Georges Picquart, who had been in charge of reporting the proceedings of the Dreyfus case to the War Minister and to his chief of staff, received the appointment to fill Sandherr's position.
The chief of the staff, Raoul Le Mouton de Boisdeffre, told Picquart that in his opinion the Dreyfus affair was not definitively settled.
Lauth later brought his chief a pneumatic tube telegram (commonly known as a "petit bleu"), the fragments of which he had found in the bag; pasted together, they contained the following words: To Major Esterhazy, 27 Rue de la Bienfaisance, Paris.
C. The writing of this note was disguised, but the place it came from left no room for doubt that it came from Colonel Max von Schwartzkoppen; the office possessed another document, known to have been written by him, and signed with the same initial "C." The "petit bleu" had not been sent by mail; apparently, after having written or dictated it, Schwartzkoppen decided not to send it and threw it away, taking care to tear it up into more than fifty very small pieces.
Picquart shared his impression; but determined to avoid the indiscretions and blunders which had been committed in 1894, he decided to secretly investigate himself before spreading the news of the discovery.
At first Picquart did not establish any connection in his own mind between the "petit bleu" and the bordereau; he simply thought he was on the track of a fresh traitor, and hoped to catch him in the act.
He insisted that he be allowed to return to the War Office, in preference to the Intelligence Department, and was able to attain the post through the highest parliamentary and military influence.
The French military attaché at Berlin, Foucault, informed him of a curious conversation he had had with Richard Cuers, a spy who wavered between France and Germany.
And when Picquart told him the letters were of recent date, he declared: "The Jews have, for the past year, been training some one to imitate the writing; he has succeeded in making a perfect reproduction."
Of the only two papers that were of any importance, one, the document "canaille de D ...," did not in any way concern any officer, but only someone who had assumed the name of Dubois, while the other, the memorandum of Schwartzkoppen, almost certainly pointed to Esterhazy.
These instructions, confirmed by Boisdeffre, seemed absurd to Picquart, since the bordereau established an indissoluble bond between the two cases; he should have understood from that moment that his superiors had determined not to permit the reopening of the Dreyfus affair.
Most of the officers involved in the case were afraid that they would lose their positions in the military if they publicly confessed the part they had taken in the mistaken conviction of Dreyfus in 1894 and the subsequent cover-up.
The anti-Jewish press inveighed against the accomplices, the protectors of the traitor; a member of the Chamber, André Castelin, announced that at the opening of the next session he would formally question the ministry on the subject.
On 14 September L'Eclair published a retrospective article under the title "The Traitor" which pretended to bring to light the real motives for the judgment of 1894.
Picquart found that ordinary measures – secret searches in his rooms, opening of his correspondence, examination of his desks – were of no avail, because Esterhazy had been warned.
A few days later Henry brought him a letter written in blue pencil from the Italian military attaché Alessandro Panizzardi which, he said, he had just found among some scraps in Madame Bastian's paper bag on 31 October.
In reality, the letter brought for comparison contained fraudulent additions hinting at a Jewish traitor, while the new document was a complete forgery executed by one of Henry's customary forgers named Lemercier-Picard, who later admitted to Count Tornielli that he had written it.
The memoir laid bare the inconclusive character of the incriminating document (without, however, publishing it), and affirmed, in opposition to "L'Eclair," that it bore only the initial "D" and not the name "Dreyfus".
Castelin demanded that proceedings should be instituted against the accomplices of the traitor, among whom he named Dreyfus' father-in-law Hadamard, the naval officer Emile Weyl, and Bernard Lazare.
General Billot, who had addressed the Chamber before Castelin, claimed the actions of 1894 had been perfectly legitimate, and made an appeal to the patriotism of the assembly to terminate a "dangerous debate."
After a short and confused argument the Chamber voted an "ordre du jour" of confidence, inviting the government to inquire into the matter and to take proceedings if there were cause.