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Transcriber's note:
Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
Text enclosed by equal signs was underlined in the
original text (=underlined=).
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THE CAILLAUX DRAMA
[Illustration: _Waiting._]
THE CAILLAUX DRAMA
by
JOHN N. RAPHAEL
London: Max Goschen Ltd
20 Great Russell Street W.C.
MCMXIV
TO MY MOTHER
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I THE STORY OF THE DRAMA 1
II CELL NO. 12 44
III THE CRIME AND THE PUBLIC 64
IV MONSIEUR CAILLAUX’S EXAMINATION 87
V THE CAMPAIGN OF THE “FIGARO” 102
VI CALMETTE _v._ CAILLAUX 114
VII THE “TON JO” LETTER 143
VIII AGADIR 150
IX L’AFFAIRE ROCHETTE 179
X “THE TRUTH, THE WHOLE TRUTH ...” 230
XI ABOUT FRENCH POLITICS 251
XII BEFORE THE LAST ACT OF THE DRAMA 267
INDEX 307
ILLUSTRATIONS
“WAITING” _Frontispiece_
OFFICES OF “LE FIGARO” ON THE EVENING OF THE MURDER 20
GASTON CALMETTE IN HIS OFFICE AT THE “FIGARO” 20
M. BOUCARD (THE EXAMINING MAGISTRATE) AND THE DOCTORS
LEAVING THE PRIVATE HOSPITAL WHERE M. CALMETTE DIED 26
M. VICTOR FABRE, THE PROCUREUR GÉNÉRAL 57
THE FUNERAL OF M. CALMETTE 63
THE BROTHERS, SONS AND RELATIVES OF M. CALMETTE AT THE
FUNERAL 67
MME. CAILLAUX (AND DETECTIVE) ON HER WAY TO THE LAW COURTS
TO BE EXAMINED 71
SŒUR LEONIDE 77
THE CORRIDOR OUTSIDE THE PISTOLES 81
“JEANNE,” THE “SOUBRETTE” OF PISTOLE NO. 12 85
THE LORRY WHICH PARIS JOURNALISTS THOUGHT WAS FULL OF
MME. CAILLAUX’S FURNITURE 90
LA COUR DES FILLES IN SAINT LAZARE 90
MADAME CAILLAUX’S CELL EXACTLY AS IT IS 102
MONSIEUR CAILLAUX IN HIS OFFICE AT THE MINISTÈRE DES
FINANCES 108
PRESIDENT POINCARÉ GIVES EVIDENCE ON OATH IN THE CAILLAUX
DRAMA BEFORE THE PRESIDENT OF THE APPEAL COURT, WHO
WAITED ON HIM FOR THIS PURPOSE AT THE ELYSÉE 122
MONSIEUR CAILLAUX LEAVING THE LAW COURTS 131
M. PRIVAT-DESCHANEL WHO WITNESSED THE DESTRUCTION OF
THE LETTERS BY MME. GUEYDAN-CAILLAUX 140
M. BARTHOU MOUNTING THE STAIRS OF THE LAW COURTS ON HIS
WAY TO GIVE EVIDENCE IN THE CAILLAUX CASE 149
MONSIEUR CAILLAUX’S FRIEND, M. CECCALDI 179
THE “TON JO” LETTER FROM THE “FIGARO” 197
ROCHETTE IN COURT 241
MONSIEUR BARTHOU 300
MME. CAILLAUX IN THE DRESS SHE WAS TO WEAR AT THE
ITALIAN EMBASSY ON THE EVENING OF THE MURDER 339
M. JOSEPH CAILLAUX 350
I
THE STORY OF THE 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
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
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
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.
[Illustration: _Agence Nouvelle—Photo, Paris_
OFFICES OF _LE FIGARO_ ON THE EVENING OF THE MURDER]
[Illustration: _Agence Nouvelle—Photo, Paris_
GASTON CALMETTE IN HIS OFFICE AT THE _FIGARO_]
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
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
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
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
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.
[Illustration: _Agence Nouvelle—Photo, Paris_
M. BOUCARD (THE EXAMINING MAGISTRATE) AND THE DOCTORS LEAVING
THE PRIVATE HOSPITAL WHERE M. CALMETTE DIED.
M. Boucard is in front]
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,
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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 Hôtel 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
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
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.
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 19_s._ 6_d._,
and she hurt her finger, she says, when she pulled the trigger. She
was then shown a Browning which cost only £2 4_s._, 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
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 Hôtel Ritz, but she did not go there to keep it. She
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
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.
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
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
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.
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
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
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
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 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 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 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. 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
vînt 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.
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’août-septembre.
J’ai protesté avec énergie. J’ai indiqué combien il
m’était pénible de remplir une pareille mission.
J’ai supplié qu’on laissât 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.
Il écrivit au magistrat.
Celui-ci, que je n’avais pas vu et que je ne voulais pas
voir, lui répondit par un refus.
M^e 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.
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 côté 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
dégoût pour les manœuvres inqualifiables imposées par le
président du Conseil au Procureur Général.
[Illustration: _Agence Nouvelle—Photo, Paris_
M. VICTOR FABRE, THE 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 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, Maître 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 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. Maître 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 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 François-Poncet, who had
taken no pains to conceal either his indignation or his
disgust at the unqualifiable manœuvres which the Prime
Minister had forced on the Public Prosecutor.
[Illustration:
_Agence Nouvelle—Photo, Paris_
THE FUNERAL OF M. CALMETTE]
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
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.