Page "Others look into the Dreyfus Affair" Paragraph 9

At the Staff Office Henry and Du Paty, understanding at once the wishes of Boisdeffre and of Gonse, resolved to join forces with Esterhazy.

The keeper of the records, Gribelin, went in disguise to take a letter to Esterhazy fixing a rendezvous in the park of Montsouris.

There, while Henry ( fearing, as he said, recognition by his former comrade ) kept watch, Du Paty, who was also disguised, told Esterhazy that he was known to be innocent, and that he would be defended on condition that he conformed rigorously to the instructions that would be given to him.

After this interview, Esterhazy went to Schwartzkoppen quite cheered up, and told him that the staff was entering into a campaign for his defense.

A week later Schwartzkoppen had himself recalled to Berlin ; it was the discreet but significant avowal that " his man was taken.

" Meanwhile Esterhazy, as agreed upon, was receiving his daily instructions from the Staff Office.

Every evening from this time on Gribelin brought to him at the Military Club the program for the next day ; Du Paty and Henry, whose connection with the affair Esterhazy soon knew, saw him several times, sometimes at the Montmartre cemetery, sometimes on the Pont d ' Alexandre III.

Later on, when these meetings were considered too dangerous, they corresponded with him through the medium of his mistress, of his lawyer, or of his cousin Christian.