The case of Captain Alfred Dreyfus’ inhumane imprisonment following his wrongful conviction in 1894 is infamous in the records of world history. The Dreyfus Affair is widely acknowledged as an absolute sham of a court martial, adjudged on the basis of flimsy circumstantial evidence, in the hope that it would look like justice when it was really just a fig leaf for antisemitism and dereliction of duty.
Robert Harris’ An Officer and A Spy is about that case and the two men at its centre—the first, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Mulhouse Jew serving in the French Army who is found guilty of a crime he did not commit and imprisoned most cruelly on Devil’s Island; and second, Major (later Colonel) Georges Picquart, a man of rare integrity and courage who stood up to the entire French establishment to right a wrong at great risk to his career, reputation and liberty.
An Officer and A Spy is an engrossing retelling of a riveting story, taking the reader through the initial court martial of Captain Dreyfus in 1894, right up to the culmination of the case in 1906. In a clever touch, Harris makes Picquart the narrator of the story, allowing the reader to view the facts of the case as they emerge and be a party to Picquart’s dilemma and finally, conversion from being yet another believer in Dreyfus’ guilt to becoming his staunchest defender.
Robert Harris opens the novel with Major Picquart narrating to the Minister of War, General Auguste Mercier and the Chief of General Staff, General Boisdeffre, what he witnessed at Captain Dreyfus’ military degradation in public view for treason, on charges of passing on military documents and secrets to a foreign power which, though unnamed, is understood to be Germany.
The author establishes Picquart as a man of great intelligence with a flair for words and a knack for knowing what his audience wants to hear. And it is through Major Picquart’s astute point of view that we are introduced to each character.
His descriptions are both discerning and entertaining pen pictures of the main players, combining both his keen observation skills and understanding of human psychology. While describing a French officer with delusions of grandeur, Picquart says,
“I always found something disconcerting about du Paty. It was as if he were acting the central part in a play for which no one else had been shown the script. He might laugh abruptly, or tap his nose and adopt an air of great mystery, or disappear from a room in the middle of a conversation without explanation. He fancied himself a detective in the modern scientific manner… I wondered what role in his drama he had chosen for me to play.”
An Officer and A Spy evokes an image of Paris as a hub of culture which it was, but also adds a strain of a defeated France, still licking its wounds after a resounding defeat by the Germans in 1870. The stench of a military humiliation permeates the entire novel and Harris conveys well the desperation of the defeated to find someone to blame and victimise almost as an antidote for its own defeat.
The inciting incident of the novel is Major Picquart, having played a role in the arrest and conviction of Captain Dreyfus, being promoted to the rank of Colonel and appointed chief of the counter-espionage unit called, in a coup of boring names, the Statistical Section. It is in this role that Colonel Picquart is forced to revisit the Dreyfus case and question whether or not the Army caught the right man.
As Picquart uncovers sinister lies and conspiracies, his faith in the incorruptibility of the organisation he is devoted to, is shaken, causing him to question even his own character and motivations. The novel’s key themes of nationalism and ambition versus integrity play out in court as well as in Picquart’s mind, knowing as he does that pursuing this case would destroy his career and likely end in a court martial for him and social ruin for those he loves. When facing disciplinary action himself, Picquart muses,
“In this quasi-religious house I perceive that I have become something beyond a mere dangerous nuisance to my masters. I am a heretic to the faith.”
Harris is masterful at depicting the sky-high stakes of the political scandal that shook Europe, weaving in the rising antisemitism, the grubby journalism of the scandal sheets as well as the tenacious activism of staunch supporters of Dreyfus’ cause like Anatole France, Henri Poincaré and Georges Clemenceau. At the height of the scandal, Émile Zola wrote, in a French daily, an explosive open letter known quite simply as J’accuse…!, accusing high-ranking officers and ministers of colluding in the wrongful conviction and imprisonment of Captain Dreyfus.
An Officer and A Spy is not a quick read but Harris keeps it pacy even though it must be said there are portions in the middle that focus rather minutely on procedure. However, I suppose that is to be expected in a novel about a real-life case with many fine details and a multitude of characters.
While history must be credited with providing the plot of this novel, Harris enhances it with a narrative structure that keeps ticking and a well-rounded narrator. Picquart is a man of culture with his interests in literature and music highlighted throughout the book bestowing him with an air of gentler sensibilities and a sense of humour offset by a few flaws of character making him feel like a real person instead of a bookish paragon of goodness. In a lighter moment, he muses on the status of older bachelors,
“Bachelors of forty are society’s stray cats. We are taken in by households and fed and made a fuss of; in return we are expected to provide amusement, submit with good grace…however short the notice.”
All in all, I greatly enjoyed An Officer and A Spy. If espionage thrillers and historical dramas are your scene, then do pick this one up. If, however, you prefer watching over reading, you could check out its film adaptation directed by Roman Polanski.
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