The Mediterranean Sea is a corridor of escape and return in Georges Picquart’s account of travel between North Africa and France. During two crossings, its waters frame his effort to evade notice, recall Alfred Dreyfus’s isolation at Devil’s Island, and sustain uncertainty about who may be watching him.

A concealed passage to France

On the June crossing, Picquart boards a passenger ferry bound for Marseille after arranging to travel under conditions that reduce the chance of recognition: he bribes a steamship clerk to secure a private cabin and keep his name off the passenger manifest, stays overnight near the docks, and boards in civilian clothes. He spends much of the voyage shut inside the cabin. The heat and confinement bring to mind Alfred Dreyfus’s account of waiting aboard a warship near Devil’s Island, making Picquart’s comparatively brief journey echo the isolation imposed on the prisoner.

At midnight, Picquart ventures onto the deck, but the darkness offers little reassurance. After noticing a man speaking with a crew member and then seeing the glowing end of a cigar behind him, he moves to the stern and eventually returns below. The account does not establish that anyone is pursuing him; the episode instead makes his caution, and the limits of what he can know, part of the crossing itself.

Arrival and uncertain pursuit

The ferry reaches Marseille in a summer downpour. Picquart hurries to the station for the first available train to Paris, believing that his visit to Tunis and failure to return to Sousse may have been reported. He fears that officers could anticipate his journey and arrange for the police to watch the station. Waiting beneath the station clock, he boards at the last moment by running alongside the moving train. A thickset man has missed it and is recovering his breath on the platform; Picquart cannot tell whether the stranger is simply a late passenger or an agent of the French Sûreté. The sea crossing thus ends without resolving the suspicion that governed it.

The November return crossing

On a second crossing, in November, the Mediterranean is rougher than it had been in June. Picquart again keeps mostly to his cabin; his Russian books slide from the small table as the ship moves. Monsieur Périer, his escort from the French Ministry of the Colonies, visits occasionally but generally stays in his own quarters. When Picquart does go above deck, he follows Jérôme Leclerc’s advice to keep away from the railings. Other passengers look at him, but he cannot know whether they are police agents or simply recognize someone whose name has appeared in the news.

The vessel leaves Africa on Tuesday, and the coast of France becomes visible through the mist on Thursday afternoon. As Picquart finishes packing, a knock at the cabin door interrupts the passage. He takes up his revolver and calls to ask who is there; the voice outside identifies itself as the captain. The excerpt ends at that threshold, with arrival near but the encounter still unresolved.

Narrative function

Across both journeys, the Mediterranean is not merely background scenery: it separates Picquart from the place he has left while exposing him to uncertain observation. The June passage emphasizes concealment and evokes Dreyfus’s confinement; the November crossing repeats the cabin-bound journey under rougher conditions, now with an escort and visible public attention. The recurring movement between Africa and France gives the sea a double role—as a route toward return and as a space where Picquart cannot confidently distinguish ordinary travel from surveillance.