The Caillaux Drama

eur Général, Monsieur Victor Fabre, the ex-Prime Minister, Monsieur Monis, and the presiding judge of the Chamber of Correctional Appeal, Monsieur Bidault de

what they were obliged to say in 1914 is enough to move any lover of France to tears. I am anxious to comment on what [Pg 231] happened as little as possible. I am anxious to let these men exhibit

t legal proceedings so as not to be judged, it is perfectly possible for him to effect his object. He has the right to make proceedings drag and drag, and to obstruct them, and his judges can do nothing to prevent him, for it is his right-if he can pay the cost-by the French legal code. Rochette abused this right. He hampered [Pg 232] the course of justice with immense skill, and even before the final postponement he had succeeded in making the courts play into his hands. Even on July 27, 1910, you may

that it was most disagreeable to me not to refuse it, that I was much annoyed at not being able to oppose Ma?tre Bernard's request. My wish in this affair was to arrive at a solution as promptly as possible. But I was unable to make any opposition to Ma?tre Maurice Bernard's request, much as I should have liked to do so. Ma?tre Bernard said that he was ill, and worn out. In consequence, following the traditions which have always prevailed in the relations between the court and the Bar I could not oppose a refusal to such a request. CERTAIN NEWSPAPERS HAVE STATED THAT POWERFUL INTERVENTION INFLUENCED MY DECISION, AND THAT MORAL PRESSURE WAS BROUGHT TO BEAR ON ME. I HAVE NO EXPLANATION TO GIVE ON THIS POINT. IF I HAD ANY INTERV

Monsieur Monis as well as everybody else, the reason of the summons. Everybody knew the seriousness of the accusation, implied if unformulated, which lay behind it. Everybody knew, Monsieur Jaurès as well as Monsieur Monis, that the ex-Pri

ch the President of the Commission of Inquiry summone

commission de l'affaire Rochette m'a chargé de vous prier de vouloir bien vous entretenir avec elle d

) Jean

on for his presence, politeness, and the wish to protest. "I wish to protest energetically, with all my energy," said Monsieur Monis. "If you wish to cover this country with a fresh crop of scandal you really must not count on my help. I will be the victim if you like of your injustice, but I will be a proud and si

. This time he was forced to admit that for political reasons and on the advice of Monsieur Caillaux [Pg 237] he had brought pressure to bear on Monsieur Victor Fabre to postpone the Rochette trial. In other words Monsieur Monis, who had been Prime Minister of France in 1911, who had been forced to resign his position in

hat he really couldn't plead the Rochette case for some months. "We never refuse an appeal of this kind from a member of the Bar," said Judge Bidault de L'Isle, "so I wrote to Ma?tre Maurice Bernard that the postponement would be granted. I wish to affirm in the most formal way," said Judge Bidault de L'Isle, "that the question of politics played no part whatever in the decision of postponement." Monsieur Jaurès tried very hard, and other members of the Commission helped as best they could to get the truth from Judge Bidault de L'Isle, but he repeated the statement quoted above "on his soul and on his conscience." On March 20, 1914, exactly two years

or just after his examination by the Parliamentary Commission, Monsieur Victor Fabre had handed to the Minister of Justice, who was then Monsieur Aristide Briand, the written statement which Monsieur Barthou read in the Chamber of Deputies immediately after the murder of Monsieur Gaston Calmette in 1914. This statement told the truth which he concealed from the Commission of Inquiry two years before. Monsieur Fabre had written his statement immediately after political pressure was brought to bear on him; he knew, of course, of its existence when he was examined in 1912. And this is how he spoke of it when he was re-examined in 1914. "I was surprised and afflicted when I learned that a journalist, two years after I had handed my statement to Monsieur Briand, had boasted of its possession and proposed to publish it. I didn't believe this. I thought that it was quite impossible that he should be in possession of my statement, that he could publi

nately," he said, "everybody had not the same reserve (this is an exquisite word to have chosen) that I had. I do not know how my statemen

nister of Justice, Monsieur Barthou. Monsieur Barthou, realizing what a political weapon the statement might become, kept it and used it. Whether he showed it to journalists, I do not know, but we know from the evidence of Monsieur Fabre as far as faith can be placed [Pg 243] in this evidence after his own confession, that only two copies of the document were in exi

f he had any affection for me to grant what I asked. He ended by giving way." Then this unfortunate man, whose chief fault is weakness, who trembled for his position, and who allowed the Prime Minister to dictate to him in consequence, attempted to explain his act away. He said that even if the case were postponed, even if, as duly happened, all legal procedure against Rochette were cancelled, Rochette would not enjoy impunity. At present he is certainly enjoying it, and he has answered this statement of poor Monsieur Fabre more simply and conclusively than anybody else can do. Monsieur Fabre had instructions and carried them out against his own wish, he said. He believed, and he believes now, that he was obliged to obey them. Under examination he was asked why he took the Prime Minister's orders, why he did not go to his direct superi

"whether it were true that a copy of my statement of my interview with Monsieur Monis existed and could be published. I replied in the negative. He insisted. He told me that he had information that a journalist was in possession of this document, and that he was afraid that it would be published. I told him that this was not possible, that he need not be afraid of the publication of a document which did not exist. I said this because I was convinced,

Bloch-Laroque and Monsieur Fabre talked over the fact that Monsieur Maurice Bernard had deliberately threatened Monsieur Fabre, that he had said, before leaving the room and banging the door behind him, that "if Monsieur Fabre did not obey, it would be the worse for him." It is surely unheard of, that Rochette's lawyer should be able to have terrorized the French Procureur-Général with such lan

gers, and he is arrested. By every means in his power, and the French legal code gives him many opportunities, Rochette drags the case against him from court to court, and succeeds in avoiding final judgment for over two years and six months. Then, when a definite trial appears inevitable, the Prime Minister, acting under advice from the Minister of Finance, who has allowed himself to be terrorized by Rochette-to put the mildest possible construction on the reason for

issues made in France and floated on the market from 1890 to 1910. In these tables it was shown that French investors had had heavy losses amounting in all to four hundred million pounds sterling. The book was likely to create very serious difficulties for Monsieur Caillaux, the Finance Minister, who had been responsible for permitting many of these issues of stock, and it was Rochette's determination that his lawyer should read these figures in court on the plea of showing tha

gher court must try than the Paris Court of Assizes, there is another victim besides Gaston Calmette. The criminal is expediency, expediency which allows men in the positions of Prime Minis