All this was too much for the criminal champions of "the honour of the Army." _L'Aurore_ and Zola must be prosecuted. They were. And Clemenceau conducted his own defence. It was a crucial case, and the famous advocate Labori had previously done his best for Zola, pointing out that the whole drama turned on the prisoner then suffering at the Ile du Diable: perhaps the most infamous criminal, perhaps a martyr, the victim of human fallibility. He had shown, however, that "all the powers for Justice are combined _against_ Justice," and had called for the revision of a great case. "After the jury have adjudicated, public opinion and France herself will judge you," said Clemenceau himself. "You have been told that a document was privately communicated to the Court. Do you understand what that means? It means that a man is tried, is condemned, is covered with ignominy, his own name, that of his wife, of his children, of his father, of all his connections eternally blasted, on the faith of a document he had never been shown. Gentlemen, who among you would not revolt at the very idea of being condemned under such conditions? Who among you would not adjure us to demand justice for you if, brought before a tribunal, after a mockery of investigation, after a purely formal discussion, the judges, meeting out of your presence, decided on your honour and your life, condemning you, without appeal, on a document of whose very existence you were kept in ignorance? Who among you would quietly submit to such a decision? If this has been done, I tell you your one duty above all others is that such a case should be re-tried." That was the main point, as Clemenceau saw even more clearly than M. Labori. No man, guilty or innocent, could be justly condemned and sentenced on the strength of a written document the purport and even the existence of which had been deliberately concealed from the prisoner and his counsel. It scarcely needed further argument, not even the direct proof which was forthcoming that Colonel Sandherr, the president of the Court Martial, had a bitter and unreasoning prejudice against Jews. If the validity of the document had been beyond all possibility of question; if witnesses whose good faith had been unquestionable had seen Dreyfus write it with their own eyes: even then the trial was legally vitiated by the fact that it had not been shown to the accused. But if the document was forged----? All the other points, serious as some of them were, counted little by the side of this. That, therefore, Clemenceau dealt with most persistently. That, therefore, the General Staff, with its coterie of Jesuits, anti-Semites and spies, was determined to cover up. The generals who bore witness in the case against Zola and _l'Aurore_ showed by their threats and their admissions they knew that it was they themselves and the members of the secret Court Martial who were really on their trial at the bar of public opinion.