An Officer and a Spy
by Robert Harris
Published by Hutchinson 2013
An Officer and a Spy by English writer Robert Harris was published in 2013. It is a semi documentary style historical fiction thriller. Having just finished his latest book Conclave, I’m joyfully going through a Robert Harris phase. An Officer and a Spy is based on the Alfred Dreyfus affair. Like almost everyone else, I knew about it - but not a lot, a French miscarriage of justice; antisemitism; incarceration on Devil’s Island and that Émile Zola wrote J'Accuse about it - that’s about it. It already contained all the ingredients of a thriller, it could be said that Harris has added a few fictional details, an over simplification perhaps, but with his deft writing skills he has given us a compelling read.
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| Left to right: Devil's Island prisoner Alfred Dreyfus; investigator and the book's main character Colonel Georges Picquart; real spy Commandant Ferdinand Esterhazy; forger Lieutenant Colonel Hubert-Joseph Henry. Montage by Pat Keenan |
“Whenever a crowd is running one way, it's my instinct to run the other” was part a reply by Harris in an interview with Andrew Anthony about An Officer and a Spy in The Guardian (2013). Harris got the idea for the book from Roman Polanski who had an apparent interest in the Dreyfus affair. Perhaps Polanski saw some parallel with his own exile from Hollywood. Robert Harris, a friend of Polanski, defended him in the New York Times when his extradition seemed imminent when charged with the rape of a child in the 1970s. In fairness Andrew Anthony adds: “it would be offensive to equate the Dreyfus and Polanski affairs – Roman did a terrible deed – but nonetheless there were features of the mass media hysteria and a refusal to examine the difficult legal technical issues that led up to both”.
The book might be a good companion on a trip to Paris. Here are a few locations.
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| Hôtel de Brienne, once the Ministry of War on the Rue Saint Dominique, Paris. Photo: Jiel Beaumadier |
• The book, largely set in Paris, begins on the Rue Saint Dominique at the Ministry of War in the Hôtel de Brienne - mansions are called ‘hôtels’ in French - today it is the home of the French Minister of Defence. The Ministry of War was divided into four sections: first - administration; second - military intelligence under the command of General Charles-Arthur Gonse; third - operations/training where the book's main character Colonel Georges Picquart headed a small intelligence unit, known as the Statistical Section. The fourth section was transportation.
• The École Militaire on the Champ-de-Mars is where Dreyfus, before a gaping crowd, was publicly humiliated, had his medals, epaulettes, buttons and gold braid wrenched from his uniform, his sword broken, and marched around the grounds, jeered and spit upon amid crys of “Judas" and “Jew”.
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| Dreyfus degradation: in the Morland Court of the École Militaire on the Champ-de-Mars, Paris, January 1895 Picture: Henri Meyer on the cover of Le Petit Journal -it was captioned "The Traitor". |
• Dreyfus lived with his wife and two children at 6 Avenue du Trocadéro
• Colonel Georges Picquart visits the head military intelligence General Charles-Arthur Gonse at his country home in Cormeilles-en-Paisis, Seine-Oise
• The German Embassy was put under surveillance by Picquart from apartments across the street. They establish that real spy Commandant Ferdinand Esterhazy visited on more than one occasion. The embassy was the Hôtel de Beauharnais, 78 rue de Lille, Paris
• The Cherche-Midi military prison also housed the courthouse where Alfred Dreyfus was court martialed. Later it was the scene for the court martial (in secret) of the real spy Esterhazy. Picquart was called to give evidence. Esterhazy was acquitted unanimously and greeted outside by his cheering supporters and anti-Semitic riots broke out all over Paris. Émile Zola also attended and the experience stirred him to write the now famous “J’Accuse,” front page in the newspaper L’Aurore on January 13, 1898, just two days after the acquittal. Zola, charged with libel by the French government was himself put on trial and convicted He later appealed fled into exile in England. The Cherche-Midi military prison and courthouse was demolished and replaced in 1968 by the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales)
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| J’Accuse! by Émile Zola on the front page of L’Aurore January 13, 1898 |
• Colonel Georges Picquart likes to pop in for a pint, a smoke, to read the papers and some times for meetings at the Café Saint Lazare, 104 Rue Saint-Lazare.
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| Dreyfus Tower on Devil’s Island in French Guiana Photo: Arria Belli |
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| Captain Dreyfus statue outside the Museum of Jewish Art and History Photo:© Sylvain Sonnet |
• Captain Alfred Dreyfus died in Paris in 1935, aged 75. His grave is in the Cimetière du Montparnasse, Paris.
• Georges Picquart died following a fall from a horse in 1914. He is buried in Cimetière Saint Urbain, Strasbourg - in his native Alsace
• Ferdinand Esterhazy, the real spy and perpetrator of the treason of which Alfred Dreyfus was convicted, fled France and ended his days on Milton Road in the village of Harpenden in England. He is buried there in St Nicholas' churchyard, under an alias - Count Jean de Voilemont.
• Hubert-Joseph Henry was arrested for having forged evidence against Alfred Dreyfus and ended up in military prison at Fort Mont-Valérien, Suresnes - a Paris suburb overlooking Bois de Boulogne. There in 1898 (aged 52) he was found, his throat slit and a blood smeared shaving razor - a razor he didn’t have when searched on his entry into prison.
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