My instructions
remained, however, the same as formerly: I was to tell every applicant
that M. Zola declined to make any public statement, and that he would
receive nobody. I was occasionally inclined to fancy that some of those
who called on me imagined that these instructions were of my own
invention, and that I was simply keeping M. Zola _au secret_ for purposes
of my own. But nothing was further from the truth.
Personally, at certain moments, when the revision proceedings began, when
M. Brisson fell from office, when M. Dupuy, listening to the clamour of a
pack of jackals, transferred the revision inquiry from the Criminal
Chamber to the entire Court of Cassation, I thought that it might really
be advisable for him to speak out. But, anxious though he was, disgusted,
indignant, too, at times, he would do nothing to add fuel to the flame.
Passions were roused to a high enough pitch already, and he had no desire
to inflame them more.
Besides the cause was in very good hands; Clemenceau and Vaughan, Yves
Guyot and Reinach, Jaures and Gerault-Richard, Pressense, Cornely, and
scores of others were fighting admirably in the Press, and his
intervention was not required.
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