The Caillaux Drama

Late on Monday afternoon, March 16, 1914, a rumour fired imaginations, like a train of gunpowder, all over Paris. In newspaper offices, in cafés, in clubs, people asked one another whether they had heard the news and whether the news were true. It seemed incredible. The wife of the Minister of Finance, said rumour, Madame Joseph Caillaux, one of the spoiled children of Paris society, had gone to the office of the Figaro, had waited there an hour or more for the managing editor, Monsieur Gaston Calmette, had been received by him, and had shot him dead in his own office.

Nobody believed the story at first. Nobody could believe it. The very possibility of such a happening made it appear impossible. It was known, of course, that for some weeks before the Figaro had been waging an unsparing campaign against the Minister [Pg 2] of Finance. It was known that Monsieur Caillaux had been and was infuriated at this campaign, but nobody believed that tragedy had followed. There was a rush to the Figaro office. Paris is a small town compared with London, and the Figaro building in the Rue Drouot is in a more central position in the throbbing news and sensation-loving heart of Paris than is either Piccadilly or Fleet Street in London. Within ten minutes of the first news of the tragedy there was a large crowd gathered in the Rue Drouot, and even those who could not get into the Figaro building soon received confirmation that the drama really had occurred. People had seen a large and luxurious motor-car stationed outside the building. There was nothing at all unusual in this, for the offices of the Figaro are the resort in the afternoon of many people with big motor-cars. What was unusual, and had attracted notice, was the fact that the driver of the car had worn the tricolour cockade which in Paris is worn only by the drivers of cars or carriages belonging to the Ministers. Even this evidence was in no way conclusive, for courtesy permits Ambassadors and Ministers [Pg 3] accredited to the French Government by foreign countries to give their servants the red white and blue cockade, and it was thought by many that the car had not belonged to a French Minister at all, but was the property of an Ambassador. Then the story gained precision. A woman, it was said, escorted by police, had come out of the Figaro office and seated herself in the car. The driver, as she entered, had removed his tricolour cockade and driven round the corner to the police-station. The doors of the Figaro office were closed and guarded. A few minutes later all Paris knew the story. In the big grey motor-car in which she had driven to the Rue Drouot that afternoon, Madame Caillaux had been taken in custody to the police-station in the Rue du Faubourg Montmartre. Monsieur Gaston Calmette, the editor of the Figaro, lay dying in his office. His friend, Doctor Reymond, who was with him, gave little hope that his life could be saved, and those of the members of the staff of the paper who could be approached could only murmur confirmation of the same sad news. Later in the evening Monsieur Calmette was taken out to Neuilly to the private hospital of another [Pg 4] friend, Professor Hartmann. He died there just before midnight. Madame Caillaux had arrived in her motor-car at No. 26 Rue Drouot at about five o'clock, and had asked for Monsieur Calmette. She was told that Monsieur Calmette was out, but that he would certainly arrive before long. "Then I will wait," she said.

The customs of a Paris newspaper differ considerably from those of newspapers in London. They are, if I may put it so, more social. In a London newspaper office nearly all the business of the day with the outside world is transacted by express letter, by telegram, or over the telephone. The editor and his collaborators see fewer members of the public in a week in the offices of a London newspaper than the editor and collaborators of a Paris newspaper of the same importance see in an afternoon. The difference in the hours of newspaper work in Paris and in London, the difference in the characteristics of Frenchmen and of Englishmen have a great deal to do with this difference in newspaper methods. To begin with, the London newspaper goes to press much earlier than does the newspaper in Paris, for Paris papers have fewer and later [Pg 5] trains to catch, and "copy" is therefore finished much later in Paris. The principal London editors are invariably in their offices at latest at noon every day, and prefer to see their visitors between the hours of twelve and four o'clock. In Paris practically every newspaper editor receives between five and seven in the evening, and it is very rare to find heads of newspaper departments (the business side of course excepted) in their offices before five p.m. In other words the business of the day begins at about five o'clock in a Paris newspaper office, when the business of the evening begins in London and the business of the day is finished, and the real hard work of the night staff hardly begins until ten. The hour at which Madame Caillaux called therefore, to see Monsieur Calmette, was a perfectly normal one. She was told that he would certainly come in before long, and was asked for her name. She did not give it, said that she would wait, and was shown into a waiting-room where curiously enough she sat down directly beneath a large framed portrait of the King of Greece, who met his [Pg 6] death at the hands of a murderer not very long ago. Madame Caillaux waited over an hour. We learned, afterwards, that in her muff, during this long period of waiting, she carried the little revolver which she had bought that day, and with which she was presently to shoot Monsieur Calmette to death. She grew impatient at length, made inquiries of one of the men in uniform whose duty it is to announce visitors, and learned that Monsieur Calmette, who had just arrived, was now in his office with his friend Monsieur Paul Bourget, the well-known novelist. "If Madame will give me her card," said the man. Madame Caillaux took a card from her case, slipped it into an envelope which was on the table by her side, and gave it to the man in uniform, who took it to Monsieur Calmette's office. Monsieur Calmette and Monsieur Bourget were on the point of leaving the Figaro office together for dinner. Monsieur Calmette showed his friend the visiting card which had just been handed to him. "Surely you will not see her?" Monsieur Bourget said. "Oh yes," said Monsieur Calmette, "she is a woman, and I must receive her." Monsieur Bourget left his friend as Madame Caillaux was shown into the [Pg 7] room. A few moments afterwards the crack of a revolver startled everybody in the building. The interview had been a very short and tragic one. Madame Caillaux, drawing her revolver from her muff, had emptied all six chambers of it. Gaston Calmette fell up against a bookcase in the room. He was mortally wounded. There was a rush from all the other offices of members of the Figaro staff, the revolver was snatched from the woman's hand, a member of the staff who happened to be a doctor made a hasty examination, and a friend of M. Calmette's, Dr. Reymond, was telephoned for immediately. Somebody ran or telephoned for the police, but for a long time Madame Caillaux remained in a passage near the room where her victim lay dying. Before the ambulance was brought on which Monsieur Calmette was carried out into the street he had time to give his keys and pocket-book to one of his collaborators, and to say farewell to them. Madame Caillaux had said very little before she was taken away. When the revolver was snatched from her hand she had said, "There is no more justice in France." She had also said: "There was no other way of putting a stop to it," alluding, no doubt, to [Pg 8] the campaign in the Figaro against her husband. Then she had given herself into the hands of the police, and the curtain had fallen on this first act of the drama.

The first feeling in Paris when the crime became generally known was one of stupefaction. The special editions of the evening papers appeared while Paris was at dinner, were snatched with wild eagerness from the hands of the hawkers, and nothing else was talked of all that evening. Gradually, as details became known, a popular wave of indignation against the murderess became so fierce that the police, informed of it, took special measures to preserve order, and numbers of police with revolvers in the great leather cases which are worn in emergencies appeared in the streets. As a proof of the hold which the drama took immediately on the imagination of the public, it may be mentioned that the theatres were almost empty that evening and that in each entr'acte the audience rushed out of the theatre altogether to get further news, or if a few remained, they waited in the auditorium for news to appear on the screens usually devoted to advertisements, [Pg 9] instead of strolling about the theatre corridors as they usually do. An immense crowd gathered round the police-station in the Rue du Faubourg Montmartre, where Madame Caillaux had been taken. The crowd, composed for the most part of riffraff-for the Rue du Faubourg Montmartre is a favourite haunt of the very worst kind of criminals-formed a surging mass in front of the police-station with which the strong force of police found it difficult to cope. Barely a quarter of an hour after the police commissioner, Monsieur Carpin, had begun to question Madame Caillaux, her husband arrived at the police-station in a taxicab. He was recognized and hooted by the crowd, but though his usually ruddy face was deadly pale he gave no other sign that he had noticed this hostility. The only man who did not recognize Monsieur Caillaux was the policeman on duty at the door. He had orders to allow no one to pass, and barred his passage. "I am the Minister of Finance," said Monsieur Caillaux, and pushing past the man, who stood and stared at him, he added, "You might as well salute me." Other Ministers and politicians [Pg 10] of note had forced their way into the police-station, and a number of journalists were among them. Stories of all sorts circulated, one to the effect that Monsieur and Madame Caillaux had had a stormy scene, and that the Minister had reproached his wife bitterly for what she had done; another, which proved to be true later on, that he had telephoned to the Prime Minister, and resigned his portfolio and his seat in the Cabinet. Monsieur Carpin, the police commissioner, received some of the journalists in his office, and gave them a short report of what had occurred. "I saw Madame Caillaux at once when she came," he said. "She was perfectly self-possessed, but complained of feeling cold." "You are aware," she said, "of the campaign which Monsieur Gaston Calmette was waging against my husband. I went to some one, whose name I prefer not to mention, for advice how to put a stop to this campaign. He told me that it could not be stopped. A letter was published. I knew that other letters were to be published too. This morning I bought a revolver, and this afternoon I went to the office of the Figaro. I had no intention of killing Monsieur Calmette. This I affirm, and I regret my act [Pg 11] deeply." I quote this first statement of Madame Caillaux as Monsieur Carpin repeated it to the journalists in his office on the evening on which the crime was committed, and as the Figaro and other newspapers reproduced it word for word next morning. As will be seen later, these first statements which the prisoner made are of vital importance. It was now nine o'clock. The journalists were told that Monsieur Boucard, the examining magistrate, had given orders for Madame Caillaux to be locked up in St. Lazare prison, and were asked to leave the police-station. The crowd outside in the streets had in some way learned that Madame Caillaux was going, and became denser and more menacing. The officials inside the police-station realized that there was danger to the safety of their prisoner, and heard the cries from the mob in the street below against the Minister of Finance. These were if anything more threatening than those which Madame Caillaux's name provoked. All of a sudden a yell rose from below. "He's getting out by the back way! Down with the murderer! Death to Caillaux!" The [Pg 12] police-station has two entrances, one, the main one, in the Rue du Faubourg Montmartre, the other leading through a passage and a grocer's shop out into a little side street, the Rue de la Grange Batelière. There was a wild stampede round to this little shop, and the first of the crowd to arrive there were in time to see Monsieur Caillaux and the Minister of Commerce, Monsieur Malvy, jump into a taxicab at the door. The cab got away amid a storm of shouts and imprecations. "Death to Caillaux! Murderer! Démission!-Resign! Resign!" Madame Caillaux, under the escort of two high police officials, had been smuggled out of the police-station through the grocery shop and taken away in another cab a few moments before her husband left, but the crowd had missed her. She was taken directly to St. Lazare prison, where she has been since, and locked into pistole, or cell No. 12, where Madame Steinheil, Madame Humbert, and other prisoners of notoriety awaited trial in their day.

On the morning of Monday, March 16, Madame Caillaux had held a conference at her house in the Rue Alphonse de Neuville with the [Pg 13] President of the Civil Court, Monsieur Monier. It was to Monsieur Monier she referred when she told Monsieur Carpin and Monsieur Boucard, the examining magistrate, that she had been informed by a person, whom she preferred not to mention, that there was no means of putting a stop to the Figaro campaign against her husband. A few moments after Monsieur Monier had left the Rue Alphonse de Neuville Madame Caillaux was called up on the telephone by Monsieur Pierre de Fouquières of the Protocol. There was to be a dinner-party, in honour of the President of the Republic, at the Italian Embassy in Paris that evening, and Monsieur de Fouquières rang Madame Caillaux up on the telephone to know at what time exactly she and her husband would arrive at the Embassy. She told him that they would be there punctually at a quarter-past eight, and reminded Monsieur de Fouquières, at the same time, that she was counting on his help to place her guests at an important dinner which was to be given at the Ministry of Finance on March 23. This dinner of course never took place. After her conversation with Monsieur [Pg 14] de Fouquières, Madame Caillaux telephoned to her hairdresser, whom she ordered to call and do her hair at seven o'clock for the dinner at the Italian Embassy. At eleven o'clock that morning, her manicure called, and Madame Caillaux then drove to her dentist, Dr. Gaillard, whom, on leaving, she arranged to see again on the Wednesday at half-past two. From the dentist's Madame Caillaux drove to the Ministry of Finance, to fetch her husband. On her way back in the car with him to the Rue Alphonse de Neuville, Madame Caillaux told her husband of her conference with the President of the Civil Tribunal, Monsieur Monier, that morning, and of his declaration that there was no legal means to put an end to the campaign in the Figaro against the Minister of Finance. Monsieur Caillaux is a hot-tempered man. He flew into a violent rage, and declared to his wife "Very well then! If there's nothing to be done I'll go and smash his face." From my personal knowledge of Monsieur Joseph Caillaux, from my personal experience of his attitude when anything annoys him, I consider it quite probable that his rage would cause him to lose quite sufficient control of himself to speak in this manner under the circumstances. On one [Pg 15] occasion, not very long ago, Monsieur Caillaux received me in his office at the Ministry of Finance and spoke of his causes of complaint against the British Ambassador, Sir Francis Bertie. Although he was talking to an English journalist about the Ambassador of his king his language on that occasion was so unmeasured, and his anger was expressed with such freedom, that in the interview I published after our conversation I was obliged to suppress many of the things he said. In fact when he read some of them in the interview which I took to the Ministry to show him before I had it telephoned to London, Monsieur Caillaux himself suggested their suppression. Madame Caillaux knew, she has said afterwards, that her husband's anger and violence of temper were such that his threat was by no means a vague one. She has declared that it was this threat of Monsieur Caillaux's which gave her the first idea of taking her husband's place, and going to inflict personal chastisement on the editor of the Figaro. It is a truism that small occurrences often have results out of all proportion to their own importance. That morning Monsieur and Madame Caillaux made a very bad [Pg 16] luncheon. Madame Caillaux, who has been under medical treatment for some time, ate nothing at all, and the bad luncheon threw her husband into another rage. He was so angry that they almost quarrelled, and Madame Caillaux, to pacify him, promised that she would dismiss the cook there and then, go to a registry office that afternoon, and secure another cook for the next day. Monsieur Caillaux went back to the Ministry of Finance immediately after luncheon, and his wife, who had an engagement for tea at the H?tel Ritz in the afternoon, rang for her maid to put her into an afternoon dress. She says that she felt very ill while she was dressing, and very worried by her husband's outburst with regard to the Figaro campaign against him. She felt that she must do all she could, she has declared, to prevent the publication of certain letters which she believed, rightly or wrongly, that it was Monsieur Calmette's intention to publish in the Figaro. At half-past two that afternoon, before going out, Madame Caillaux was, she has told the examining magistrate, taken ill in her room and obliged to lie down, and she described with great vividness a sort of vision which she [Pg 17] declares passed like a picture on the cinematograph before her eyes. "I knew my husband to be a good swordsman, and a good pistol shot," she said. "I saw him killing Monsieur Calmette, I saw his arrest, I saw him in the Assize Court standing in the dock. All the terrible consequences of the ghastly drama which I foresaw passed before my eyes, and little by little I made up my mind to take my husband's place, and I decided to go and see Monsieur Calmette that same evening."

As I have already explained, Madame Caillaux knew, as every Parisian knows, that the most likely time to find a newspaper editor in his office was after five o'clock, and, as we know, she had promised to be at the Italian Embassy at a quarter-past eight and had telephoned to her hairdresser to go to her and dress her hair in the Rue Alphonse de Neuville at seven. It is fairly clear therefore, that when she left her house at three she had no very definite idea of what she was going to do. At three o'clock Madame Caillaux left home-the home to which neither she nor her husband has returned since-and drove in her grey [Pg 18] motor-car to a registry office, where she engaged a new cook for the next day. She then drove to the sale-rooms of the armourer Monsieur Gastinne-Renette in the Avenue d'Antin. Even then, she declares, she had no intention of killing the editor of the Figaro, but intended to ask him to cease his campaign against her husband, to refrain from publishing letters which she was convinced he intended to publish, and in the event of his refusal, to "show him of what she was capable" (these words are a quotation from her statement to the examining magistrate, Monsieur Boucard), and fire her revolver not to kill, but to wound him. I wish it to be understood, clearly, that I am quoting the foregoing from the evidence of Madame Caillaux herself. I do not wish in any way to comment on this evidence. It is my object merely to try, to the best of my endeavour, to place before the public the state of this wretched woman's mind immediately before the crime which she committed, and by so doing to allow my readers to form their own judgment of her motives. Madame Caillaux was well known to Monsieur Gastinne-Renette, who for that matter knows everybody in Paris society. [Pg 19] She told the armourer that she would be motoring a good deal, by herself, between Paris and her husband's constituency of Mamers, during Monsieur Caillaux's coming electoral campaign, and that she wanted a revolver for her own protection. The first weapon which was shown her did not satisfy her. It was expensive, costing ￡3 19s. 6d., and she hurt her finger, she says, when she pulled the trigger. She was then shown a Browning which cost only ￡2 4s., and worked more easily. She went downstairs to the shooting-gallery below Monsieur Gastinne-Renette's sale-rooms, and tried her new acquisition, firing six shots from it. By a tragic coincidence her shots struck the metal figure in almost exactly the same places as the bullets she fired afterwards struck her victim. She then put six bullets into the loader, and she told the examining magistrate that her first intention was to put only two cartridges in, but that the salesman was watching her and she thought he might think it strange if she only loaded her revolver partially. At this point in Madame Caillaux's examination, Monsieur Boucard interrupted her. "If you did this," said the magistrate, "you [Pg 20] must surely have made your mind up to murder Monsieur Calmette?" "Not at all," said Madame Caillaux. "The thought in my mind was that if he refused to stop his campaign I would wound him." From the armourer's, Madame Caillaux drove home again to the Rue Alphonse de Neuville, where she wrote a note to her husband. In this note, which is now in the hands of the lawyers, she wrote, "You said that you would smash his face, and I will not let you sacrifice yourself for me. France and the Republic need you. I will do it for you." I have not seen this letter myself. My quotation from it is taken from the report in the French papers of March 25 of the examination of Madame Caillaux by Monsieur Boucard. She gave this letter to her daughter's English governess Miss Baxter, telling her that she was to give it to Monsieur Caillaux at seven o'clock if she had not returned home by then. It seems only fair to believe that Madame Caillaux at that time, while she foresaw the likelihood of a stormy interview with the editor of the Figaro, did not intend committing murder. Madame Caillaux's engagement for tea with friends was at the H?tel Ritz, but she did not go there to keep it. She [Pg 21] arrived at the Figaro office exactly at a quarter-past five, and she waited until a little after six o'clock for Monsieur Calmette to come in. When she heard that he had arrived, she asked one of the men in uniform to tell him that a lady whom he knew, but who did not wish to give her name, wanted to speak to him. "He will only receive you," said the man, "if you let him know your name." Madame Caillaux then, as I have already said, put her visiting card in an envelope, and sent it in to Monsieur Calmette. In her evidence to the examining magistrate Madame Caillaux stated that she heard Monsieur Calmette a few moments afterwards say aloud, "Let Madame Caillaux come in." This statement of the prisoner is flatly contradicted by the man who took her card in to the editor of the Figaro, and by Monsieur Paul Bourget, who was with Monsieur Calmette when Madame Caillaux's card was brought to him. It is contradicted also by a gentleman, who was in the waiting-room with Madame Caillaux, waiting to see another member of the Figaro staff, and by a friend who was there with him. Madame Caillaux, however, declared in her evidence to Monsieur Boucard that she heard Monsieur [Pg 22] Calmette speak her name aloud, and that she was furiously angry because her identity had been made known. This is Madame Caillaux's own account of the crime itself. "The man opened the door to usher me into Monsieur Calmette's office, and as I walked to his room from the visiting-room, I had slipped my revolver, which was in my muff, out of its case. I held the weapon in my right hand, inside the muff, when I entered Monsieur Calmette's private office. He was putting his hat on an armchair and said to me, 'Bonjour madame.' I replied, 'Bonjour Monsieur,' and added, 'No doubt you can guess the object of my visit.' 'Please sit down,' he said." Madame Caillaux declares that she lost her head entirely when she found herself facing her husband's mortal enemy. "I did not think of asking him anything," she said. "I fired, and fired again. The mouth of my revolver pointed downwards." This statement is undoubtedly true, for the first two bullets fired were found in the bookcase quite near the ground. Madame Caillaux says that she went on firing without knowing what she did. Two of her bullets inflicted mortal wounds, and though everything was done that science could do, her victim died a few hours later. [Pg 23]

Monsieur Caillaux had spent the greater part of the afternoon in the Chamber of Deputies, and his first news of the crime, which his wife had committed, reached him at the Ministry of Finance. He had returned to his office there to sign some necessary papers before returning home to dress for the dinner at the Italian Embassy, and he did not therefore receive his wife's note until much later in the evening, after the commission of the crime. Monsieur Caillaux, whatever his faults may be, is a strong man and a plucky one. He turned ashy pale when he heard what had happened, but said nothing further than to ask for a cab, and without a moment's loss of time he went as fast as the cab could take him to the police-station in the Rue du Faubourg Montmartre. There he was at once allowed to see his wife. Before leaving the police-station Monsieur Caillaux telephoned to his chief, Monsieur Doumergue, the Prime Minister, resigning his position in the Cabinet as Minister of Finance. He told the Prime Minister then, that [Pg 24] nothing would induce him to reconsider his resignation, and that he would devote himself exclusively to his wife's defence, and take no further part in the political life of the country. The news of the murder was not definitely known at the Italian Embassy until fairly late in the evening, although all the guests were surprised at the absence of Monsieur Caillaux and his wife. Monsieur Poincaré was the first to be told the news, and left the Embassy immediately, followed by all the other guests. A little later in the evening, at about ten o'clock, Monsieur Doumergue summoned his colleagues to a Cabinet Council which was held at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. The Council lasted from ten o'clock till after midnight. Just before the Ministers separated the news of Monsieur Gaston Calmette's death reached them over the telephone wire. The Ministers' first thought was to save the political situation. They realized the grave dangers of a Cabinet crisis at this moment, and dispatched Monsieur Malvy, the Minister of Commerce, to Monsieur Caillaux to endeavour to induce him to reconsider his decision to resign. Monsieur Caillaux refused to reconsider it, and [Pg 25] Monsieur Doumergue himself failed, though he tried hard, to get him to withdraw his resignation and to remain in office. Even then the colleagues in the Cabinet of Monsieur Caillaux refused to accept his resignation definitely, and the Council adjourned until the Tuesday without coming to any definite decision. On Tuesday, realizing the political impossibility of his retaining his portfolio, even if he could have been persuaded to retain it, the Government decided that the Minister for Home Affairs, Monsieur René Renoult, should become Minister of Finance in Monsieur Caillaux's stead, that the Minister of Commerce, Monsieur Malvy, should succeed him at the Home Office, and that the Under Secretary of State for Home Affairs, Monsieur Raoul Péret, should take the portfolio of Commerce. These decisions were made known on the morning following the murder, the morning of Tuesday March 17, and the necessary decrees were signed before luncheon by President Poincaré, enabling a full Cabinet to meet the Chamber of Deputies that same afternoon. But that same afternoon a storm burst in the Chamber with a violence which shook France as she has not been shaken by a political upheaval for many years. [Pg 26]

In the course of his campaign against Monsieur Caillaux in the Figaro, Monsieur Gaston Calmette had, on several occasions, spoken of undue interference by members of the Government with the course of justice in the Rochette affair. I shall endeavour later in this book to attempt to give my readers some explanation of the broad lines of the "Affaire Rochette," though it is so complicated, and the intricacy of its details such, that very few Parisians, even, understand them, and even the parliamentary commission which has sat on the case has never been able to unravel it to the satisfaction and comprehension of the man in the street. Monsieur Calmette spoke in these articles of his of a letter written and signed by Monsieur Victor Fabre, the Procureur Général, or Public Prosecutor, in which Monsieur Fabre was said to have accused members of the Government of interference with the course of justice, and to have stated that influence had been brought to bear on him to postpone the Rochette trial. This story had always been denied hotly by the parties most interested. At five o'clock in the afternoon [Pg 27] of March 17, the day after the murder of Monsieur Calmette by Madame Caillaux, Monsieur Delahaye, a member of the Opposition, climbed the steps of the rostrum and placed this motion before the House: The Chamber, deeply moved by the crime which was committed yesterday, and which apparently was committed in order to prevent divulgations of a nature likely to cast a slur on a magistrate who was acting by order, invites the Government either to dismiss this magistrate from his post or to give him the permission necessary to enable him to take legal action against those who accuse him.

The Chamber had been half empty when Monsieur Delahaye rose. It filled in a moment with excited members who poured into their seats from the lobbies. Monsieur Gaston Doumergue, and nearly all the members of the Cabinet, took their places on the Government bench, and when Monsieur Delahaye began his speech the House was in that tremor of excitement which is the invariable prelude to a big sensation. Nobody knew, however, with one or two exceptions, what the sensation was going to be, and probably the members of the Government knew least of all. In an [Pg 28] excited speech Monsieur Delahaye referred first of all to an open letter which had been written by a member of the Chamber, Monsieur Thalamas, to Madame Caillaux immediately after her arrest. Monsieur [Pg 29] Thalamas, whose letter I subjoin in a footnote,[1] had written as no decent man had any right to express himself on the commission of the murder, and those members of the Chamber who remained unblinded by political prejudice were fully aware of this. After reading the letter, the reading of which was interrupted constantly, Monsieur Delahaye declared that Monsieur Calmette had had the much-talked-about letter, written three years ago, by the Public Prosecutor in his possession, that he had intended to publish it in the Figaro, and that it made a direct accusation against Monsieur Monis [Pg 30] who had been Prime Minister at the time that it was written and who was now, on March 17, Minister of Marine. Monsieur Delahaye addressed a question directly to Monsieur Monis. "Permit me to ask you," he said, "whether this letter exists or not, whether you knew it, and whether or not it states that you gave orders to Judge Bidault de L'Isle, through the Public Prosecutor, Monsieur Fabre, to order the postponement of the Rochette affair?" There was a tumult of excitement in the House. The excitement centred of course round Monsieur Monis, who had risen to reply, but who was prevented by his friends from speaking. Altercations arose on all sides, and in the midst of the tumult Monsieur Monis rose in his seat and made signs that he insisted on being heard. A deadly silence succeeded the uproar. "The first question you asked me," said Monsieur Monis in a loud and clear voice, "is whether I knew of the document to which you have alluded, or whether I knew what was contained in it. My answer is No. You asked me whether I gave orders, or caused orders to be given, for the adjournment of the Rochette trial. My answer to that question is emphatically No. And I do more [Pg 31] than deny these statements: I call on the President of the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry into the Rochette case, to read to the Chamber the evidence given before the commission by Judge Bidault de L'Isle. That evidence is in complete conformity with what I have just said." There was a roar of applause from the Left, and Monsieur Jaurès, the President of the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry into the Rochette case, rose in his seat, and made this important declaration: "Judge Bidault de L'Isle affirmed on his honour, as a man and as a magistrate, that he had never received any order of the kind. But it appears impossible to me that, if it is in existence, we should not be informed about the existence of this document. Does it exist, or does it not exist? If it has disappeared let us be told so." The declaration of Monsieur Jaurès was responsible for more uproar in the House, in the middle of which Monsieur Delahaye was heard to declare that the declaration of Monsieur Fabre had existed, and that Monsieur Calmette, who had obtained possession of it, always carried it about [Pg 32] with him. Monsieur Delahaye declared further that he had seen it, that Monsieur Briand, who was Minister of Justice in the Monis Cabinet, had received it when he became Minister of Justice, and that the document confirmed the accusation of Ministerial intervention, which Monsieur Calmette had published in the Figaro. Monsieur Doumergue followed Monsieur Delahaye in the rostrum. The Prime Minister, who was evidently much affected, declared his horror of these accusations against members of the Cabinet. "I have read the official summary of the work of the Commission of Inquiry," he said, "and it states that Monsieur Bidault de L'Isle declared that he had been under no pressure whatever, and that he had adjourned the Rochette trial of his own free will. Monsieur Delahaye has declared," said the Prime Minister, "that the letter he saw was a copy of the original. What is the value of this copy? The Government is perfectly prepared to favour a fresh Inquiry, perfectly ready to bring a clear light to bear on this question, but we want proof. Where is the proof?" And the Prime Minister sat down amid a yell of applause from his political friends. Then the bombshell fell. [Pg 33] Monsieur Barthou stepped into the rostrum, declared that the declaration of the Public Prosecutor Monsieur Fabre was in his possession, and with one of those dramatic gestures of which Frenchmen have the secret, produced a faded sheet of paper from his pocket, unfolded it, slapped it on the desk in front of him, and cried "And here it is!" ("Ce document, le voici!") "This statement," he said, written by Monsieur Victor Fabre, "was handed to Monsieur Briand when he was Minister of Justice. When I succeeded Monsieur Briand he handed it over to me. I refused to allow it to become known, but I consider that the time has come for its production in this house." And in a clear voice Monsieur Barthou read the following aloud:

Le mercredi 2 mars 1911, j'ai été mandé par M. Monis, Président du Conseil.

Il voulait me parler de l'affaire Rochette.

Il me dit que le gouvernement tenait à ce qu'elle ne v?nt pas devant la Cour le 27 avril, date fixée depuis longtemps; qu'elle pouvait créer des embarras au ministre des finances, au moment où celui-ci avait déjà les affaires des liquidations des congrégations religieuses, celles du Crédit Foncier et autres du même genre. [Pg 34]

Le président du Conseil me donna l'ordre d'obtenir du président de la Chambre correctionnelle la remise de cette affaire après les vacances judiciaires d'ao?t-septembre.

J'ai protesté avec énergie. J'ai indiqué combien il m'était pénible de remplir une pareille mission.

J'ai supplié qu'on laissat l'affaire Rochette suivre son cours normal. Le président du Conseil maintint ses ordres et m'invita à aller le revoir pour lui rendre compte.

J'étais indigné. Je sentais bien que c'était les amis de Rochette qui avaient monté ce coup invraisemblable.

Le vendredi 24 mars Monsieur M.B. ... vint au Parquet. Il me déclara que, cédant aux sollicitations de son ami le ministre des finances, il allait se porter malade et demander la remise après les grandes vacances de son ami Rochette.

Je lui répondis qu'il avait l'air fort bien portant, mais qu'il ne m'appartenait pas de discuter les raisons de santé personnelle invoquées par un avocat, et que je ne pouvais, le cas échéant, que m'en rapporter à la sagesse du Président. [Pg 35]

Il écrivit au magistrat.

Celui-ci, que je n'avais pas vu et que je ne voulais pas voir, lui répondit par un refus.

Me Maurice Bernard s'en montra fort irrité. Il vint récriminer auprès de moi et me fit comprendre, par des allusions à peine voilées, qu'il était au courant de tout.

Que devais-je faire?

Après un violent combat intérieur, après une véritable crise dont fut témoin, seul témoin d'ailleurs, mon ami et substitut Bloch-Laroque, je me suis décidé, contraint par la violence morale exercée sur moi, à obéir.

J'ai fait venir Monsieur le président Bidault de L'Isle.

Je lui ai exposé avec émotion la situation où je me trouvais. Finalement, M. Bidault de L'Isle consentit, par affection pour moi, à la remise demandée.

Le soir même, c'est-à-dire le jeudi 30 mars, je suis allé chez M. le président du Conseil et lui ai dit ce que j'avais fait.

Il a paru fort content.

Je l'étais beaucoup moins.

[Pg 36] Dans l'antichambre j'avais vu M. du Mesnil, directeur du Rappel, journal favorable à Rochette et m'outrageant fréquemment. Il venait, sans doute, demander si je m'étais soumis.

Jamais je n'ai subi une telle humiliation.

Ce 31 mars 1911.

V. Fabre.

Annexe. [This was not read in the Chamber.]

Le jour même de la réunion, pendant la suspension d'audience, des conseillers qui siégeaient à c?té de M. Bidault de L'Isle se sont élevés en termes véhéments contre la forfaiture qu'on venait de lui imposer.

Pourquoi ne les a-t-on pas entendus à la commission d'enquête?

On aurait pu, par exemple, interroger M. Francois-Poncet qui n'a dissimulé à personne, ni son indignation ni son dégo?t pour les man?uvres inqualifiables imposées par le président du Conseil au Procureur Général.

For English readers to realize the full importance of this document I must explain that the Public Prosecutor or Procureur Général ranks as a Government official, and holds almost the same position as a judge holds in England, with the difference that he does not judge but prosecutes. For influence to be brought to bear on such an official by members of the Government is much the same thing as though Cabinet Ministers in England had ordered the Director of Public Prosecutions and the judge who was to try Mr. Jabez Balfour to adjourn the trial for six or seven months for political reasons. Supposing such a thing to have been possible, and Jabez Balfour to have disappeared from England so that he never came up for trial at all, one can imagine the outcry which would have been raised. Here in plain English, as plain and as simple English as I can summon to my help, is the translation of Monsieur Fabre's accusing document:

On Wednesday March 2, 1911, I was summoned by Monsieur Monis, the Prime Minister. He wished to talk to me about the Rochette affair. He told me that the Government did not wish the case to come before the courts on April 27, which date had been fixed a long time ago. He told me that it [Pg 38] might create trouble for the Minister of Finance at a moment when he had already on hand the liquidation of the religious congregations, the Crédit Foncier case, and others of the same kind. The Prime Minister ordered me to induce the President of the Correctional Court (Judge Bidault de L'Isle) to adjourn this affair till the end of the legal vacation August-September. I protested with energy. I pointed out how painful it was for me to carry out such a mission. I begged (the Premier) to allow the Rochette case to follow its normal course. The Premier adhered to his order, and told me to see him again and give him news of my mission. I was deeply hurt and indignant. I had no doubt that Rochette's friends had organized this incredible coup. On Friday March 24 Mr. M. B. ... (Rochette's lawyer, Ma?tre Maurice Bernard) came to my office. He stated that, yielding to the solicitations of his friend the Minister of Finance, (Monsieur Caillaux) he was going to plead illness and asked for the adjournment of his friend Rochette's trial. I replied to that, that he looked perfectly well, but that it [Pg 39] was no part of my duty to question a plea of personal ill-health made by a lawyer, and that I should simply refer the matter to the wisdom of the judge. He wrote to the judge. Judge Bidault de L'Isle, whom I had not seen and did not want to see, met his request with a refusal. Ma?tre Maurice Bernard showed great irritation at this refusal. He called on me again, used recriminatory language, and made me understand by means of thinly veiled allusions that he was perfectly informed of everything. What could I do? After much self-communion, after a veritable crisis of mental agony of which the witness, in fact the only witness, was my friend and deputy, Bloch-Laroque, I decided that I must obey the moral pressure which had been brought to bear on me. I sent for Judge Bidault de L'Isle. I laid before him, with emotion, the situation in which I had been placed. Eventually Judge Bidault de L'Isle consented from affection for me to the adjournment which had been demanded. That same evening, that is to say, Thursday, March 30, I went to the Prime Minister and told him what I had done. He appeared very pleased. I was much less pleased. In the ante-chamber I had seen [Pg 40] Monsieur Du Mesnil, the managing editor of the Rappel, a newspaper which was favourable to Rochette and was in the habit of attacking me frequently. He had come, no doubt, to ask the Prime Minister whether I had allowed myself to be coerced. I have never undergone such humiliation before.

March 31, 1911.

V. Fabre.

Annexe.

On the day of the meeting during a suspension the councillors (that is to say the two judges) who sat on the bench with Judge Bidault de L'Isle expressed themselves very vehemently against the pressure which had been brought to bear on them. Why were they not heard by the Commission of Inquiry? For instance it would have been easy to question Monsieur Fran?ois-Poncet, who had taken no pains to conceal either his indignation or his disgust at the unqualifiable man?uvres which the Prime Minister had forced on the Public Prosecutor.

The reading of this statement from the rostrum of the Chamber was followed within forty-eight hours by the resignation of Monsieur Monis from the Cabinet, and its immediate result was the resumption of the work of the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry which had sat on the Rochette case. This commission (over which of course Monsieur Jaurès presided, as he had presided over the others) conducted the inquiry, as all such inquiries invariably are conducted in France, on political lines. The sessions of the commission did not pass off without the resignation of some of its members, the public was inclined to shrug its shoulders at the leniency of its examination of past Ministers of the State, and the wording of its verdict when delivered was a farce, not altogether unworthy of the date on which the Paris morning papers published it, the first of April. The Parliamentary Commission could find no stronger words to stigmatize the situation described in Monsieur Fabre's statement, which description the inquiry proved to be true, than "a deplorable abuse of influence." The phrase has become a joke in Paris now, and is in popular use on the boulevards. The Chamber of Deputies, however, before the close of the Parliamentary session, found other words to express the nation's displeasure, and after a session which lasted from two o'clock in the afternoon of April 3 till [Pg 42] two o'clock in the morning of April 4, the Chamber of Deputies adjourned for the Easter holidays, having voted the following order of the day:

The Chamber,

Takes note of the statements and findings of the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry.

Disapproves and reprehends the abusive intervention of financial interests in politics, and of politics in the administration of justice.

Affirms the necessity of a law on parliamentary incompatibility,

And with the resolution to assure, more efficaciously, the separation of political and judicial power,

Passes to the order of the day.

The debate, of which this significant order of the day was the corollary, was not only an extremely interesting, but a very stormy one. In the course of it, a member of the Chamber challenged Monsieur Doumergue, the Prime Minister, to fight him, but the quarrel was smoothed over. Monsieur Briand, Monsieur Barthou, Monsieur Barrès, Monsieur Doumergue, and Monsieur Jaurès all took a very active part in the debate, and when the Chamber finally adjourned till June, in other words till after the general elections, the general impression was that the Doumergue Ministry would not return to power.

With this historic debate ends the first chapter of the Caillaux drama. The vibrations of a revolver shot in a newspaper office in the Rue Drouot have eddied and spread till France was set aquiver. The woman who fired the shot, the wife of the man who an hour before the shot was fired was the most powerful man in France, knew before she was taken to her cell in Saint Lazare that the first consequence of her act had been the headlong downfall of her husband. She must feel now like a child who has pulled up a little stone and caused an avalanche, and not only France but Europe and the whole world are wondering what may go to pieces in the wreckage.