So that was the man whom Violette, in her dream, had seen weltering in a pool of blood, surrounded by his custodians, who had rushed in full of excitement!  M. Zola’s presence in that vision was, so to say, symbolical.  ’He had waved his arms and had seemed well pleased’—­so the girl had put it in her frank, artless way.  ‘Well pleased’ may perhaps appear to be scarcely the correct expression.  At all events, it needs to be interpreted.  Most certainly Zola never desired the death of a sinner; but, on the other hand, he could only feel some satisfaction at knowing that Henry’s crime was at last divulged to the world.

This, then, is how my daughter dreamt Henry’s death.  I do not wish to insist unduly on the incident, and I have no intention of appealing to the Psychical Research Society to test, corroborate, or disprove the case.

There was one rather curious feature that I have not yet mentioned.  My daughter has assured me that during the same night she dreamt the same thing over and over again.  She tried to banish the vision, but ever and ever it returned, as if to impress itself indelibly upon her mind.  And ever did she see M. Zola waving his arms as he hovered round the scene.

At that time the girl knew nothing of Colonel Henry; she understood very little about the Dreyfus case; and all she had to go upon was the enigmatical telegram and M. Zola’s talk during the evening, when he was expressing his thoughts aloud.  But at that moment he had foreseen no death, murder, or suicide, and if the possibility of any arrest had occurred to him it was that of M. du Paty de Clam, which the Revisionist papers were then demanding.

It is true that in infancy my daughter had often seen Mont Valerien, as I lived for some years at Boulogne-sur-Seine, and the hill and fortress towering across the river were then familiar objects to us all.  But the girl was little more than a baby at the time, and so this circumstance can have exercised no influence upon her.  Moreover, she has told me that she had no notion as to what might be the actual scene of her dream; it merely appeared to her that she was in France, because the people she saw raised ejaculations in French.

Passing from this incident, I may point out that the telegram sent to M. Zola through me was explained by the news in the English newspapers.  It was evident that the ‘great success’ referred to in the message was the discovery of Henry’s forgery and possibly his arrest.

Directly I saw the news in a London newspaper I hurried off to M. Zola’s, and when I reached his abode about noon I found him expecting me.  We then went over matters together, the press telegrams, my daughter’s dream and the probable outcome of the whole affair.

As was natural, M. Zola was quite excited.  First, the document which Henry had confessed to having forged was the very one that General de Pellieux had imported into the Zola trial in Paris as convincing proof of Dreyfus’s guilt.  At that time already its effect had been very great; it had destroyed all chance of M. Zola’s acquittal.  Then, too, it had been solemnly brought forward in the Chamber of Deputies by War Minister Cavaignac, who had vouched for its authenticity.  And now, as previously alleged by Colonel Picquart, it was shown to be a forgery of the clumsiest kind.