found and I denounce the same system, when it is impossible there is not in them the inspiration or fantasy of this or that individual, but it is a general plan, a common plan in which are summed up the procedures of battle of all the fractions of your party (Noise on the right) — it is a singular spectacle to see, now that you have drawn from this press and from its affirmations… (Interruptions on the right. — Vigorous applause on the extreme left and on the left.)… now that you have drawn from this press, from its affirmations, from its inventions, from its systems, from its lies, all the electoral and political party… (Interruptions on the right and on various benches.)

M. ANTHIME-MÉNARD. — But it is you who have made use of it.

M. CHARLES DUMONT, addressing the right. — One had to disavow the electoral period. You are the elect of these forgeries. (Noise. — Exclamations on the right.)

M. JAURÈS. — … all the electoral and political party that you could draw from it, when the hour has come to render accounts… (Exclamations and noise on the right. — Applause on the extreme left and on the left.)

M. DE L’ESTOURBEILLON. — The country will demand accounts of you!

M. BORGNET. — You live on rottenness, there is the truth!

M. PRACHE. — Who opened the floodgates of the syndicate?

M. THE PRESIDENT. — Gentlemen, I beg you…

M. JAURÈS. — … when I make file before you a cohort of newspaper articles whose lies are now disavowed because they can no longer serve… (Applause on the same benches.)

M. LOUIS OLLIVIER. — We disavow nothing at all!

M. JAURÈS. — … it is strange to see a whole party deny itself by denying… (Interruptions on the right. — Applause on the extreme left and on the left.)

M. LOUIS OLLIVIER. — We are not renegades!

M. LUCIEN MILLEVOYE. — We deny absolutely nothing, nothing, nothing! (Applause on the right. — Exclamations on the left.)

M. MASSABUAU. — We disavow nothing! (Renewed exclamations on the left.)

M. JAURÈS. — I say it is prodigious to see a whole party deny itself by denying today… (Vigorous denials on the right. — Applause on the left.)

M. CACHET. — That is not true!

M. THE BARON XAVIER REILLE. — We deny nothing!

M. SAVARY DE BEAUREGARD. — We protest against your words.

M. FERNAND DE RAMEL. — It is not possible to attribute such an insult to a party of the Chamber.

Various members on the right. — Renegade! (Noise on the left.)

M. GEORGES BERRY. — That is one more inaccuracy you bring to the tribune.

M. JAURÈS. — What a triumph… (Noise on the right.)

M. THE PRESIDENT. — I appeal to all our colleagues to let the discussion be continued in calm.

M. LUCIEN MILLEVOYE. — I ask for the floor.

M. JAURÈS. — You shall have it: for the moment, I have it.

What a triumph, for me, to make you howl by citing your press to you! (Lively protests on the right and in the centre. — Applause on the left.)

M. PRACHE. — Who paid yours?

M. CACHET. — It is natural that we should revolt on hearing you speak against the interests of the fatherland.

M. JAURÈS. — It is the public and collective disavowal of all the press of the opposition by the entire opposition… (Applause on the left and on the extreme left.)

On the right. — There is no disavowal.

M. THE PRESIDENT. — You have protested. That is understood. Now keep silent.

M. JAURÈS. — … against all the inventions…

M. GEORGES BERRY. — You speak of disavowal: do you forget that Urbain Gohier disavowed you? (Very good! very good! on the right.)

M. THE PRESIDENT. — Monsieur Berry, you do not have the floor.

M. GEORGES BERRY. — I say we have nothing to disavow.

M. THE PRESIDENT. — Monsieur Berry, I call you to order. (Protests on the right.)

M. SAVARY DE BEAUREGARD. — We are not disposed to allow ourselves to be insulted!

M. THE PRESIDENT. — When your orators are at the tribune, I shall maintain for them freedom of speech. For the moment, the floor is given to M. Jaurès alone. (Very good! very good!)

M. JAURÈS. — Gentlemen, I had limited myself to readings — not to readings from newspapers of the majority, but to readings from newspapers of the minority — and people kept saying to me in a mocking tone: But what is that?

La Croix says things: what does la Croix matter to us? — L’Intransigeant has produced this system: what is l’Intransigeant? M. Rochefort has signed this article? — Where then does M. Rochefort now reside? (Laughter and applause on the extreme left. — Protests on the right. — Interruptions and noise.)

M. GABRIEL SYVETON. — The speaker invents interruptions. No one said that.

M. JAURÈS. — It is M. Drumont, it is la Libre Parole. All this is nothing?

M. LASIES. — Who said that?

On the right. — Let us be clear, then!

M. JAURÈS. — Yes, let us be clear!

I have striven to demonstrate, yesterday and today, that your press, all of your press, from 1897 onward, affirmed the existence of an alleged letter of the emperor of Germany annexed to a bordereau on thick paper. I have demonstrated, yesterday and today, by multiplied quotations from all your press and from several of your orators, that it was with this system that you claimed to maintain your opinion in the Dreyfus affair. A moment ago, M. Millevoye said to me: no, we disavow nothing.

M. LUCIEN MILLEVOYE. — Nothing!

M. JAURÈS. — Well! I take note. It is understood, consequently, that you maintain today…

M. LUCIEN MILLEVOYE. — I await the result of your inquiry. Besides, I am going to reply to you.

M. JAURÈS. — It is understood, I say, that you maintain today the affirmation produced by you at Suresnes on the letter of Wilhelm II. Neither side of you disavows anything.

M. CACHET. — We maintain the judgment of Rennes!

M. THE MARQUIS DE DION. — Speak to us of the Syveton election. (Exclamations on the left.)

M. JAURÈS. — You may, by obliging me to struggle against continual interruptions, try to break my forces (Denials on the left); I warn you that you will not succeed.

I say to you: Yes! let us explain ourselves. We must know whether you take the responsibility of your press and of its collective and permanent affirmations. (Applause on the left.)

On the right. — That is not the question!

M. THE COUNT DE LA ROCHETHULON. — Do you take the responsibility of M. Gohier’s affirmations?

M. JAURÈS. — We must know whether it shall be permitted to a party, whichever it may be, to produce a whole system of accusations through its press, at the hour when this system of accusations may serve its political interests — we must know whether it shall be permitted to it for four years… (Interruptions on the right.)

M. PUGLIESI-CONTI. — We answer for the inquiry of our military judges, that is what we answer for.

M. THE MARQUIS DE DION. — But what connection has that with the election of M. Syveton?

M. THE PRESIDENT. — Monsieur de Dion, allow me to direct the debate, or take my place. (Laughter.)

M. JAURÈS. — We must know whether it shall be permitted to this party for four years to let its press act, to let its orators speak, to permit some of its orators and its entire press the propagation of monstrous legends which may serve a party interest, and then, when truth appears (Exclamations on the right), when you have drawn from this monstrous legend all the substance, all the profit you can draw from it, and when the moment has come either to make yourselves jointly responsible with the collective and permanent lying of your press for four years, or to disavow it — we must know whether you are going to deny your press and deny yourselves. (Applause on the left.)

On the right. — We deny nothing.

M. JAURÈS. — Well! it is understood, you take to your account these affirmations…

M. PUGLIESI-CONTI. — We make ourselves jointly responsible with our army and with our military judges of Rennes.

M. THE MARQUIS DE DION. — But that has nothing to do with the Syveton election. (Noise on the left.)

M. THE PRESIDENT. — I beg you once again to let the speaker discuss the report presented to the Chamber.

M. JAURÈS. — You take then to your account the affirmations of M. Millevoye on the letter of Wilhelm II, to your account the affirmations of l’Intransigeant, of la Patrie, of la Croix, of la Libre Parole on the letter of Wilhelm II. And it is understood that this press is yours. (Applause on the extreme left.)

M. PUGLIESI-CONTI. — Speak to us then of General de Galliffet’s opinion on the guilt of Dreyfus.

M. JAURÈS. — Now you understand well that if the system I have just sketched out, based on the newspapers of the opposition, you understand well that if this system was affirmed and propagated by the entire press of the opposition, after the Henry forgery and before the decree of the Court of Cassation, this system became still more necessary when the Court of Cassation attributed to Esterhazy the bordereau on which Dreyfus had been condemned. It was then that more than ever a new document had to be substituted for all the documents struck with caducity and nullity.

But it was not only in the press that this propaganda of legends and lies was being made. The compromised men of the general staff, those who wished to maintain at all costs the decree of 1894, tried to calm around them the disquietudes of conscience that were beginning to awaken even in the world in which they lived. To calm these disquietudes of conscience, they went on affirming, themselves too, the existence of the annotated bordereau, and they had photographs of it shown to those whose troubled consciences they wished to reassure.

M. Scheurer-Kestner writes in a page of his memoirs that, as early as November 1897, the general staff was proposing this system of the annotated bordereau:

The general staff,

he writes,

invented every day a new history. This amused them greatly, and as General de Sancy said to M. de Bernis, who recounted it to one of my friends, here is a new sample of the fecundity of mind of our great chiefs. There was a fire, recounted General de Sancy, at the German embassy. It is during this fire that the bordereau was stolen, accompanied by several letters of Dreyfus addressed to the military attaché. The Count de Münster came to declare to the minister of foreign affairs that he would ask for his passports if the bordereau were not returned to him. As for Dreyfus’s letters, he said nothing of them. The bordereau was returned to him, but a copy was made of it, and this copy was made by Esterhazy himself. Hence the paper on which the bordereau was written. We have therefore not the original at the ministry of war, but only the copy made by Esterhazy. And General de Sancy added: “We have great fun with this at the general staff.”

This photograph of the annotated bordereau, General Mercier and his friends spread for two years; and, here again, we are going to see whether you will disavow the affirmations of your press. (Interruptions on the right.)

But there is better here than the affirmations of newspapers…

M. DE L’ESTOURBEILLON. — There is the election of M. Syveton, which is under discussion.

M. JAURÈS. — There are men who testify that this photograph of the fraudulent bordereau was shown, and I shall not be contradicted by M. Émile Ollivier if I recall the exact terms of a declaration made by him.

It is not true that he ever said he had seen the bordereau annotated by the emperor of Germany and restored by Casimir-Perier to ambassador de Münster, but that one of our friends, absolutely worthy of confidence, had seen one of the eighteen photographs that were taken before the restitution.

One of the principal efforts, one of the most clever made by the forgers, was to convince of the authenticity of the document a man who had, for years, lived in Germany and who could, by his authority, in some sort authenticate the document — it is of Colonel Stoffel that I mean to speak. (Interruptions on the right.)

It had been learned that General Schneegans had spoken of these photographs of the bordereau; he was interviewed by the newspaper le Temps and he replied on 3 February 1899, in deliberately blurred terms, but through which the truth pierces.

I have not seen General de Boisdeffre in nearly twenty years; he could not therefore have taken me as a confidant. Nevertheless, I vaguely remember having heard Colonel Stoffel speak of a letter of the emperor of Germany to the prince de Münster on the subject of Dreyfus; someone, it appears, was carrying this letter about a little everywhere.

Are we to challenge, gentlemen, the direct and personal testimony of M. Robert Mitchell, recounting to M. Ranc that he has from Colonel Stoffel himself that the latter has seen the photograph of the annotated bordereau?

It is you, M. Mitchell, yourself — M. Ranc says to him, in le Radical of Friday 7 February 1902, — it is you, M. Mitchell, yourself who, on 24 January 1899, without asking me for secrecy, spoke to me of false letters of emperor Wilhelm. We were on the boulevard opposite the Crédit Lyonnais — remember it. You had the matter from Colonel Stoffel and, like me, you guffawed at the imbecility of the people who had been victims of a lie so gross.

And le Gaulois of 7 February, under the signature of M. Robert Mitchell himself, writes to M. Ranc:

My dear colleague, you remind me very à propos that, on the boulevard, opposite the Crédit Lyonnais, I spoke to you, without asking you for secrecy, of a letter of the emperor of Germany in which Dreyfus’s guilt was affirmed. Your memory has served you well. It is exact, indeed, that Colonel Stoffel revealed to me the existence of this document, and I confess, in all sincerity, that I could not believe in its authenticity. I shall not say that on this subject I guffawed, according to your familiar expression; but it is true that I showed some surprise. I was wrong, for the letter exists; it does not emanate, it is true, from the German emperor, but I believe that one would not have great trouble in tracing its origins. It came just in time to throw trouble into unprejudiced minds and to create a presumption against the bureau of military intelligence; is fecit cui prodest.

It is understood, gentlemen, it is we who fabricated the false annotated bordereau. (Applause on the extreme left and on the left. — Interruptions and laughter on the right.)

But I retain — you may smile and fine wits may mock at it; but this remains, this will have its consequences, this will bear its fruits — I retain that the party of the general staff and of forgery had converted Colonel Stoffel to the idea of the annotated bordereau. (Applause on the extreme left and on the left.)

I retain that Colonel Stoffel had made himself the agent of this propaganda; I retain that Colonel Stoffel affirmed the existence of this letter, of this document; and it is easy, after having disavowed, at least half-way, the press which publicly carried the legend and the forgery, it is easy to laugh under one’s breath when one brings to this tribune that sort of occult and worldly propaganda; but it is in your habits, it is one of the secrets of your action (Applause on the left and on the extreme left); it is one of the subtle means by which one falsifies the opinion of the salons, which falsifies, little by little, the opinion of a wider world; and as the officers frequent the world where you have these false documents carried about, as the caste from which will issue the judges who shall judge tomorrow the trial also frequents this world… (Exclamations in the centre and on the right.)

Oh! I say “tomorrow” referring back to 1898, do not be alarmed before the hour (Applause on the left and on the extreme left); and as you knew well that the officers, who may eventually be called to judge these sorts of trials, meet and undergo, in this world, this sort of propaganda; as you knew that it was thus easy to propagate, from mouth to mouth, the monstrous legend, after having shown the photograph of the false document in a few salons, it was easy to prepare thus the occult action that this false document would play in the military courtrooms. (Vigorous applause on the extreme left and on the left.)

But, gentlemen, after all these efforts of propaganda, propaganda of press and worldly propaganda… (Interruptions on the right.) Do you wish to know to what degree it had been produced, how it had been organized and systematized? Listen to the deposition of the Count de Turenne before the Criminal Chamber on 24 January 1899:

The only fact that I can bring to the knowledge of the Court is a conversation which I had the honor of having with M. the Count de Münster on 24 April last, 1898. At that time the rumor was running in Paris that letters emanating from the emperor of Germany were enclosed in one of the dossiers. Personally, I did not believe in the existence of these letters. On the evening in question, M. de Münster having taken me aside, spoke to me of the rumors going about on the existence of these letters. He understood at once from my reply that I did not believe in them; he told me he was very happy about it and added that he was very satisfied to be able to confirm me in my opinion. A few days later, I met M. Hanotaux; I thought I should make known to him the impression that resulted for me from my conversation with M. de Münster. M. Hanotaux did not appear surprised and merely thanked me.

M. THE MARQUIS DE DION, ironically. — That is very grave!

M. JAURÈS. — It is not grave, but it is a more serious indication than you imagine. When the occult and obscure effort you made to deceive opinion is caught out, you shrug your shoulders: “It is a trifle!” But it is by this patient, obscure, subtle work of daily lies, by propaganda in all worlds, that you operate little by little and that you falsify judgments. (Applause on the left and on the extreme left.)

This double propaganda — propaganda by the press and worldly propaganda — of which General Mercier was the principal artisan and the centre, lo, on the eve of the opening of the Rennes trial, sets before General Mercier a formidable problem and creates for him a grave responsibility. General Mercier had the right to be preoccupied when the Rennes trial was about to open. A letter of accusation before the High Court had been deposited against him by a minister who himself was perhaps astonished the next day to have risked it, by the honorable M. Charles Dupuy; but the Chamber ruled that the vote on the referral of General Mercier to the High Court should be deferred until the council of war at Rennes had pronounced. So that the council of war at Rennes was going to decide not only on Dreyfus, but on General Mercier, and General Mercier was driven into a corner if he did not want to see opening before him the doors of the High Court. (Applause on the same benches.)

He asked himself whether he was going to make public use, before the council of war at Rennes, of the photographed document that for months had served to confirm the wavering conviction of his friends; many of those around him who had propagated the legend considered that the hour had come for him to discharge himself, that the hour had come for him to uncover himself. They said to him: You made our conviction by means of the annotated bordereau and the photograph that was shown to us by Colonel Stoffel and by others; you must, before the judges at Rennes, produce at last the truth, the whole truth.

This sort of summons was addressed to him by la Libre Parole in July. It was addressed to him by M. Déroulède in a letter written by him to M. Galli on 7 August 1899, a few days before the opening of the trial. M. Déroulède begged him, summoned him in some sort to reserve none of the means of defense — the whole truth, the whole truth.

Someone brought to the newspaper le Petit Caporal, on 3 August 1899, an article which summed up the whole system of the annotated bordereau which was to be at the Rennes trial General Mercier’s system. It announced, on 3 August, under the title: The Emperor of Germany and the Dreyfus Affair. — The Secret Document.

Tomorrow we shall publish a communication of the gravest kind on the secret document of the Dreyfus trial. This communication treats also, with particular competence, the question of the personal acts of the emperor of Germany in this affair. We believe that the reading of such a communication may throw a new light on the drama which is going to unfold at Rennes.

According to the testimony he has rendered these last days, and which has been published, it is M. Ferlet de Bourbonne who had brought this communication to le Petit Caporal. I am sure that he will take the responsibility for it.

The next day, 4 August, the paper said under the same title:

We announced yesterday that we would publish today a communication of the gravest kind on the secret document of the Dreyfus trial. This note was brought to us by a friend who is intimately mixed up in the Dreyfus affair and who is called to go to Rennes to depose at the trial that will unfold next week. At the urgent request of our friend, who wishes that nothing leave him his complete liberty of action and of deposition, we have consented, in the interest of justice, to deprive our readers of a truly sensational article, all the terms of which were, we have the most profound affirmation of it, the expression of truth. This truth will moreover be demonstrated in the course of the Dreyfus trial, in the presence of probative facts to which we allude, and as, later, the information which reaches us, we have reason to believe, that the judges of the council of war at Rennes, judging in their soul and conscience, will not allow themselves to be influenced by any cause foreign to justice, it is with confidence that we await the verdict.

It would result from the article that it would be General Mercier himself who would have asked le Petit Caporal not to publish a system that was to be sustained at the Rennes trial. M. Ferlet de Bourbonne declares — I hasten to add that I have not been able, on this point, to verify his affirmation — that it is our colleague — he declared it in a recent article in l’Européen — M. Firmin Faure who went to le Petit Caporal, in the name of General Mercier, to ask that there not be published the system that was to serve as the rule of accusation for General Mercier in the Rennes trial.

Why suppress on the eve of the trial the exposition of a system which for months — for years — had formed the basis of the affirmations of almost the entire press of the opposition? Why suppress it? If it were true, General Mercier ought once again to have let the expression of it be produced; never, for years, would he have taken the trouble to defend the system that the press of the opposition had created. Why does he take the trouble, on the eve of the trial, to stop its expression? Why? It is because he did not wish, before the opening of debates, that his hands should be bound by a precise system. He wished to reserve himself, according to the turn of the debates, either to produce publicly the annotated bordereau and to fling it at the judges saying: “It was wished; even should war come of it, I have been obliged to produce the whole truth before the country”; or else he wished to reserve himself the means of acting in a more discreet and more occult manner by creating around the judges a state of opinion that would determine their verdict without exposing it to the direct and contradictory discussion of the system which, for years, had been affirmed without his denying it. (Applause on the left and on the extreme left. — Murmurs on the right.)

There is why, before the Rennes trial, le Petit Caporal was begged not to produce the system which had hitherto formed the very basis of the accusation.

But at Rennes, General Mercier could not produce it publicly; he could not, because he ran up, from the very first hearing, against the decisive declaration of M. Casimir-Perier affirming that he was clearing everything up, that nothing unknown remained in the diplomatic incident of 1895. But, if General Mercier could not publicly produce the system which was his and that of 1894, he did everything, in his very deposition, to suggest the hypothesis of it to the mind of the judges, and to throw thus confusion and trouble into consciences.

He affirmed that emperor Wilhelm himself was in direct correspondence with his espionage valets. He affirmed that, in the night of 5 January 1895, war had been at our doors, and he tried thus to indicate that if one could not tell the entire truth, it was because in 1895 a mortal conflict had been on the point of breaking out between France and Germany. Finally he said to the judges, suggesting to them thus the hypothesis of the multiple manipulations of the bordereau, he said to them, in his deposition:

I leave aside

Retain well, gentlemen, these words:

I leave aside all these considerations relating to the handwriting because I consider that they have little importance, given that, whoever the person is who made the bordereau, whoever the person is who wrote it, I persist in believing it is by Captain Dreyfus.

(Exclamations on the left.)

And in the text revised for him, which he had subsequently distributed to the judges, one reads:

I persist therefore in believing that the bordereau was written by Captain Dreyfus! but I do not attach great importance to this question because even if the bordereau was written by another, its cryptographic examination will demonstrate that it cannot have been so save under the inspiration of Captain Dreyfus.

M. MAURICE VIOLLETTE. — He is a pretty wretch!

M. JULES-LOUIS BRETON. — He is truly mad!

M. JAURÈS. — There is the system. But take care! It is not so much as you imagine pure madness; it is the point at which the system of the annotated bordereau, which one does not dare to produce publicly and officially, nevertheless comes up as if by a tip to the surface of the trial.

General Mercier warns the judges that they are not in the presence of the first and original handwriting; he warns them that it matters little by what hand the annotated bordereau is under their eyes. What does it matter if it is not the handwriting of Captain Dreyfus? and he suggested to them thus: “What does it matter if the bordereau submitted to you is not the original bordereau? If a tracing has intervened, if a copy of it has been made, if, in this copy, there is found the trace of another hand, what does it matter! The original author, the true inspirer, is Captain Dreyfus” — it is thus that M. General Mercier suggested to the judges… (Protests on the right. — Applause on the extreme left.)… by all the indications of his testimony, the system that one did not dare to produce directly. It is always the same procedure, the occult procedure, the insinuating procedure, the procedure of corrupting hypotheses. (Applause on the left and on the extreme left.)

It is indeed necessary that the mind of the judges should be haunted by this hypothesis. One of them asks him:

My general, has no one ever made the hypothesis that the bordereau on tracing-paper might well be the copy of an original bordereau?

For years this system has been propagated, the name of General Mercier has been mixed up in it — here is the first time that this system makes, through a question from the judges, its official appearance in the trial. What is General Mercier going to do?

If this system is false, if he comes to disavow it, he will seize the occasion that is given him to protest publicly against an invention which is compromising for himself. Do not forget it: in 1894, it was not on the bordereau on thick paper, it was on the bordereau on thin paper that Dreyfus was condemned; consequently, if the bordereau of 1894 were only a copy, a tracing of the original bordereau, General Mercier would have assumed in 1894 the heavy responsibility of having a man judged on a document which would not have revealed to the judges its true character. (Very good! very good! on the left.)

Will General Mercier protest? Listen:

I have seen — says General Mercier with a detached air — I have seen this hypothesis in the newspapers, but it was never made at that moment at the ministry of war. We have always admitted that the document on onion-skin paper was indeed the original document of the bordereau.

General Mercier does not say: the hypothesis is false, absurd, impossible; he says — note well these deeply calculated words of a man who has at least the merit of measuring them all exactly — : “The hypothesis was not made at that moment,” — that is, in 1894 — indicating thus the change of system which, in his own mind, was produced subsequently to Henry’s intervention and to Sandherr’s legend, for the entire system that has developed in the nationalist and clerical press. (Applause on the left and on the extreme left.)

At the risk of having yet another newspaper of our adversaries hooted by our adversaries themselves, I am going to read and must read the open letter that le Gaulois of 14 August 1899 addressed to General Mercier, two days after his deposition.

General Mercier’s testimony is of 12 August; the letter is dated 13 and appears in le Gaulois of the 14th. Here it is:

To M. General Mercier

General, in your valiant, loyal, irresistible deposition, you said a great part of the truth; but did you say it whole? I doubt it, and here is why: you note that the emperor of Germany personally instigated espionage affairs; that, following the delivery of the bordereau, the emperor of Germany felt vivid emotion; that, at a given moment, for some hours, war had appeared imminent; but what you do not say is what first irritated the emperor to the point of threatening war, and what then calmed him. Your silence, on this point, leaves a formidable obscurity hovering over your deposition, and over the entire affair, and which I feel in people’s minds. A most serious man explained to me as follows the drama of which you have lifted for us only a corner.

The bordereau had been written by Dreyfus on stout paper and sent to the head of German espionage, for emperor Wilhelm. Facing each item was indicated the price demanded. The emperor sent the bordereau back to Paris with a note in his own hand, in German, the meaning of which was that decidedly that scoundrel Dreyfus was very demanding, and that one had to watch that he deliver as soon as possible the documents announced.

The bordereau thus annotated was handed to Colonel Henry. One understands the emotion of the German embassy when the disappearance of the famous document was noticed. The Count de Münster stormed, threatened; he calmed himself only on the solemn promise never to speak of the incident; but before communicating the bordereau to the political ministers, the minister of war had a photograph made of it; you possess copies of this photograph; you have brought it on your person to Rennes.

These facts explain the quiproquo of Esterhazy; in order to motivate the prosecution without uncovering the emperor of Germany, Esterhazy was charged with tracing on onion-skin paper the photograph of the bordereau, omitting the annotation of the emperor of Germany. Thus, Esterhazy could say truly that the bordereau was not his; you have been able to maintain truly that it was indeed the work of Dreyfus.

If this affirmation is very serious and very exact, confirm it: if it is in part erroneous, rectify it. Whatever you may say, hostile and patriotic France will accept it as for you the definitive expression of truth.

But General Mercier remained silent. The article in le Gaulois was distributed at Rennes in military circles, sent directly to the judges; it was the object of their constant commentaries.

And imagine to yourselves the impression that such affirmations produced on the mind of those officers accustomed to see in General Mercier — former minister of war, justicer of 1894 — the defender of justice and the defender of the honor of the army.

His friends, the newspapers that supported and glorified him, said to him in an open letter: “You must produce a photograph of the annotated bordereau.” And he did not deny, he kept silent! The officer-judges said to themselves:

If he does not speak, it is because he does not wish to compromise the fatherland,

(Vigorous applause on the left and on the extreme left)

it is because he does not wish to play France and peace on this decisive card; but here we are informed, here we are warned. In his deposition, he told us as much as he could tell us, he warned us as much as he could warn us, and the silence of acquiescence by which he consecrates at this hour the authorized revelations of his friends is a new continuation of the letter of the emperor.

The work of sophistication, the work of falsification of minds was continuing. (Renewed applause on the extreme left and on the left.)

Gentlemen, the judges were clearly haunted by this hypothesis with which they were being impregnated, saturated with this legend with which they were being enveloped, and one finds it in apparently minuscule details which reveal to those who wish to observe in good faith the profound reality of things, as superficial symptoms reveal to the physician the profound lesion of the organism.

When madame Henry, the widow, came on 16 August 1899 to depose before the judge at Rennes, listen to the questions — at first disconcerting, bizarre, amusing if you will — that the judges put. She has just recounted that on the evening when the accusing bordereau had been handed to her husband, the day when he had found it among the papers untangled and reconstituted by him, he had said to her sadly:

“I am very much afraid that this French officer may be compromised in an adventure of treason,” and he had, she says, remained vigilant, preoccupied and anxious until nearly midnight.

That paper which you saw him going through, late in the evening, do you remember if it was a paper of…

(Exclamations and laughter on the right.)

M. THE PRESIDENT. — There is nothing to laugh at! (Very good! very good!)

M. JAURÈS.

Madame Henry, the widow. — I did not see the bordereau close up.

It is understood! I have perceived some sneers, by which I am not moved, and I say: For all the men who have the courage to seek in good faith, even after indications that may appear slight at first but which on reflection are decisive, I ask them if it is not the sign of grave preoccupation of mind in the judges of Rennes; here is another detail that may excite the verve of certain of my colleagues.

The same member of the council of war. — But did you see him working on this paper?

Madame Henry, the widow. — He had papers of all sorts. It was eleven o’clock at night. I did not see.

Another member of the council. — Will you tell us, please, if in the offices where Colonel Henry worked there was a table?

Madame Henry, the widow. — It was in the dining room.

The same member of the council. — There was a table, when you were there, around eleven o’clock at night, and when Colonel Henry was busy working? This paper was on the table?

Madame Henry, the widow. — On the table, all the papers were scattered; there was an oilcloth covering the whole table.

— Was there not a part of the table that was free of the cloth?

On the right. — Singular question!

M. JAURÈS. — Yes, gentlemen, the question is bizarre, disconcerting, if one does not recall, for having consulted men who do tracing, that to do tracing work one needs the solid and homogeneous point of support of a table not covered with a somewhat yielding substance. The judge of the council of war was so haunted by the idea that, scarcely in possession of the bordereau on thick paper to which his colleague had just alluded — Colonel Henry having occupied himself in taking tracings of it — that he asked whether there was, on the table where he worked, an oilcloth, and he asked madame Henry, the widow, whether a corner of the oilcloth was not turned up so as to leave the table bare. (Various movements.)

Gentlemen, after all this work of suggestion produced upon the mind of the judges and which reveals itself in the apparently strange questions I have just commented on rapidly before you, just as in the first week of the trial the newspaper le Gaulois had come to affirm the system of the annotated bordereau, in the last week, on 6 September 1899, it is la Libre Parole, three days before the verdict, that reproduces, it too, for the judges the same system, and that warns them — gentlemen, you are going to think with redoubled attention of this passage — that General Mercier himself had in his deposition given the discreet indication of the system:

“The two bordereaux. — The extraordinary visit of M. de Münster to the Élysée becomes on the contrary as simple, as natural, and as human as can be if one admits that on learning of Dreyfus’s arrest, Germany felt itself compromised and feared that there might be found on the seized document some traces of this compromise. Several newspapers, both French and foreign, have for an instant signaled this document of which we have good reasons to believe most are concerned.

The true bordereau. — But if the bordereau presented to us until this day is not the true bordereau, what then was the unknown bordereau, and what has become of it?”

And after recounting the interview of M. Casimir-Perier and M. de Münster:

Germany, says la Libre Parole, was willing to pass the sponge, but on condition that there would never be a question of the true bordereau. By common accord it was agreed that the more would not be admitted but as never having existed. The two governments engaged never to make use of it, never to make the slightest allusion to it, whatever might happen. On the French side, it was a great fault of M. Casimir-Perier, the Dreyfus affair becoming a veritable Chinese puzzle, an enigma whose secret could be penetrated only by very rare initiates.

The annotation. — What now was this true bordereau? In its tenor, it differed in nothing from the bordereau which was at the Rennes trial and which, in all likelihood, is only a facsimile, a photograph; but the initial, the true bordereau bore something more, something essential, an annotation written and signed by the hand of a very great personage.

This annotation, which consisted of two sentences, was not written in French, that goes without saying. We believe nevertheless that we may affirm that the following translation reproduces very faithfully its sense: Send as quickly as possible the documents mentioned; make sure that the scoundrel Dreyfus hastens.

You would wish to know the name of the annotator? We shall not say it. But…

•                      *

… we think that on rereading attentively certain depositions of the Rennes trial, it will not be impossible to guess it with some certainty of not being mistaken.

Thus the judges are warned of the true meaning of General Mercier’s testimony.

Gentlemen, what effect could these declarations, all these suggestions have produced on the mind of the judges? They lived in this military milieu, they lived under the immediate action of the great chiefs, who summed up for them all the prestige of life, and there is no doubt that in the very milieu that enveloped them an attempt was made to direct them toward a particular solution.

I have no need to recall to M. Syveton… (Ah! ah! on the right.)

M. THE DUKE DE ROHAN. — At last! we are going to speak of the election. It is the first time since the opening of the discussion.

M. JAURÈS. — I have no need to recall to M. Syveton the article which, on the death of Colonel de Villebois-Mareuil, he devoted to him — a vigorous and, moreover, moving article.

M. Syveton recalled one of the episodes in the life of Colonel de Villebois-Mareuil, and M. Syveton, who, like me, attended, at least during a part of the debates, the Rennes trial, recalled, in an article in l’Écho de Paris, what propaganda Colonel de Villebois-Mareuil engaged in.

He showed him: “I believe I can reproduce nearly from memory the passage where he speaks of this incident (Various movements) — M. Syveton will rectify me if I am mistaken — M. Syveton showed Colonel de Villebois-Mareuil on the green sofa of a hotel at Rennes, seated side by side with an officer whom he did not name — but who is, beyond doubt, M. de Bréon — occupied entirely, he said, in disputing him with his confessor.

No, M. de Bréon was not disputing him with his confessor; an attempt was being made to dispute him with his conscience: this man had to be bent…

A member on the right. — Are you sure of that, monsieur Jaurès?

M. GEORGES BERTHOULAT. — You have no right to make the great dead speak! (Exclamations on the extreme left. — Applause in the centre and on the right.) I protest! If you had heard, as I did, Colonel de Villebois-Mareuil before his departure for his campaign to the Transvaal, you would know what great ideal of patriotism animated him, an ideal which you are perhaps incapable of understanding. (Renewed applause in the centre and on the right. — Noise on the left.)

M. JAURÈS. — I do not wish there to be any misunderstanding, and I do not wish in any way to force the sense of M. Syveton’s declarations. I note only, according to him…

M. GABRIEL SYVETON. — Will you allow me a word?

M. JAURÈS. — Willingly!

M. GABRIEL SYVETON. — I add a detail which was, I believe, in my article, but I am not entirely sure: M. de Villebois-Mareuil was M. de Bréon’s cousin; there was therefore nothing astonishing that, in that city, where they found themselves together, they should have conversations at the hotel where M. de Villebois-Mareuil was lodged and where I myself was lodged.

M. de Villebois-Mareuil had not undertaken a campaign of catechization on M. de Bréon, but he said to me: “It is astonishing how my cousin de Bréon resists the opinion concerning Dreyfusism of his own confessor, and we discuss it together.” (Various movements. — Noise.)

M. JAURÈS. — That is understood, and I am happy to take note of M. Syveton’s clarifications.

M. THE COUNT DE LA ROCHETHULON. — There is nothing to be happy about!

M. JAURÈS. — Thus when one believes one notices that under the inspiration, shall I say, of his confessor…

M. THE COUNT DE LA ROCHETHULON, ironically. — Down with the cassock! (Laughter.)

M. JAURÈS. — … one of the judges of the Rennes trial seemed inclined toward the acquittal of the accused, another officer…

M. GABRIEL SYVETON. — He was his cousin!

M. JAURÈS. — Another officer, his cousin — I do not contest it was his right — but another officer, not provided with special documents, tried to make the conviction of the judge veer in another sense…

M. THE COUNT DE LA ROCHETHULON. — That is not worthy of you, monsieur Jaurès.

M. JAURÈS. — Gentlemen, almost the whole clergy, regular or secular, had taken sides in the affair… (Lively protests in the centre and on the right.)

M. AYNARD. — That is not exact! (Yes! yes! on the left.)

M. JAURÈS. — I said: almost the whole clergy; I do not claim that there were not numerous and noble exceptions. But the immense majority of the regular and secular clergy considered that the acquittal of the Jew condemned by authority would be a defeat for the Church itself and for the principle of authority. (Applause on the extreme left and on various benches on the left. — Lively protests on the right and on various benches in the centre.)

M. GAYRAUD. — How can you say that? You know very well that it is false!

M. JAURÈS. — And then, when in this clergy almost entire, obstinate in maintaining come what may a decision of authority, when in this clergy a man happens to recall to intimate truth judges who must judge, and when one learns that one of those who were abandoning themselves to the vertigo of the spirit of authority and of caste, this man, by chance, recalls his duty to the one who tomorrow shall be judge and who indeed ought to be only a judge seeking the truth, one becomes anxious, one is moved (Applause on the extreme left and on the left), and an officer is summoned to this anxious and tormented conscience to remind it that before its duties toward the truth and toward the Church, it has duties toward an armed corporation which exacts come what may the sacrifice of a man! (Applause on the extreme left. — Noise on the right.)

M. JULES AUFFRAY. — You have no right to say that of Colonel de Villebois-Mareuil.

M. PUGLIESI-CONTI. — Speak to us then of the interference of Jewish rabbis and Protestant pastors in this affair. You forget the role played notably by M. Zadoc-Kahn! (Noise on the left.)

M. GAYRAUD. — I ask for the floor.

M. JAURÈS. — And when this officer felt thus the need to defend himself, against how many solicitations did the other judges have to struggle, enveloped everywhere by the military inspiration itself and by the legend created and nourished for four years!

Gentlemen, there will doubtless come a day when, like the judges of 1894, the judges of Rennes, when they feel weighing too heavily upon them the burden of certain anxieties and certain memories, will say exactly what are the causes that determined their judgment. We know how those of 1894 hesitated before saying that they could speak, brutally, of the illegal communication of the secret documents. Three years were needed before one of them began timidly to speak, and we have not been able to obtain the testimony of the others, although today this illegal communication has not been contested, although it has been recognized at Rennes by General Mercier himself. So it would not be a miracle if the judges of 1899 did not manage to untangle at once and to affirm aloud the various influences which may have acted upon them.

But let there be no equivocation! It is not a procedure of revision that is in question — even if the system of the annotated bordereau, even if the project of the letter of Wilhelm II, whose history I have recounted to you, had not had upon the mind of the judges of Rennes the troubling influence it doubtless had, even if the verdict were explained solely or chiefly by other causes, the political and social problem would remain, the political and social responsibility would remain, and we, political men, we, Republican party, would have the duty to seek how, from the intelligence service, so monstrous a legend could be propagated for three years. (Very good! very good! on the left.)

But there have already been some stammerings of confidences; the trouble of at least one of the judges has begun to let itself be guessed; I would here make only an allusion, were I not afraid of furnishing — the account that I have in my hands, it is by a scruple of loyalty that I wish to give a complete reading of it to the Chamber.

Monsieur, I believe it is my duty to make known to you, in the interest of truth, the various conversations I had during the course of last October with Major Merle, retired, judge in 1899 at the Rennes trial, in the Dreyfus affair.

It is the testimony of a physician, M. Dumas, who offers to certify before any jurisdiction, on his oath, the exactness of his account. You will see that there is no need to force its sense. It is only an indication, but I believe it my duty to give it to the Chamber in its literal tenor.

The first conversation had as its subject Monday 13 October.

I found myself with him at Avignon on an outing. As I asked him whether he had often been a judge in councils of war:

— Often, he replied.

— It is sometimes a great responsibility to assume?

— Never. For my part, I have always followed what my conscience dictated to me.

— And you have never had doubt after a condemnation?

— Never!

— Yet for Captain Dreyfus, it seems to me that in your place, I would be ravaged by doubts.

— No, oh! no; there, the certainty was absolute.

— Absolute? a certainty; you mean your conviction?

— Yes, certainly, but it was absolute.

— Yet, I, who have followed every line of this trial, would have acquitted without the shadow of a doubt.

— It was impossible for anyone other than a judge to form a conviction.

— Why? since everything was taking place in broad daylight?

— No! no! not everything.

— But then take from me all anguish on this subject. It is a veritable suffering for me to believe in the innocence of a man so long condemned. Cite to me the deposition that convinced you. Is it that of Mercier?

— No, no. But we are speaking of the Dreyfus affair, and I never speak of it. Do not speak to me of it; we cannot know.

— It is therefore the secret dossier that edified you?

— No, no, do not speak to me of it any more.

— It is then the secret deposition of that wretch Czernuski?

— No, in no way. Do not occupy yourself with the depositions; one cannot form an impression when one does not know all the elements that you could not know and that fixed us.

— Come now, the bordereau is by Esterhazy. There can be no doubt.

— Leave aside Esterhazy and the bordereau; all that has nothing to do with it.

— But then, it would then be true, this abominable history of a bordereau bearing an annotation signed by the emperor of Germany, of a bordereau on thick paper, and where Dreyfus would be named in the annotation?

— What? What are you saying?

Major Merle appeared stupefied and terrified. I repeated the same terms.

— Do not speak of such an affair. Do not speak to me of it, this affair could rise to the surface again.

— But it has risen, major.

An inquiry is going to be requested by the family from the judges, to know whether they suffered such pressure, such an illegality.

— Do not speak of that, I do not wish to speak of it.

He fled, walked fast, agitated.

— Why, since everything was taking place in broad daylight?

— No, I was not mistaken. He was guilty.

— But if your conviction had been formed on a false document?

— No, no, I do not wish to speak.

— But the fact that I speak of it to you, I must know it. If I know it, it is because people have spoken.

— And who?

— But Mercier himself has spoken of it. He spoke of it to Émile Ollivier, to Princess Mathilde. Others finally have spoken.

— In any case, it is not I; no, I do not want him to have spoken. If this one has spoken of it, he is a scoundrel.

I have summed up for you there, monsieur, this first conversation, trying to reproduce even the precise terms employed by Major Merle. If I have had to, as in any account of conversation, prune many details, I have not written a single word that was not pronounced.

Having returned to Montpellier with the major, I continued to see him every day. At the end of the week, on Sunday 19 October 1902, I found myself at Saint-Georges at his brother’s home.

Chatting alone with the major, I asked him:

— Well, major, what do you intend to do?

— About what?

— About the annotated bordereau communicated at Rennes and to establish your good faith. The death of Zola may have delayed the request for inquiry, but it must, despite the wait, it is going to be made.

— Listen, doctor, he said to me, you do indeed believe that anyone can be deceived?

(At Avignon, I had tried to demonstrate to him sharply the falsity of the document in question.)

— Certainly, and I do not doubt your sincerity.

— Well! if I have been deceived, I ask nothing better, in case of inquiry, than to recognize it.

The arrival of a third party changed the conversation. But I believed myself, two days later, authorized by this declaration to address, in leaving Montpellier momentarily, a letter to Major Merle. I repeated to him our conversation of Avignon and Saint-Georges; I tried to demonstrate to him the evidence of the inauthenticity of the document and the gravity of the secret pressure exercised on the judges. I adjured him finally, to clear himself of any suspicion of culpable complaisance, to take the initiative of the reply.

On my return, I saw the major on the evening of Friday 24 October. Pressed by me to speak, he replied that he wished to do nothing and added several times: “I said nothing.” And as I made him observe that I could not associate myself with his silence, that he was asking me to leave myself free to speak in his place, he replied to me: “Do as you wish, but for my part, formally, I said nothing.”

In my conversation at Saint-Georges with Major Merle, I neglected an important point.

When I asked him what he intended to do about the annotated bordereau, he hesitated. I then said to him: “Come now, major, this document is false.”

It is then that he said to me: “Listen, doctor, you do admit that one can be deceived in good faith!”

(Various movements.)

I do not wish to exaggerate in any way the value of this first confidence. But for whoever knows with what strict reserve the judges have always defended themselves against communications and confidences of this order, there is enough to awaken at the very least a beginning of disquietude in minds.

I add nothing on the point of view of the substance of the affair, of which I told you yesterday neither I nor the Government are judges; but I say that the political problem remains, and I say to our adversaries, to those who have brought here in the election of which you have to judge the character and the morality (Interruptions), to those who have brought here against the Republican party the formal accusation of being the party of the foreigner, to those who have brought against the Republican majority,

On the right. — Not against the whole Republican party.

M. JAURÈS. — Gentlemen, you aggravate the insult by making it precise. (Applause on the extreme left and on the left.)

M. THE BARON DE BOISSIEU. — Perfectly!

M. JAURÈS. — I have the right to say to those who have brought here against the Government of the Republican majority, that of yesterday continued by that of today, the accusation of being the Government of the foreigner, I have the right to say to them that after the campaign waged around a false document and an inept and culpable legend for four years, a formidable alternative arises for them. Either the nationalist party believed in the reality of these documents and in the truth of this legend, and never did a party descend lower in the order of intelligence… (Vigorous applause on the extreme left and on the left. — Interruptions and noise on the right.)

M. THE COUNT DE LANJUINAIS. — That is not polite, but it has no importance.

M. JAURÈS. — … or it did not believe in it… (Renewed interruptions on the right.)

You will always be free, gentlemen, to escape one of the terms of the alternative by taking refuge in the other. (Laughter on the left.)

Or it did not believe in it, and never did a political party descend lower in the order of probity. (Applause on the extreme left and on the left.)

Gentlemen, I do not expect from those who have spoken, affirmed, invented in your name, that they will come to explain themselves here fully on the affirmations produced by them. Already M. Millevoye has refused to explain himself. (Interruptions on the right.)

M. LUCIEN MILLEVOYE. — I refuse in no case to explain myself. I shall explain myself, if it be necessary, in a contradictory debate bearing on the affair as a whole.

M. JAURÈS. — On 25 December 1900, in an article that I recommend again to the meditations of some of our colleagues on the right…

M. THE BARON XAVIER REILLE. — We are not irritated, but disgusted.

M. JAURÈS. — … M. Rochefort, under the title: The Mysteries of Mont-Valérien, recounts the whole history of the annotated bordereau, and he offers to testify to it either before a jury or before any commission of inquiry whatever; then he adds:

At that time there was perhaps patriotism in keeping silent; there is now patriotism in speaking.

Well, gentlemen, I owe excuses to M. Rochefort. Until this day I had believed that he had taken sides violently in this affair from party spirit, from bad passion; I am obliged to recognize that he was in good faith; I am obliged to recognize that he took seriously the document of Wilhelm II. Yes, the general staff converted him. They converted him first in order to make use of him as a guarantee toward the others; they made of him, in this affair, the fundamental dupe. (Laughter on the left.)

Gentlemen, I do not hope that M. Rochefort will explain himself, although he has declared that patriotism now made it a law to explain oneself; it is a patriotism of variable obligations!

M. FIRMIN FAURE. — He has never varied as you have!

M. JAURÈS. — And now, I imagine that prudence will come to correct the impulses of this patriotism. No! they will not speak; no! they will not explain themselves, even after the affirmations of theirs that I have produced at this tribune and for which they ought to take responsibility by indicating the origins of the system alleged by them. They will keep silence to continue to take shelter in equivocation. But it is now demonstrated — that would suffice — that one can speak at this tribune of these things (Interruptions on the right), that one can speak of the annotated bordereau, of the false letter of Wilhelm II, without unleashing storms. War no longer growls over our heads, the patriotic pretext, alleged by them, is dissipated. (Interruptions.) They can speak without shaking the peace of Europe. (Applause on the extreme left and on the left.)

Let them speak then! Let them explain themselves!

As for us, who have to say in what conditions, still mysterious, the letter of General de Pellieux made a short appearance at the ministry of war; as for us who have seen by the official testimony, before the Court of Cassation, of M. Paléologue, that our intelligence service was the workshop in which was fabricated the monstrous and inept forgery of the letter of Wilhelm II (Murmurs on the right), we have a double duty: first the duty to ask the Republican government, the Government responsible to the majority and to the country, to seek how it is possible, in the mechanism of the war offices, that a document so grave as the letter of General de Pellieux, so grave at the moment when it could throw decisive light, was suddenly placed under a bushel; we have the duty to ask this Government how it has been possible for our intelligence service to accredit a dangerous and villainous legend. (Very good! very good! on the left.)

M. DE BOURY. — That is the affair of justice!

M. JAURÈS. — No; it is not encroaching on the judicial order, these are questions of exclusively political and governmental order. (Applause on the left.)

We have the right and the duty to know it, and we have at the same time the duty to condemn by a precise vote the abominable system of electoral calumny by which an attempt has been made to ruin the credit of the Republican party in the very conscience of the fatherland. (Renewed applause on the same benches.) We have the duty to put a term to it and to prove to the declining nationalist party that its impotence of today must not be an excuse for its misdeeds of yesterday. (Vigorous applause on the left. — Interruptions on the right.)

M. FIRMIN FAURE. — If you had not had the official candidacy you would not be here.

M. JAURÈS. — If you did not do it, you would yourselves consecrate an electoral jurisprudence in which, as a rule, murderous calumny goes to the very roots of the national life of this country. That the party which has, for five years, the responsibility of its accumulated faults, of so many accumulated forgeries — that this party should have dared against us, against the Republic, to rise up as accuser; if you tolerate it, it would be the stupor of history, the scandal of conscience, and the shame of reason. (Vigorous and repeated applause on the extreme left and on the left. — Prolonged noise on the right. — The speaker, on returning to his bench, receives the congratulations of his friends.)

M. THE PRESIDENT. — The floor is given to M. the Minister of War.

M. GENERAL ANDRÉ, Minister of War. — Gentlemen, the Government intends to facilitate in the broadest measure the search for and the bringing to light of the truth in the affair in question today. (Applause on various benches.)

M. FABIEN-CESBRON. — But the judges have spoken!

M. THE MINISTER OF WAR. — For my own part, I am anxious to affirm that the honor of the army is not engaged in this affair to any degree. (Applause.) Condemnations have been pronounced, I recognize it, but at no moment could I have been happy to see condemned, for the most infamous of crimes, a French officer. (Renewed applause.)

M. THE COUNT DU PÉRIER DE LARSAN. — We are all of that opinion.

M. THE PRESIDENT. — Of course, everyone shares this sentiment.

M. THE MINISTER OF WAR. — I shall not follow the honorable M. Jaurès in the study he has made of this affair. I hold to the judgment of the last council of war. (Vigorous applause in the centre and on the right.)

M. THE MINISTER OF WAR. — But I consider that the conscience of this country has been singularly disturbed by the appearance of extenuating circumstances in a crime of this nature. (Various movements.)

M. JULIEN GOUJON (Seine-Inférieure). — The decree of pardon has reassured it.

M. THE MINISTER OF WAR. — While remaining, as a member of the Government, respectful of legal truth, I understand perfectly the disquietudes and anxiety of certain of you.

To bring at this moment a contribution to the truth, I bring the letter of General de Pellieux, of which there has been question. (Applause on the left. — Movements on the right.)

The secrets of which I am the keeper and that I preserve, I communicate to Parliament. (Applause on the left. — Exclamations and laughter on the right.)

M. GAYRAUD. — That is a strange means of preserving them.

M. THE MINISTER OF WAR. — Allow me! I communicate them within the limits to which I believe it possible.

There is first a letter of 31 August 1898:

Brigadier General de Pellieux, commanding the department of the Seine, adjutant to the general of division commanding the place of Paris.

My general, I have the honor to beg you kindly to transmit to M. the Minister of War the request herewith attached which I address to him. DE PELLIEUX.

Paris, 31 August Seen and transmitted: The general commanding the place of Paris, BORIUS

There is nothing with this document. Why is there nothing?

But here is a note:

I have the honor to return this request to the general commanding the place of Paris. General de Pellieux has been good enough to consent to withdraw it.

2 September 1898

The military governor of Paris, ZURLINDEN.

Therefore a document arrived at the minister.

It arrived at the governor and the governor in turn returned it.

Let us continue the history. This is of 31 August 1898.

On 4 June 1899, General Zurlinden, governor of Paris, writes to the minister of war:

Monsieur the Minister, I have the honor of addressing to you herewith a letter from General de Pellieux of 31 August 1898, of which I spoke to you yesterday.

(Various movements.)

This letter is written on 4 June 1899.

I believe that, to fix completely your opinion on this general officer, it would be useful for you to let him come to see you. In a few minutes of conversation you would certainly see more clearly into his intervention and his role than after long researches.

General ZURLINDEN.

Post-Scriptum. — It is following an interview with M. Cavaignac, then Minister of War, that General de Pellieux withdrew his request of 31 August 1898.

(Exclamations on the left.)

(M. Godefroy Cavaignac makes a gesture of denial.)

M. THE PRESIDENT. — Silence is fitting in the circumstance.

M. THE MINISTER OF WAR. — That is a covering letter addressed to the minister of war; it is of 4 June 1899, and here is the covering letter that accompanies the first.

It is General de Pellieux who returns his letter.

To Monsieur the military governor of Paris:

This is the hierarchical channel.

Monsieur the governor, In conformity with the desire that you express to me in your letter of 3 June, I have the honor of addressing to you the request that I begged you to transmit to M. the Minister of War, dated 31 August last.

Here is the letter that General de Pellieux kept for ten months and which he sends back to the minister of war. It arrives with its date of 31 August 1898:

Monsieur the Minister, Duped by men without honor, no longer able to hope to retain the confidence of my subordinates, without which there is no possible command, having lost on my side the confidence of those of my superiors who have had me work on forgeries…

On the extreme left. — There it is!

M. THE MINISTER OF WAR. —

… I have the honor of begging you kindly to liquidate my retirement for seniority of service.

There, verified, officially certified, is the letter of which a reading was given to you yesterday. (Applause on the extreme left and on the left.)

I repeat, I do not at all examine the question, but the Government, desirous of facilitating absolutely the search for the truth in this affair, fully accepts to be charged with proceeding administratively to an inquiry. (Vigorous applause on the extreme left and on the left.)

I add that, to safeguard my responsibility, I propose, in agreement with the Government, which has so decided, to have myself assisted by a certain number of magistrates in the examination of the documents that will be undertaken. (Repeated applause on the same benches.)

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — I ask for the floor.

M. THE PRESIDENT. — The floor would be M. Lasies’s.

M. LASIES. — I yield my turn at speaking to M. Cavaignac.

M. CAMILLE KRANTZ. — I ask for the floor on a personal matter.

On several benches. — Speak!

M. THE PRESIDENT. — I give the floor to M. Krantz on a personal matter.

M. CAMILLE KRANTZ. — I have asked for the floor to confirm what M. the Minister of War has just said and to explain in what circumstances the minister of war of 1899 took cognizance of the letter of General de Pellieux. At that time, 4 June 1899, civil authority was restored. The Government, of which I had the honor to be part, had decided to seek, after the pronouncement of the decree of revision, all the responsibilities that could be engaged…

M. PAUL DELOMBRE. — Very good!

M. CAMILLE KRANTZ. — … in the Dreyfus affair and that this revision should reveal. Having succeeded M. de Freycinet at the ministry of war and in conformity with the engagement he had taken in the council, I busied myself with seeking these responsibilities and had notably to occupy myself with General de Pellieux.

It was on this occasion that, having learned from M. General Zurlinden, governor of Paris, that General de Pellieux, on 31 August 1898, following the discovery of the Henry forgery, had requested his retirement and had then withdrawn this request, I asked for communication of the letter he had written.

M. GUSTAVE ROUANET. — Then it had not appeared in the newspapers?

M. CAMILLE KRANTZ. — It is not in the newspapers that the minister of war is accustomed to seek what concerns officers on whose fate he may have to pronounce. (Applause on the right and in the centre.)

I took cognizance of this letter; I had General de Pellieux come to my cabinet and, after having heard him, I absolutely refused to displace him. (Applause in the centre and on the right.)

M. JULES-LOUIS BRETON. — That does not prevent the letter from having been spirited away by M. Cavaignac. (Exclamations and noise in the centre and on the right.)

M. THE PRESIDENT. — The floor is given to M. Cavaignac.

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — I have first only to renew here the declaration I made yesterday before the Chamber. That declaration was this: I take the responsibility for everything that has been done and I consider that in the presence of a letter like that of General de Pellieux, the minister of war had only one resolution to take, that was to take no account of it. (Ironic exclamations on the extreme left and on the left. — Applause on the right and in the centre.)

This first declaration made, in order that no one may suppose that in the examination of the facts I am seeking to clear myself of responsibility, I come to precise statements on facts which have, moreover in my eyes, I repeat it, no importance. (Ironic laughter on the left.)

When M. General de Pellieux addressed himself to the military governor of Paris, M. General Zurlinden — and I am here authorized to speak in the name of M. General Zurlinden — when General de Pellieux came to bring to the military governor of Paris the letter he had addressed to him, the latter did what all military chiefs do in such a case, when they find themselves in the presence of a request made in a first impulse that they may judge unreflective; he said to General de Pellieux: I shall keep your letter; we shall speak of it again in a few days.

A few days later, General de Pellieux came back to find General Zurlinden and took back his letter; this confirms and explains notably the very documents brought a moment ago by M. the Minister of War.

On several benches on the left. — But no!

On the right. — But yes!

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — I beg your pardon!

This concords absolutely with the two documents which M. the Minister of War brought, the letter of transmission of General Borius to General Zurlinden and the letter in return of General Zurlinden to General Borius, no longer containing the letter taken back by General de Pellieux.

Therefore at this moment, I draw from this — if you please to draw conclusions — I draw this first conclusion that, contrary to what M. Jaurès said yesterday, General de Pellieux did not maintain what he had said in his letter. (Interruptions and denials on the extreme left and on the left.)

I beg your pardon! It was contested yesterday and it is established today both by the declarations I bring and by those that M. the Minister of War has brought. (Various movements.)

I address on this point no denial. I say that the declarations I bring from M. General Zurlinden and those that M. the Minister of War has brought are perfectly concordant. (Protests on the extreme left and on the left. — Applause on the right and on various benches.)

M. THE MINISTER OF WAR. — I wish to make remark that in the letter addressed by General Zurlinden, military governor of Paris, on 4 June, there is the following post-scriptum…

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — We shall speak of it in a moment, monsieur the Minister of War.

On the extreme left. — Read! read! (Noise.)

M. THE MINISTER OF WAR. — Here is the post-scriptum.

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — Monsieur the Minister of War, I shall explain myself at the end. I shall not let my discussion be interrupted. (Applause on the right. — Lively exclamations and protests on the extreme left.) Do you imagine, gentlemen, by chance, that I am here to submit to your wills? (Noise.)

M. THE PRESIDENT. — Speak facing forward, monsieur Cavaignac.

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — I shall speak as suits me, and since I am being interrupted on this side (the extreme left), I shall speak to the people who interrupt me. (Murmurs and protests on the extreme left. — Noise.)

M. THE PRESIDENT. — Gentlemen, you cannot prevent M. Cavaignac from explaining himself. He has been called to the tribune, he must have the right to discuss freely. Your dignity is engaged in listening to him in the most complete silence.

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — Do you imagine that we shall take in your presence the attitude of accused men? (Yes! yes! on the extreme left. — Applause on the right and on various benches in the centre.) We are in the presence of political adversaries, and if it pleases you to raise here personal incidents… (Noise.)

M. THE PRESIDENT. — I shall not tolerate it.

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — … I shall ask you if there is on your benches anyone ready to bear us out outside, or if you are of those cowards like M. Jaurès. (Prolonged noise. — Applause on the right and on various benches. — Exclamations and protests on the extreme left.)

I return to the examination of the facts…

M. ALBERT POULAIN. — I remark that M. Cavaignac uttered an insult which no one took up, because it touches no one. (Noise.)

M. THE PRESIDENT. — I did not hear the words you take up.

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — I return to the examination of the facts, and I say that there is a first point established (Noise on the left), on which, despite the diversion of M. the Minister of War, I shall recall the attention of the Chamber: it is that the letter addressed by M. General de Pellieux to M. General Zurlinden was given back to him by the latter three days later; this is the reason why it is not found in the dossier.

I shall add, since truly, yesterday, so much importance seemed to be attached to the fact that this document of the dossier, as people said, had been in the hands of the minister of war and that he had kept it and dissimulated it from M. Brisson, which M. Brisson did not fear to come and affirm falsely here yesterday… (Lively protests on the left and on the extreme left. — Applause on the right. — Noise.)

M. THE PRESIDENT. — You are using a word, monsieur Cavaignac, that I cannot tolerate.

M. HENRI BRISSON. — I ask for the floor. (Murmurs on the right. — Applause on the left and on the extreme left.)

M. THE PRESIDENT. — You have the floor.

M. HENRI BRISSON. — M. Cavaignac cannot say that he communicated to me the letter of M. General de Pellieux, for he himself, replying to M. Jaurès, does not even remember whether he was still at the ministry of war when it arrived there. (Vigorous applause on the left and on the extreme left.)

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — I am authorized by M. General Zurlinden to say here that he kept this document and that it was never at the ministry of war. There is a positive and clear declaration. (Applause on the right.)

M. CHARLES BOS. — And the post-scriptum?

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — I come to the sentence that M. the Minister of War cited, to that sentence in which M. General Zurlinden explains that it is following an interview with me that M. General de Pellieux is said to have withdrawn his letter. M. General Zurlinden commits on this point an error. (Exclamations on the extreme left and on the left.) I did not see General de Pellieux and I did not determine him to withdraw his letter. But I add, to put you entirely at ease, that this point has no importance. (Ironic exclamations on the same benches.)

You appear very preoccupied with a responsibility in this affair.

M. JULES-LOUIS BRETON. — You have engaged it there all alone.

M. THE PRESIDENT. — Monsieur Breton, I call you to order.

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — I tell you: do not worry about how you may escape; my responsibility, I engage it before you. I declare first that I take, as chief, the responsibility for what M. General Zurlinden did, you understand well; and I declare next that if the letter, instead of having come into his hands and having remained there, had come into mine, I would have done exactly what he did, I would have considered that this letter was an unreflective and unimportant act (Applause on the right and on several benches in the centre. — Interruptions and noise on the left), and I would have asked him to withdraw it.

M. VIOLLETTE. — You said the contrary yesterday.

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — I therefore take clearly today, as I took it yesterday, the responsibility of everything that has been done in this affair. (Very good! very good! on the right.)

And now, gentlemen, I reply to M. Jaurès. M. Jaurès has put the nationalist party into question here. He has spoken of those accusations that were brought against the present majority in the course of the electoral operations, which we are supposed to be discussing. I have not to speak here of the form of these attacks. It is not of the form but of the substance that I wish to speak. The nationalist party has been put into question.

Well! yes, we found ourselves during the last electoral campaign facing M. Jaurès, and we told the country that they were being drawn there into an enterprise of national disorganization. (Interruptions on the left. — Applause on the right and on various benches in the centre.)

M. Jaurès and the majority replied to us at that moment that the question was not there; that the debate between us was purely political, that it was solely a matter of the defense of the Republic and of democratic progress.

Well! I say that today by engaging, by imposing upon the Chamber the debate that he has brought here, M. Jaurès has taken upon himself to prove that we were right. He has thus manifested, by the very futility of the arguments that have been brought to this tribune (Applause on the right and on various benches in the centre), that this is a political enterprise. It will not be claimed that it was from love of truth that the allegations we have heard, and what concerns particularly the letter of General de Pellieux, were brought here. We find ourselves in the presence of a clearly characterized political enterprise! You are not here the servants of truth, you are simply the slaves of your passions and of your political rancors. (Renewed applause on the same benches.)

M. OCTAVE VIGNE. — You will not succeed in deceiving the country.

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — That is the importance of today’s sitting; M. Jaurès has imposed on the majority a new enterprise which proves right everything we said in the course of the electoral campaign; (Applause on the right) he has just dragged the Chamber into this enterprise which seemed to absorb its attention, into this enterprise in which it has transformed the old anti-clerical policy of the Republican party, which was a policy of religious neutrality, in which it has transformed it into an enterprise in which it places the power of the State at the service of another religious doctrine. (Applause on various benches in the centre and on the right.) M. Jaurès has succeeded in imposing upon the majority, which did not want it, the continuation of what we have called and what we still call a work of disorganization and national denial. (Applause on the same benches.)

If there could be doubt on the very nature and character of this enterprise, ah! I would easily find proof of it in the successive declarations of M. Jaurès; he himself avowed one day before his party that what he presented elsewhere as a campaign of justice and truth was at bottom only an enterprise against the military organization itself.

M. JULES-LOUIS BRETON. — That is not clear. (Exclamations on the right.)

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — Then he pronounced here even, at this tribune, in the month of June last, words of national denial (Applause on various benches in the centre and on the right), when he said that we should proclaim to the face of the country the bankruptcy of — that France no longer had anything in the bottom of her conscience that prevented her from demanding the simultaneous disarmament of peoples. (Applause on the same benches.)

What is aimed at is not this or that personality, but the military institution itself. This avowal escaped M. Jaurès in the surprise of his debate the other day with M. Ribot; he pronounced here words that I wish to cite textually; he said…

On the extreme left. — Is it a forgery?

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — Gentlemen, I hear an interruption that I take up.

You, do you want a personal debate?

M. THE PRESIDENT. — I shall not tolerate it, monsieur Cavaignac…

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — You do not look it. (Exclamations and noise on the extreme left.)

M. THE PRESIDENT. — I leave to the Chamber to judge whether I have defended M. Cavaignac’s right to speak. (Applause.)

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — I asked just now — and I repeat my words that they may be heard — whether you were all cowards like M. Jaurès. (Lively protests on the left and on the extreme left. — Cries: To order. — Applause on the right.)

M. THE PRESIDENT. — It belongs to the president…

M. JAURÈS. — I ask for the floor… (Very good! very good! on the extreme left.)

Let me say that I have not been, that I am not, and that I will not be the dupe of M. Cavaignac’s gross diversion. This premeditated and personal provocation, which nothing in my words had justified (Applause on the left. — Exclamations on the right), and which is simply the desperate convulsion of a man at bay, deserves only my disdain. (Vigorous applause on the extreme left and on various benches on the left. — Murmurs on the right and on various benches in the centre.)

M. THE PRESIDENT. — After M. Jaurès’s reply, I believe that the rules no longer have to intervene. (Marks of assent.)

The floor is given to M. Cavaignac.

M. JAURÈS. — The floor is given to M. Cavaignac. (Applause on the extreme left. — Exclamations and laughter on the right. — Various movements.)

On the right. — It is M. Jaurès who is dictator.

M. THE PRESIDENT. — I still occupy the chair, gentlemen, and I myself have given the floor to M. Cavaignac.

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — I return to my discussion and I have only one more word to add. I say that it is clear, today more than ever, that we are in the presence of an enterprise of national disorganization. (Applause on various benches in the centre and on the right. — Lively protests on the left.)

And when you claim that it is not the military institution itself that you attack, and that you do not try, after having succeeded in undermining the national thought, to break in France’s hands the instrument which is the guarantee of her greatness and of her security, I reply to you by the very words you have pronounced at this tribune. (Noise on the left. — Applause on the right.)

You said, a few days ago:

And when the country as a whole, when the honest men who are in the purple of the company of corruption, of perjury, of forgery, of treason, and when the country was able to say to itself that this policy of forgery… had poisoned the conscience of the army itself…

(Applause on the extreme left and on various benches on the left.)

Applaud, gentlemen, I take it as argument. Thus it is well established by your own avowal and by the applause that M. Jaurès’s sentence has just received, it is well understood that it is not this or that person you aim at here, and if there are any whom you aim at more particularly because they have had the honor, in difficult circumstances, to be the defenders of the ideas you attack — of that too we are proud. Know it well, opposite you, opposite those whom you avow today, you are going to find yourselves armed with an unshakable resolve. (Applause on various benches on the right and in the centre.)

It is possible that we may be only a minority. (Yes! yes! on the extreme left.)

It is possible, I say, that we may be only a minority, but we are a resolute minority and a strong minority… (Ironic exclamations on the left and on the extreme left. — Applause on various benches on the right and in the centre.)… strong with what was formerly the greatness and honor of the Republican party and of the Socialist party itself…

M. JULES-LOUIS BRETON (Cher). — You dare to claim that your party is a Republican party!

On the extreme left. — You can speak of honor to him!

M. PAUL CONSTANS (Allier). — The Socialist party is in good faith, it!

M. THE PRESIDENT. — Truly, gentlemen, these interruptions are intolerable.

M. PAUL CONSTANS (Allier). — The speaker has no right, monsieur Cavaignac, to speak of the Socialist party, that does not concern him!

M. THE PRESIDENT. — I call you to order.

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — … strong with an indestructible faith in the power and in the future of the ideas we represent. (Applause on various benches in the centre and on the extreme left. — Murmurs on the extreme left and on the left.)

M. HENRI BRISSON. — I ask for the floor on a personal matter. (Vigorous applause on the left and on the extreme left.)

Numerous voices. — To the tribune!

(M. Henri Brisson mounts the tribune. — Vigorous applause on the left and on the extreme left.)

M. HENRI BRISSON. — M. Cavaignac just now pronounced the word “falsely,” coupling it with what I had said yesterday and with my name. I ask him whether he applies this word “falsely” to the assertion I produced yesterday, namely that he had not communicated to the Government or to me the letter of M. General de Pellieux.

On the right. — He did not have it.

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — I apply this affirmation to the sentence in which you said that you appeared — pretending moreover to learn it in the course of the sitting (Applause on the right. — Protests on the left) — that you were learning that I had kept a document that had not been communicated to you and that this document was the letter of General de Pellieux. (Various movements.)

M. HENRI BRISSON. — Therefore it remains established that M. Cavaignac did not communicate to the Government of which he was part the letter of M. General de Pellieux. (Applause on the extreme left and on the left. — Noise on the right.)

On the right. — Since he did not have it!

M. HENRI BRISSON. — It remains established further by the written word of M. General Zurlinden, that it is after a conversation between M. General de Pellieux and M. Cavaignac that M. General de Pellieux withdrew it. (Applause on the left and on the extreme left.)

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — I ask for the floor. (Murmurs on the extreme left.)

M. THE PRESIDENT. — You have no right to protest thus, gentlemen. The speaker has the floor, listen to his reply.

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — It remains established that it was not following a conversation that did not take place that M. General de Pellieux withdrew his letter.

It remains established that, contrary to what you yourself affirmed, the letter of General de Pellieux was never at the ministry of war. (Applause on the right and in the centre. — Exclamations on the left and on the extreme left.)

M. GENERAL ANDRÉ, Minister of War. — I ask for the floor. (Applause on the left and on the extreme left.)

M. THE PRESIDENT. — The floor is given to M. the Minister of War.

M. THE MINISTER OF WAR. — I read again to the Chamber… (No, no! on the right. — Applause on the left.)

M. THE PRESIDENT. — Gentlemen, you wished it!

M. THE MINISTER OF WAR. — … without drawing any conclusion of myself, from the letter of General Zurlinden, military governor of Paris, letter that is dated 4 June 1899:

Post-scriptum. — It is following an interview with M. Cavaignac, then Minister of War, that General de Pellieux withdrew his request of 31 August 1898.

(Vigorous applause on the extreme left and on the left.)

M. THE PRESIDENT. — The floor is given to M. Cavaignac. (Noise.)

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — Gentlemen, I begin by making very exactly precise what I said yesterday, because I thought I understood from the interruptions of some of my colleagues that it was in the thought of some of them that I had said yesterday that I had read the letter of General de Pellieux.

M. FRANÇOIS FOURNIER. — You said it!

M. GUSTAVE ROUANET. — In the Journal officiel.

M. MAUJAN. — You corrected yourself afterwards!

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — I did not at all (Noise on the extreme left), at least, in order that there might be no equivocation, interrupted M. Jaurès after he had resumed speaking — and each one remembers it. To make quite precise what was the sense of my declarations, I said: “I have taken and I take, I repeat it, the responsibility of everything that may have been done in regard to the letter of General de Pellieux.” (Exclamations on the extreme left.) But, gentlemen, there is the Journal officiel.

(Interruptions and noise on the extreme left and on the left)

If you wish, we shall refer to the shorthand record.

M. FRANCIS DE PRESSENSÉ. — Repeat your first declaration for us.

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — I shall go to the end. If you claim to create an equivocation here…

On the extreme left. — Do not reverse the roles!

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — I shall ask you what is your singular conception of loyalty.

(Interruptions on the extreme left)

On the extreme left. — You have no right to say that!

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — If you claim to take a part of a man’s thought without taking the rest… (Applause at the centre and on various benches)

M. GUSTAVE ROUANET. — You are making two contradictory passages.

M. LE PRÉSIDENT. — The task of the interrupters is truly easy! (Hear, hear! — Laughter.)

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — I said — and my declaration could have only one meaning — that I took responsibility for all that had been done; but as my recollections went back five years, I could not know and I did not in fact know at that moment whether the letter had reached the ministry of war before or after my arrival.

There are the words that the whole Chamber heard, and you may, gentlemen, if it suits your political passions, search the whole stenographic record; I defy you to find a word of mine by which I declare to have received the letter. (Noise on the left)

On the extreme left. — Yes, you said it!

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — That is a bit much!

M. MAURICE VIOLLETTE. — You said almost textually that you had received it and that you had taken no account of it, and that is why I answered you in an interruption.

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — You will labour in vain to introduce into this debate the disloyalty of your interruptions. (Exclamations on the extreme left)

M. MAURICE VIOLLETTE. — It is you who…

M. LE PRÉSIDENT. — Monsieur Viollette, you have not been given the floor!

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — I therefore repeat here what was yesterday the meaning of my declarations, and to answer what M. general André has just said, who tries to draw a conclusion from a note by M. general Zurlinden and who reproduced this note after the declaration I had brought, I shall read to you the letter itself which M. general Zurlinden addressed.

Monsieur le député…

M. CHARLES BOS. — Is the signature legalised? (Exclamations at the centre)

On the extreme left. — What is the date of this letter?

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — It is dated 7 April 1903.

M. ARISTIDE BRIAND. — It is a complaisance letter. (Noise)

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. —

Monsieur le député, all reflections made, here is how, in my view, the matter of general de Pellieux’s letter requesting his retirement, which was spoken of yesterday Monday, in the Chamber of Deputies, ought to be re-established.

Immediately after the discovery of the Henry forgery, general Borius, then commandant of the place of Paris, the immediate superior of general de Pellieux, came to find me in my office, at the Invalides, to bring me this letter of general de Pellieux and to call my attention to its gravity.

(Ah! ah! on the extreme left)

I immediately summoned general de Pellieux. He was very moved, excited, very irritated at the idea that he might be accused of having too lightly endorsed a false piece in the Zola trial; painfully preoccupied above all by the thought that his children might one day reproach him for not having sufficiently defended the honour of their name.

(Vigorous applause on a great number of benches)

I tried to calm him, to ask him for explanations on the accusations he was formulating; but I could obtain nothing of the sort from him; and I remained convinced that there was nothing in it today, — that general de Pellieux had on that day yielded to a first impulse of anger and revolt that were quite understandable; and that he had first thought, in the indignation provoked by this state of mind in this former officer, that it mattered to try to keep him in the army.

At the centre. — There is the truth!

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. —

… I concluded by telling him that I wished to give him time for reflection before transmitting his request; that I would keep his letter for two or three days; that I would then send it back to him by general Borius, so that he might act with a clear head…

M. RIBOT. — This letter is very honourable for general Zurlinden. (Applause)

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — Perfectly.

M. MAURICE DUTREIL. — That is how a chief mindful of his duties ought to act. (Hear, hear! hear, hear!)

M. JULES-LOUIS BRETON. — Do you find that this letter is honourable for M. Cavaignac? (Noise at the centre)

M. PAUL GUEYSSE. — Then, monsieur Cavaignac, what M. the minister of war read from general Zurlinden would, in your view, be a forgery?

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — As M. Ribot has just said, it is a very honourable letter for general Zurlinden, and I consider that I honour myself in covering what he did with my responsibility, by declaring, as I have done repeatedly, that in his place and had I been seized of the letter, I should have acted as he did. (Interruptions on the extreme left. — Applause at the centre and on various benches)

M. ARISTIDE BRIAND. — It is you who need to be covered! (Noise)

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. —

… General Borius was notified, the letter was returned a few days later. Since then, I have heard no more of it, although I have several times seen general de Pellieux. This former energetic man; had he wished to maintain his request, nothing would have prevented him; and conversely nothing opposed it.

The staffs of the military government of Paris were not mixed up in this affair. It is probable that nothing will be found in the archives…

And here M. general Zurlinden commits an error, since M. the minister of war has found again the pieces which he came to read at this tribune. (Exclamations and ironic applause on the extreme left)

You are very proud, gentlemen, of your infallibility if you think that a man of this age cannot even be mistaken about probabilities of this order.

M. general Borius is dead; general de Pellieux too. I therefore remain alone to throw light on this sad incident, and on the sequel that was given to it, for which I accept responsibility.

Perhaps I spoke of this affair to your chief of staff? My recollections are not precise in this regard…

M. PAUL GOUZY. — But the letter that was read by M. the minister of war is precise. General Zurlinden says that he spoke to M. Cavaignac.

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — Wait a moment, monsieur Gouzy. You will find an answer as formal as you might wish to the allegation that was brought here by M. the minister of war.

M. GUSTAVE ROUANET. — It is a forgery, then!

M. PAUL GOUZY. — It is a question of a letter signed by general Zurlinden; one cannot make such an allegation about it.

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — I continue:

I believed yesterday I had spoken to you of it yourself, my former minister; but I have made a confusion; it is for another affair, also concerning general de Pellieux…

(Interruptions on the left)

But indeed, gentlemen, you are truly extraordinary! You are truly very sure of your memory, if you try to draw an argument, five years later, from what a man… (New interruptions on the same benches)

M. GUSTAVE ROUANET. — Ten months later.

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — Of what date is the letter that M. the minister of war read?

M. MAUJAN. — The allegation of which you speak is written in the hand of general Zurlinden and signed by him.

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — And then? What does that prove? It proves that M. general Zurlinden, on a fact he did not know and that he had no reason to know, had an interpretation of that moment, and that, in the eddies he finds again today, that interpretation gave rise to a confusion. (Noise on the left)

M. URSLEUR. — His recollections were more exact four years ago.

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — I finish the letter.

It is for another affair also concerning general de Pellieux that I was able, with my former minister, perhaps M. Krantz, to summon this general officer to his office.

I authorise you to make of this letter at the tribune of the Chamber whatever use will seem to you suitable.

I ask you in truth, gentlemen, what you are looking for. You are looking, when men bring you, concerning events that took place five years ago, recollections that are not of absolute precision, you are looking to know how things took place. What interest has that, since I declare to you that if M. general de Pellieux had come to find me, I should have done precisely what you think you can reproach me for having done? (Applause on the right and on various benches) What then is the interest of this debate? What are you trying to do? You are trying here to create equivocations. (Interruptions on the left)

What interest has it that things took place in one way or another, that M. general Zurlinden himself did what he honours himself in having done, or that I myself had done what I should honour myself in having done — what importance has it for the political aim you are pursuing? (Applause on the right and on various benches. — Noise on the left)

M. GUSTAVE ROUANET. — The question is to know if you betrayed your president of the council.

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — As to my responsibility, I affirm it here full and entire, in solidarity with that of M. general Zurlinden. (Vigorous applause on the right and on various benches)

M. LE PRÉSIDENT. — The floor is given to M. Lasies for a motion to adjourn the discussion.

M. LASIES. — Gentlemen, I should perhaps have renounced taking the floor in this debate, in spite of what I might call, without intending to wound him, the provocations of M. Jaurès; until the last moment I had thought that the Government, either by a word, or by some indication whatever, would have made the Chamber understand how bad it was for the rest of the country to awaken this affair which has slept so long already… (Interruptions on the left) and that for want of these duties it ought not to have allowed it to be awakened here. (Applause on the right — Interruptions on the left)

M. GUSTAVE ROUANET. — It is the commission of inquiry that began!

M. RIOTTEAU, president of the commission of inquiry. — I ask for the floor.

M. GUSTAVE ROUANET. — Too late!

M. MAURICE VIOLLETTE. — It is M. Beauregard who awakened the affair.

M. GUSTAVE ROUANET. — One ought not to have accepted the testimony of M. Judet.

M. SAVARY DE BEAUREGARD. — You will not throw us off the scent.

M. LASIES. — Gentlemen, in a recent debate, when there was a sensational incident concerning the honourable M. Ribot and the honourable M. Jaurès, I said to M. Jaurès: “You wish to take the responsibility of awakening the Dreyfus affair; I leave it to you.” M. Jaurès from his place answered me: “I accept it.”

He has shown today that he accepted in fact the whole responsibility; he took up the affair again from its origins. I thought that at least the minister of war would have the intention closed, that the council of war had rendered its verdict and that there was no longer any need to discuss it.

M. ASTIER. — He said so.

M. LASIES. — Now, to our great astonishment, we have seen M. the minister of war mount the tribune and…

On the left. — Do his duty.

M. LASIES. — … and declare that he was going to make himself the auxiliary, I will not say the accomplice, of those who wish to renew the agitation of the Dreyfus affair. (Applause on the right and at the centre. — Noise on the left and on the extreme left)

M. HENRI MICHEL (Bouches-du-Rhône). — Of those who wish light and truth.

M. LAMENDIN. — He is not a minister who utters forgeries at the tribune, this one!

M. PASTRE. — He is only doing his duty.

M. LASIES. — What I am saying makes you smile, monsieur le ministre de la guerre?

M. LE MINISTRE DE LA GUERRE. — Yes!

M. LASIES. — Is that all you have to answer? Well then! permit me to make known to you what foreign opinion thinks of the affair. (Exclamations on the extreme left. — Applause on the right) You must hear these words and they must remain upon your conscience. (Further applause on the right)

M. LE MINISTRE DE LA GUERRE. — You are doubtless about to read us a correspondence that comes from Paris. (Applause and laughter on the left)

M. LASIES. — I do not understand the bearing of your interruption.

Listen to this article of the Reichswehr, of Vienna, n° 1834, dated 14 March 1899. I do not know if it is a correspondence from Paris; it is the echo of abroad that I bring; it is this that must remain upon your conscience and that you must take your responsibilities. (Hear, hear! hear, hear! on the right)

The rampart of the fatherland raised by an ardent patriotism and thanks to immense pecuniary sacrifices is lamentably collapsing.

Thanks to the affair, the organism of the French army is stricken with incurable consumption, an abyss has opened between the army and the nation in which there are engulfed, with innumerable billions, the pride and the hope of France, her faith in her military power.

Each one is now free to cover with mud and insult the French army which alone maintains this country at the rank of a great power.

Faced with these evils, a government which is never sure of the morrow, a national representation agitated by all the passions of the day and bent by them like the reed under the storm.

(Interruptions on the extreme left)

No army in the world could remain healthy and vigorous under such conditions. And an army as fundamentally national as the French army can only succumb to the contagion.

The French army has suffered an inner Sedan whose repercussion will be deeper and more lasting than that of the catastrophe of the first of September 1870, for a defeat on the field of battle may well be the most terrible blow of fate, but it is not an indelible disgrace.

But the inner Sedan that the Dreyfusard campaign has inflicted on France is a defeat without hope or resource. There is no longer any possible recovery, for you have voluntarily destroyed the only thing that would have permitted it: discipline.

(Applause on the right. — Interruptions on the left and on the extreme left)

There is the work in which you wish to cooperate, monsieur le ministre de la guerre.

M. LE MINISTRE DE LA GUERRE. — Not in the least in the world!

M. LASIES. — A single word would have sufficed when M. Jaurès came here to say — and he was in his role — that the Prussian staff had recalled the French staff to duty and conscience. You ought not to have let such a word pass without protesting. (Applause on the right)

M. GUSTAVE ROUANET. — He did not say that! It is inexact! (Yes! yes! on the right)

M. LASIES. — I know well, monsieur le ministre, that you said that above all you wished for light and truth.

Yes! You take the formulas of those who applaud you and support you. Light and truth are very fine things, but France, what do you do with her in all that, monsieur le ministre? (Applause on the right and on various benches. — Noise on the left)

Light! Truth! You dare come and say that you are going to march with those who demand them! Well then, I, I wish to defend myself against the accusations carried against me, my party, by M. Jaurès. M. Jaurès has said, and he wishes to make this doubt hover over the whole country, that we were the party of the forgers.

Yes, I remember that the honourable M. Breton, at the time of the discussion on the amnesty, mounted this tribune to tell us that we were the party of the forgers. I mounted the tribune after him and I said what I tell you again today! We have had enough of your declarations. The forgers are with you. (Applause on the right)

M. JULES-LOUIS BRETON. — You said it, but it had to be demonstrated.

M. LASIES. — I admit that I had a moment of disquiet.

M. HENRI MICHEL (Bouches-du-Rhône). — Monsieur Lasies, you are right if by “forgers” one means those who denounce forgeries.

M. LASIES. — Monsieur Michel, I thank you for the interruption you address to me, with the authority that attaches to your name in your party. You come to tell us that you are the party of truth because you are those who denounce forgeries. Do you wish to know if I have not for long. (Interruptions) I denounced the forgery for which you reproach us, if it is not the one you attack so violently today? (Applause on the right)

M. GUSTAVE ROUANET. — It had been denounced before.

M. LASIES. — Permit me to be precise, monsieur Rouanet, about the facts I bring to this tribune; I shall not be long. (Interruptions) I implore you, in a task so delicate and so perilous we do not fight with equal arms; you had M. Jaurès; to fight against him, I appeal to your attention. (Speak! speak!)

So M. Michel tells us that it is you others who denounce forgeries; and in a discussion that lasted two days, M. Jaurès came to reproach the nationalist party for having relied on the Henry forgery. But the Henry forgery, it was punished as soon as it was known; it did not serve the council of war of 1895; it never served to have Dreyfus condemned, whereas you tried to commit a forgery by means of which you tried to have him acquitted. You do not speak of that one? I come to refresh your memory. (Applause on the right)

M. VAZEILLE. — Of what forgery do you speak?

M. LASIES. — M. Jaurès, in order to bolster his discussion, went to fetch all the nationalist newspapers that conducted the campaign; he went to fetch a word spoken by our honourable colleague M. Millevoye, in a public meeting at Suresnes.

Well, I say to M. Jaurès:

There were other documents you could have consulted; there were other documents than the newspapers that pass from day to day. You have the parliamentary archives, all the debates that took place in the course of the Dreyfus affair. And you, who are so concerned for light and truth, you would have seen, in reading these debates, that there subsist obscure points upon which we, we wished to throw light. This light, you have stifled it, in complicity with the Government. (Applause on the right)

M. HENRI MICHEL (Bouches-du-Rhône). — Make it; we ask for nothing better.

M. LASIES. — Certainly, we should never have spoken of this affair which we thought forgotten, an affair which was provoked by the letter of general de Galliffet to M. Waldeck-Rousseau. I am perhaps one of the last who knew of it, I never spoke of it to anyone; I did not wish to take upon myself the responsibility of renewing this agitation in the country which has scarcely recovered from it and has suffered so much from it. It must be you who begin it again! (Applause on the right)

It would be very convenient for you, if we were silent, to say in your newspapers and in public meetings that we are the party of the forgers and of the staff. But I do not wish the country to remain under this impression, to believe for a single instant that you wish for light and truth. You speak of it too much to wish for it.

The light, you do not wish for it, no, you do not wish for it and you dread it, I shall prove it to you. And your minister who places himself at your devotion to accomplish this sad task does not wish for it any more. (Applause on the right and on various benches at the centre) For, if you had wished for it, you could have made the light.

There was a moment when, at this tribune, another forgery was denounced. By whom was it denounced? Was it by the first comer? No. Who had discovered the Henry forgery? It was commandant Cuignet.

M. FERNAND ENGERAND. — A valiant soldier and a great honest man! (Hear, hear! hear, hear!)

M. LASIES. — When commandant Cuignet discovered that forgery, you bowed before this officer of the staff who, as you said, was by chance an honest man. He had discovered the Henry forgery, and as soon as he had discovered it, he had not hesitated to show it to his minister.

But this man discovered another forgery, and when he came to tell you: A forgery has been committed by the defenders of Dreyfus, you put a gag on his mouth and you cast him into the oubliettes at Mont-Valérien. (Applause at the centre and on the right)

M. FERNAND ENGERAND. — It is the exact truth!

M. LASIES. — Yes, M. Jaurès could have consulted the parliamentary debates; he would have seen what took place at this tribune when, making myself the echo of commandant Cuignet, I came to denounce the Panizzardi forgery. He would have noted that the Government had stifled the debate that they did not want. In reading the text of the interpellation that I addressed to you, monsieur le ministre de la guerre, on the manner in which you had behaved toward commandant Cuignet, M. Jaurès would have seen that you did not want the light that commandant Cuignet was proposing to make. His frankness frightened you, and you drew back before it.

M. Jaurès came to read us a document which he declared unpublished and which was to crush us, it is this letter of general de Pellieux, a letter which dragged through all the editorial offices.

I, I come to read another document which has dragged through no editorial office, which was my secret all to myself and of which I have hitherto not wished to speak. It is you who have obliged me to do so. Yes, to defend myself, I wish to attack you. I have had enough! (Applause on the right)

This document, this minister must hear it, this minister who said at the tribune, to flatter you, that he wished to favour the discovery of light, (Applause on the same benches) this minister who thinks far more of his role as politician than of his duty as a soldier. (Further applause on the same benches. — Vigorous protests on the left)

M. LE PRÉSIDENT. — Monsieur Lasies, I invite you to watch your words.

M. MARCEL SEMBAT. — It is a system of calculated provocations and one that you cannot allow to continue, monsieur le président.

M. LE PRÉSIDENT. — I warn monsieur Lasies that he is engaging upon a path on which I cannot let him continue.

M. LASIES. — Monsieur Sembat, I assure you that there is nothing calculated in this. I wish to reach the end of my discussion. I have just told you my whole way of thinking. If my thought has taken too lively a form, I regret it, and I shall try in future to moderate my expressions.

This minister must hear how he will help you to make the truth; you must know what he did when he could have discovered it.

An officer, the same who had discovered the Henry forgery, came to declare that there was another forgery, the Panizzardi forgery. He said so and he employed the hierarchical channel to reach the minister of war.

What did this minister of war do? As I said, he cast this officer into the oubliettes, he put him at Mont-Valérien to gag him, to prevent him from speaking.

But it happened that through the bars of the prison a particle of truth was able to reach me. I did not wish to publish it then; but now you oblige me; you shall bear the responsibility for it. (Applause on the right)

This letter, I have no need to ask its author for permission to publish it because he would have said to me: “From the moment that it can serve a patriotic cause, publish it and do not worry about me.” (Applause on the right) This officer has already broken his career for the defence of the national cause; if you break it once more, little does it matter to him! (Applause on the right and on various benches)

The Panizzardi forgery denounced at the tribune, M. Jaurès could well have reread the explanations that M. Delcassé gave that day, to the question I put to him; that ought to have interested him more than the account of the public meeting where M. Millevoye spoke at Suresnes or the letter of general de Pellieux. He ought to have consulted the records of our debates; he would have seen there that there are points on which the light had to be thrown; and perhaps then M. Jaurès, an independent man, would have been with us to ask us to make it.

Instead of that, what have we seen? As soon as the forgery was denounced, immediately, in the governmental, ministerial press, an order was given: not to answer the accusation that had been carried, so clear and so precise.

With commandant Cuignet we searched in all the newspapers of Paris and of the provinces for a single accusation against us, that would have permitted us to prosecute those who accused us. We could not pick out a single act. The order was given, and your newspapers wrote every day: The Panizzardi affair and the Cuignet affair, but there is nothing in them.

Nothing in the Cuignet affair! Listen, gentlemen:

On 25 December 1902, I received from Mont-Valérien this letter:

My dear friend,

I read in the press this morning that efforts are being made with a view to making it believed that there is nothing in the Cuignet affair.

In reply to this insinuation, will you simply make known the following:

The Panizzardi dispatch contains the formal avowal of the guilt of Dreyfus and of the complicity of the Italian military attaché. When I signalled the existence of the dispatch, and I was the first and the only one to make known its text, a true panic in the camp of Dreyfus’s defenders. They attached themselves abroad to obtain arguments; and the assistance of foreign countries was paid for by an act of treason committed by Frenchmen against France.

(Various movements)

But efforts were made to make me retract my testimony and there were successively employed for this purpose the attempt at subornation, the conditional threat, and finally the forgery.

M. FERNAND ENGERAND. — It is indispensable that commandant Cuignet be heard; a government cannot remain under such grave accusations.

M. LASIES. — You will say to me: But the council of war of Rennes took place, the court of cassation, all chambers united, examined the affair, why did commandant Cuignet not speak?…

M. FRANCIS DE PRESSENSÉ. — He did speak. I ask for the floor.

M. LASIES. — Listen to the rest of this letter:

I denounced all these crimes with supporting proofs to the government of M. Dupuy; the Government did nothing about it. I then wished to denounce these facts to the court of cassation, all chambers united: I was prevented from speaking; I shall prove it by witnesses.

I was placed on inactive status, not for the article in the Petit Journal, but because I wished, in spite of everything, to make the truth known. M. Krantz, the minister who proposed, outside his initiative and after the fact, my placement on inactive status, will recognise the exactness of what I advance, I shall furnish witnesses. At Rennes, I was prevented from speaking and now they are beginning again to act upon me; attempts at rapprochement were tried by M. Paléologue. I shall furnish witnesses. I shall say why I could not speak at Rennes and why I wish to speak now. Let it not be said that there is nothing in the affair; there is the crime of forgery, the crime of forfeiture, the crime of treason, without counting the rest.

Ah! if there is nothing in the Cuignet affair, why not confound me? It would be so easy! They throw me in prison, they treat me, by order of the Government, in a humiliating fashion; the regime reserved for officers punished with fortress arrest for debts has been applied. It required my protests to make this regime cease.

Well! no matter! I shall speak when I have at last torn off the gag that for two years has been kept tight upon my mouth. I shall speak and honest people of all opinions and of all parties shall judge and, I am sure, will share my conclusions.

Signed: CUIGNET

(Prolonged applause on the right)

M. FERNAND ENGERAND. — There is the language of a Frenchman: the country will hear it! Will the minister of war, this time, let commandant Cuignet speak?

M. FRANCIS DE PRESSENSÉ. — M. Lasies has just read us a letter of commandant Cuignet, dated December 1902, if I am not mistaken, and so I put this question: Is it true that commandant Cuignet, jointly with general Chamoin, before the court of cassation, all chambers united, signed a procès-verbal by which he declared he recognised the absolute authenticity of the Panizzardi dispatch and withdrew all the articulations he had uttered against it. (Applause on the extreme left and on the left)

M. LASIES. — Gentlemen, one cannot applaud me. M. de Pressensé, with a good faith to which I pay homage, has just committed a very great imprudence. Yes, monsieur de Pressensé, there was in fact a procès-verbal signed by commandant Cuignet and general Chamoin; and M. Delcassé read this procès-verbal at the tribune, when I asked to interpellate on the Panizzardi affair; but this procès-verbal is false; I asked again for the floor and I said to M. Delcassé: Why do you read truncated pieces, you, minister of foreign affairs? Ah! you come to tell us that there is a procès-verbal signed Chamoin and Cuignet…

M. FRANCIS DE PRESSENSÉ. — Which recognises the authenticity of the piece.

M. LASIES. — … recognising that the figures of the so-called tracing correspond to the text given by the foreign affairs. Yes! there is a procès-verbal; but beside it, bearing the following number, there is another procès-verbal signed by the same signatories, commandant Cuignet and general Chamoin, and which M. Paléologue refused to sign, another procès-verbal in which general Chamoin and commandant Cuignet declare that, in the piece that was communicated to them, the writing of the address in clear and of the signature is not that of M. Panizzardi, that it is a forgery. (Applause on the right and on several benches at the centre)

M. FRANCIS DE PRESSENSÉ. — So, monsieur Lasies, commandant Cuignet and general Chamoin, after having signed a procès-verbal proclaiming the authenticity of the Panizzardi dispatch…

M. FIRMIN FAURE. — The exactness of the version, that…

M. FRANCIS DE PRESSENSÉ. — … would then have made reservations bearing on the writing. But how shall I be made to believe, when it is a question of a ciphered dispatch, that these dispatches are not written by the hand of the sender, but by that of the cipherer, and that all the difficulty bore on the interpretation of those figures, that they were able to recognise what makes the writing of Panizzardi recognisable? (Vigorous applause and laughter on the extreme left and on the left)

M. JULES-LOUIS BRETON. — You are wrong to speak of the Dreyfus affair, monsieur Lasies, you do not know the first word of it.

M. LASIES. — There is here a question of good faith for us all and the explanations must be clear and clearly given. Here are the pieces to which I allude.

Here is the first procès-verbal signed by M. general Chamoin, M. Paléologue and M. commandant Cuignet:

Paris, 27 April 1899

By order of M. the first president of the court of cassation, the undersigned:

M. general Chamoin and commandant Cuignet, delegates of the minister of war,

On the one part,

M. Paléologue, secretary of embassy, delegate of the minister of foreign affairs,

On the other part,

met on 27 April 1899, in the office of M. the first president, to the effect of proceeding to the deciphering of the tracing of the telegram of 2 November 1894, signed Panizzardi, as it was remitted to M. the first president of the court of cassation by the administration of posts and telegraphs, with the explanations contained in the letter of the chief of staff of the under-secretary of State of this administration, dated 20 April 1899.

The translation, operated jointly by the three delegates, brought out the following text:

“If captain Dreyfus has not been in relations with you, it would be well to charge the ambassador to publish an official denial, in order to avoid the commentaries of the press.”

In faith of which, the said delegates have signed the present procès-verbal.

Signed: General CHAMOIN.

Commandant CUIGNET.

PALÉOLOGUE.

But when there was communicated to the first two signatories of this procès-verbal, this tracing…

M. FRANCIS DE PRESSENSÉ. — In figures!

M. LASIES. — But monsieur de Pressensé, the address was not in figures; one does not send telegrams with an address in figures. (Hear, hear! hear, hear! on various benches. — Interruptions on the left and on the extreme left)

Please let me finish my discussion which is not easy; give me every facility in this regard.

You tell us that there were only figures; but the reservations bear on the text of the address and on the signature, not on the figures.

Here moreover is the procès-verbal which M. Paléologue refused to sign and which, in the same sitting, a few minutes after M. Paléologue’s refusal, was signed by MM. general Chamoin and commandant Cuignet:

Paris, 27 April 1899

The undersigned, general Chamoin and commandant Cuignet, have operated the deciphering of the telegram of 2 November 1894 in the presence of M. Paléologue, on a copy conforming to the tracing of the original deposited at the office of the rue Montaigne by lieutenant-colonel Panizzardi, or by his order.

This tracing was remitted to the court by the administration of posts and telegraphs. It is signed: Panizzardi.

The examination of the writing, both of the signature, has permitted to recognise that the said writing is not by the hand of Panizzardi.

The undersigned have made this finding known to M. Paléologue.

Signed: General CHAMOIN.

Commandant CUIGNET.

No! we do not wish to be treated as the party of the forgers. When a crime has been committed among ours, it was immediately denounced and punished. It was denounced by this officer whom you afterwards struck down, by commandant Cuignet. He was an honest man when he discovered the Panizzardi forgery.

Yes, at that moment, he was an upright and clear-sighted mind, when he denounced a forgery that could favour your schemes and your projects.

But, I ask you, all of you, what would you have said to M. Cavaignac if, when commandant Cuignet discovered the Henry forgery, he had acted toward him as general André acted when commandant Cuignet discovered the Panizzardi forgery? (Repeated applause on the right)

When commandant Cuignet went to the minister of war of that day: The piece you read at the tribune is a forgery, the minister of war of that day, foreseeing however all the troubles this discovery would provoke, without a single instant’s hesitation…

M. JULES-LOUIS BRETON. — A fortnight later…

M. LASIES. — … punished the guilty one, whereas when commandant Cuignet discovered the Panizzardi forgery, what did the minister of war, general André, do? He had him locked up at Mont-Valérien. There is your justice! There is your love of truth! (Prolonged applause on the right and on various benches)

M. MAUJAN. — The minister of war at that time was not general André.

M. FERNAND ENGERAND. — But yes! these facts took place in December 1900.

M. LASIES. — Monsieur Maujan, when you are minister of war and I interpellate you, you will answer me. (Hear, hear! hear, hear! on the right. — Interruptions on the left)

In the meantime, let me continue.

Another more serious fact, monsieur le ministre de la guerre: when commandant Cuignet left Mont-Valérien; when scarcely barely out from you, he had renewed his accusations to you by letter, you will not contradict me! (Hear, hear! hear, hear! on the right)

He said to you: Monsieur le ministre de la guerre, I have discovered a crime; I will denounce it; I wish to prosecute those who committed it. You said: You shall be silent; if you are not silent, I shall find a way to prevent you from speaking.

There is what you said to commandant Cuignet! (Applause on the right)

M. FERNAND ENGERAND. — Does monsieur le ministre de la guerre deny this fact?

M. LE MINISTRE DE LA GUERRE. — Gentlemen, it is absolutely a parliamentary tradition that an interpellation be not addressed to a minister in the course of a sitting. M. Lasies addresses to me an interpellation to which I cannot reply. (Murmurs on the right and on various benches at the centre) I do not recall whether the truth in question was inflicted by my predecessor, I cannot affirm it. (Noise on the same benches)

M. FERNAND ENGERAND. — I repeat to you that it was inflicted by you, monsieur le ministre!

M. CAMILLE KRANTZ. — I ask for the floor. (Prolonged noise)

M. LASIES. — I cannot follow the discussion amid all these interruptions.

M. CAMILLE KRANTZ. — A single word.

M. LASIES. — The discussion is so delicate and difficult that it is impossible to follow it amid all these interruptions. I beg my friends to let me finish it without interrupting me, I shall be done in a few moments.

M. LE PRÉSIDENT. — Monsieur Krantz, M. Lasies asks to continue.

M. LASIES. — The minister of war reproaches me with addressing an interpellation to him. Gentlemen, for two days what has M. Jaurès been doing if not an interpellation of us all? Because he expresses your ideas, you do not complain of it. You claim to be partisans of truth; well, with me, the truth holds you by the throat and it shall not let you go. (Applause on the right and on several benches at the centre)

You had no right to make yourself the accomplice of M. Jaurès and his friends; they are in their role, they, in seeking to perpetuate here an agitation provoked by the Dreyfus affair, which is and must remain a closed affair. If they have new arguments to put forward, let them address themselves to justice. But, for the honour of the army, you ought never, you, to have let them have their way. (Applause on the same benches)

They have cast the accusation against us; we defend ourselves. You are on their side; that is your affair, general André.

M. Jaurès has told us that we are renouncing the nationalists; no, we have not renounced them; and one must do him the justice that he does not renounce the writings of his friends. When, at the tribune, we read libels saying to the young soldiers that there was no longer a fatherland, no longer a flag, that one must desert the barracks, M. Ribot, accomplishing the duty you should have accomplished, turned to M. Jaurès and asked him whether he renounced these writings, very abruptly, M. Jaurès refused to renounce them. There are your friends, general André. (Applause on the right and on various benches at the centre) It is with them that you wish to recommence the battle; it is you who declared war on us. Well then! we accept this battle, we shall make plain to the country that it is you who took the responsibility for it in this difficult hour from which we are scarcely emerging, you are again about to unleash. (Interruptions and noise on the left) Gentlemen, if I wished to go to the bottom of your thought, I would perhaps discover the true object. Should I go so far as to say that M. Jaurès and his friends wish to destroy in France every idea of patriotism? (Protests on the left and on the extreme left) I will not go so far, convinced moreover that patriotism is above their attacks.

M. MARCEL SEMBAT, ironically. — You are too moderate.

M. LASIES. — I have only put a question mark. (Interruptions on the extreme left) Let me finish. If you do not wish to go so far, it is easy to unmask your hidden goal: there is a question that is liquidated, it is the question of the congregations. The congregations, you have executed them, you have left and the first part of your programme, but at present you find yourself faced with your economic programme and as you do not wish to execute it,

you seek a diversion in the Dreyfus affair. (Applause on the right and on several benches at the centre. — Exclamations and interruptions on the left)

There is what you wish, monsieur Jaurès, with all your friends.

Ah! there were other questions of importance to be dealt with at this tribune. There was the question of workers’ pensions; there was the question of the income tax, but your Government told you that it did not want them, and so for diversion, since there are no more monks and there will soon be no more priests, you have succeeded in resurrecting the Dreyfus affair, there is the truth. (Exclamations on the left and on the extreme left. — Applause on the right)

And I say to M. Jaurès: You and your friends, in complicity with the present Government, you deceive the working masses; you do not wish to execute the economic programme by means of which you captured their confidence. (Vigorous protests on the left and on the extreme left) You do not wish to keep your promises and your commitments; you have taken all these admirable living forces of the French proletariat.

M. PAUL CONSTANS. — You treat them, you, as the father of M. Cavaignac and Galliffet did.

M. LASIES. — Do not speak of Galliffet! You licked his boots. (Noise)

No, you do not believe you are facing your economic programmes because the Government you support, which holds you, does not want these economic reforms.

M. PAUL CONSTANS. — We shall see whether you vote them.

M. LASIES. — … and all these living forces of socialism, which you lead astray, you wish to throw at the feet of the golden calf and chain them behind a millionaire Jew. (Applause on the right. — Interruptions on the extreme left)

There is what I wished to denounce and I sum it up in a word. The party of forgers, you say. Look, there were forgeries among us, we punished them, we condemned them. It is you who remain the party of forgers whom you cover. (Vigorous protests on the left and on the extreme left. — Applause on the right)

If you really wish for the truth, if you wish for a great debate, use then your influence on the minister of war, and tell him to summon commandant Cuignet, to name him commissioner of the Government. We shall see then whether you take up this debate again. You will not dare. (Exclamations on the left. — Hear, hear! hear, hear! on the right)

No, when the truth is put before your eyes, you did not want it.

M. JULES-LOUIS BRETON. — It takes a certain audacity to say that!

M. LASIES. — And the proof of it is that when the minister of war sent to Mont-Valérien the one who wished to make it appear, you applauded him because he refused my interpellation!

Yet the officer who came to proclaim it, this truth, was the one who had discovered the Henry forgery. You struck him, you wished to break his future; yet he is not a pupil of the Jesuits; he is a son of the people, a pupil of the University. (Vigorous applause on the right and on various benches) You were without pity for him, monsieur le ministre de la guerre, because he had discovered that the forgers were on the side of your friends. (Applause on the right. — Ironic laughter on the extreme left)

Your predecessors were accused of being the chiefs of the forgers of the staff; you, monsieur le général André, you are the chief of the forgers of some political group or other. (Murmurs on the left)

M. LE PRÉSIDENT. — Monsieur Lasies, I cannot let such language pass.

M. LASIES. — There is the party and the cause in which you will tarnish your general’s stars. (Prolonged noise)

M. LE PRÉSIDENT. — Truly you abuse!

M. LASIES. — On descending from this tribune, I defy you to let commandant Cuignet speak and to let the light be made. If presently M. Jaurès proposes to us a draft resolution, we shall make an addition to it and we shall see whether monsieur le ministre de la guerre and his friends accept it. You wish to uncover the responsibilities for the Henry forgery, very well! but you shall also have to resign yourselves to uncovering all the responsibilities for the Panizzardi forgery.

You are on Dreyfus’s side, general André, stay there; we, we are and remain on the side of France! (Vigorous applause on the right and on various benches at the centre. — The speaker, on returning to his bench, receives the congratulations of his friends)

M. LE PRÉSIDENT. — The floor is given to M. de Pressensé.

On various benches. — Until tomorrow!

M. FRANCIS DE PRESSENSÉ. — Gentlemen, M. Lasies has declared that the party of the forgers was not the party that had counted in its ranks the author of the Henry forgery…

On the right. — Until tomorrow!

M. LE PRÉSIDENT. — M. de Pressensé has the floor, you do not claim, I imagine, to take it from him. (On the left: Speak! speak!)

M. FRANCIS DE PRESSENSÉ. — … but that it was our party because, according to our colleague, the Panizzardi dispatch is a forgery.

I shall make a first remark: it is that commandant Cuignet, the same officer who, from the depths of his cell at Mont-Valérien, wrote the letter in which he renewed his accusations, had signed before the court of cassation, jointly with general Chamoin, a procès-verbal by which he declared he recognised the exactness of the translation…

M. FERNAND ENGERAND. — You play with words.

M. FRANCIS DE PRESSENSÉ. — … of the Panizzardi dispatch.

M. Lasies has declared that after having signed this procès-verbal, general Chamoin and commandant Cuignet had signed a second one in which they had relied on the fact that the signature did not seem to them to be in Panizzardi’s writing, to call into doubt the exactness of the telegram.

I shall remark to the Chamber that never has a ciphered telegram been signed in the whole history of diplomacy…

M. FERNAND ENGERAND. — That one was, therefore you prove that it was a forgery.

M. LASIES. — I ask for the floor.

M. FRANCIS DE PRESSENSÉ. — … that one has never put anything other than a seal of a nature to make recognisable the origin of the dispatch.

I add that when it is claimed that the Panizzardi dispatch is a forgery, the history of this piece has been singularly forgotten. Does its appearance in the Dreyfus affair date from 1899 and the procedure before the court of cassation? Was it not already in 1895, at the moment when the trial was beginning, that it was deposited and that the chief of the bureau of intelligence at that moment, colonel Sandherr, who had received and given the first interpretation entirely unfavourable to the accused of this dispatch, consented to make the test which was made on the very bases indicated by him? This test gave the result that was recognised and proclaimed authentic by colonel Sandherr and the bureau of intelligence in 1895 and proved that the Panizzardi dispatch had to be translated as the ministry of foreign affairs had translated it the first time.

There is the truth about the history of the Panizzardi dispatch; even in the bureau of the staff in 1895, it was recognised as authentic by colonel Sandherr and by the bureau of intelligence itself. Those who since then have striven to make it pass for a forgery either have forgotten this history, or they are trying once more to deceive the country, themselves deceived by forgeries of which they are the fabricators. (Applause on the extreme left and on various benches on the left. — Noise on the right and at the centre)

M. LE PRÉSIDENT. — The floor is given to M. Lasies.

M. LASIES. — It is not I who reopened the debate; only we were summoned to battle; I answered you that we would be present. You wish us to fight, let us fight! You shall see who will carry off the victory. (Applause on the right and at the centre)

M. de Pressensé has just told us that in 1894 the Panizzardi dispatch had been spoken of; I know well that multiple versions circulated. Now, that is why monsieur le ministre de la guerre ought to have listened to commandant Cuignet when he wished to make the light on this obscure side.

You see, monsieur de Pressensé, that your so luminous mind is not always very enlightened.

Commandant Cuignet told you, monsieur le ministre de la guerre; have him summoned, since he claims to prove that the Panizzardi dispatch is a forgery. And you, monsieur de Pressensé, who are a man of good faith, instead of fighting us, ought to unite with us… (Interruptions on the extreme left)

M. MAURICE VIOLLETTE. — In any case, it was in 1894.

M. FRANCIS DE PRESSENSÉ. — It is we who are demanding the inquiry, monsieur.

M. LASIES. — Then you will demand that it bear also on these facts and that commandant Cuignet be heard?

M. FRANCIS DE PRESSENSÉ. — We demand that it bear on everything.

M. LASIES. — Each one of us will bring his contribution by making known what we know.

M. de Pressensé has said that commandant Cuignet and general Chamoin had recognised the exactness of the text of the Panizzardi dispatch. They recognised that the cipher that was submitted to them did indeed correspond to the text given by the ministry of foreign affairs; but in another procès-verbal, they declared that the tracing being communicated could only be a forgery, because the address and signature were not Panizzardi’s. M. de Pressensé says that dispatches are never sent in clear. There was a simple way to verify whether it was a forgery; it was to produce the original. (Noise on the extreme left)

Will you allow me to finish with a very brief anecdote? M. de Freycinet was minister of war; commandant Cuignet had long demanded communication of the original of the Panizzardi dispatch and, at the ministry of posts, they answered: the original has been destroyed, in accordance with the regulation; three months later, all dispatches are destroyed and that is why only a tracing is given, the original has been destroyed.

This version given by the Government of the day was already a false version, for, as regards diplomatic dispatches, the regulation, instead of saying that they ought to be destroyed, says textually that they ought to be kept. If M. de Pressensé, who is an inquiring and curious mind, will turn to page 143 of the instruction on the telegraph service, he will see in article 28 that “the originals of official dispatches classified are bundled by month and kept indefinitely in the archives.” (Hear, hear! hear, hear! on the right)

M. FRANCIS DE PRESSENSÉ. — A telegram addressed to the Italian government is not an official dispatch.

M. LASIES. — One understands by that the official telegrams emanating from diplomatic agents.

On the extreme left. — But not ciphered.

M. LASIES. — Consequently the Government that you cover with your protection, which already covered Dreyfus with its protection, committed a first lie by saying that it had conformed to the regulation in destroying it; that is a first lie and we shall see others.

When M. Charles Dupuy, then president of the council, had commandant Cuignet brought in, he said to him: “Here is the original of the Panizzardi dispatch that you have so long demanded.”

Commandant Cuignet took in his hands the tracing that the president of the council held out to him, examined it carefully.

While he was examining it, M. Dupuy approached commandant Cuignet and said to him: “You see, it is indeed the original.”

“No, said commandant Cuignet, it is not the original. It is a tracing. — In short, said M. Dupuy, a tracing or an original is the same thing; but, in any case, you do recognise the writing of Panizzardi. There, look, added M. the president of the council, see the signature of M. Panizzardi with this particular singularity that he put one z in the German manner and the other in the French manner.”

Commandant Cuignet said to M. Dupuy, in front of M. de Freycinet, minister of war: This piece is a forgery, the writing is not Panizzardi’s, I have here in my briefcase two hundred specimens of Panizzardi’s writing, will you compare?

M. Dupuy dismissed commandant Cuignet and would not hear him.

A few days later M. de Freycinet had resigned, he had not wished to dip into a beginning of forgery you were preparing. (Applause on various benches at the centre and on the right. — Noise on the extreme left)

M. FERNAND ENGERAND. — Has not the commission of the court of cassation recognised that this tracing was a forgery? It would be interesting to have on this point the testimony of M. Mazeau and that of M. de Freycinet.

M. LASIES. — Consequently, until light is made, it is you who are the forgers, and if you wish to wash yourselves of this accusation, you must have commandant Cuignet summoned. (Applause on the right and on various benches at the centre)

M. FRANCIS DE PRESSENSÉ. — I myself belonged to the diplomatic service for a certain time. As cipherer in an embassy, I was constantly charged with ciphering dispatches, sometimes for the ambassador, sometimes for the military attaché. If at some moment one had recognised not a dispatch of the French military attaché at Constantinople, it would no less have been authentic, since I was the cipherer, and one could have said that it was not the writing of the French military attaché. If you base yourselves on such suppositions, you are wrong and you betray a complete ignorance of the things of diplomacy.

Moreover allow me to remark to you that if the translation of the dispatch of 1895 was falsified — which is absurd — it is not by M. Delcassé, who was not minister of foreign affairs at that moment, but by M. Hanotaux, who is not, I think, suspect to you. Now this dispatch was placed in the debate; it was recognised as authentic by the intelligence service itself, and you can have on this point nothing serious to allege against it. (Hear, hear! hear, hear! on various benches on the left)

M. GEORGES GROSJEAN. — Colonel Panizzardi’s cipher was particular to him; it was not that of the embassy.

On the left. — How do you know it?

M. GEORGES GROSJEAN. — From the documents. I could relate on this occasion a very serious incident which I shall abstain from echoing here; but I affirm the exactness of my information.

M. FRANCIS DE PRESSENSÉ. — The cipher of the military attaché is always particular to the military attaché and it is the cipherer of the embassy who is charged with ciphering with the cipher of the attaché as well as with the cipher of the embassy. There is the truth. (Hear, hear! hear, hear! on various benches on the left)

M. GEORGES GROSJEAN. — Never in such a case, and the attaché would have presented to the embassy. Do not oblige me to be more precise.

M. LASIES. — I have indicated to you to what source you could find the truth and the light. The question is to know whether you wish to go to this source, whether you wish to have commandant Cuignet summoned.

But in your party, one has made use not only of false pieces, but you even distort the sentiments of the dead, who are not there to defend themselves.

M. Jaurès, in reading the other day the letter of general de Pellieux, seemed to say that general de Pellieux had remained until the end persuaded that he had been made to commit forgeries to have an innocent man condemned.

Allow me to tell you that you know general de Pellieux very ill; if he had believed that an innocent man had been condemned, he would have cried it aloud. Since he is dead, you may perhaps say that those who surrounded him knew that the staff was considered a pack of forgers. (Various movements)

Well! I, I wish to read you a letter of general de Pellieux; yours is from 1898, this one is from 11 February 1899.

This letter is written to her who was his confidante, to his mother.

Paris, 11 February 1899

My dear mother,

I saw M. yesterday morning, and I wanted to write you in the afternoon; but I then had to attend the magnificent conference of M. Quesnay de Beaurepaire which I attended yesterday evening, after having naturally taken the defence of one of my means, of the campaign which has just resulted in the dispossession of the ignoble criminal chamber.

(Exclamations on the left)

You see the opinion he had of those who were fighting on your side.

Where are we in France and what have we done to deserve a magistracy like this? And what has been learned is still nothing…

M. VAZEILLE. — This unpacking is pretty!

M. LASIES. — … compared to what we know and shall say. Certain members of this Chamber must and shall — if there is still a justice in the world — be brought before the tribunals for forfeiture. Well! Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. A great point is gained and we may wait with more confidence…

M. GUSTAVE ROUANET. — He was credulous!

M. LASIES. — … I should moreover not be astonished if a coup de théâtre were produced. Dreyfus, seeing his affairs turning out badly, will renew his confessions, if not his accomplices, — for he has some, — and those whom the Jews fear.

Dreyfus’s confession, we have had it! He has accepted his pardon which he drags today like a ball, of which he would like to be rid. (Applause on various benches on the right and at the centre)

M. LE PRÉSIDENT. — The floor is given to M. the rapporteur.

Various voices. — Until tomorrow! Closure!

M. LE PRÉSIDENT. — I hear a request for the discussion to be postponed to tomorrow. (Yes! — No!)

Is the postponement insisted upon? (No! no!)

The floor is given to M. the rapporteur.

M. PAUL BEAUREGARD, rapporteur. — The Chamber will easily recognise that, mounting the tribune as rapporteur of the commission of inquiry, I find myself in a rather singular situation.

For two days we have been discussing the subject of the election of the second arrondissement of Paris.

M. MAURICE SPRONCK. — One would not suspect it!

M. LE RAPPORTEUR. — … and so far we have not spoken of it. You have seen, gentlemen, with what extreme adroitness M. Jaurès was able to weave the slight link which, twenty-four hours ago, attached, more or less exactly, the question we had to deal with to the vast development he gave to the Dreyfus affair. And then, at the moment when he was about to descend from the tribune, we saw the same link vaguely reappear; but, in the interval, in the course of a speech that lasted four or five hours, you will agree, gentlemen, that there was no longer any kind of relation between the announced subject of our discussion and the developments we heard. From this it results that we find ourselves and that particularly M. Syveton finds himself in a situation which is not equitable. (Interruptions on the extreme left) Yes, it is for him to find himself placed in an unjust situation, to see the conditions of his election settled amid the passions which inevitably develop among us in every debate on the Dreyfus affair.

M. GUSTAVE ROUANET. — One should have held this language to M. Judet!

M. LE RAPPORTEUR. — I shall precisely reply on this point.

M. LAMENDIN. — If you spoke of the Syveton election! (Laughter. — Various movements)

M. LE RAPPORTEUR. — I know well that one would be happy to make the commission of inquiry responsible for the awakening of the affair, but the procedure is really too simplistic. The commission of inquiry had a perfectly defined mission: the election of the second arrondissement was attacked, the commission was to receive all the witnesses addressed to it by the complainants, as it was to receive those whom the defence addressed to it. (Hear, hear! hear, hear! at the centre)

That is what it did. It did not admit — and you would not admit, gentlemen, — that it might arrogate to itself the right to suppress any testimony whatever. As for me, I do not take it upon myself to suppress pieces. We heard a certain number of depositions, we have reproduced in the annexes the depositions received; but if you wish, on the other hand, to know what the spirit of the commission was, allow me to tell you that you have only to read the eleven pages that compose all of my report, and you will then see that we have been careful not to give to certain depositions which had as their very precise object to justify the contents of a poster, and which I consider unjust. We have, I say, been careful not to give to these depositions an exceptional importance.

Here, in fact, is how the question is dealt with in my report:

Inspiring ourselves with the motive of deference which had guided the ninth bureau, we set aside from the outset, in a domain which appears to us fatally irritating, the posters put up by such-and-such two candidates. It will suffice for us to note that, if violences and reciprocal accusations were exchanged, no poster of M. Syveton offers the character of a disloyal manoeuvre and that it was open to his adversary to reply to each of them. We shall add, especially as concerns the poster which M. Berteaux had particularly aimed at — it was the poster called “of the foreigner” — that the only testimonies we gathered on the subject of M. Syveton’s posters contributed, as far as possible — the affirmation of the fragment of letter that forms its basis.

M. GUSTAVE ROUANET. — Read then the deposition of M. Judet, of which you will have taken no account!

M. LE RAPPORTEUR. — Monsieur Rouanet, you eternally repeat the same phrases without ever listening to the answers that are made to them. It is a system that is particular to you. (Hear, hear! hear, hear! at the centre) Whatever it may be, I shall not waste my time defending the election of the second arrondissement against accusations that have not been brought forth.

I confine myself to bringing you, in the name of the commission of inquiry, the following declaration: We have examined the various heads of accusation; we have found nothing.

The election of the second arrondissement was a loyal election — yes, all the declarations received, like the examination of the facts themselves, have demonstrated to us that the election of M. Syveton was an election resulting from the movement which had been produced in Paris. Note well, moreover, gentlemen, that this election was all prepared by the municipal elections which had preceded it, that this Parisian population had had M. Syveton represent it had triumphed; and in the fourth one had arrived in a sense at equality since there was a difference of a single vote.

Under these conditions, we can only ask you to follow the majority of your commission. I know — and I am not too astonished by it, knowing as you do the passions that agitate us in this enclosure — that there are on these benches a good number of deputies who would ask for nothing better than to invalidate M. Syveton; that is incontestable. We know very well that M. Syveton assumes upon his head a great number of rancours, but what would you have? I am obliged to tell you: You will not be able to invalidate him. (Hear, hear! hear, hear! at the centre) You were largely represented in the commission; for the whole majority constituted by six members, you, you had a minority represented by five members.

Well! these members of the minority followed the sittings of the commission of inquiry. I see opposite me one of them, M. Morel, to whom I am particularly happy to pay homage, for he was truly of an exactness equal to a loyalty and good faith to which we all render justice. (Hear, hear! hear, hear!)

When the inquiry was finished, what happened? The six members of the majority voted validation; there was not a single voice for invalidation. Our colleagues of the minority made reservations to us…

M. MOREL. — Very justified reservations!

M. RIOTTEAU, president of the commission. — And shared by the majority.

M. LE RAPPORTEUR. — They said that there were in the posters attacks, accusations that offended them. However one of them formally declared that, however excessive these attacks appeared to him, they did not seem to him such as could motivate invalidation.

Our colleagues, not wishing to appear to cover them by a positive vote, abstained.

That is, I believe, the only path you can follow. I do not see, gentlemen, how you could go further. It would seem incomprehensible to me that the Chamber, without even having attacked my report, should substitute a partisan opinion for the reflective opinion of the commission.

I repeat, those who have too much desire to invalidate abstain and let others do it; those others will perform an act of justice. As rapporteur of the commission, gentlemen, I close by saying to you: in the name of loyalty, in the name of justice, validation is imperative. (Hear, hear! hear, hear! at the centre and on various benches)

M. LE PRÉSIDENT. — Does anyone else ask for the floor?… (No! no!)

I put to the vote the conclusions of the commission tending to the validation of the electoral operations of the second arrondissement of Paris.

There is a request for a ballot, signed by MM. Rouset, Brice, Guilloteaux, Congy, Jacquey, Corrart des Essarts, Jules Auffray, Gauthier (de Clagny), Ernest Flandin, Failliot, Rudelle, Firmin Faure, d’Alsace, Engerand, de Saint-Pol.

The ballot is opened.

(The votes are collected. — MM. the secretaries make the count.)

M. LE PRÉSIDENT. — MM. the secretaries inform me that there is reason to make a pointage of the votes.

It is going to be proceeded with.

(The operation takes place in the customary form.)

M. LE PRÉSIDENT. — Here is the result of the ballot verified on the conclusions of the commission tending to the validation of the electoral operations of the second arrondissement of Paris.

Number of voters … … … . . 509

Absolute majority … … … … . 255

For adoption … … … … . 228

Against … … … … … … 281

The Chamber of Deputies has not adopted.

Consequently, the electoral operations of the second arrondissement of Paris are annulled.

Notice shall be given of it to M. the minister of the interior.

[Here comes in the Journal officiel the discussion of the conclusions of the report of the commission charged with proceeding with an inquiry on the electoral operations of the first circumscription of the eleventh arrondissement of Paris. We omit this account; the commission of inquiry proposed to annul the electoral operations; on the contrary the discussion led to validation.]

Draft Resolutions

M. LE PRÉSIDENT. — I make known to the Chamber three draft resolutions I have received. The first is signed by MM. Jaurès, Maujan, Henri Brisson, Charles Bos, Gouzy and Jean Codet. It is thus conceived:

The Chamber, taking note of the declarations of the Government and rejecting any addition, (Exclamations on the right) passes to the order of the day.

M. RIBOT. — I ask for the floor.

M. LASIES. — I ask for it likewise.

M. LE PRÉSIDENT. — The second is signed by MM. Paul Constans, Vaillant, Allard, Bouveri, Chauvière, Jules Coutant, Dejeante, Delory, Dufour (Indre), Sembat, Thivrier and Walter, and is thus conceived:

The Chamber, applauding on every occasion the revelation of every scandal and every crime which discredits militarism and accelerates the ruin to the profit of socialism, decides upon an inquiry into all the misdeeds of militarism and into the reclamations against the judgments of councils of war.

The third is thus conceived:

The Chamber invites the Government to oppose energetically any reopening of the Dreyfus affair. It invites it likewise to bring about as soon as possible fiscal reform and the law on workers’ pensions.

This order of the day is signed by M. Magniaudé.

Priority has been asked for the order of the day signed by MM. Jaurès, Maujan, Henri Brisson, Charles Bos, Gouzy and Jean Codet.

M. RIBOT. — We ask for the pure and simple order of the day.

M. LE PRÉSIDENT. — The pure and simple order of the day is asked for.

The floor is given to M. Ribot.

M. RIBOT. — I ask the Chamber’s permission to make precise the meaning of the vote we are about to cast and at the same time to clear the responsibility of a certain number of my friends.

I have heard read the motivated orders of the day that have been deposited. One may discuss the nuances which separate them. M. Jaurès asks that an inquiry be opened, if I have understood properly.

Another order of the day which perhaps has the pretension of being more adroit, more insinuating, only takes note of the Government’s declaration.

M. JAURÈS. — That is what I am doing, monsieur Ribot.

M. LE PRÉSIDENT. — It is the only one which takes note of the declarations of the Government.

M. RIBOT. — Very well. We have assisted, I say it for the first time, at a new fashion of practising the parliamentary regime.

It was rumoured, for some days, in this Chamber, of the almost unanimous intention of the majority to set aside, as it ought and as at bottom it wishes, this miserable affair brought up by M. Jaurès, in agreement with M. the minister of war, and which we saw re-entering with its sad cortege of violences and hatreds that were thought extinct. (Applause at the centre and on the right)

M. MAURICE VIOLLETTE. — It is M. Syveton who unleashed it.

M. RIBOT. — It was only a question, for several days, of setting aside any motion whatever, which would again throw the Chamber into all the perils of this affair. And yesterday again a group, to which I have not the honour of belonging, which is closer to M. Jaurès than I am, did not hide its thought.

M. CHARLES BOS. — I ask for the floor.

M. RIBOT. — I have the right assuredly to make use of public manifestations. This group said — I pay it homage, it was the truth that emerged from its deliberation — that if a motion, whatever it might be, were made, whatever each one might think of the bottom of the affair, we would agree to say we do not have the right to discuss it, that was the truth, I repeat, we cannot, by duty, by nature, for ourselves here.

M. GUSTAVE ROUANET. — You never discussed it moreover!

M. RIBOT. — No, monsieur; I never discussed it.

M. J. THIERRY. — And we honour ourselves for it.

M. RIBOT. — … and, in not discussing it, I obeyed a law that ought to have imposed itself on all.

I did not wish to mingle, as you have done, you, in a party interest, politics with justice. (Applause at the centre and on the right)

I was among those who, from the first days — and we were only 75 in this Chamber — voted an order of the day saying that never, under any pretext, would we enter into this affair, that it is not here that it should be discussed with our passions, with all that distorts, all that obscures as well the work of justice. I voted this order of the day. We were only 75, I recall it to our honour. (Hear, hear! hear, hear! at the centre and on the right) I have been faithful to this point of view. I was so, just as you, monsieur Jaurès, went to Lille to explain, as you did, the interest you had in throwing yourself into this affair and how you were working for a party interest and against what you have called militarism and what I shall call, I, the military spirit and the French army. (Applause at the centre and on the right)

I have had in this affair no other interest than that of justice, I know of no other. And if presently some fact whatever were revealed which was a new fact and which permitted us to take up this affair again, but to take it up, as it ought to be, before the competent judges, with the procedure that the law has traced, I should be the first to rejoice in it and no one here in this Chamber could afflict himself at it, for the rehabilitation of a French officer, we all wish to desire it with all our wishes, with all our soul. (Applause at the centre, on the right and on various benches on the left) But it must be done as the law has wished, according to the legal forms and not in the tumult of a parliamentary fray where one comes to recall all the burning memories of the electoral struggle, all the hatreds ill-suppressed, all the angers and all the passions, that is to say all that is the contrary, the very negation of justice. (Applause on the same benches)

What I say there — you all think it — is what a hard and cruel experience had taught your predecessors and of which you yourselves knew the truth.

M. GUSTAVE ROUANET. — You should have said so to the commission.

M. RIBOT. — Yes, when your predecessors saw the harm that this affair had done to the country, when they had diverted it from the judicial terrain to bring it onto the political terrain, when they saw this tearing, when they saw how much we were giving those who look on at this unhappy France tearing herself with her own hands an afflicting spectacle, they said in a commitment toward themselves; they said in an order of the day presented by M. Chapuis and which here gathered 425 votes against 70: whatever may be said to us henceforth at this tribune, whatever the eloquence that pours forth in it, no, we shall not forget what happened, the harm that was done to our country; under no pretext shall we let the affair be taken up under the form of a political agitation. Is it not that which we voted and which 425 votes expressed?

M. CHAPUIS. — Permit me to say a single word: you recall the order of the day of the Chamber which I had the honour to present in the course of the last legislature, and I do not regret it.

M. RIBOT. — Nor I either.

M. CHAPUIS. — I am among those who think it would have been preferable to leave outside Parliament the agitation which continues to this day on the Dreyfus affair. (Applause on various benches)

But allow me to add that I was able, following this discussion, to regret personally not having had knowledge of the letter of general de Pellieux. (Applause on the left) For I recall that, at the very moment of the avowal of the Henry forgery, I wrote a letter to the newspaper l’Éclair in which I considered that in spite of the Henry forgery it was not necessary to pursue the revision.

I regret for this reason that if I had known the letter of general de Pellieux, I should have been among those who would have thought, while differing in opinion from several of my political friends, that there was occasion, in the interest of justice, to make the revision. (Applause on the extreme left and on the left)

M. RIBOT. — I applaud all the more willingly the words of the honourable M. Chapuis, in that he expresses a sentiment which has been mine. (Noise on the left)

After the discovery of this crime — for this forgery by colonel Henry was a crime — there ought to have been only one voice in this country to make the revision. And I permit myself to say to M. Cavaignac, without wishing in the least to attack him… (Various movements on the extreme left) You have not to do the work you have done, it is not my role. But I know what it would have been to me if very courageously he had announced to this country that he had discovered this forgery which he had had the misfortune to have accused on the walls of France, he would have rendered to our country an immense service for which we should all be grateful to him, had he himself taken the direction of this revision trial. He would have had it accepted by everyone. (Hear, hear! hear, hear!)

On the extreme left. — He took good care not to!

M. RIBOT. — M. Cavaignac thought otherwise.

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — Since you bring me into question in terms whose courtesy I moreover pay homage to, allow me to reply two words…

M. RIBOT. — Very willingly.

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — You have recalled what you said the other day that I had had the misfortune of having a forgery posted. I do not know whether the formula is very exact.

The responsibility I took, this must be made precise, is that of bringing to the tribune, of consequently delivering to the public discussion of all, by giving the reasons on which I based my conviction of that time, a piece which, note it well, had already been used before justice…

M. JAURÈS. — That is true!

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — … in the Zola trial, without communication of it being given to the public. I loyally brought the debate here before public opinion, and if I perhaps did not serve, in doing so — and even that is not sure — the interests of the party to which I belong, there is one thing of which I am quite sure, it is that I served the interests of justice and of truth. (Exclamations on the extreme left and on the left)

On the second point, I have only a word to say. You say: Why, monsieur Cavaignac, when you had discovered the crime and torn the avowal from it, did you not allow the affair to be liquidated by accepting the revision and giving your assent to it?

Ah! monsieur Ribot, I did not do so because my conscience was engaged by a declaration I had brought to this tribune on the day when I declared there that never, as for me, would I appeal to reason of State or to the reason of public salvation to keep an innocent man at hard labour; but where I declared at the same time that as long as I had, I, the conviction that the man was guilty, never would I give my assent to revision. (Exclamations on the extreme left)

M. JAURÈS. — You wish to be sole judge!

M. GODEFROY CAVAIGNAC. — If, after the declaration I had made, if, contrary to what had remained in my conscience, my conviction, I had then brought my adhesion to revision, I understand well that all the attacks from this side (the left) would have disappeared; another language would today be held. But I should at the same time, I who had declared that I would only accept the revision if I believed the man innocent, I should at the same time have brought my testimony to a cause which, in my conscience, I did not believe just. There is why I did not wish to commit myself to revision. (Applause at the centre and on the right)

M. JAURÈS. — Sole judge!

M. RIBOT. — The honourable M. Cavaignac acted no doubt in the sincerity of his conscience; I regret that he did not know, at that moment, with the situation he had, to put himself what was suited to the tearings of this country. But he will note, and the Chamber will see the extreme danger there is in bringing before it, in submitting to its deliberations, documents which cannot be brought to this tribune. Whether you wish it or not, monsieur Cavaignac, you have to regret — and you certainly do regret it — that all of us who had not been able to verify the authenticity of this document, who had to believe, on his word, the responsible minister of war, you certainly regret that we gave our vote to have posted a declaration whose material falsity was afterwards recognised.

(M. Cavaignac makes a sign of assent)

What does that prove? It proves that politics ought not to enter into justice. (Applause at the centre and on the right) That proves that never, under any pretext, ought you to establish us here as judges, as you have just done, listening to the echoes…

On the extreme left. — But no!

M. RIBOT. — How: no! But one would have thought it was a question of the epilogue of the Rennes trial.

M. GUSTAVE ROUANET. — It is the epilogue of my reply to a report.

M. RIBOT. — Pleadings and also passions are brought here from both sides, it was inevitable. What can the members of this Assembly do? How can they appreciate whether a document is true or false? How can they determine its judicial bearing? Is that our task? No, when we take it on, we usurp a right and we introduce into this country a ferment of disorder, a germ of danger, because we are here to do the country’s affairs, to oppose doctrine to doctrine and not to judge; we cannot in any degree judge, we are too numerous, we are not prepared; we have not the judicial forms, we are at the mercy of the surprises of an inflamed eloquence in which passions collide, we are not judges; we cannot be. (Applause at the centre and on the right)

M. FRANCIS DE PRESSENSÉ. — We ask for judges!

M. RIBOT. — It is not here that you must ask for them!

M. JAURÈS. — Yes! (Exclamations at the centre)

M. RIBOT. — And there is why, in 1900, we cast that vote so considerable by the number of suffrages that it rallied, and there is why M. Waldeck-Rousseau, seizing upon this vote, said: I see in it the will of the country, the country no longer wishes to leave in the hands of the parties this deadly army of the Dreyfus affair, I take the vote and I draw the consequence from it. — And he brought to the Senate and to the Chamber a proposal of amnesty which was to extinguish all hatred, all recrimination, and was to, not to obstruct a legal revision if it appeared possible, but to drive from our deliberations all the ferments, all the detritus of this miserable affair, to abolish if possible the memory of it. I recall the language M. Waldeck-Rousseau held. It is true that this is already very old history and that M. Waldeck-Rousseau, if he sees where they are about to lead the majority that he contributed to forming with his own hands, must, at this hour, have many subjects for reflection and perhaps for anxiety!

M. JAURÈS. — Paternal anxieties.

M. RIBOT. — In any case, if he had been today on the Government bench, it is not he who would have held or allowed to be held the language that was held just now. (Interruptions on the extreme left)

M. the minister of war not only accepted the inquiry proposed to him just now, but he hastened forward to meet it and said: I wish to be M. Jaurès’s collaborator in discovering the truth.

What is this language on the part of a minister of war? Is he charged with preparing the elements of future revisions?

M. ARISTIDE BRIAND. — It is a question of political responsibility.

M. RIBOT. — No, it is not a question of political responsibility.

M. ARISTIDE BRIAND. — But yes!

M. RIBOT. — No, monsieur Briand. When a minister does what the law does not permit him to do, you have no right to cover him; (Hear, hear! hear, hear! at the centre) the constitution is violated and the law disregarded. It is the keeper of the seals, the keeper of the seals alone who can be seized of it. (Applause at the centre)

M. FRANCIS DE PRESSENSÉ. — You know the great English inquiries?

M. RIBOT. — The great English inquiries never bear on questions of justice.

M. FRANCIS DE PRESSENSÉ. — At this moment, there is a great inquiry being made in England into the war.

M. RIBOT. — When you wish to make an inquiry into the war in China, we shall be ready to make it. (Hear, hear! hear, hear! at the centre)

M. FRANCIS DE PRESSENSÉ. — Why on the war in China and not on something else?

M. RIBOT. — It is not a question of that, it is a question of revision procedure (Denials on the extreme left) which you are introducing at this moment contrary to the law; despite the law, you engage the responsibility of the Chamber. There is what you do.

The minister of war has no competence to make this inquiry. What is truly monstrous, you will permit me to say it… the word is not too strong — is what M. general André added. I understand that he, who is a soldier, does not account to himself for what he said to us (Various movements) and what was doubtless ratified by M. the president of the council. But I noted with surprise the words I heard. M. the minister of war told us that he was going to establish a commission in which he would call upon magistrates. (Denials on the left and on the extreme left)

M. SIMYAN. — He did not say that.

M. ÉMILE COMBES, president of the council, minister of the interior and of religions. — No!

M. RIBOT. — How! no?

At the centre. — Yes! yes! he said so!

M. RIOTTEAU and several of his colleagues. — We all heard it!

M. LE PRÉSIDENT DU CONSEIL, minister of the interior and of religions. — I ask to say a word from my place, if monsieur Ribot permits.

M. LE PRÉSIDENT. — The floor is given to M. the president of the council, with the assent of M. Ribot.

M. ÉMILE COMBES, president of the council, minister of the interior and of religions. — I do not recall very exactly the expressions M. the minister of war used, but I know what he had a mission to declare. (Applause on the right and at the centre. — Various movements. — Noise)

M. MASSABUAU. — There is the telegraphic account which is posted in the corridors! (Applause on the right and at the centre)

M. LE PRÉSIDENT. — The floor is given to M. the president of the council and not to M. Massabuau.

M. LE PRÉSIDENT DU CONSEIL, minister of the interior and of religions. — It appears that these gentlemen of the right wish to judge without hearing — they probably have the habit. As for me, I always listen to my adversaries and have never, by clamour, prevented them from explaining themselves. (Hear, hear! hear, hear! on the left)

On the right. — But we are listening to you!

M. LE PRÉSIDENT DU CONSEIL, minister of the interior and of religions. — M. the minister of war said that he proposed simply to proceed with an administrative inquiry, seconded by magistrates and here is why: it is a question, you know, gentlemen, of a secret dossier that he does not know, of which he has never seen any piece, on the subject of which he is exposed from one day to another to attacks that he cannot refute. This dossier was sealed by a magistrate of the court of cassation; it is in the presence of this magistrate aided by some others that he could open this dossier, (Various movements) examine and catalogue the pieces, if need were, in order to cover his responsibility and not to be accused, as that could not fail to take place, either of having taken pieces from this dossier, or of having introduced new ones into it. (Applause on the left and on the extreme left)

M. ANTHIME-MÉNARD. — It is a revision then?

M. LE PRÉSIDENT DU CONSEIL. — It is not a judicial inquiry. It is not a question there of the nomination of a commission and still less of a procedure in view of a revision.

M. MASSABUAU. — That is exact!

On the right. — Then what does it mean?

M. LE PRÉSIDENT DU CONSEIL. — Will you allow me to add — although I am not a jurist — and I beg the Chamber’s pardon if I am mistaken on this point, that in telling you what he proposed to do, M. the minister of war was speaking of a thing he has the right to do. (Hear, hear! hear, hear! on the left)

Here moreover is the passage from the telegraphic account. I read exactly what M. the minister of war said: “The minister will be assisted by a certain number of magistrates in the sifting of pieces he will have to do.” (Applause on the left and on the extreme left)

M. SIMYAN. — The minister of war said nothing else!

M. RIBOT. — I welcome very willingly the explanation of M. the president of the council. He will permit me to tell him that it surprises me a little, and I do not believe that in a country like ours the minister of war, holder of this dossier, has need to defend himself against suspicions. (Applause at the centre. — Exclamations on the extreme left and on the left) So be it!…

M. JAURÈS. — Do you recall, monsieur Ribot, to what calumnies, to what inventions was subjected not an individual, but a collectivity: the criminal chamber? M. the minister of war has the right to wish not to be dispossessed as the criminal chamber was! (Applause on the extreme left and on the left. — Noise)

M. RIBOT. — Then, monsieur Jaurès, the minister of war must be supervised, vouched for by the magistrates of the court of cassation, and I think M. the minister of war will in his turn vouch for the criminal chamber.

Gentlemen, this is unworthy of us! (Murmurs on the extreme left) When one says that one will invite high magistrates of this country to make the sifting of a dossier, that has never meant that one will invite them to guarantee that no piece had been removed. (Interruptions on the extreme left) No, it is not for that that magistrates are made. For after all, what role will you have them play? I should wish M. the minister of justice were at his bench, I would ask him what he thinks of this role destined for the magistrates of the Republic? I would ask him whether there is a magistrate who would accept such a task, a function so humiliated! (Applause at the centre and on various benches)

So be it! you wish it, you will do as you wish, but you are entering upon a procedure illegal in its principle, strange in its methods, which opens anew the era of agitations.

Well! you will permit me at least not to take the responsibility for it with you. (Yes! yes! on the extreme left) I shall not vote the order of the day which takes note of the Government’s declarations, because in voting it I should assume the responsibility one wishes to make us share.

That M. Jaurès triumph, that is permitted him…

M. JAURÈS. — Am I triumphing?

M. RIBOT. — You have a modest triumph, I recognise.

M. JAURÈS. — It is a lasting modesty!

M. RIBOT. — That M. Jaurès triumph! he is right, but what will you say tomorrow, you all who, these past days, were manifesting your intimate sentiment and who regretted that our colleague should launch the affair anew at the tribune and in the country, you who gave him a warning which you had the right to give him… (Interruptions on the extreme left)

M. CHARLES BOS. — I have asked for the floor to explain myself.

M. RIBOT. — You ask for the floor, you refused to follow him and said that if a motion were proposed, you would reply with the pure and simple order of the day?… Is that not exact? Is there anyone who can dispute it? What will tomorrow be your reflections if you, members of the majority?

And then what is this majority then? What is this Government? When a man to whom warnings have been lavished, who has been told not to follow his course, who proposes nevertheless not to prevent this unhappy affair, and who went in the morning to find the minister of war and in agreement with him organised this inquiry… (Noise on the extreme left)

M. JAURÈS. — How is that! monsieur Ribot? I give you my word that you are misinformed!

M. RIBOT. — Well!

M. JAURÈS. — Since I announced that I had the intention, regarding the Syveton affair, of replying to the report of the commission, I affirm to you that I have never seen M. the minister of war. (Various movements)

M. PAUL BEAUREGARD. — This is a hypocrisy. (Noise)

I note that you have in no way attacked my report.

M. RIBOT. — Well! monsieur Jaurès, that proves to me only one thing, it is that M. the minister of war anticipated it, that he hastened toward this request for an inquiry that your strict duty would have been to stop. (Vigorous applause at the centre and on the right. — Interruptions on the extreme left)

M. LEVRAUD. — How!

M. LE PRÉSIDENT. — Gentlemen, let M. Ribot speak.

M. RIBOT. — And on what will you deliberate, monsieur le ministre de la guerre, assisted by M. Jaurès?

M. LASIES. — Hear, hear!

M. RIBOT. — M. Jaurès let it be heard yesterday when he said, to the applause of his friends, that the policy of forgery could not stop at the rank of lieutenant-colonel, that it could mount higher. Is that what you are going to look for? Is that why you are going to make this inquiry? Is it to throw a little more mud upon the army?

M. FRANCIS DE PRESSENSÉ. — See then what general de Pellieux wrote in his letter!

M. RIBOT. — … to throw, if possible, a little more mud upon this unhappy French army. (Vigorous applause at the centre and on the right. — Interruptions on the extreme left and on the left)

Ah! think of it! One must explain oneself to the end.

On the extreme left. — Esterhazy is not the army.

M. RIBOT. — M. Jaurès has a merit, he has the frankness of his intentions and of his policy and when he went to Lille in 1902 and explained himself with Jules Guesde, he said: Yes, in my party, there were politicians who did not want to march, because we were too close to the elections and because they did not want to compromise their electoral seat. I, I threw myself forward; but we have not wasted our time because by accumulating in the attacks against the army… (Interruptions on the left and on the extreme left)

M. FRANCIS DE PRESSENSÉ. — That is not it!

On the right. — Read the text!

M. RIBOT. — Oh! I shall read. (Applause at the centre and on the right)

It was not time wasted, for while these crimes were being displayed, while you were learning to know all these shames, all these lies, all these machinations, the prestige of militarism descended every day in the minds of men.

(Hear, hear! hear, hear! on the extreme left)

Wait! you shall know what militarism is in the mind and in the language of M. Jaurès.

Militarism? Dangerous, know it, not only because it is the armed guardian of capital; it is dangerous also because it seduces the people by a false image of grandeur…

(Hear, hear! hear, hear! on the extreme left)

… by I know not what lie of devotion and sacrifice.

(Murmurs at the centre and on the right)

M. JAURÈS. — I maintain that absolutely.

M. RIBOT. —

When one has seen that this idol, so gloriously painted and so superb, when one has seen that this idol which exacted for the service of its monstrous appetites the sacrifices of generations…

(Hear, hear! hear, hear! on the extreme left)

… When one has seen that it was rotten, that it contained only dishonour, treason, intrigue, lies…

(Prolonged murmurs at the centre and on the right)

M. LASIES. — Long live the army! (Noise on the left)

Several members on the right and at the centre. — Yes! long live the army! (Interruptions on the left)

M. RIBOT. —

… Then, militarism received a mortal blow and the social revolution lost nothing thereby.

There is how you speak of the army in France. (Protests on the extreme left. — Applause at the centre and on the right)

M. DE PRESSENSÉ. — Not of the army, of militarism!

M. RIBOT. — Well! I pity the Government obliged to follow you as it has done.

(M. Walter interrupts violently amid the noise.)

(Vigorous protests at the centre and on the right. — Cries: Order. — Prolonged noise)

M. LE PRÉSIDENT. — I call M. Walter to order. (Noise)

M. LIEUTENANT-COLONEL ROUSSET. — I protest against the abominable word that has just been spoken.

M. LASIES. — I ask for the floor.

M. LE PRÉSIDENT. — Gentlemen, there are words which the dignity of an assembly does not permit to hear. (Protests on the right) I have called M. Walter to order.

On the right. — Censure!

M. LE PRÉSIDENT. — You insist on a word I did not hear. (Interruptions at the centre and on the right)

Several members on the right. — But we heard it, we!

M. LE PRÉSIDENT. — Then I invite M. Walter to explain himself.

On the right. — Censure! (Prolonged noise)

M. PRACHE. — It is a shame!

M. ROGER-BALLU. — It is an ignominy!

M. LIEUTENANT-COLONEL ROUSSET. — Let us go.

(A great number of members of the centre and the right prepare to leave the hall of sittings. — Prolonged agitation)

M. LASIES. — Monsieur Ribot, do not continue.

M. JAURÈS. — Monsieur Ribot, will you yield me the floor for a minute?

M. RIBOT. — Willingly.

(M. Ribot leaves the tribune where he is replaced by M. Jaurès.)

M. LIEUTENANT-COLONEL ROUSSET. — It is not for you, monsieur Jaurès, to take the floor.

M. CACHET. — You have not to explain the word of a colleague. (Prolonged noise)

M. LIEUTENANT-COLONEL ROUSSET. — We all heard the interruption.

M. JAURÈS. — What did you hear?

M. LIEUTENANT-COLONEL ROUSSET. — M. Walter said that there were p… (1) in the army, and I insist that this be in the Journal officiel. (Noise on the left)

M. WALTER. — I ask for the floor.

M. LE PRÉSIDENT. — The floor is given to M. Walter. (Vigorous murmurs and protests at the centre and on the right) Permit M. Walter to explain himself.

M. WALTER. — For the needs of your cause, (Noise on the right) you wished to hear something other than what I said. (Vigorous protests on the same benches)

I repeat my words: I said that one has never attacked the army as a whole, but those who, in the army, like Esterhazy, were p… (Applause on various benches on the extreme left — Vigorous interruptions on the right and at the centre. — Prolonged noise)

M. LE PRÉSIDENT. — I call you to order with inscription in the procès-verbal.

M. GASTON GALPIN. — That is not what M. Walter said.

On the right. — Censure!

M. LE PRÉSIDENT. — I have called M. Walter to order with inscription in the procès-verbal. The regulation does not permit me to go further. (Noise on the right)

The floor is given to M. Ribot.

[note: (1) M. Walter had said maquereaux (pimps).]

M. RIBOT. — Gentlemen, I have only remounted the tribune out of deference for M. the president of the Chamber, for I had finished what I had to say.

I was closing by sincerely pitying M. the president of the council, M. the minister of war, and this unhappy country which could certainly with better fortune not be thus troubled (Applause at the centre and on various benches) by all this violent and disorderly policy.

The day before yesterday, M. the minister of war, who was not present at the sitting where there was being discussed however a bill of law concerning his department, took the floor at the tribune of a radical newspaper [and let fall] some of the words he allowed to drop. He said: I obey the public invitation and I depart from my natural role of guardian of national defence to make politics, and what politics!

He said:

Yes, in this country of France there is a sentiment of generosity, but today we do not wish to be generous; we wish to carry on the struggle to the end; we wish to crush our adversaries, we wish to establish in this country the reign of free thought.

There is the language M. the minister of war held! (Hear, hear! hear, hear! on the extreme left) That pleases you?

Who then was speaking a few months ago of this country of appeasement and of concord? There is in what derisory fashion one answers these words of peace. You wish to push to the end all your advantages, to trouble this country down to its deepest masses. So be it! but the day when you reawaken it, it will judge your policy; it will judge you, monsieur le ministre de la guerre, and the disastrous policy by which you compromise all the gravest interests of France. (Vigorous applause at the centre and on various benches. — The speaker, on returning to his bench, receives the congratulations of a great number of his colleagues)

M. MAGNIAUDÉ. — I ask for the floor on my order of the day.

M. LE PRÉSIDENT. — The floor is given to M. the president of the council.

M. LE PRÉSIDENT DU CONSEIL, minister of the interior and of religions. — Before the last words spoken by M. Ribot, who clearly repelled the policy of the cabinet and put the question on the political terrain, the Government might have hesitated… (Exclamations at the centre and on the right)

The pure and simple order of the day in fact left subsisting the Government’s declarations and was not contrary to it; that is why I say that before M. Ribot’s intervention, the Government could hesitate in the thought of gathering on the pure and simple order of the day a greater number of republican votes. (Hear, hear! hear, hear!)

But after the words of M. Ribot, clearly bringing the debate onto the political terrain, it is impossible for the president of the council not to reject the pure and simple order of the day. (Applause on the left and on the extreme left)

On the right. — So much the better!

M. LE PRÉSIDENT. — The floor is given to M. Magniaudé on his order of the day.

M. MAGNIAUDÉ. — I am perhaps bold in taking the floor in this great debate; but I have the courage for it because I feel that, on one side of this Chamber as on the other, one is on the way to doing much harm to my country and to the Republic.

The last legislative elections gave an imposing majority to the radical party and the radical-socialist party; and yet for a year, in this Chamber, one would say that there are only two policies present, that which M. Ribot represents so worthily and that which M. Jaurès represents no less worthily.

M. HUBBARD. — And we, what are we?

M. MAGNIAUDÉ. — I shall tell you, my dear colleague.

That certainly earns us very many speeches that I listen to with attention and that I even reread. But I deplore that the radical party and the radical-socialist party are in some sense stifled between these two policies which do not represent the opinion of the country’s majority. (Hear, hear! hear, hear! on the right) Our party is a party of reforms and, in this Chamber, one is busy with everything except reforms. (Applause on various benches on the left)

If M. Jaurès, like M. Lasies, have new facts to present in the Dreyfus affair, they have only, it seems to me, to submit them to M. the keeper of the seals who will do what is necessary. But when we see what is happening in this Chamber today, and concerning this affair whose debate is not even opened, judge what it will be afterwards when this debate is reopened. (Applause on various benches on the left)

In the course of the magnificent speeches we have heard, the beautiful word of justice was pronounced at different times. Justice! we call for it with all our wishes; but we call for it particularly for the people who always wait with an inexhaustible patience that I admire. We have only one means of achieving this justice, it is to study good and wise laws and to discuss them with all the maturity they demand. These laws are in our minds and in our hearts, but to succeed in carrying them through, we must envisage clearly the goal we propose for ourselves. To reach it, we must follow the straight path, without letting ourselves be diverted into the thorny paths down which we are being led…

On the extreme left. — These are mere words!

M. MAGNIAUDÉ. — … by taking up the Dreyfus affair again which has, you will admit, only a very distant relation with fiscal and social reforms. (Applause at the centre and on various benches)

In closing, I can do no better than to evoke the memory of the so lofty and so wise words of our very distinguished president, M. Léon Bourgeois, when he said on 28 May 1900:

I am among those who desire, whoever they may be at present, whether a party, or the partisans of a certain policy, who may be interested in reviving and agitating the Dreyfus affair. They are those who perceive in the phases which accompanied it and which will begin again if it should be reborn, a weakening for the Republic itself.

I am therefore resolved, added the honourable M. Bourgeois,

to combat and condemn every act by which the Government might try to resuscitate the Dreyfus affair.

(Applause)

It is these words so wise, so clear-sighted, so impregnated with the purest patriotism, that I ask you today to confirm by voting the order of the day which I had the honour to deposit on the desk of the Chamber. (Hear, hear! hear, hear!)

M. ÉMILE CHAUTEMPS. — I ask for the floor.

M. LE PRÉSIDENT. — The floor is given to M. Charles Bos.

M. CHARLES BOS. — The honourable M. Ribot has just said that a political group very close to that of the honourable M. Jaurès had decided first of all that if the affair which was the object of the Rennes trial were evoked apropos of the validation of M. Syveton, it would close the debate with the pure and simple order of the day. I recognise that M. Ribot could believe himself authorised to speak thus. It is exact, in fact, that a communication was made to the press, I know not by whom, saying that the group to which I have alluded had voted this order of the day.

But I must re-establish the facts.

The group dealt with the debate that was to be raised by M. Jaurès, but it took no decision. Each of its members reserved to himself to take a resolution following the revelations M. Jaurès would bring. The facts are re-established exactly and I do not believe that any of the members of our group having attended this meeting can register denial of what I have just said.

The honourable M. Ribot spoke just now of the amnesty. His language ought to be listened to by all the world if one did not wish to interpret against us alone the amnesty voted three years ago by the Chamber.

The commission was singularly imprudent in hearing MM. Lemaître and Judet, who had nothing to do with the Syveton election, and it is certain that if the commission had not gathered these interested depositions, M. Jaurès would not have brought this debate to the tribune. (Various movements)

I now explain the vote that a certain number of my friends and I myself are going to cast; it is impossible for us after the revelations brought by M. Jaurès… (Laughter on the right. — Applause on the extreme left and on various benches on the left) to close this debate by the pure and simple order of the day.

We shall therefore vote the order of the day proposed by the lefts and which takes note of the declarations of the Government, an order of the day which the Government has accepted and by which we ask it simply to accomplish political acts.

M. LE PRÉSIDENT. — The floor is given to M. Émile Chautemps.

M. ÉMILE CHAUTEMPS. — I wish to make a simple declaration in the name of some friends who, like me, were disposed to vote the pure and simple order of the day; after the very categorical declaration of M. the president of the council, not wishing a ministerial crisis… (Exclamations and ironic laughter on the right. — Applause on the extreme left and on the left) we wish for the order of the day accepted by the Government.

M. the president of the council, by his declarations, has shifted the debate. Just now we were called to vote on the question brought to the tribune by M. Jaurès, and we did not wish to follow M. Jaurès. It is now a question of general policy and we remain in agreement with the Government. (Hear, hear! hear, hear! on various benches)

But it must be well known, we are very numerous in this Chamber, infinitely more numerous still in the country, who have the firm purpose of holding ourselves, as regards the Dreyfus affair, to that word of a former minister of war: “The incident is closed.” (Applause on various benches. — Various movements at the centre)

Another consideration permits us to vote the motivated order of the day which the Government adopts: it is that, to hold to the letter of this order of the day, it is simply a question of taking note of the declarations of M. the minister of war, and not of approving them. (Ironic exclamations at the centre and on the extreme left)

Eh yes! we shall take note of the declarations of general André without approving them, and if we wished just now to vote the pure and simple order of the day, it was precisely because we did not approve the minister of war for having engaged us light-heartedly in an inquiry that was not asked of him. (Various movements) The declaration of M. the president of the council transforms the vote we are about to cast into a vote on the general policy of the cabinet, and we are more than ever resolved to support this policy. (Applause on the left and on various benches)

M. LE PRÉSIDENT. — The floor is given to M. Astier.

M. ASTIER. — Just now M. Ribot spoke of a communication to the press which made known the decisions of an important group of the Chamber.

It is I who, in the radical-socialist group, before the debate which has just taken place, had proposed to follow the policy adopted in the last legislature and to strive to leave judicial affairs on the judicial terrain. (Hear, hear! hear, hear! on various benches)

The event has proved that we had been clear-sighted, but M. Jaurès had the right to come here, in reply to the attempts at justification contained in M. Beauregard’s report, to maintain the thesis he has so brilliantly maintained. It was his right and it was his duty.

But we, we are a political Assembly, and as we firmly do not wish to reopen the era of discords, we ought not to obstruct the action of justice and to leave to the Government the care of having legality respected. We do not wish to intervene in an affair which is of the judicial domain; but the question is enlarged by M. Ribot, and since it is the general policy of the Government that is at stake, I deposit an order of the day which will give its true signification to this debate:

The Chamber, confident in the Government and rejecting any addition, passes to the order of the day. (Interruptions on various benches. — Applause on the extreme left)

M. LE PRÉSIDENT. — I have received a fourth draft resolution, signed by MM. Chapuis and Péret. It is thus conceived:

The Chamber, confident in the Government, and resolved not to allow the Dreyfus affair to leave the judicial domain, passes to the order of the day.

The fifth draft resolution is M. Astier’s.

Is the pure and simple order of the day maintained?

At the centre. — Yes! yes!

M. LE PRÉSIDENT DU CONSEIL, minister of the interior and of religions. — The Government rejects the pure and simple order of the day.

M. RIBOT. — Gentlemen, I would much like one to be able to account for himself, I just heard my excellent friend, M. Chautemps, whose very governmental spirit I know for having governed some time with him, give a somewhat singular explanation of the vote he was about to cast.

He said: I am going to take note of the declarations of the Government, but it is understood that this does not mean that I approve the general policy of the cabinet, and we are more than ever resolved to support the words and the action of M. the minister of war.

We deposited the pure and simple order of the day because it had this signification that we do not wish to approve the initiative, taken in this sitting by the minister of war, and his resolution to open an inquiry in order to reopen the Dreyfus affair.

There is the meaning we attach to the pure and simple order of the day.

If that is the meaning M. Chapuis attaches to his order of the day, I am quite ready, wishing the Chamber to be able to pronounce itself with clarity, to withdraw our order of the day, by voting on M. Chapuis’s order of the day and asking for division.

You cannot ask me to give a vote of confidence to the Government; if I had wished to give it lately, I could have done so, but I never had this temptation; you consider that the attitude it held in this sitting is not of a nature to make me change resolution. The majority may renew its confidence in the ministry; it will renew it as often as it wishes until the day when it perceives where it is being led, that is its affair and not mine. I shall not vote confidence, but I am ready to spare a trouble to this country… (Interruptions on the extreme left. — Applause at the centre) yes, there is something which weighs more for me than the question of whether M. Combes shall remain a few weeks more on the benches of the ministry, that is a contingent question; there is a much graver question, it is to know whether the country is going to be troubled anew against its will, because you know it as well as I; well, if you wish, I shall withdraw my order of the day and shall myself ask you to vote the second part of the order of the day of M. Chapuis; it will be the order of the day of 1900 that will be recalled to this Chamber and consecrated anew. But it will be also the condemnation and repudiation of the initiative taken by M. Jaurès. (Applause at the centre and on the right. — Interruptions on the left)

M. LE PRÉSIDENT. — The pure and simple order of the day is withdrawn.

The Chamber is called to pronounce itself on the priority to be granted to one of the five draft resolutions of which it is seized.

M. CHAPUIS. — I ask for the floor.

M. LE PRÉSIDENT. — The floor is given to M. Chapuis.

M. CHAPUIS. — After the declarations that have been made by the Government, telling us that it had no intention, in consulting the dossier, of reopening the affair (Murmurs at the centre and on the right) and of beginning again here discussions which divide the country, I have deposited an order of the day. Contrary to the personal opinion of M. Ribot, I have confidence in the Government, I approve its policy. It presented us with a law against the congregations, and in honour of having voted it. (Interruptions on the right) That is my affair; you make the policy that suits you, I make that which seems good to me.

Desiring above all that the Dreyfus affair not leave the judicial domain, I thought I should indicate it in the order of the day. I consider that the Chamber can vote it; we shall affirm in this way on the one hand the confidence we have in the Government we support; we shall affirm on the other hand the necessity of not reopening before Parliament an affair that has so divided us. (Hear, hear! hear, hear! on the left)

I take advantage of my presence at the tribune to say that I am among those who love and respect the army because it is the safeguard of the independence of my country. (Applause) I am among those who wish to see it strong; but I am also among those who do not pardon the faults committed in order to obtain a judgment by means of procedures contrary to all the rules of right.

One did well to put order to it; one was right to strike the guilty and one should, in the future, proceed to all the purgings necessary to make of this army an army submitted to the Republic. (Applause on the left)

M. LE PRÉSIDENT. — I am going to call the Chamber to vote on priority.

There are five orders of the day.

Priority was first asked for that of MM. Jaurès, Maujan, Charles Bos, Henri Brisson, Gouzy and Jean Codet, which is thus conceived:

The Chamber, taking note of the declarations of the Government, passes to the order of the day.

M. LE PRÉSIDENT DU CONSEIL. — I ask for the floor.

M. LE PRÉSIDENT. — The floor is given to M. the president of the council.

M. LE PRÉSIDENT DU CONSEIL, minister of the interior and of religions. — I do not think that when M. Ribot spoke of prolonging by a few weeks the existence of the cabinet, he could believe that personally I attached the least importance to this prolongation.

M. CHENAVAZ. — We all hold to it.

M. LE PRÉSIDENT DU CONSEIL. — I believe I have proved on different occasions that I attached to power no other value than that of being in a position to accomplish the task I have assumed. (Applause on the left)

But I understand the new tactic of M. Ribot. He had presented a pure and simple order of the day, on which opinions could begin to be counted; he foresaw its fate and withdrew it to leave the Government face to face with other orders of the day.

Gentlemen, I note that the orders of the day subsequently maintained all confidence in the Government. The Chamber will therefore not permit itself, whatever judgment may be carried on this side (the right), not to take sides for one or the other of these orders of the day. (Applause on the left. — Laughter and ironic applause on the right)

M. LE PRÉSIDENT. — The floor is given to M. Vazeille.

M. VAZEILLE. — Gentlemen, the hour at which we have arrived forbids me long explanations. (Interruptions on the right)

M. LE PRÉSIDENT. — Gentlemen, I beg of you, if you wish to hasten the end of this discussion, you must listen.

M. DE BOURY. — We could all explain our vote; one would not be done with it.

M. VAZEILLE. — It is not a question of explanation of vote; I was inscribed in the discussion.

M. LIEUTENANT-COLONEL JACQUEY. — It is closed.

M. VAZEILLE. — No, since we are discussing the orders of the day.

The part I took in the discussion of the amnesty law would permit me to take the floor today to note, as M. the president of the council did yesterday, that there is a force of things, an immanent justice more powerful than the will of men. And when M. Ribot reproached our party with having wished to reopen the Dreyfus affair, he forgot that it is on the contrary by the very fact of the man who says: “The incident is closed” that this debate was reopened yesterday.

M. MASSABUAU. — That is exact.

M. VAZEILLE. — I add that, whatever you do, as long as you have not made complete light on this affair, you will drag it at your feet like a ball. And there is why I had proposed to deposit in the course of this discussion, a request for a parliamentary inquiry, whose terms would permit to arrive at the whole truth.

I renounced it following the acceptance by the Government of an administrative inquiry.

The fashion in which this debate unfolded did not permit me to give the explanations I should have to furnish. I am convinced that the occasion will present itself again for me to expound them integrally at this tribune. (Various movements)

On a great number of benches. — To the vote!

M. LE PRÉSIDENT. — I consult the Chamber on the priority of the draft resolution of MM. Jaurès, Maujan, Henri Brisson, Charles Bos, Gouzy, Jean Codet, thus conceived:

The Chamber, taking note of the declarations of the Government, passes to the order of the day.

There is a request for a ballot, signed by MM. Lassalle, Féron, Raymond Leygue, Basly, Lucien Cornet, de Pressensé, Jules-Louis Breton, Tronin, Selle, Charpentier, Bagnol, Baudin, Debanne, Sireyjol, Chamerlat, Krauss, Pajot, Bouhey-Allex, Cadenat, Aristide Briand, G. Baron, etc.

The ballot is opened.

(The votes are collected. — MM. the secretaries make the count.)

M. LE PRÉSIDENT. — Here is the result of the count of the ballot:

Number of voters … … … . 530

Absolute majority … … … … 266

For adoption … … … … . 212

Against … … … … … . . 318

The Chamber of Deputies has not adopted. (Applause at the centre and on the right)

M. CHAPUIS. — I ask for priority in favour of my order of the day.

M. LE PRÉSIDENT. — Priority was asked, in the second place, by M. Magniaudé. Does he insist?

M. MAGNIAUDÉ. — I rally to M. Chapuis’s draft resolution and yield my turn of priority to him.

M. ASTIER. — I have withdrawn my draft for my order of the day.

M. MAGNIAUDÉ. — That is possible, but I asked for priority after M. Jaurès and I have yielded my turn of priority to M. Chapuis, rallying to his text.

M. LE PRÉSIDENT. — That is exact. I am going to call the Chamber to pronounce itself on the priority of the draft resolution of MM. Chapuis and Péret, whose terms I recall:

The Chamber, confident in the Government, and resolved not to let the Dreyfus affair leave the judicial domain, passes to the order of the day.

M. MASSABUAU. — I ask for the floor to explain my vote.

M. LE PRÉSIDENT. — The floor is given to M. Massabuau.

M. MASSABUAU. — I shall vote M. Chapuis’s order of the day all the more willingly that, as I should have said at this tribune if I had not yielded my turn of speech to one of our colleagues who had asked me, I shall affirm that one comes to seek responsibilities when a law of amnesty has put them out of cause. (Various movements)

M. LE PRÉSIDENT. — I put to the vote the priority of the draft resolution of MM. Chapuis and Péret.

M. ASTIER. — I insist on noting that I maintain my draft resolution.

M. LE PRÉSIDENT. — There is a request for a ballot

signed by MM. Bouctot, Fleury-Ravarin, de Castelnau, Cibiel, Lechevallier, de Caraman, Eugène Motte, Marot, de Boury, Ballande, Cornudet, Charles Benoist, Raiberti, J. Thierry, etc.

The ballot is opened.

(The votes are collected. — MM. the secretaries make the count.)

M. LE PRÉSIDENT. — Here is the result of the count of the ballot:

Number of voters … … … 545

Absolute majority … … … . . 273

For adoption … … … … 367

Against … … … … … . 178

The Chamber of Deputies has adopted. (Applause at the centre and on various benches)

M. LE PRÉSIDENT. — I consult the Chamber on the substance.

At the centre. — We ask for the division.

M. LE PRÉSIDENT. — Division is asked for after the words:

… The Chamber, confident in the Government,…

I put to the vote this part of the draft resolution.

There is a request for a ballot, signed by MM. Salis, Defontaine, Razimbaud, Petitjean, Louis Martin, Mirman, Gerville-Réache, Féron, Carpot, Klotz, Georges Berger, Charles Chabert, Fouquet, Coulondre, etc.

The ballot is opened.

(The votes are collected. — MM. the secretaries make the count.)

M. LE PRÉSIDENT. — Here is the result of the count of the ballot:

Number of voters … … … 499

Absolute majority … … … . . 250

For adoption … … … … 282

Against … … … … … . 217

The Chamber of Deputies has adopted.

I now put to the vote the second part of the draft resolution of MM. Chapuis and Péret:

… and resolved not to allow the Dreyfus affair to leave the judicial domain, passes to the order of the day.

M. FABIEN-CESBRON. — It is a censure of the minister of war! (Noise on the left)

M. LE PRÉSIDENT. — There is a request for a public ballot, signed by MM. Bouctot, Cibiel, Marot, Eugène Motte, de Castelnau, de Caraman, Lechevallier, de Gontaut-Biron, Ballande, Jules Roche, Buisson, Georges Grosjean, Cornudet, Fleury-Ravarin, Arnal, Charles Benoist, etc.

The ballot is opened.

(The votes are collected. — MM. the secretaries make the count.)

M. LE PRÉSIDENT. — Here is the result of the count of the ballot:

Number of voters … … … 458

Absolute majority … … … . . 230

For adoption … … … … 383

Against … … … … … . 75

The Chamber of Deputies has adopted.

I put to the vote the whole of the draft resolution.

There is a request for a ballot, signed by MM. Buyat, Pajot, Bussière, Jules-Louis Breton, Charles Chabert, Tronin, Debanne, Pastre, Octave Vigne, Viollette, Vazeille, Gouzy, Angé, Baudin, Chambige, Rouby, etc.

The ballot is opened.

(The votes are collected. — MM. the secretaries make the count.)

M. LE PRÉSIDENT. — Here is the result of the count of the ballot:

Number of voters … … … 325

Absolute majority … … … . . 163

For adoption … … … … 250

Against … … … … … . 75

The Chamber of Deputies has adopted.

M. LE HÉRISSÉ. — I note that there are in the Chamber 75 votes for the policy of M. Jaurès and the reopening of the Dreyfus affair. It matters that the country know it.

Annex to the procès-verbal of the sitting of Tuesday 7 April

BALLOT

On the conclusions of the commission of inquiry tending to the validation of the electoral operations of the second arrondissement of Paris. (Result of the pointage)

Number of voters … … … . . 509

Absolute majority … … … … . 255

For adoption … … … … . 228

Against … … … … … … 281

The Chamber of Deputies has not adopted.

VOTED FOR:

MM. Adam (Achille). Alsace (comte d’), prince d’Hénin. Amodru. Anthime-Ménard. Archdeacon. Argeliès. Arnal. Audiffred. Audigier. Auffray (Jules). Aynard (Édouard). Ballande. Bansard des Bois. Baron (Jules) (Maine-et-Loire). Barrois. Bartissol. Baudry d’Asson (de). Beauregard (Paul) (Seine). Beauregard (de) (Indre). Benoist (de) (Meuse). Berger (Georges). Berry (Georges). Berthoulat (Georges). Bertrand (Paul) (Marne). Bignon (Paul). Bischoffsheim. Boissieu (baron de). Bonnevay. Bonte. Bonvalot. Borgnet. Boucher (Henry). Bouctot. Bougère (Ferdinand). Bougère (Laurent). Bourgeois (Paul) (Vendée). Boury (de). Brice (Jules) (Meurthe-et-Moselle). Brice (René) (Ille-et-Vilaine). Brindeau. Brisson (Joseph) (Gironde). Broglie (duc de). Cachet. Caffarelli (comte). Capéran. Caraman (comte de). Carnot (François). Castellane (comte Stanislas de). Castelnau (de). Cavaignac (Godefroy). Chambrun (marquis de). Charles Benoist (Seine). Chevalier. Cibiel. Cochery (Georges). Cochin (Henry) (Nord). Cornudet (vicomte). Corrart des Essarts. Coutant (Paul) (Marne).

Dansette (Jules). Darblay. Daudé. Dèche. Delafosse (Jules). Delarbre. Delaune (Marcel). Delombre (Paul). Denis (Théodore). Déribéré-Desgardes. Derrien. Desjardins (Jules). Dion (marquis de). Drake (Jacques). Duclaux-Monteil. Dujardin-Beaumetz. Dulau (Constant). Duquesnel. Durand. Dutreil.

Elva (comte d’). Engerand (Fernand). Ermant. Estourbeillon (marquis de l’).

Fabien-Cesbron. Fabre (Léopold). Faillot. Faure (Firmin). Ferrette. Flandin (Ernest) (Calvados). Fleury-Ravarin. Flourens. Fontaines (de). Forest. Fouché. Fouquet (Camille). Fruchier.

Gaffier. Gaillard-Bancel (de). Gaillard (Jules). Galot (Jules). Galpin (Gaston). Gauthier (de Clagny). Gautier (Léon) (Vosges). Gayraud. Gellé. Gérard (baron Maurice) (Calvados). Gérard (Edmond) (Vosges). Gervaize (Meurthe-et-Moselle). Gévelot. Ginoux-Defermon. Gonidec de Traissan (comte de). Gontaut-Biron (comte Joseph de). Goujon (Julien). Gourd. Grandmaison (de). Grosdidier. Grosjean. Groussau. Guillain. Guillotaux. Guyot de Villeneuve.

Halguet (lieutenant-colonel du). Harriague Saint-Martin. Haudricourt. Hémon. Holtz.

Jacquey (général). Jules Jaluzot. Jules Legrand (Basses-Pyrénées).

Kerjégu (J. de). Krantz (Camille).

Labourdonnaye (comte de). La Chambre. Lachièze. La Ferronnays (marquis de). Lamy. Laniel (Henri). Lanjuinais (comte de). Lannes de Montebello. Largentaye (Riourt de). Laroche-Joubert. La Rochethulon (comte de). Lasies. Laurens-Castelet (marquis de). Laville. Lebaudy (Paul). Lebrun. Lechevallier. Lefas. Léglise. Legrand (Arthur). Le Hérissé. Lemire. Lepelletier (Edmond). Lerolle. Lespinay (marquis de). Lévis-Mirepoix (comte de). Limon. Loque. Lozé (comte Ferri de).

Mackau (baron de). Mahy (de). Mando. Marot (Félix). Massabuau. Maure. Maurice Binder. Maurice Spronck. Maussabré (marquis de). Méline. Michel (Adrien) (Haute-Loire). Millevoye. Miossec. Montaigu (comte de). Montalembert (comte de). Motte. Moustier (marquis de). Mun (comte Albert de).

Ollivier. Ornano (Cuneo d’). Osmoy (comte d’).

Pain. Passy (Louis). Paulmier. Périer (Germain). Périer de Larsan (comte du). Perroche. Pichat. Pins (marquis de). Plichon. Pomereu (marquis de). Prache. Pradet-Balade. Proust. Pugliesi-Conti.

Raiberti. Ramel (de). Rauline. Reille (baron Amédée). Reille (baron Xavier). Renault-Morlière. Rey (Émile). Ribot. Riotteau. Ripert. Roche (Ernest) (Seine). Roche (Jules) (Ardèche). Roger-Ballu. Rohan (duc de). Roscoat (vicomte du). Rose. Rouland. Rousset (lieutenant-colonel). Rouvre (Bourdon de). Rozet (Albin). Rudelle.

Saint-Martin (de). Saint-Pol (de). Savary de Beauregard. Schneider (Eugène) (Saône-et-Loire). Sibille.

Tailliandier. Thierry. Thierry-Delanoue. Tournade. Trannoy.

Vigouroux. Villiers.

VOTED AGAINST:

MM. Abel-Bernard. Albert-Poulain. Aldy. Allard. Andrieu. Antoine Gras. Arbouin. Arène (Emmanuel). Aristide Briand. Astier. Astima (colonel). Aubry. Augé. Authier. Bachimont. Bagnol. Balandreau. Baron (Gabriel) (Bouches-du-Rhône). Barthou. Basly. Baudet (Charles) (Côtes-du-Nord). Baudet (Louis) (Eure-et-Loir). Baudin (Pierre). Baudon (Oise). Beauquier. Begey. Bellier. Bénézech. Bepmale. Bérard (Alexandre). Bersez. Berteaux. Berthet. Bertrand (Lucien) (Drôme). Bichon. Bizot. Bony-Cisternes.

Bouhey-Allex. Bourat. Boutard. Bouveri. Braud. Breton (Jules-Louis). Brisson (Henri) (Bouches-du-Rhône). Brunard. Buisson (Ferdinand) (Seine). Bussière. Buyat.

Cadenat. Camuzet. Cardet. Carnaud. Catalogne. Cazauvieilh. Caze (Edmond). Cazeaux-Cazalet. Cazeneuve. Cère (Émile). Chaigne. Chambige. Chambon. Chanal. Chandioux. Chapuis. Charles Chabert (Drôme). Charonnat. Charpentier. Charruyer. Chastenet (Guillaume). Chaumet. Chaussier. Chautemps (Alphonse) (Indre-et-Loire). Chautemps (Émile) (Haute-Savoie). Chauvière. Chavoix. Chenavaz. Clament (Clément) (Dordogne). Clément (Martinique). Clémentel. Cloarec. Codet (Jean). Colin. Colliard. Compayré (Émile). Constans (Paul) (Allier). Constant (Émile) (Gironde). Cordeyroy. Cornet (Lucien). Coulondre. Coutant (Jules) (Seine). Cruppi.

Dasque. Dauzon. David (Alban) (Indre). David (Fernand) (Haute-Savoie). Debanne (Louis). Debève (François). Debiève (Anatole). Debussy. Decker-David. Defontaine. Defumade. Dejeante. Delarue. Delbet. Delcassé. Delcléze. Delmas. Delory. Denéchau. Desfarges (Antoine). Deshayes. Devèze. Dormoy. Doumer (Paul). Doumergue (Gaston). Dron. Dubief. Dubois (Émile). Dufour (Jacques). Dumont (Charles). Dunaime. Dupuy (Pierre). Dussuel.

Éliez-Évrard. Émile Chauvin. Empereur. Escanyé. Euzière.

Fernand-Brun. Féron. Ferrero. Ferrier. Fiquet. Fitte. Fournier (François).

Gabriel Denis. Gabrielli. Galy-Gasparrou. Gauvin. Genet. Gentil. Gérault-Richard. Gervais (Seine). Gerville-Réache. Girod. Godet (Frédéric). Goujat. Gouzy. Grousset (Paschal). Guieysse. Guingand. Guyot-Dessaigne.

Henrique-Duluc. Herbet. Hubbard. Hugon. Hugues (Clovis) (Seine).

Iriart d’Etchepare (d’). Isambard. Isnard.

Janet (Léon) (Doubs). Jaurès. Jeanneney. Jehanin. Jourdan (Louis). Jumel.

Klotz. Krauss.

Labussière. Lachaud. Lacombe (Louis). Lafferre. Lamendin. Lanessan (de). Larquier. Lassalle. Lauraine. Leffet. Lepez. Lesage. Le Troadec. Leygue (Honoré) (Haute-Garonne). Leygue (Raymond) (Haute-Garonne). Lhopiteau. Lockroy. Loup.

Magniaudé. Malaspina. Maret (Henry). Martin (Bienvenu) (Yonne). Martin (Louis) (Var). Maruéjouls. Mas. Massé. Maujan. Maure (Gaston). Mencier (Jules). Merlou. Meslier. Messimy. Michel (Henri) (Bouches-du-Rhône). Mil (Louis). Minier (Albert). Monfeuillart. Morlot. Mougeot. Mulac. Muteau.

Ozun.

Pajot. Pams. Pasqual. Pastre. Paul Meunier. Pavie. Pelletan (Camille). Péret. Perrenoud. Perrin. Petit. Petitjean. Peureux. Pichery. Pierre Poisson. Piger. Pressensé (Francis de). Puech.

Rabier (Fernand). Ragot. Rajon (Claude). Razimbaud. Régnier. René Renoult. Réveillaud (Eugène). Ridouard. Rivet (Gustave). Rouanet. Rouby. Rougier. Rousé. Ruau.

Sabaterie. Salis. Sandrique. Sarraut (Albert). Sarrazin. Saumande. Sauzède. Schneider (Charles) (Haut-Rhin). Selle. Sembat. Sénac. Serres (Honoré). Siegfried. Simonet. Simyan. Sireyjol.

Tavé. Théron. Thivrier. Thomson. Tiphaine. Tourgnol. Tournier (Albert). Trouillot (Georges). Tronin.

Urslour.

Vacherie. Vaillant. Vazeille. Veber (Adrien). Vialis. Vigne (Octave) (Var). Vigné (Paul) (Hérault). Villault-Duchesnois. Villejean. Viollette. Vival.

Walter.

DID NOT TAKE PART IN THE VOTE:

MM. Arago (François). Bourgeois (Léon) (Marne). Cardon. Carpot. Charles Bos. Decrais. Delelis. Deloncle (François). Disleau. Dubuisson. Étienne. La Batut (de). Laurençon. Levet (Georges). Levraud. Lozé. Malizard. Mirman. Morel. Syveton. Tarigny.

DID NOT TAKE PART IN THE VOTE:

the deputy whose election is submitted to the inquiry:

M. Congy.

ABSENT ON LEAVE:

MM. Ancel-Seitz. Armez. Babaud-Lacroze. Balitrand. Beharelle. Boyer (Antide). Brunet. Caillaux. Castellane (comte Boni de). Castillard. Cauvin (Ernest). Chabert (Justin) (Rhône). Chamerlat. Chanoz. Coache. Cochin (Denys) (Seine). Conyba. David (Henri) (Loir-et-Cher). Dervéloy. Deschanel (Paul). Devins. Estournelles (d’). Flandin (Étienne) (Yonne). Gérald (Georges). Hubert. Hugues (François) (Aisne). Jonnart. Le Bail. Le Marc. Le Moigne. Leroy (Modeste). Leygues (Georges) (Lot-et-Garonne). Millerand. Mollard. Montjou (de). Noël. Noulens. Plissonnier. Poullan. Pourteyron. Quilbeuf. Richard (Pierre). Robert Surcouf. Roch. Sarrien. Suchetet. Thierry-Cazes. Torchut. Vallée. Vogeli.

M. Dunaime, recorded as having voted against in the above ballot, declares he had intended to abstain.

BALLOT

On priority in favour of the order of the day of MM. Jaurès, Henri Brisson, Jean Codet and Maujan.

Number of voters … … … 500

Absolute majority … … … . . 251

For adoption … … … … 196

Against … … … … … . 304

The Chamber of Deputies has not adopted.

VOTED FOR:

MM. Abel-Bernard. Albert-Poulain. Aldy. Allard. Andrieu. Antoine Gras. Arbouin. Arène (Emmanuel). Aristide Briand. Aubry. Augé. Authier. Bachimont. Bagnol. Baron (Gabriel) (Bouches-du-Rhône). Basly. Baudet (Louis) (Eure-et-Loir). Baudin (Pierre). Baudon (Oise). Beauquier. Begey. Bénézech. Bepmale. Berteaux. Bertrand (Lucien) (Drôme). Bizot. Bony-Cisternes. Bouhey-Allex. Bourat. Boutard. Bouveri. Braud. Breton (Jules-Louis). Brisson (Henri) (Bouches-du-Rhône). Brunard. Buisson (Ferdinand) (Seine). Bussière. Buyat. Cadenat. Camuzet. Cardet. Carnaud. Carpot. Cazeneuve. Cère (Émile). Chambige. Chambon. Chanal. Chandioux. Charles Bos. Charles Chabert (Drôme). Charonnat. Charpentier. Chaussier. Chauvière. Chavoix. Chenavaz. Clament (Clément) (Dordogne). Clément (Martinique). Cloarec. Codet (Jean). Colin. Colliard. Compayré (Émile). Constans (Paul) (Allier). Cornet (Lucien). Coulondre. Coutant (Jules) (Seine). Dasque. Dauzon. Debanne (Louis). Decker-David. Defumade. Dejeante. Delarue. Delmas. Deloncle (François). Delory. Desfarges (Antoine). Devèze. Dubief. Dubois (Émile). Dufour (Jacques). Dumont (Charles). Émile Chauvin. Euzière. Féron. Ferrero. Ferrier. Fiquet. Fitte. Fournier (François). Gabrielli. Galy-Gasparrou. Genet. Gentil. Gérault-Richard. Gerville-Réache. Girod. Goujat. Gouzy. Grousset (Paschal). Guieysse. Guingand. Guyot-Dessaigne. Herbet. Hubbard. Hugon. Hugues (Clovis) (Seine). Isambard. Isnard. Jaurès. Jehanin. Jourdan (Louis). Judet. Jumel. Krauss. Labussière. Lachaud. Lacombe (Louis). Lafferre. Lamendin. Lanessan (de). Lassalle. Lesage. Levraud. Leygue (Honoré) (Haute-Garonne). Leygue (Raymond) (Haute-Garonne). Lhopiteau. Loup. Malaspina. Malizard. Maret (Henry). Martin (Bienvenu) (Yonne). Massé. Maujan. Merlou. Meslier. Messimy. Michel (Henri) (Bouches-du-Rhône). Mil (Louis). Minier (Albert). Ozun. Pajot. Pams. Pastre. Péronneau. Perrin. Petitjean. Peureux. Pierre Poisson. Piger. Pressensé (Francis de). Puech. Rabier (Fernand). Rajon (Claude). Razimbaud. Régnier. René Renoult. Réveillaud (Eugène). Rivet (Gustave). Rouanet. Rouby. Salis. Sarraut (Albert). Sarrazin. Saumande. Sauzède. Schneider (Charles) (Haut-Rhin). Selle. Sembat. Sénac. Serres (Honoré). Siegfried. Simonet. Simyan. Sireyjol. Tavé. Théron. Thivrier. Thomson. Tourgnol. Tournier (Albert). Tronin. Urslour. Vacherie. Vaillant. Vazeille. Veber (Adrien). Vialis. Vigne (Octave) (Var). Vigné (Paul) (Hérault). Villejean. Viollette. Vival. Walter.

VOTED AGAINST:

MM. Adam (Achille). Alsace (comte d’), prince d’Hénin. Amodru. Anthime-Ménard. Archdeacon. Argeliès. Arnal. Astier. Audiffred. Audigier. Auffray (Jules). Aynard (Édouard). Balandreau. Ballande. Bansard des Bois. Baron (Jules) (Maine-et-Loire). Barrois. Barthou. Bartissol. Baudet (Charles) (Côtes-du-Nord). Baudry d’Asson (de). Beauregard (Paul) (Seine). Beauregard (de) (Indre). Bellier. Benoist (de) (Meuse). Berger (Georges). Berry (Georges). Bersez. Berthet. Berthoulat (Georges). Bertrand (Paul) (Marne). Bignon (Paul). Bischoffsheim. Boissieu (baron de). Bonnevay. Bonte. Bonvalot. Borgnet. Boucher (Henry). Bouctot. Bougère (Ferdinand). Bougère (Laurent). Bourgeois (Paul) (Vendée). Boury (de). Brice (Jules) (Meurthe-et-Moselle). Brice (René) (Ille-et-Vilaine). Brindeau. Brisson (Joseph) (Gironde). Broglie (duc de). Cachet. Caffarelli (comte). Caraman (comte de). Cardon. Carnot (François). Castellane (comte Stanislas de). Castelnau (de). Catalogne. Cavaignac (Godefroy). Cazauvieilh. Caze (Edmond). Cazeaux-Cazalet. Chaigne. Chambrun (marquis de). Chapuis. Charles Benoist (Seine). Charruyer. Chastenet (Guillaume). Chaumet. Chautemps (Alphonse) (Indre-et-Loire). Chautemps (Émile) (Haute-Savoie). Chevalier. Cibiel. Cochery (Georges). Cochin (Henry) (Nord). Congy. Constant (Émile) (Gironde). Cordeyroy. Cornudet (vicomte). Corrart des Essarts. Coutant (Paul) (Marne). Cruppi. Dansette (Jules). Darblay. Daudé. David (Alban) (Indre). David (Fernand) (Haute-Savoie). Debève (François). Debiève (Anatole). Dèche. Decrais. Delafosse (Jules). Delarbre. Delaune (Marcel). Delbet. Delcléze. Delelis. Delombre (Paul). Denéchau. Denis (Théodore). Déribéré-Desgardes. Derrien. Desjardins (Jules). Dion (marquis de). Dormoy. Doumer (Paul). Drake (Jacques). Dron. Dubuisson. Duclaux-Monteil. Dujardin-Beaumetz. Dulau (Constant). Dunaime. Dupuy (Pierre). Duquesnel. Durand. Dussuel. Dutreil. Éliez-Évrard. Elva (comte d’). Empereur. Engerand (Fernand). Ermant. Estourbeillon (marquis de l’). Fabien-Cesbron. Fabre (Léopold). Faillot. Faure (Firmin). Fermand-Brun. Ferrette. Flandin (Ernest) (Calvados). Fleury-Ravarin. Flourens. Fontaines (de). Forest. Fouché. Fouquet (Camille). Fruchier. Gaffier. Gaillard-Bancel (de). Gaillard (Jules). Galot (Jules). Galpin (Gaston). Gauthier (de Clagny). Gautier (Léon) (Vosges). Gauvin. Gayraud. Gellé. Gérard (baron Maurice) (Calvados). Gérard (Edmond) (Vosges). Gervais (Seine). Gervaize (Meurthe-et-Moselle). Gévelot. Ginoux-Defermon. Gonidec de Traissan (comte de). Grandmaison (de). Grosdidier. Grosjean. Groussau. Guillain. Guillotaux. Guyot de Villeneuve. Halguet (lieutenant-colonel du). Harriague Saint-Martin. Haudricourt. Hémon. Henrique-Duluc. Holtz. Iriart d’Etchepare (d’). Jacquey (général). Janet (Léon) (Doubs). Jeanneney. Jules Jaluzot. Jules Legrand (Basses-Pyrénées). Kerjégu (J. de). Klotz. Krantz (Camille). La Batut (de). La Bourdonnaye (comte de). La Chambre. Lachièze. La Ferronnays (marquis de). Lamy. Laniel (Henri). Lanjuinais (comte de). Lannes de Montebello. Largentaye (Riourt de). Laroche-Joubert. La Rochethulon (comte de). Larquier. Lasies. Lauraine. Laurençon. Laurens-Castelet (marquis de). Laville. Lebaudy (Paul). Lebrun. Lechevallier. Lefas. Leffet. Léglise. Legrand (Arthur). Le Hérissé. Lemire. Lepelletier (Edmond). Lepez. Lerolle. Lespinay (marquis de). Le Troadec. Levet (Georges). Lévis-Mirepoix (comte de). Limon. Lockroy. Loque. Lozé. Ludre (comte Ferri de). Mackau (baron de). Magniaudé. Mahy (de). Mando. Marot (Félix). Massabuau. Maure. Maurice Binder. Maurice Spronck. Maussabré (marquis de). Méline. Menier (Gaston). Mercier (Jules). Millevoye. Miossec. Mirman. Monfeuillart. Montaigu (comte de). Montalembert (comte de). Morel. Morlot. Motte. Moustier (marquis de). Mulac. Mun (comte Albert de). Muteau. Ollivier. Ornano (Cuneo d’). Osmoy (comte d’). Pain. Pasqual. Passy (Louis). Paul Meunier. Paulmier. Péret. Périer (Germain). Périer de Larsan (comte du). Perroche. Pichat. Pichery. Pins (marquis de). Plichon. Pomereu (comte de). Prache. Pradet-Balade. Proust. Pugliesi-Conti. Ragot. Raiberti. Ramel (de). Rauline. Reille (baron Amédée). Reille (baron Xavier). Renault-Morlière. Rey (Émile). Ribot. Ridouard. Riotteau. Ripert. Roche (Ernest) (Seine). Roche (Jules) (Ardèche). Roger-Ballu. Rohan (duc de). Roscoat (vicomte du). Rose. Rouland. Rousset (lieutenant-colonel). Rouvre (Bourdon de). Rozet (Albin). Ruau. Rudelle. Saint-Martin (de). Saint-Pol (de). Sandrique. Savary de Beauregard. Schneider (Eugène) (Saône-et-Loire). Sibille. Tailliandier. Thierry. Thierry-Delanoue. Tournade. Trannoy. Vigouroux. Villault-Duchesnois. Villiers.

DID NOT TAKE PART IN THE VOTE:

MM. Arago (François). Astima (colonel). Bérard (Alexandre). Bichon. Bourgeois (Léon) (Marne). Capéran. Clémentel. Debussy. Defontaine. Delcassé. Deshayes. Disleau. Doumergue (Gaston). Escanyé. Étienne. Godet (Frédéric). Martin (Louis) (Var). Maruéjouls. Mas. Michel (Adrien) (Haute-Loire). Mougeot. Pavie. Pelletan (Camille). Petit. Rougier. Sabaterie. Tiphaine. Trouillot (Georges). Tarigny.

ABSENT ON LEAVE:

MM. Ancel-Seitz. Armez. Babaud-Lacroze. Balitrand. Beharelle. Boyer (Antide). Brunet. Caillaux. Castellane (comte Boni de). Castillard. Cauvin (Ernest). Chabert (Justin) (Rhône). Chamerlat. Chanoz. Coache. Cochin (Denys) (Seine). David (Henri) (Loir-et-Cher). Dervéloy. Deschanel (Paul). Devins. Estournelles (d’). Flandin (Étienne) (Yonne). Gabriel Denis. Gérald (Georges). Hubert. Hugues (François) (Aisne). Jonnart. Le Bail. Le Marc. Le Moigne. Leroy (Modeste). Leygues (Georges) (Lot-et-Garonne). Millerand. Mollard. Montjou (de). Noël. Noulens. Plissonnier. Poullan. Pourteyron. Quilbeuf. Richard (Pierre). Robert Surcouf. Roch. Sarrien. Suchetet. Thierry-Cazes. Torchut. Vallée. Vogeli.

The numbers announced in session had been:

Number of voters … … … 530

Absolute majority … … … . . 266

For adoption … … … … 212

Against … … … … … . 318

But, after verification, these numbers have been rectified in conformity with the above ballot list.

BALLOT

On priority in favour of the order of the day of M. Chapuis

Number of voters … … … 472

Absolute majority … … … . . 237

For adoption … … … … 326

Against … … … … … . 146

The Chamber of Deputies has adopted.

VOTED FOR:

MM. Adam (Achille). Alsace (comte d’), prince d’Hénin. Amodru. Anthime-Ménard. Arago (François). Archdeacon. Argeliès. Arnal. Astima (colonel). Audiffred. Audigier. Auffray (Jules). Aynard (Édouard). Balandreau. Ballande. Bansard des Bois. Baron (Jules) (Maine-et-Loire). Barrois. Barthou. Bartissol. Baudet (Charles) (Côtes-du-Nord). Baudry d’Asson (de). Beauregard (Paul) (Seine). Beauregard (de) (Indre). Bellier. Benoist (de) (Meuse). Berger (Georges). Berry (Georges). Bersez. Berthet. Berthoulat (Georges). Bertrand (Paul) (Marne). Bignon (Paul). Bischoffsheim. Boissieu (baron de). Bonnevay. Bonte. Bonvalot. Borgnet. Boucher (Henry). Bouctot. Bougère (Ferdinand). Bougère (Laurent). Bourgeois (Paul) (Vendée). Boury (de). Boutard. Brice (Jules) (Meurthe-et-Moselle). Brice (René) (Ille-et-Vilaine). Brindeau. Brisson (Joseph) (Gironde). Broglie (duc de). Cachet. Caffarelli (comte). Caraman (comte de). Cardon. Carnot (François). Castellane (comte Stanislas de). Castelnau (de). Catalogne. Cavaignac (Godefroy). Cazauvieilh. Caze (Edmond). Cazeaux-Cazalet. Chaigne. Chambrun (marquis de). Chapuis. Charruyer. Chastenet (Guillaume). Chaumet. Chautemps (Alphonse) (Indre-et-Loire). Chautemps (Émile) (Haute-Savoie). Chavoix. Chevalier. Cibiel. Clament (Clément) (Dordogne). Clémentel. Cochery (Georges). Cochin (Henry) (Nord). Codet (Jean). Compayré (Émile). Congy. Constant (Émile) (Gironde). Cordeyroy. Cornudet (vicomte). Corrart des Essarts. Coutant (Paul) (Marne). Cruppi. Dansette (Jules). Darblay. Daudé. Dauzon. David (Alban) (Indre). David (Fernand) (Haute-Savoie). Debève (François). Debiève (Anatole). Debussy. Dèche. Decrais. Defontaine. Delafosse (Jules). Delarbre. Delaune (Marcel). Delbet. Delcléze. Delelis. Delombre (Paul). Denéchau. Denis (Théodore). Déribéré-Desgardes. Derrien. Desjardins (Jules). Desjardins (Jules). Dion (marquis de). Disleau. Dormoy. Doumer (Paul). Drake (Jacques). Dron. Dubois (Émile). Dubuisson. Duclaux-Monteil. Dujardin-Beaumetz. Dulau (Constant). Dunaime. Dupuy (Pierre). Duquesnel. Durand. Dussuel. Dutreil. Éliez-Évrard. Elva (comte d’). Empereur. Engerand (Fernand). Ermant. Escanyé. Estourbeillon (marquis de l’). Fabien-Cesbron. Fabre (Léopold). Faillot. Faure (Firmin). Fernand-Brun. Ferrette. Flandin (Ernest) (Calvados). Fleury-Ravarin. Flourens. Fontaines (de). Forest. Fouché. Fouquet (Camille). Fruchier. Gaffier. Gaillard-Bancel (de). Gaillard (Jules). Galot (Jules). Galpin (Gaston). Gauthier (de Clagny). Gautier (Léon) (Vosges). Gauvin. Gayraud. Gellé. Gérard (baron Maurice) (Calvados). Gérard (Edmond) (Vosges). Gervais (Seine). Gervaize (Meurthe-et-Moselle). Ginoux-Defermon. Godet (Frédéric). Gonidec de Traissan (comte le). Gontaut-Biron (comte Joseph de). Goujon (Julien). Gourd. Grandmaison (de). Grosdidier. Grosjean. Groussau. Guillain. Guillotaux. Guyot de Villeneuve. Halguet (lieutenant-colonel du). Harriague Saint-Martin. Haudricourt. Henrique-Duluc. Holtz. Iriart d’Etchepare (d’). Jacquey (général). Janet (Léon) (Doubs). Jeanneney. Jules Jaluzot. Jules Legrand (Basses-Pyrénées). Jumel. Kerjégu (J. de). Klotz. Krantz (Camille). La Batut (de). La Bourdonnaye (comte de). La Chambre. Lachièze. La Ferronnays (marquis de). Lamy. Laniel (Henri). Lanjuinais (comte de). Lannes de Montebello. Largentaye (Riourt de). Laroche-Joubert. La Rochethulon (comte de). Larquier. Lasies. Lauraine. Laurençon. Laurens-Castelet (marquis de). Laville. Lebaudy (Paul). Lebrun. Lechevallier. Lefas. Leffet. Léglise. Legrand (Arthur). Le Hérissé. Lemire. Lepelletier (Edmond). Lepez. Lerolle. Lespinay (marquis de). Le Troadec. Levet (Georges). Lévis-Mirepoix (comte de). Levraud. Lockroy. Loque. Lozé. Ludre (comte Ferri de). Mackau (baron de). Magniaudé. Mahy (de). Mando. Martin (Louis) (Var). Massabuau. Maure. Maurice Binder. Maurice Spronck. Maussabré (marquis de). Méline. Menier (Gaston). Mercier (Jules). Michel (Adrien) (Haute-Loire). Millevoye. Miossec. Mirman. Monfeuillart. Montaigu (comte de). Montalembert (comte de). Morel. Morlot. Motte. Moustier (marquis de). Mulac. Mun (comte Albert de). Muteau. Ollivier. Osmoy (comte d’). Pain. Pascal. Passy (Louis). Paul Meunier. Paulmier. Péret. Périer (Germain). Périer de Larsan (comte du). Perroche. Petit. Pichat. Pichery. Pins (marquis de). Plichon. Pomereu (comte de). Prache. Pradet-Balade. Proust. Pugliesi-Conti. Ragot. Raiberti. Ramel (de). Rauline. Reille (baron Amédée). Reille (baron Xavier). Renault-Morlière. René Renoult. Réveillaud (Eugène). Rey (Émile). Ribot. Ridouard. Riotteau. Ripert. Roche (Ernest) (Seine). Roche (Jules) (Ardèche). Roger-Ballu. Rohan (duc de). Roscoat (vicomte du). Rose. Rougier. Rouland. Rousé. Rousset (lieutenant-colonel). Rouvre (Bourdon de). Rozet (Albin). Ruau. Rudelle. Sabaterie. Saint-Pol (de). Sandrique. Sarrazin. Saumande. Savary de Beauregard. Schneider (Eugène) (Saône-et-Loire). Sibille. Siegfried. Tailliandier. Thierry. Thierry-Delanoue. Tiphaine. Tournade. Trannoy. Vigouroux. Villault-Duchesnois. Villiers.

VOTED AGAINST:

MM. Albert-Poulain. Aldy. Allard. Antoine Gras. Arbouin. Aristide Briand. Astier. Aubry. Authier. Bachimont. Bagnol. Baron (Gabriel) (Bouches-du-Rhône). Basly. Baudet (Louis) (Eure-et-Loir). Beauquier. Begey. Bénézech. Bepmale. Berteaux. Bizot. Bony-Cisternes. Bouhey-Allex. Bourat. Bouveri. Braud. Breton (Jules-Louis). Brunard. Buisson (Ferdinand) (Seine). Buyat. Cadenat. Camuzet. Carnaud. Carpot. Cazeneuve. Cère (Émile). Chambige. Chambon. Chanal. Chandioux. Charles Bos. Charpentier. Chauvière. Chenavaz. Cloarec. Colin. Colliard. Constans (Paul) (Allier). Cornet (Lucien). Coutant (Jules) (Seine). Dasque. Debanne (Louis). Defumade. Dejeante. Delory. Denéchau. Desfarges (Antoine). Devèze. Dubief. Dufour (Jacques). Dumont (Charles). Émile Chauvin. Euzière. Féron. Ferrero. Fiquet. Fitte. Fournier (François). Galy-Gasparrou. Genet. Gentil. Gérault-Richard. Girod. Goujat. Grousset (Paschal). Guieysse. Guingand. Guyot-Dessaigne. Herbet. Hubbard. Hugues (Clovis) (Seine). Isambard. Isnard. Jaurès. Jehanin. Jourdan (Louis). Judet. Krauss. Labussière. Lacombe (Louis). Lafferre. Lamendin. Lassalle. Lesage. Leygue (Honoré) (Haute-Garonne). Leygue (Raymond) (Haute-Garonne). Lhopiteau. Loup. Malaspina. Malizard. Martin (Bienvenu) (Yonne). Massé. Maujan. Merlou. Meslier. Messimy. Michel (Henri) (Bouches-du-Rhône). Mil (Louis). Minier (Albert). Ozun. Pajot. Pastre. Péronneau. Perrin. Petitjean. Piger. Pressensé (Francis de). Rabier (Fernand). Rajon (Claude). Razimbaud. Régnier. Rivet (Gustave). Rouanet. Salis. Sauzède. Schneider (Charles) (Haut-Rhin). Selle. Sembat. Sénac. Serres (Honoré). Simonet. Simyan. Théron. Thivrier. Thomson. Tourgnol. Tronin. Urslour. Vaillant. Vazeille. Veber (Adrien). Vialis. Vigne (Octave) (Var). Vigné (Paul) (Hérault). Villejean. Vival. Walter.

DID NOT TAKE PART IN THE VOTE:

MM. Abel-Bernard. Andrieu. Arène (Emmanuel). Augé. Bansard des Bois. Baudin (Pierre). Baudon (Oise). Bérard (Alexandre). Bertrand (Lucien) (Drôme). Bichon. Bourgeois (Léon) (Marne). Brisson (Henri) (Bouches-du-Rhône). Bussière. Capéran. Cardet. Charles Benoist (Seine). Charles Chabert (Drôme). Charonnat. Chaussier. Clément (Martinique). Coulondre. Decker-David. Delarue. Delcassé. Delmas. Doumergue (Gaston). Étienne. Ferrier. Gabrielli. Gerville-Réache. Gévelot. Gouzy. Hémon. Hugon. Lachaud. Lanessan (de). Limon. Maret (Henry). Marot (Félix). Maruéjouls. Mougeot. Ornano (Cuneo d’). Pams. Pelletan (Camille). Peureux. Pierre Poisson. Puech. Rouby. Saint-Martin (de). Sarraut (Albert). Sireyjol. Tavé. Tournier (Albert). Trouillot (Georges). Tarigny. Vacherie. Viollette.

ABSENT ON LEAVE:

MM. Ancel-Seitz. Armez. Babaud-Lacroze. Balitrand. Beharelle. Boyer (Antide). Brunet. Caillaux. Castellane (comte Boni de). Castillard. Cauvin (Ernest). Chabert (Justin) (Rhône). Chamerlat. Chanoz. Coache. Cochin (Denys). Conyba. David (Henri) (Loir-et-Cher). Dervéloy. Deschanel (Paul). Devins. Estournelles (d’). Flandin (Étienne) (Yonne). Gabriel (Denis). Gérald (Georges). Hubert. Hugues (François) (Aisne). Jonnart. Le Bail. Le Marc. Le Moigne. Leroy (Modeste). Leygues (Georges) (Lot-et-Garonne). Millerand. Mollard. Montjou (de). Noël. Noulens. Plissonnier. Poullan. Pourteyron. Quilbeuf. Richard (Pierre). Robert Surcouf. Roch. Sarrien. Suchetet. Thierry-Cazes. Torchut. Vallée. Vogeli.

The numbers announced in session had been:

Number of voters … … … 545

Absolute majority … … … . . 273

For adoption … … … … 367

Against … … … … … . 178

But, after verification, these numbers have been rectified in conformity with the above ballot list.

BALLOT

On the first part of the order of the day of M. Chapuis

Number of voters … … … 485

Absolute majority … … … . . 243

For adoption … … … … 274

Against … … … … … . 211

The Chamber of Deputies has adopted.

VOTED FOR:

MM. Abel-Bernard. Albert-Poulain. Aldy. Andrieu. Antoine Gras. Arago (François). Arbouin. Arène (Emmanuel). Aristide Briand. Astier. Astima (colonel). Aubry. Augé. Authier. Bachimont. Bagnol. Balandreau. Baron (Gabriel) (Bouches-du-Rhône). Barthou. Bartissol. Basly. Baudet (Charles) (Côtes-du-Nord). Baudet (Louis) (Eure-et-Loir). Baudin (Pierre). Baudon (Oise). Beauquier. Begey. Bellier. Bepmale. Bersez. Berteaux. Berthet. Bertrand (Lucien) (Drôme). Bizot. Bony-Cisternes. Bourat. Boutard. Braud. Breton (Jules-Louis). Brisson (Henri) (Bouches-du-Rhône). Brunard. Buisson (Ferdinand) (Seine). Bussière. Buyat. Camuzet. Capéran. Cardet. Cardon. Carnaud. Carpot. Catalogne. Cazauvieilh. Caze (Edmond). Cazeaux-Cazalet. Cazeneuve. Cère (Émile). Chaigne. Chambige. Chambon. Chanal. Chandioux. Chapuis. Charles Bos. Charles Chabert (Drôme). Charonnat. Charpentier. Charruyer. Chastenet (Guillaume). Chaumet. Chaussier. Chautemps (Alphonse) (Indre-et-Loire). Chautemps (Émile) (Haute-Savoie). Chavoix. Chenavaz. Clament (Clément) (Dordogne). Clément (Martinique). Clémentel. Cloarec. Codet (Jean). Colin. Colliard. Compayré (Émile). Constant (Émile) (Gironde). Cordeyroy. Cornet (Lucien). Coulondre. Cruppi. Dasque. Dauzon. David (Alban) (Indre). David (Fernand) (Haute-Savoie). Debanne (Louis). Debève (François). Debiève (Anatole). Debussy. Decker-David. Dèche. Defumade. Defontaine. Dejeante. Delbet. Delcléze. Delelis. Delombre (Paul). Deloncle (François). Denéchau. Desfarges (Antoine). Deshayes. Devèze. Disleau. Dormoy. Doumer (Paul). Dron. Dubief. Dubois (Émile). Dujardin-Beaumetz. Dumont (Charles). Dunaime. Dupuy (Pierre). Dussuel. Éliez-Évrard. Émile Chauvin. Empereur. Escanyé. Euzière. Fernand-Brun. Féron. Ferrero. Ferrier. Fiquet. Fitte. Fournier (François). Gabrielli. Galy-Gasparrou. Gauvin. Genet. Gentil. Gérault-Richard. Gervais (Seine). Gerville-Réache. Girod. Godet (Frédéric). Goujat. Gouzy. Grosdidier. Grousset (Paschal). Guieysse. Guingand. Guyot-Dessaigne. Henrique-Duluc. Herbet. Holtz. Hubbard. Hugon. Hugues (Clovis) (Seine). Iriart d’Etchepare (d’). Isambard. Isnard. Janet (Léon) (Doubs). Jaurès. Jeanneney. Jehanin. Jourdan (Louis). Judet. Jumel. Klotz. Krauss. La Batut (de). Labussière. Lachaud. Lacombe (Louis). Lafferre. Lamendin. Lanessan (de). Larquier. Lassalle. Lauraine. Leffet. Lepez. Lesage. Le Troadec. Levet (Georges). Levraud. Leygue (Honoré) (Haute-Garonne). Leygue (Raymond) (Haute-Garonne). Lhopiteau. Lockroy. Loque. Loup. Lozé. Magniaudé. Malaspina. Malizard. Maret (Henry). Martin (Bienvenu) (Yonne). Martin (Louis) (Var). Mas. Massé. Maujan. Menier (Gaston). Mercier (Jules). Merlou. Messimy. Michel (Henri) (Bouches-du-Rhône). Mil (Louis). Minier (Albert). Monfeuillart. Morel. Morlot. Mulac. Muteau. Ozun. Pajot. Pams. Pasqual. Paul Meunier. Pavie. Péret. Périer (Germain). Péronneau. Perrin. Petit. Petitjean. Peureux. Pichery. Pierre Poisson. Puech. Rabier (Fernand). Ragot. Rajon (Claude). Razimbaud. Régnier. René Renoult. Réveillaud (Eugène). Rey (Émile). Ridouard. Rivet (Gustave). Rouanet. Rouby. Rougier. Rousé. Rozet (Albin). Ruau. Sabaterie. Salis. Sandrique. Sarraut (Albert). Sarrazin. Saumande. Sauzède. Schneider (Charles) (Haut-Rhin). Selle. Sénac. Serres (Honoré). Siegfried. Simonet. Simyan. Sireyjol. Tavé. Théron. Thomson. Tiphaine. Tourgnol. Tournier (Albert). Tronin. Urslour. Vacherie. Vazeille. Vialis. Vigne (Octave) (Var). Vigné (Paul) (Hérault). Villejean. Viollette. Vival.

VOTED AGAINST:

MM. Adam (Achille). Alsace (comte d’), prince d’Hénin. Amodru. Anthime-Ménard. Archdeacon. Argeliès. Arnal. Audiffred. Audigier. Auffray (Jules). Aynard (Édouard). Ballande. Bansard des Bois. Baron (Jules) (Maine-et-Loire). Barrois. Baudry d’Asson (de). Beauregard (Paul) (Seine). Beauregard (de) (Indre). Benoist (de) (Meuse). Berger (Georges). Berry (Georges). Berthoulat (Georges). Bertrand (Paul) (Marne). Bischoffsheim. Boissieu (baron de). Bonnevay. Bonte. Bonvalot. Borgnet. Boucher (Henry). Bouctot. Bougère (Ferdinand). Bougère (Laurent). Bourgeois (Paul) (Vendée). Boury (de). Brice (Jules) (Meurthe-et-Moselle). Brice (René) (Ille-et-Vilaine). Brindeau. Brisson (Joseph) (Gironde). Broglie (duc de). Cachet. Caffarelli (comte). Caraman (comte de). Carnot (François). Castellane (comte Stanislas de). Castelnau (de). Cavaignac (Godefroy). Chambrun (marquis de). Charles Benoist (Seine). Chevalier. Cibiel. Cochery (Georges). Cochin (Henry) (Nord). Congy. Cornudet (vicomte). Corrart des Essarts. Coutant (Paul) (Marne). Dansette (Jules). Darblay. Daudé. Dèche. Delafosse (Jules). Delaune (Marcel). Denis (Théodore). Déribéré-Desgardes. Derrien. Desjardins (Jules). Dion (marquis de). Drake (Jacques). Duclaux-Monteil. Dulau (Constant). Duquesnel. Durand. Dutreil. Elva (comte d’). Engerand (Fernand). Ermant. Estourbeillon (marquis de l’). Fabien-Cesbron. Fabre (Léopold). Faillot. Faure (Firmin). Ferrette. Flandin (Ernest) (Calvados). Fleury-Ravarin. Flourens. Fontaines (de). Forest. Fouché. Fouquet (Camille). Fruchier. Gaffier. Gaillard-Bancel (de). Gaillard (Jules). Galot (Jules). Galpin (Gaston). Gauthier (de Clagny). Gautier (Léon) (Vosges). Gayraud. Gellé. Gérard (baron Maurice) (Calvados). Gérard (Edmond) (Vosges). Gervaize (Meurthe-et-Moselle). Gévelot. Ginoux-Defermon. Gonidec de Traissan (comte le). Gontaut-Biron (comte Joseph de). Goujon (Julien). Gourd. Grandmaison (de). Grosjean. Groussau. Guillain. Guillotaux. Guyot de Villeneuve. Halguet (lieutenant-colonel du). Harriague Saint-Martin. Haudricourt. Hémon. Jacquey (général). Jules Jaluzot. Jules Legrand (Basses-Pyrénées). Kerjégu (J. de). Krantz (Camille). La Bourdonnaye (comte de). La Chambre. Lachièze. La Ferronnays (marquis de). Lamy. Laniel (Henri). Lanjuinais (comte de). Lannes de Montebello. Largentaye (Riourt de). Laroche-Joubert. La Rochethulon (comte de). Lasies. Laurens-Castelet (marquis de). Laville. Lebaudy (Paul). Lebrun. Lefas. Léglise. Legrand (Arthur). Lemire. Lepelletier (Edmond). Lerolle. Lespinay (marquis de). Lévis-Mirepoix (comte de). Ludre (comte Ferri de). Mackau (baron de). Mahy (de). Mando. Marot (Félix). Massabuau. Maurice Binder. Maurice Spronck. Maussabré (marquis de). Méline. Michel (Adrien) (Haute-Loire). Millevoye. Miossec. Montaigu (comte de). Montalembert (comte de). Motte. Moustier (marquis de). Mun (comte Albert de). Ollivier. Ornano (Cuneo d’). Osmoy (comte d’). Pain. Passy (Louis). Paulmier. Périer de Larsan (comte du). Perroche. Pichat. Pins (marquis de). Plichon. Pomereu (comte de). Prache. Pradet-Balade. Proust. Pugliesi-Conti. Raiberti. Ramel (de). Rauline. Reille (baron Amédée). Reille (baron Xavier). Renault-Morlière. Ribot. Riotteau. Ripert. Roche (Ernest) (Seine). Roche (Jules) (Ardèche). Roger-Ballu. Rohan (duc de). Roscoat (vicomte du). Rose. Rousset (lieutenant-colonel). Rouvre (Bourdon de). Rudelle. Saint-Martin (de). Saint-Pol (de). Savary de Beauregard. Schneider (Eugène) (Saône-et-Loire). Sibille. Tailliandier. Thierry-Delanoue. Tournade. Trannoy. Villiers.

DID NOT TAKE PART IN THE VOTE:

MM. Allard. Bénézech. Bérard (Alexandre). Bichon. Bignon (Paul). Bouhey-Allex. Bourgeois (Léon) (Marne). Bouveri. Cadenat. Chauvière. Constans (Paul) (Allier). Coutant (Jules) (Seine). Debanne. Delarbre. Delarue. Delcassé. Delory. Doumergue (Gaston). Dubuisson. Dufour (Jacques). Étienne. Laurençon. Lechevallier. Le Hérissé. Limon. Maruéjouls. Maure. Meslier. Mirman. Mougeot. Pastre. Pelletan (Camille). Piger. Pressensé (Francis de). Rouland. Sembat. Thivrier. Trouillot (Georges). Tarigny. Vaillant. Veber (Adrien). Vigouroux. Villault-Duchesnois. Walter.

ABSENT ON LEAVE:

MM. Ancel-Seitz. Armez. Babaud-Lacroze. Balitrand. Beharelle. Boyer (Antide). Brunet. Caillaux. Castellane (comte Boni de). Castillard. Cauvin (Ernest). Chabert (Justin) (Rhône). Chamerlat. Chanoz. Coache. Cochin (Denys) (Seine). Conyba. David (Henri) (Loir-et-Cher). Dervéloy. Deschanel (Paul). Devins. Estournelles (d’). Flandin (Étienne) (Yonne). Gabriel (Denis). Gérald (Georges). Hubert. Hugues (François) (Aisne). Jonnart. Le Bail. Le Marc. Le Moigne. Leroy (Modeste). Leygues (Georges) (Lot-et-Garonne). Millerand. Mollard. Montjou (de). Noël. Noulens. Plissonnier. Poullan. Pourteyron. Quilbeuf. Richard (Pierre). Robert Surcouf. Roch. Sarrien. Suchetet. Thierry-Cazes. Torchut. Vallée. Vogeli.

The numbers announced in session had been:

Number of voters … … … 499

Absolute majority … … … . . 250

For adoption … … … … 282

Against … … … … … . 217

But, after verification, these numbers have been rectified in conformity with the above ballot list.

BALLOT

On the second part of the order of the day of M. Chapuis

Number of voters … … … 435

Absolute majority … … … . . 218

For adoption … … … … 357

Against … … … … … . 78

The Chamber of Deputies has adopted.

VOTED FOR:

MM. Adam (Achille). Alsace (comte d’), prince d’Hénin. Amodru. Anthime-Ménard. Arago (François). Archdeacon. Arène (Emmanuel). Argeliès. Arnal. Astima (colonel). Audiffred. Audigier. Auffray (Jules). Aynard (Édouard). Balandreau. Ballande. Bansard des Bois. Baron (Jules) (Maine-et-Loire). Barrois. Barthou. Bartissol. Baudet (Charles) (Côtes-du-Nord). Baudet (Louis) (Eure-et-Loir). Baudin (Pierre). Baudry d’Asson (de). Beauquier. Beauregard (Paul) (Seine). Beauregard (de) (Indre). Bellier. Benoist (de) (Meuse). Berger (Georges). Berry (Georges). Bersez. Berthet. Berthoulat (Georges). Bertrand (Paul) (Marne). Bignon (Paul). Bischoffsheim. Boissieu (baron de). Bonnevay. Bonte. Bonvalot. Borgnet. Boucher (Henry). Bouctot. Bougère (Ferdinand). Bougère (Laurent). Bourgeois (Paul) (Vendée). Boury (de). Boutard. Brice (Jules) (Meurthe-et-Moselle). Brice (René) (Ille-et-Vilaine). Brindeau. Brisson (Joseph) (Gironde). Broglie (duc de). Brunard. Bussière. Cachet. Caffarelli (comte). Caraman (comte de). Cardon. Carnot (François). Carpot. Castellane (comte Stanislas de). Castelnau (de). Catalogne. Cavaignac (Godefroy). Cazauvieilh. Caze (Edmond). Cazeaux-Cazalet. Cazeneuve. Chaigne. Chambon. Chambrun (marquis de). Chanal. Chapuis. Charles Benoist (Seine). Charruyer. Chastenet (Guillaume). Chaumet. Chaussier. Chautemps (Alphonse) (Indre-et-Loire). Chautemps (Émile) (Haute-Savoie). Chavoix. Chevalier. Cibiel. Clament (Clément) (Dordogne). Clémentel. Cochery (Georges). Cochin (Henry) (Nord). Compayré (Émile). Congy. Constant (Émile) (Gironde). Cordeyroy. Cornudet (vicomte). Corrart des Essarts. Coutant (Paul) (Marne). Cruppi. Dansette (Jules). Darblay. Daudé. David (Alban) (Indre). David (Fernand) (Haute-Savoie). Debève (François). Debiève (Anatole). Debussy. Dèche. Decker-David. Decrais. Defontaine. Delafosse (Jules). Delarbre. Delaune (Marcel). Delbet. Delcléze. Delelis. Delmas. Delombre (Paul). Deloncle (François). Denéchau. Denis (Théodore). Déribéré-Desgardes. Derrien. Deshayes. Desjardins (Jules). Dion (marquis de). Disleau. Dormoy. Doumer (Paul). Drake (Jacques). Dron. Dubois (Émile). Dubuisson. Duclaux-Monteil. Dujardin-Beaumetz. Dulau (Constant). Dunaime. Dupuy (Pierre). Duquesnel. Durand. Dussuel. Dutreil. Éliez-Évrard. Elva (comte d’). Empereur. Engerand (Fernand). Ermant. Escanyé. Estourbeillon (marquis de l’). Fabien-Cesbron. Fabre (Léopold). Faillot. Faure (Firmin). Fernand-Brun. Ferrette. Flandin (Ernest) (Calvados). Fleury-Ravarin. Flourens. Fontaines (de). Forest. Fouché. Fouquet (Camille). Fruchier. Gabrielli. Gaffier. Gaillard-Bancel (de). Gaillard (Jules). Galot (Jules). Galpin (Gaston). Gauthier (de Clagny). Gautier (Léon) (Vosges). Gauvin. Gayraud. Gellé. Gérard (baron Maurice) (Calvados). Gérard (Edmond) (Vosges). Gervaize (Meurthe-et-Moselle). Gévelot. Ginoux-Defermon. Godet (Frédéric). Gonidec de Traissan (comte le). Gontaut-Biron (comte Joseph de). Goujon (Julien). Gourd. Grandmaison (de). Grosdidier. Grosjean. Groussau. Guillain. Guillotaux. Guyot de Villeneuve. Halguet (lieutenant-colonel du). Harriague Saint-Martin. Haudricourt. Hémon. Henrique-Duluc. Holtz. Hugon. Iriart d’Etchepare (d’). Isambard. Jacquey (général). Janet (Léon) (Doubs). Jeanneney. Jules Jaluzot. Jules Legrand (Basses-Pyrénées). Jumel. Kerjégu (J. de). Klotz. Krantz (Camille). La Batut (de). La Bourdonnaye (comte de). La Chambre. Lachaud. Lachièze. La Ferronnays (marquis de). Lamy. Lanessan (de). Laniel (Henri). Lanjuinais (comte de). Lannes de Montebello. Largentaye (Riourt de). Laroche-Joubert. La Rochethulon (comte de). Larquier. Lasies. Lauraine. Laurençon. Laurens-Castelet (marquis de). Laville. Lebaudy (Paul). Lebrun. Lechevallier. Lefas. Leffet. Léglise. Legrand (Arthur). Le Hérissé. Lemire. Lepelletier (Edmond). Lepez. Lerolle. Lespinay (marquis de). Le Troadec. Levet (Georges). Lévis-Mirepoix (comte de). Levraud. Lhopiteau. Lockroy. Loque. Lozé. Ludre (comte Ferri de). Mackau (baron de). Magniaudé. Mahy (de). Mando. Marot (Félix). Martin (Louis) (Var). Mas. Massabuau. Maure. Maurice Binder. Maurice Spronck. Maussabré (marquis de). Méline. Menier (Gaston). Mercier (Jules). Michel (Adrien) (Haute-Loire). Millevoye. Miossec. Mirman. Monfeuillart. Montaigu (comte de). Montalembert (comte de). Morel. Morlot. Motte. Moustier (marquis de). Mulac. Mun (comte Albert de). Muteau. Ollivier. Ornano (Cuneo d’). Osmoy (comte d’). Pain. Pasqual. Passy (Louis). Paul Meunier. Paulmier. Péret. Périer (Germain). Périer de Larsan (comte du). Perroche. Petit. Peureux. Pichat. Pichery. Pins (marquis de). Plichon. Pomereu (comte de). Prache. Pradet-Balade. Proust. Puech. Pugliesi-Conti. Ragot. Raiberti. Ramel (de). Ranline. Reille (baron Amédée). Reille (baron Xavier). Renault-Morlière. René Renoult. Réveillaud (Eugène). Rey (Émile). Ribot. Ridouard. Riotteau. Ripert. Roche (Ernest) (Seine). Roche (Jules) (Ardèche). Roger-Balin. Rohan (duc de). Roscoat (vicomte du). Rose. Rouby. Rougier. Rouland. Rousé. Rousset (lieutenant-colonel). Rouvre (Bourbon de). Roux (Albin). Ruau. Rudelle. Sabaterie. Saint-Martin (de). Saint-Paul (de). Sandrique. Sarrazin. Saumande. Savary de Beauregard. Schneider (Eugène) (Saône-et-Loire). Sibille. Siegfried. Tailliandier. Tavé. Thierry. Thierry-Delanoue. Tiphaine. Tourgnol. Tournade. Trannoy. Vacherie. Vigouroux. Villault-Duchesnois. Villiers. Violette. Vival.

VOTED AGAINST:

MM. Albert-Poulain. Aldy. Andrieu. Arbouin. Aristide Briand. Aubrey. Bachimont. Bagnol. Baron (Gabriel) (Bouches-du-Rhône). Bandon (Oise). Bégey. Berteaux. Bouhey-Allex. Bourrat. Breton (Jules-Louis). Camescasse. Cardet. Carnaud. Chambige. Chandioux. Charles Bos. Charpentier. Cloarec. Colliard. Dasque. Delombre (Louis). Defumade. Desfarges (Antoine). Devèze. Dubief. Émile Chauvin. Ferrero. Fiquet. Fitte. Fournier (François). Galy-Gasparrou. Génet. Génault-Richard. Girod. Goujat. Gouzy. Grousset (Paschal). Guieysse. Hubbard. Hugues (Clovis) (Seine). Isnard. Jaurès. Jehanin. Judet. Krauss. Labussière. Lassalle. Lesage. Loup. Massé. Maujan. Merlou. Messimy. Michel (Henri) (Bouches-du-Rhône). Mill (Louis). Pajot. Pastre. Pressensé (Francis de). Razimbaud. Rouanet. Salis. Sauzède. Sénac. Simonet. Simyan. Sireyjol. Théron. Tournier (Albert). Trouin. Ursleur. Vazeille. Veber (Adrien). Vigné (Octave) (Var).

DID NOT TAKE PART IN THE VOTE:

MM. Abel-Bernard. Allard. Antoine Gras. Astier. Augé. Authier. Basly. Bénézech. Bepmale. Bérard (Alexandre). Bertrand (Lucien) (Drôme). Bichon. Bizot. Bony-Cisternes. Bourgeois (Léon) (Marne). Bouveri. Brauli. Brisson (Henri) (Bouches-du-Rhône). Buisson (Ferdinand) (Seine). Buyat. Cadenat. Capéran. Cère (Émile). Charles Chabert (Drôme). Charonnat. Chauvière. Clément (Martinique). Codet (Jean). Colin. Constans (Paul) (Allier). Cornet (Lucien). Coulondre. Coutant (Jules) (Seine). Danzon. Dejeante. Delarue. Delcassé. Delory. Doumergue (Gaston). Dufour (Jacques). Dumont (Charles). Étienne. Eusèbre. Féron. Perrier. Gentil. Gervais (Seine). Gerville-Réache. Guingand. Guyot-Dessaigne. Herbet. Jourdan (Louis). Lacombe (Louis). Lafferre. Lamendin. Leygue (Honoré) (Haute-Garonne). Leygue (Raymond) (Haute-Garonne). Limoin. Malaspina. Malizard. Maret (Henry). Martin (Bienvenu) (Yonne). Maruéjouls. Meslier. Minier (Albert). Mougeot. Ozun. Pams. Pavie. Pelletan (Camille). Péronneau. Perrin. Petitjean. Pierre Poisson. Piger. Rabier (Fernand). Rajon (Claude). Régnier. Rivet (Gustave). Sarraut (Albert). Schneider (Charles) (Haut-Rhin). Selle. Sembat. Serres (Honoré). Thivrier. Thomson. Trouillot (Georges). Turigny. Vaillant. Vialis. Vigné (Paul) (Hérault). Villejean. Walter.

ABSENT ON LEAVE:

MM. Ancel-Seitz. Armez. Babaud-Lacroze. Balitrand. Beharelle. Boyer (Antide). Brunet. Caillaux. Castellane (comte Boni de). Castillard. Cauvin (Ernest). Chabert (Justin) (Rhône). Chamerlat. Chanez. Coache. Cochin (Denys) (Seine). Couyba. David (Henri) (Loir-et-Cher). Dervelloy. Deschanel (Paul). Devins. Étournelles (d’). Flandin (Étienne) (Yonne). Gabriel Denis. Gérald (Georges). Hubert. Hugues (François) (Aisne). Jonnart. Le Bail. Le Marec. Le Moigne. Leroy (Modeste). Leygues (Georges) (Lot-et-Garonne). Millerand. Mollard. Montjou (de). Noël. Noulens. Plissonnier. Poulan. Pourteyron. Quilbeuf. Richard (Pierre). Robert Surcouf. Roch. Sarrien. Suchetet. Thierry-Cazes. Torchut. Vallée. Vogeli.

The numbers announced in session had been:

Number of voters … … … . 458

Absolute majority … … … . . 230

For adoption … … … … 383

Against … … … … … . 75

But, after verification, these numbers have been rectified in conformity with the above ballot list.

BALLOT

On the whole of the order of the day of M. Chapuis

Number of voters … … … . 305

Absolute majority … … … . . 153

For adoption … … … … 235

Against … … … … … . 70

The Chamber of Deputies has adopted.

VOTED FOR:

MM. Amodru. Anthime-Ménard. Arago (François). Arène (Emmanuel). Argeliès. Astier. Astima (colonel). Audiffred. Augé. Balandreau. Barrois. Barthon. Bartissol. Baudet (Charles) (Côtes-du-Nord). Baudet (Louis) (Eure-et-Loir). Baudin (Pierre). Bandon (Oise). Beauregard. Bellier. Berry (Georges). Bersez. Berthet. Berthoulat (Georges). Bichon. Bignon (Paul). Bischoffsheim. Bonnevay. Bonte. Boucher (Henry). Boutard. Brand. Brisson (Henri) (Bouches-du-Rhône). Brunard. Bussière. Caffarelli (comte). Capéran. Caraman (comte de). Cardon. Carnot (François). Castellane (comte Stanislas de). Catalogne. Cazauvieilh. Caze (Edmond). Cazeaux-Cazalet. Cazeneuve. Chaigne. Chambon. Chapuis. Charonnat. Charruyer. Chastenet (Guillaume). Chaumet. Chaussier. Chautemps (Alphonse) (Indre-et-Loire). Chautemps (Émile) (Haute-Savoie). Chavoix. Clament (Clément) (Dordogne). Clémentel. Cloarec. Cochery (Georges). Codet (Jean). Compayré (Émile). Constant (Émile) (Gironde). Cordeyroy. Cornudet (vicomte). Cruppi. Dauzon. David (Alban) (Indre). David (Fernand) (Haute-Savoie). Debève (François). Debiève (Anatole). Debussy. Decker-David. Decrais. Defontaine. Delarbre. Delarue. Delaune (Marcel). Delbet. Delclèze. Delelis. Delmas. Delombre (Paul). Deloncle (François). Denéchau. Déribéré-Desgardes. Desfarges (Antoine). Deshayes. Disleau. Dormoy. Doumer (Paul). Dron. Dubois (Émile). Dubuisson. Duclaux-Monteil. Dujardin-Beaumetz. Dulau (Constant). Dunaime. Dupuy (Pierre). Durand. Dussuel. Éliez-Évrard. Empereur. Escanyé. Fernand Brun. Féron. Ferrier. Fleury-Ravarin. Fruchier. Gabrielli. Galy-Gasparrou. Gauvin. Gellé. Gérard (Edmond) (Vosges). Gervais (Seine). Gerville-Réache. Godet (Frédéric). Gontaut-Biron (comte Joseph de). Goujon (Julien). Grosdidier. Guillain. Harriague Saint-Martin. Haudricourt. Henrique-Duluc. Holtz. Hugon. Iriart d’Etchepare (d’). Isambard. Janet (Léon) (Doubs). Jeanneney. Jehanin. Judet. Jules Legrand (Basses-Pyrénées). Kerjégu (J. de). Klotz. Krantz (Camille). La Batut (de). Lachaud. Lachièze. Lacombe (Louis). Lanessan (de). Lanjuinais (comte de). Laurençon. Lebaudy (Paul). Lechevallier. Lefas. Leffet. Léglise. Le Hérissé. Lepez. Lerolle. Le Troadec. Levet (Georges). Levraud. Lhopiteau. Lockroy. Loque. Lozé. Magniaudé. Malaspina. Mando. Martin (Bienvenu) (Yonne). Martin (Louis) (Var). Mas. Maure. Méline. Menier (Gaston). Mercier (Jules). Mill (Louis). Minier (Albert). Mirman. Monfeuillart. Morel. Morlot. Motte. Moustier (marquis de). Mulac. Muteau. Osmoy (comte d’). Pams. Pasqual. Paul Meunier. Pavie. Péret. Perrier (Germain). Périer de Larsan (comte du). Péronneau. Perrin. Peureux. Petit. Pichat. Pichery. Pierre Poisson. Prache. Pradet-Balade. Proust. Puech. Ragot. Raiberti. Régnier. Renault-Morlière. René Renoult. Réveillaud (Eugène). Rey (Émile). Ridouard. Roche (Jules) (Ardèche). Roger-Balin. Rouby. Rougier. Rouland. Rousé. Rouvre (Bourbon de). Rozet (Albin). Ruau. Sabaterie. Sandrique. Sarrault (Albert). Sarrazin. Saumande. Schneider (Charles) (Haut-Rhin). Sibille. Siegfried. Simonet. Sireyjol. Tavé. Thierry-Delanoue. Tiphaine. Tourgnol. Trannoy. Vigouroux. Villault-Duchesnois. Villejean. Violette.

VOTED AGAINST:

MM. Albert-Poulain. Aldy. Andrieu. Arbouin. Aristide Briand. Bachimont. Bagnol. Baron (Gabriel) (Bouches-du-Rhône). Basly. Bepmale. Berteaux. Bouhey-Allex. Bourrat. Breton (Jules-Louis). Camescasse. Carnaud. Chandioux. Charles Bos. Charpentier. Colliard. Dasque. Debonne (Louis). Devèze. Dubief. Émile Chauvin. Ferrero. Fiquet. Fitte. Fournier (François). Génet. Gérault-Richard. Girod. Goujat. Gouzy. Grousset (Paschal). Hubbard. Hugues (Clovis) (Seine). Isnard. Jaurès. Krauss. Labussière. Lafferre. Lamendin. Lassalle. Lesage. Leygue (Honoré) (Haute-Garonne). Leygue (Raymond) (Haute-Garonne). Loup. Massé. Maujan. Merlou. Messimy. Pajot. Pastre. Pressensé (Francis de). Razimbaud. Rouanet. Salis. Sauzède. Selle. Sénac. Serres (Honoré). Simyan. Théron. Tournier (Albert). Ursleur. Vazeille. Veber (Adrien). Vigné (Octave) (Var). Vigné (Paul) (Hérault).

DID NOT TAKE PART IN THE VOTE:

MM. Abel-Bernard. Adam (Achille). Allard. Alsace (comte d’), prince d’Hénin. Antoine Gras. Archdeacon. Arnal. Aubry. Audigier. Auffray (Jules). Authier. Aynard (Édouard). Ballande. Bansard des Bois. Baron (Jules) (Maine-et-Loire). Baudry d’Asson (de). Beauregard (Paul) (Seine). Beauregard (de) (Indre). Bégey. Bénézech. Benoist (de) (Meuse). Bérard (Alexandre). Berger (Georges). Berthaud (Lucien) (Drôme). Bertrand (Paul) (Marne). Bizot. Boissien (baron de). Bonvalot. Bony-Cisternes. Borgnet. Bouctot. Bougère (Ferdinand). Bougère (Laurent). Bourgeois (Léon) (Marne). Bourgeois (Paul) (Vendée). Boury (de). Bouveri. Brice (Jules) (Meurthe-et-Moselle). Brice (René) (Ille-et-Vilaine). Brindeau. Brisson (Joseph) (Gironde). Broglie (duc de). Buisson (Ferdinand) (Seine). Buyat. Cachet. Cadenat. Cardet. Carpot. Castelnau (de). Cavaignac (Godefroy). Cère (Émile). Chambige. Chambrun (marquis de). Chanal. Charles Benoist (Seine). Charles Chabert (Drôme). Chauvière. Chesnavas. Chevalier. Cibiel. Clément (Martinique). Cochin (Henry) (Nord). Colin. Congy. Constans (Paul) (Allier). Cornet (Lucien). Corrart des Essarts. Coulondre. Coutant (Jules) (Seine). Coutant (Paul) (Marne). Dansette (Jules). Darblay. Daudé. Dèche. Delafosse (Jules). Delbet. Delcassé. Delory. Denis (Théodore). Derrien. Desjardins (Jules). Dion (marquis de). Doumergue (Gaston). Drake (Jacques). Dufour (Jacques). Dumont (Charles). Duquesnel. Dutreil. Elva (comte d’). Engerand (Fernand). Ermant. Estournelles (d’). Étienne. Eusèbre. Fabien-Cesbron. Fabre (Léopold). Faillot. Faure (Firmin). Ferrette. Flandin (Ernest) (Calvados). Flourens. Fontaines (de). Forest. Fouché. Fouquet (Camille). Gaillard-Bancel (de). Gaillard (Jules). Galot (Jules). Galpin (Gaston). Gauthier (de Clagny). Gauthier (Léon) (Vosges). Gayraud. Gentil. Gérard (baron Maurice) (Calvados). Gervaize (Meurthe-et-Moselle). Gévelot. Ginoux-Defermon. Gonidec de Traissan (comte le). Gourd. Grandmaison (de). Grosjean. Groussau. Guieysse. Guillotaux. Guingand. Guyot-Dessaigne. Guyot de Villeneuve. Halguet (lieutenant-colonel du). Hémon. Herbet. Jacquey (général). Jourdan (Louis). Jules Jaluzot. La Bourdonnaye (comte de). La Chambre. La Ferronnays (marquis de). Lamy. Laniel (Henry). Lanjuinais (comte de). Lannes de Montebello. Largentaye (Riourt de). Laroche-Joubert. La Rochethulon (comte de). Lasies. Laurens-Castelet (marquis de). Laville. Lebrun. Legrand (Arthur). Lemire. Lepelletier (Edmond). Lespinay (marquis de). Lévis-Mirepoix (comte de). Limon. Ludre (comte Ferri de). Mackau (baron de). Mahy (de). Malizard. Maret (Henry). Marot (Félix). Maruéjouls. Massabuau. Maurice Binder. Maurice Spronck. Maussabré (marquis de). Meslier. Michel (Henri) (Bouches-du-Rhône). Michel (Adrien) (Haute-Loire). Millevoye. Miossec. Montaigu (comte de). Montalembert (comte de). Mougeot. Mun (comte Albert de). Ollivier. Ornano (Cuneo d’). Ozun. Pain. Passy (Louis). Paulmier. Pelletan (Camille). Petitjean. Pichat. Piger. Pins (marquis de). Plichon. Pomereu (comte de). Pugliesi-Conti. Rabier (Fernand). Rajon (Claude). Ramel (de). Ranline. Reille (baron Amédée). Reille (baron Xavier). Ribot. Riotteau. Ripert. Rivet (Gustave). Roche (Ernest) (Seine). Roger-Balin. Rohan (duc de). Roscoat (vicomte du). Rose. Rousset (lieutenant-colonel). Rudelle. Saint-Martin (de). Saint-Paul (de). Savary de Beauregard. Schneider (Eugène) (Saône-et-Loire). Sembat. Tailliandier. Thierry. Thivrier. Thomson. Tournade. Trouillot (Georges). Trouin. Turigny. Vacherie. Vaillant. Vialis. Villiers. Vival. Walter.

ABSENT ON LEAVE:

MM. Ancel-Seitz. Armez. Babaud-Lacroze. Balitrand. Beharelle. Boyer (Antide). Brunet. Caillaux. Castellane (comte Boni de). Castillard. Cauvin (Ernest). Chabert (Justin) (Rhône). Chamerlat. Chanez. Coache. Cochin (Denys) (Seine). Couyba. David (Henri) (Loir-et-Cher). Dervelloy. Deschanel (Paul). Devins. Étournelles (d’). Flandin (Étienne) (Yonne). Gabriel (Denis). Gérald (Georges). Hubert. Hugues (François) (Aisne). Jonnart. Le Bail. Le Marec. Le Moigne. Leroy (Modeste). Leygues (Georges) (Lot-et-Garonne). Millerand. Mollard. Montjou (de). Noël. Noulens. Plissonnier. Poulan. Pourteyron. Quilbeuf. Richard (Pierre). Robert Surcouf. Roch. Sarrien. Suchetet. Thierry-Cazes. Torchut. Vallée. Vogeli.

The numbers announced in session had been:

Number of voters … … … . 325

Absolute majority … … … . . 163

For adoption … … … … 250

Against … … … … … . 75

But, after verification, these numbers have been rectified in conformity with the above ballot list.

Rectifications

Rectifications entered in the Journal officiel of Thursday 9 April:

It is by reason of a material error that the name of M. the marquis de l’Estourbeillon does not appear in any of the categories of the ballot of 7 April on the whole of the order of the day of M. Chapuis; the honourable member had voluntarily abstained and his name was to be transferred to the list of members not having taken part in the vote in lieu and place of that of M. l’Estourbeillon who, regularly excused, appears moreover in the list of those absent on leave.

In the ballot of 7 April on the conclusions of the commission of inquiry tending to the validation of the electoral operations of the second arrondissement of Paris:

M. Capéran, recorded as having voted for, declares he had intended to vote against.

In the ballot of 7 April, on priority in favour of the order of the day of MM. Jaurès, Henri Brisson, Jean Codet and Maujan:

M. Jehanin declares that he was recorded by mistake as having voted for, and that in reality he had voted against.

M. Pavie declares that he was recorded by mistake as not having taken part in the vote, and that in reality he had voted against.

M. Paul Meunier declares that he was recorded by mistake as having voted against, and that in reality he had voted for.

M. Isnard declares that he was recorded by mistake as not having taken part in the vote, and that in reality he had voted for.

In the ballot of 7 April, on priority in favour of the order of the day of M. Chapuis:

M. Capéran declares that he was recorded by mistake as not having taken part in the vote, and that in reality he had voted for.

M. Jehanin declares that he was recorded by mistake as having voted for, and that in reality he had voted against.

M. Paul Meunier declares that he was recorded by mistake as having voted for, and that in reality he had voted against.

In the ballot of 7 April, on the second part of the order of the day of M. Chapuis:

M. Capéran declares that he was recorded by mistake as not having taken part in the vote, and that in reality he had voted for.

M. Jehanin declares that he was recorded by mistake as not having taken part in the vote, and that in reality he had voted against.

M. Pavie declares that he was recorded by mistake as not having taken part in the vote, and that in reality he had voted against.

M. Isnard declares that he was recorded by mistake as having voted against, and that in reality he had voted for.

In the ballot of 7 April, on the second part of the order of the day of M. Chapuis:

M. Louis Debanne declares that he was recorded by mistake as having voted against, and that in reality he had voted for.

In the ballot of 7 April, on the whole of the order of the day of M. Chapuis:

M. Vacherie declares that he was recorded by mistake as not having taken part in the vote, and that in reality he had voted for.

M. Isnard declares that he was recorded by mistake as having voted against, and that in reality he had voted for.

M. Méline declares that he was recorded by mistake as having voted for the whole of the order of the day of M. Chapuis, and that in reality he abstained.

M. Pierre Poisson declares that he was recorded by mistake as having voted for the whole of the order of the day of M. Chapuis and that in reality he abstained.

Rectifications entered in the Journal officiel of Friday 10 April:

In the ballot of 7 April on the second part of the order of the day of M. Chapuis:

M. Lafferre declares that he was recorded by mistake as not having taken part in the vote, and that in reality he had voted against.

M. Decker-David, absent at the moment of the vote and recorded by mistake as having voted for, declares that had he been present, he would have abstained.

In the ballot of 7 April on the whole of the order of the day of M. Chapuis:

M. Jules Roche (Ardèche) declares that he was recorded by mistake as having voted for, and that in reality he had abstained.

M. Anthime-Ménard declares that he was likewise recorded by mistake as having voted for, and that in reality he had voluntarily abstained.

M. Paul Lerolle makes the same declaration.

M. Debaune declares that he was recorded by mistake as having voted against, and that in reality he had voted for.

M. Cloarec, prevented from attending the sitting of 7 April, declares that, if he had been present, contrary to what was recorded by mistake, he would have voted: 1° for priority in favour of the order of the day of MM. Jaurès, Henri Brisson, Jean Codet and Maujan; 2° for priority in favour of the second part of the order of the day of M. Chapuis; 3° for the same order of the day; as having voted against the whole of the same order of the day, and that had he been present, he would have voted against in the first two ballots and abstained in the third.

M. Carpot declares that he was recorded by mistake, in the ballots of 7 April, as having voted for priority in favour of the order of the day of MM. Jaurès, Henri Brisson, Jean Codet and Maujan, as having voted against priority in favour of the order of the day of M. Chapuis, and as having abstained on the whole of the same order of the day, and that in reality he had abstained in the first two ballots and had voted for in the last.

In the ballot of the same day on priority in favour of the order of the day of MM. Jaurès, Henri Brisson, Jean Codet and Maujan, M. François Arago declares that he was recorded by mistake as not having taken part in the vote and that in reality he had voted against.

Rectifications entered in the Journal officiel of Saturday 11 April:

In the ballot of 7 April on the second part of the order of the day of M. Chapuis:

M. Emmanuel Arène declares that he was recorded by mistake as having voted for, and that in reality he had abstained.

In the ballot of 7 April on priority in favour of the order of the day of MM. Jaurès, Henri Brisson, Jean Codet and Maujan:

M. Gervais (Seine) declares that he was recorded by mistake as having voted against, and that in reality he had voted for.

M. Buyat declares that he was recorded, in the ballots of 7 April, as having voted for priority in favour of the order of the day of MM. Jaurès, Henri Brisson, Jean Codet and Maujan, as not having taken part in the vote on priority in favour of the order of the day of M. Chapuis; as having voted against priority in favour of the order of the day of M. Chapuis, and that in reality he had intended to abstain in the first and second ballots and to vote for in the three others.

Rectifications entered in the Journal officiel of Sunday 12 April:

In the ballot of 7 April on priority in favour of the order of the day of MM. Jaurès, Henri Brisson, Jean Codet and Maujan:

M. Saumande declares that he was recorded by mistake as having voted for, and that in reality he had voted against.

In the ballot of 7 April on the whole of the order of the day of M. Chapuis:

M. Claude Rajon declares that he was recorded by mistake as not having taken part in the vote, and that in reality he had voted for.

M. Albert Sarraut declares that, momentarily absent from the hall of sittings, he was recorded in the ballots of 7 April, as having abstained on priority in favour of the order of the day of M. Chapuis and on the second part of the same order of the day, and that if he had been present, he would have voted against in the first two ballots and abstained in the third.

Rectifications entered in the Journal officiel of Wednesday 15 April:

It is by reason of a material error that M. d’Estournelles de Constant is recorded as having been absent from the ballots of the sitting of 7 April. In reality, the honourable member had voted for priority in favour of the order of the day of MM. Jaurès, Henri Brisson, Jean Codet and Maujan, priority in favour of the order of the day of M. Chapuis; he had abstained on the second part as well as on the whole.

M. Mas, recorded in the sitting of 7 April as having abstained on priority in favour of the order of the day of MM. Jaurès, Henri Brisson, Jean Codet and Maujan, declares that he was absent at the moment of the ballot and that, had he been present, he would have voted for. The honourable member declares likewise that, recorded as having voted against the priority of the order of the day of M. Chapuis he would have voted against had he been present. Finally, recorded as having voted for the second part of the order of the day of M. Chapuis, he would have voted against.

Rectifications entered in the Journal officiel of Thursday 16 April:

M. Peureux declares that he had been prevented from attending the sitting of 7 April and that, had he been present, he would have abstained in the ballot on the validation of the electoral operations of the second arrondissement of Paris. The honourable member declares likewise that he would have voted against the priority of the order of the day of M. Jaurès and for the priority of the order of the day of M. Chapuis.

───

We gave the bon à tirer after corrections for two thousand copies of this seventeenth cahier on Tuesday 28 April 1903.

The Manager: CHARLES PÉGUY

This cahier has been composed and printed at the rate of unionised workers.

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