"Do you understand the answer? " and the rejoinder was " I do not, and I will tell you why if you shall permit." The judge said what in English is the colloquial phrase " Go ahead," when Labori added, in a tone of scorn, " I never before saw an assize court like this. All means are sought by it to prevent the light from being thrown on any point for the defense," but the judge kept silent. One witness, Monsieur Theveret, former minister of justice, made, instead of giving evidence, an impassioned speech for Zola, in which he characterized convicting Dreyfus on secret testimony, unknown to the accused or his counsel, as a disgrace to France, when, for the first time, some of the audience applauded; but this was on the fourth day of trial, by which time some of the Zola claque had got into the court room. Another oratorical witness, General Pdlieux, eulogized the Esterhazy council of war and said " It was made up of seven brave officers who have shed their blood on the fields of battle while others (looking scornfully at Zola) were — I know not where." Zola in terrupted with " There are different ways of serving France." The judge retorted " No phrases. You can only ask questions, and what shall I put for you." Zola could have retorted " But you have allowed oratorical phrases from witnesses who speak in my dis favor." He did not, however, but calmly added " then ask if the witness does not him self think there are different ways of serving France — one by the sword, another by the pen. He has won his great victories and I mine. By my works the French language has been spread throughout the world. I leave to posterity our joint names. It will choose." A Colonel Picquart gave very strong evi dence tending to show that the incriminating bordereau was in the handwriting of Esterhazy and not of Dreyfus. He was the wit ness who in the Esterhazy trial as soon as the drift of his testimony was grasped had put the war council behind closed doors to hear it, and no one knew what he could testify to
until he now appeared for Zola. So impor tant did his testimony lean in favor of Zola that while he was under examination two witnesses were allowed by the judge to be sworn interlocutorily in order to contradict some of his unfinished details, a most un usual incident. In the course of Colonel Picquart's testi mony, which bore greatly in Zola's favor, Lieutenant-Colonel Henry called him " liar," whereupon the Zola counsel asked a record, while neither the judge nor the attorney gen eral intervened to suppress the insult, and what in America would be contempt. The defense succeeded in having several specta tors of the public portion of the Esterhazy trial state that Zola's account of it was, in their opinion, not defamatory. To add to the eccentric incidents of the Zola trial. Counsel Labori was allowed to read to the court and jury an attack upon his race and religion by a morning paper, and refute it in a long au tobiography. Distinct evidence came inci dentally out, before the judge could in tercept it, that on the Dreyfus trial a secret document claimed to incriminate him was used by the prosecution in secret session. It had been previously proved that a certain secret document (contents unknown) was kept guarded among the sealed files of the War department. An American lawyer who attended all the sittings of the Zola trial dur ing last January, has written home that if the evidence had been heard anywhere in his country, Zola would have been justified for his acrimonious letter as being instigated by sympathy for an innocent man who was con demned, and by disgust at finding a guilty man pronounced innocent. Testimony was continually taken without any orderly se quence, because some of it would be heard for the defense one day, and on a succeeding one some for the prosecution, and then evi dence would alternate subsequently in turn. It closed by the production of several wit nesses eminent in belles-lettres, who were allowed to testify as to their belief in the
