PICQUART Georges. - Lot 266

PICQUART Georges. SET CONCERNING THE DREYFUS CASE to François CRUCY. 1904-1906. AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT. [1904]. 2 pages in-4 mounted on tabs, 4 pneumatic cards, 1906, one autograph letter signed 1906, one autograph bill mostly mounted on tabs and one autograph card signed January 10, 1905, in Bradel hardback in-4 format, spine titled gold. Alfred Dreyfus, a Jew, was the victim of a judicial frame-up. Colonel Georges Picquart, head of the 2nd bureau, discovered evidence of the treason of Ferdinand Walsin Esterhaszy, in whose place Captain Dreyfus had been degraded and convicted on false evidence. Colonel Picquart takes an active part in restoring the truth, despite pressure from his superiors. Like the Alsatian Dreyfus, he was arrested and imprisoned; both men were released and reinstated in 1906, and Georges Picquart became a general and Minister of War. The set is addressed to François Crucy, editor of L'Aurore, where Emile Zola's famous J'accuse was published. In his film J'accuse Roman Polanski gives more prominence than to Dreyfus himself. Your letter gave me great pleasure. You know that I love conviction above all, and you are a convinced man. We still have some good battles to fight together... Here's what you can ask Gal Z about me: you can put it in any form you like. During his first ministry in 1895, General Z had specifically recommended that P. keep an eye on D'Orval. How then, in 1898, having been instructed, as he put it, to open and monitor a judicial investigation against P., did he allow the latter to be reproached by the witnesses Royet and Cuignet for the surveillance carried out on D'Orval? Furthermore, the little blue one that Gal Z saw had a fraudulent appearance: the address bearing Esterhaszy's name was visibly scratched and overprinted... which prompted Gal Z to take legal action against P. However, the expert report showed that these scratches and overprints had been made after the photographs had been taken on P's orders in the intelligence section. This was demonstrated by the photographs taken at the time. These scratches and overwrites were therefore obviously made after P.'s departure, giving the document its authenticity. Gal Z nonetheless maintained his accusation against P. He neglected, however, to request or investigate the causes of the alteration of the petit bleu. General Z (Zurlinden), Minister of War in 1898, resigned so as not to have to take the initiative in reviewing the Dreyfus trial. He once again became military governor of Paris and persecuted Colonel Picquart. .... Note the mischief of C [Cuignet], who in L'Éclair gives the telemeter letter only as follows: je vous ai écrit à 3 heures (I wrote to you at 3 a.m.). Putting only I wrote to you at 3 a.m. casts doubt on this, and yet the... cannot be accused of having concealed a part of the letter that is culpable. Cuignet has cruelly locked himself in. I think a good tactic would be not to provide him with any new data until Maitre Baudouin's indictment, but only his new accusations of forgery. In his indictment in 1905, Maître Baudoin proved Dreyfus's innocence. An astonishing symmetry of destiny between Dreyfus and Picquart, both innocent, accused and rehabilitated. Extremely rare unpublished documents concerning the Dreyfus affair.