Edmond

Edmond is Georges Picquart’s companion during the Rennes trial of Alfred Dreyfus, sharing his lodging, walks, meals, and eventual departure from town. He makes the proceedings more than a sequence of courtroom scenes: through his hospitality, observations, and quick response to danger, he helps establish the daily world surrounding Picquart’s testimony and the Dreyfusards’ efforts to follow the case.

Identity and Place in the Trial

The account gives Edmond no profession or formal title, and does not define his relationship to Picquart. It does, however, place them together repeatedly. Edmond rents rooms for them in a quiet residential street, and Picquart knocks on his door before they set out for court in the early morning. They attend the proceedings and share meals nearby. Their companionship is practical and sustained, but the narrative leaves its exact nature unstated.

Edmond is also an observer of the trial who is new to Dreyfus in person. After the first morning’s proceedings, he reflects on the difficulty of feeling sympathy for Dreyfus even while accepting his innocence. His response marks a distinction between knowing the case and responding to the defendant as a public figure: Dreyfus’s repeated claim of innocence does not, in Edmond’s view, readily command belief. The observation is not presented as evidence against Dreyfus; it is an uncomfortable comment on how conviction and public perception can fail to align.

Lodging and the Daily Routine

Edmond chooses rooms in a small, white-shuttered, wisteria-covered house on the rue de Fougères, owned by a widow named Madame Aubry. The house has a tiny garden and stands on a hill about a kilometre from the courtroom. A gendarme guards it. The detail places their home within the atmosphere of watchfulness surrounding the trial, even before Edmond and Picquart begin their daily journey to court.

Because of the summer heat, hearings are scheduled to start at seven in the morning and end by lunchtime. On the Monday described, Picquart rises at five, dresses formally, and meets Edmond at his door. They walk down the hill toward the river, with two policemen following them. Their route passes closed bourgeois villas, then reaches the river embankments, where workers are already beginning the day. The contrast between the guarded visitors and the ordinary morning activity makes their walk a recurring passage between the private lodging and the public, closely observed trial.

Les Trois Marches and the Dreyfusards

After the first session, Edmond has already found a restaurant close to their rooms: Les Trois Marches, an inn on the edge of open country. He calls it a hidden gem and likens its setting to Alsace. The Jarlet couple run the farmhouse, which has a garden, orchard, stables, barn, and pigsty. Edmond and Picquart sit outside beneath a tree, drinking cider and discussing the morning’s proceedings while their bodyguards remain nearby.

The restaurant becomes more than a convenient lunch stop when Edmond learns that Mercier is staying across the road, at the house of General de Saint-Germain. The guards there, the innkeeper explains, protect Mercier rather than the general. Edmond responds with laughter and proposes reserving a table for ten at lunch and dinner for the duration of the trial. That decision turns an accidental discovery into a standing gathering place for leading Dreyfusards. Its regulars include Georges Clemenceau and Albert Clemenceau, Jean Jaurès, René Viviani, Lacroix, Séverine, Octave Mirabeau, Gabriel Monod, and Victor Basch. Right-wing newspapers call the gathering the Conspiracy of Les Trois Marches, a label that contrasts with the account’s description of the group’s ordinary meals at the inn.

Edmond’s hospitality also has a tactical dimension. He jokes that the group should establish a permanent bridgehead near the opposing camp, since Mercier is dining across the road. The restaurant gives the Dreyfusards a reliable place to meet while the court proceedings continue, turning proximity to a senior military opponent into an occasion for collective presence. Picquart later asks for his own police protection to be withdrawn, suspecting that the officers may pass information about him to the authorities.

Labori’s Shooting and Edmond’s Response

One morning, as Edmond, Picquart, and Labori walk beside the canal toward court, Labori asks Picquart for a final detail about Mercier and the handling of the secret file. A gunman approaches from behind and shoots him. Picquart initially attends to Labori, then pursues the fleeing man. He tells Edmond to stay with Labori, but Edmond runs after him for a time; Picquart calls back for him to return to the injured advocate.

Picquart fails to catch the gunman and returns to town more than three kilometres on foot, so he misses the immediate aftermath. Edmond supplies the account later. He describes Labori protecting his briefcase and notes from people who recognize him, Marguerite Labori reaching the scene, and soldiers carrying him back to his lodgings. He also reports that Edgar Demange came from the courtroom and that Labori told his colleague that Dreyfus was safe. Edmond’s account fills a gap in Picquart’s direct experience: the pursuit takes Picquart away from the victim, and Edmond becomes the source through whom the event’s other consequences reach him.

When Picquart eventually reaches the house where Labori has been taken, the advocate is unconscious and Marguerite is beside him. Edmond’s earlier presence and later report link the attack’s scattered scenes—the canal, the return to town, and the house where Labori is being cared for—without making Edmond the centre of the crisis. His role is that of companion and witness, able to stay close to events when Picquart cannot.

Departure and Narrative Function

On the evening of Thursday, 7 September, Edmond and Picquart share a farewell supper at Les Trois Marches. Labori and Marguerite are present; Mathieu Dreyfus and Edgar Demange do not attend. The two men toast victory in the direction of Mercier’s house, then take a taxi to the deserted railway station and board the evening train to Paris. They leave without being seen, while the town recedes behind them. Their departure comes before the verdict is due, separating them from the coming announcement and ending the period in which Edmond has helped organize Picquart’s daily life in Rennes.

Across these episodes, Edmond’s significance lies in concrete acts rather than an independently developed biography. He finds a place to stay, establishes a dependable table for the Dreyfusards, accompanies Picquart to court, follows him during the pursuit, and later recounts what Picquart missed. The account offers no basis for assigning him a private motive or a formal political position beyond his participation in this company. Instead, his recurring presence gives the trial’s public conflict a practical scale: rooms, routes, meals, guarded doors, and the shared journey away from Rennes.