Minister of Marine were the two twin rulers in the new Government of
France with Monsieur Clemenceau behind them as general adviser.
Now Monsieur Briand, though Monsieur Clemenceau’s sworn friend,
politically, was no real friend politically of Monsieur Caillaux.
The two men represented different factions, for in the neighbourhood
of 1913 Monsieur Caillaux had founded the radical unified party, the
programme of which he announced in a great meeting at Pau that year,
and Monsieur Briand very shortly afterwards founded the Federation
of the Left, a form of moderate Socialism which combated the extreme
radicalism of Monsieur Caillaux’s party on many points. Then Monsieur
Caillaux began to make mistakes, most of which were largely due to his
impulsiveness, his ill-temper in the wrong places, and his natural gift
for making enemies. Monsieur Barthou set to work to fight Monsieur
Caillaux and called Monsieur Calmette to help him. Public rumour added
that there was personal animosity and personal rivalry between these
two men, but whether this be true or not their political rivalry was
undoubted, and the reasons for such political rivalry are plain. Both
were rich men, but while Monsieur Caillaux represented reforms for
the lower middle class at the expense of the rich, Monsieur Calmette
representing the party of property, the party which we in England
should describe as that of men having a stake in the country, fought
these reforms with all the influence at his command as editor and
director of a great newspaper. He set out to pull Caillaux down from
his position, and his task was a comparatively easy one owing to the
unreasoned outbursts of temper with which Monsieur Caillaux exposed
the weak points in his armour on many occasions, the number of
mistakes impulse had caused him to make in the past, and his growing
unpopularity. From the beginning of January 1914 until his death on
March 16, hardly a day passed without an article of a column or more,
and sometimes much more, by Monsieur Calmette in the _Figaro_ attacking
Monsieur Caillaux, Monsieur Caillaux’s past, and Monsieur Caillaux’s
policy. He was attacked as a politician, as a man, and as a financier,
and his silence under attack made the attacks which followed more
bitter instead of putting an end to them. Six years ago the Rochette
affair had, directly and indirectly, been the cause of more than one
storm in the French political tea-cup. It had brought the fierce
light of publicity to bear on many public men, and politicians feared
publication of the details of the case as much, almost, as the side
issues of the Dreyfus case were feared some years before, and as,
before that, the Panama and other scandals had been feared. During
the Agadir trouble Monsieur Caillaux had laid himself open to a great
deal of criticism, and the _Figaro_ did not hesitate to disinter both
these affairs and use them as a weapon against Monsieur Caillaux.
Another affair of lesser importance in which Monsieur Caillaux’s name
was mentioned in the _Figaro_ campaign was the affair of the Prieu
inheritance. In this connexion the _Figaro_ did not hesitate to accuse
Monsieur Caillaux of dishonourable conduct, and to base on it his
unfitness for the post of a Minister of France. It is almost impossible
in the space at my command to give all the details of a newspaper
campaign such as this against a Minister in power. The campaign lasted
nearly three months, and it was so many-sided that I should need
another volume if I were to attempt to set down its details fully. But
I may resume the broad lines of the _Figaro_ campaign against Monsieur
Caillaux and the reason which the _Figaro_ itself gave to its readers
for that campaign. Monsieur Calmette from the first declared that he
considered the return to power of Monsieur Joseph Caillaux after his
downfall in 1911 as a veritable misfortune to France. He considered
that the presence of Monsieur Caillaux in the Cabinet was of real peril
to French interests, and, as I have explained, it was undoubtedly a
peril to the interests of the rich men’s party which the _Figaro_
represented, for Monsieur Caillaux was determined to carry through
his tax on accumulated property, and the general idea of this tax was
decidedly popular. There is nothing Frenchmen love so much as making
a rich man pay. Monsieur Caillaux with political astuteness saw the
vote-catching possibilities of his measure, was doing everything in his
power to maintain the Doumergue Ministry, of which he was the leading
member, at the helm of public affairs until this year’s elections, and
would undoubtedly have succeeded.
Monsieur Calmette, with the help of Monsieur Caillaux’s political
enemies, was working hard for the overthrow of the Cabinet, or rather
for the overthrow of Monsieur Caillaux, for, as the _Figaro_ wrote, it
was Caillaux alone, Caillaux the Minister, Caillaux the politician,
whom Calmette the politician wished to pull headlong. Day by day in
the _Figaro_ he put his adversary in the pillory. He stigmatized his
conduct of the Franco-German negotiations in 1911, he recalled in
stinging terms the general indignation which had wrecked the Caillaux
Ministry after the resignation of Monsieur De Selves, the Minister for
Foreign Affairs. He recalled the work and the report of the Commission
of Inquiry, over which Monsieur Raymond Poincaré (who was of course
not President of the Republic then) presided, and wrote scathingly,
fiercely almost, of Monsieur Caillaux’s difficulties and quarrels with
the Spanish Ambassador and with his Majesty’s Ambassador Sir Francis
Bertie. He recalled words used by Monsieur Caillaux which almost
suggested that France under a Caillaux régime cared very little for the
entente cordiale, and reproduced a threat, which rumour had reported,
of undiplomatic reprisals towards Spain. Some months ago, to be precise
on December 18, 1913, Monsieur Caillaux made a counter declaration to
me personally in reply to the rumours that he had spoken against the
entente cordiale. This declaration was made three weeks before the
beginning of the daily campaign in the _Figaro_, and Monsieur Caillaux
said for publication in the _Daily Express_, of which paper I was at
that time the Paris correspondent, “I defy anyone to find in any word
that I have spoken publicly, to find in any act of my public life,
any ground for an assertion that I am not a whole-hearted partisan of
the entente cordiale.” Monsieur Caillaux added that he had relatives
in England, that he was a great admirer of England and of Englishmen,
and said: “I am convinced that the entente cordiale is an asset for
the peace of Europe, and while as a Frenchman and a servant of France,
I point out that France expects to reap equally with her partner
the benefits of the entente cordiale, I am sure that England in her
inherent fairness understands this, and is as anxious both to give and
to take as France can be. I wish to express my amazement and my sorrow
that even for a moment Englishmen should have thought me anything but
their friend.”
On the occasion of this interview, which was a long one, lasting a
full hour at the beginning of the afternoon, and another half-hour
later the same day when I submitted what I had written to Monsieur
Caillaux before sending it to London, in order that there should be no
discussion possible afterwards as to what he had really said, a good
deal passed which I did not put into print.
In the interview as printed appeared an allusion by Monsieur Caillaux
to the undue interference by Englishmen in France’s home affairs.
Monsieur Caillaux spoke that afternoon with ebullient freedom of
expression about the British Ambassador in Paris, Sir Francis Bertie.
He declared that Sir Francis went out of his way to make trouble and
that he had worked against him (Monsieur Caillaux) in London for the
sheer pleasure of stirring up strife.
I thought it quite unnecessary to say these things aloud in an English
newspaper, especially as, after saying them, Monsieur Caillaux asked me
not to include them in the interview as he had no wish for a newspaper
discussion with the British Ambassador. I quote them now merely for the
purpose of showing the peculiar and unstatesmanlike quarrelsomeness of
Monsieur Caillaux’s temper. The man has very little self-restraint,
and while many of his public acts and public sayings prove this, few
of them prove it so conclusively as his outburst in his room at the
Ministry of Finance, in the presence of the representative of an
English newspaper, against the British Ambassador in Paris.
Following up these attacks on his personality the _Figaro_ impugned
Monsieur Caillaux’s honour. It did this with the outspokenness which is
a peculiarity of French newspaperdom, and which would be magnificent
if it were not so frequently misused. Monsieur Caillaux was accused
of changing his policy half a dozen times with the one pre-occupation
of retaining his portfolio, was twitted with self-contradiction with
regard to the income-tax law, and the immunity from taxation of French
Rentes, and was openly taxed with encouraging dishonourable and
dishonest speculation, if not of indulging in it himself. According to
the _Figaro_ Monsieur Caillaux made deliberate arrangements to allow
friends of his to speculate and make large sums of money on the Paris
Bourse, tuning his public statements to time with the deals of the
speculators, and in answer to these accusations Monsieur Caillaux said
nothing.
“The income-tax was Monsieur Caillaux’s hobby horse. He has stated
frequently that he has always been in favour of it,” wrote the _Figaro_
one day. “For many years the income-tax was the principal item of
Monsieur Caillaux’s political programme, and he told his constituents
at Mamers that his political programme had never changed in its main
lines.” Then the _Figaro_ reproduced in facsimile Monsieur Caillaux’s
letter to the first Madame Caillaux in which the words occurred: “I
crushed the income-tax while pretending to defend it.”
But these attacks on Monsieur Caillaux were by no means the only ones,
and Monsieur Calmette also accused Monsieur Caillaux of favouring
Rochette’s escape and interfering with the course of justice. These are
the broad lines of the _Figaro_ campaign against Monsieur Caillaux.
That some of the attacks were justifiable is undoubtedly the fact.
That the manner of them was a worthy one is more open to discussion.
Politicians must of course expect to be attacked by newspapers which
oppose them, but there is little doubt that the bitterness and the
persistence of this newspaper campaign worked its victim up to a state
of frenzy, and the calm observer knows what effect daily attacks on
a public man are likely to have on that public man’s life within the
four walls of his home. Monsieur Caillaux’s excited declaration to
the President of the Republic, his excitement in the motor car, when,
driving with Madame Caillaux he declared that he would go down to the
_Figaro_ and chastise Monsieur Calmette, show the man’s state of mind,
and show us very clearly how that state of mind is likely to have
reacted on his wife. I repeat that this book is in no sense an apology
for Madame Caillaux’s act of murder. I repeat that I do not wish to
defend either Monsieur Caillaux or his wife. But in common fairness I
cannot do otherwise than present as faithfully as possible the effect
of the _Figaro_ campaign against him, on Monsieur Caillaux and on his
constant companion. Nor do I hesitate to say that while the bitterness
of the _Figaro_ campaign in no way excuses the murder of its editor by
Madame Caillaux, no one can deny, I think, that it explains it.
VI
CALMETTE V. CAILLAUX
Whenever an official in the French Colonial Office had to refuse the
application of a subordinate for leave, he would tone down his refusal
with the metaphor, “We’ll try and give you leave at all events before
the _affaire_ Prieu is decided finally.” For many years _l’affaire_
Prieu had been the Jarndyce _v._ Jarndyce case of the French Colonial
Office, and it was almost forgotten when Monsieur Caillaux and the
_Figaro_ brought it back at a bound into the domain of actuality. The
case was forgotten so thoroughly that when the _Figaro_ mentioned it
under the title of “Monsieur Caillaux’s Secret Combinations” in an
article signed by Monsieur Gaston Calmette on January 8, 1914, the name
Prieu was misspelled “Priou”.
The case in itself was one of concessions in Brazil. In the early years
of the Third Republic a French merchant named Prieu died in France
after a long life spent in Brazil. He had been a rich man and with
the help of the French Consul in Rio de Janeiro had secured certain
profitable concessions. At his death the French Government considered
that these concessions lapsed to the State, and sold them. Monsieur
Prieu’s heirs claimed from the State a considerable sum, something
between £120,000 and £160,000, of which their lawyers contended that
the Government of France had frustrated them. The case dragged on for
many years, and in 1909, when Monsieur Cochery was Finance Minister and
Monsieur Renoult Under Secretary of State for Finance (Monsieur Renoult
is Minister of the Interior in the Doumergue Cabinet), the case was
practically shelved.
At that time the heirs of Monsieur Prieu, after getting a refusal to
their offer to abandon their entire claim against the French Government
in return for a cash payment of £20,000, were inclined to drop the
whole case, the legal expenses of which were becoming embarrassing.
They had put matters in the hands of a man of affairs, but he and
they had little hope of any result, when, according to the _Figaro_,
Monsieur Caillaux, on January 5, 1914, sent for their representative.
The _Figaro_ declared on the 8th, over the signature of Monsieur Gaston
Calmette, that Monsieur Caillaux had stated to this gentleman that the
claim of the Prieu family appeared to him to be justified, that the
French Government would probably have to pay from £200,000 to £240,000
including compound interest on the debt, and that a transaction
might be possible if the Prieu heirs were inclined to hand over a
considerable percentage on the money paid them to the French Government
for political needs. Obviously if Monsieur Caillaux really did make
such an offer, did really offer to settle a case which had been in
litigation for years and was about to lapse, provided the claimants
would agree to pay a large percentage of the money back for party
needs, he made an offer which he would find it difficult to defend in
Parliament or elsewhere.
The _Figaro_ was most assertive. Monsieur Calmette declared that
Monsieur Caillaux had said: “If you get this money we must get some of
it. The Government has its duties, and its needs.” Monsieur Calmette
went on to declare that a second interview had taken place at the
Ministry of Finance the next day, the Tuesday, when Monsieur Caillaux
had demanded 80 per cent. of the debt for the party coffers, and that
on the Wednesday, the day before the _Figaro_ article appeared, the
representative of Monsieur Prieu’s heirs and the Finance Minister had
come to an agreement on terms somewhat less onerous than the 80 per
cent. mentioned at first.
The disclosure of these curious proceedings created a storm in the
political world of Paris, and although Monsieur Caillaux published a
denial, in general terms his contradictions were not considered very
satisfactory. The article in the _Figaro_ had of course one result. Any
settlement of the Prieu case on the lines above mentioned became quite
impossible. One is inclined to wonder, now, whether the claimants will
proceed against the French Government, prosecute their claim again,
and call Monsieur Caillaux as a witness to declare in court that he
considers the claim justifiable. It was rumoured at the time that
Monsieur Calmette had offered to compensate the Prieu claimants for the
loss which the publication in the _Figaro_ of their dealings or attempt
at dealing with Monsieur Caillaux would entail.
Whether this offer was actually made or not will probably be shown at
the trial of Madame Caillaux, for the examining magistrate, Monsieur
Boucard, has questioned the parties concerned. As I have said, the
Prieu case is an old one. It has been discussed in the Chamber of
Deputies at intervals during the last thirty years, and the first
interpellation on it goes back thirty-three years to July 8, 1881.
Pierre Marcel Prieu was a candidate for Parliament in 1876 and in
1877. He died in 1899, in France, in poverty. To his last day he had
protested against what he called “the theft” of his concessions by the
French Government, and he had protested with such violence that he had
been imprisoned for some months because of his protests. His claim was
that the Brazilian Government had on August 30, and on September 6,
1879, paid the French Minister for Foreign Affairs in two cheques, one
for £200,000 and one for £400,000, as a settlement of his concessions.
These cheques were, he declared, made payable to the firm of Baring
Brothers in London, and on January 4, 1880, the money—£600,000—was
paid over by the Baring firm to the Paris bankers Hottinguer and
Co. Pierre Marcel Prieu declared that the payment of this money was
compensation by the Brazilian Government due to him personally for the
unjustifiable seizure of thirteen merchant ships with merchandise by
the Brazilian Customs. After Prieu’s death his heir, Monsieur D’Ariste,
did not care to fight the case and made over his rights in it—whether
with or without a quid pro quo does not appear—to relatives and
friends of Prieu, who formed a syndicate for the purpose of recovering
the debt or part of it from the French Government. The principal
members of the little syndicate were Monsieur A. Boileau and Monsieur
Prosper Sauvage. Their lawyer is Monsieur Antoine De Fonvielle, and
they put their claims in the hands of a man of affairs, Monsieur
Auguste Schneider. It is this gentleman who, according to the _Figaro_
and Monsieur Gaston Calmette, called by appointment on Monday January
5, Tuesday the 6th, and Wednesday the 7th, 1914, at the Ministry of
Finance, and agreed with Monsieur Caillaux to a settlement on the terms
already stated.
According to Monsieur Calmette, Monsieur Caillaux bound himself to
see that the full amount of the claim should be paid, and Monsieur
Schneider was to sign an agreement on Saturday, January 10, by which he
handed a large proportion of the money over to the party funds. Whether
such an agreement was ever come to or not is the affair of the law
courts. It must resolve itself into a case of hard swearing, for the
contradictory assertions of both parties will be, in all probability,
somewhat difficult of proof. The disclosures of these matters in the
_Figaro_ naturally enough put an end to all negotiations if such
negotiations really took place.
On January 10 Monsieur Antoine de Fonvielle wrote a letter to Monsieur
Calmette which I subjoin in full. It was printed in the _Figaro_ on
January 12. It is dated from Paris, where Monsieur de Fonvielle has a
flat at 77 Rue du Rocher. “Monsieur le Directeur,” he writes, “I was
informed at about twelve o’clock on Friday last, January 8, of the
campaign in the _Figaro_ on the Prieu affair, of which I knew all the
details. There are certain mistakes in the _Figaro_ article, and it
struck me as advisable to put the people interested in direct touch
with the _Figaro_. I went therefore, on the evening of January 8,
at about half-past ten, to see Monsieur Schneider, who lives at 57
Boulevard Beauséjour at Auteuil. Two people went with me and waited
for me in a taxicab at the door of the house. I went to see Monsieur
Schneider because he has for several years been the mandatory of the
claimants in the Prieu affair. Monsieur Schneider has taken all the
necessary steps to press the claims of the Prieu heirs with the French
Foreign Office both in France and abroad, in England, and in Brazil.
“Monsieur Schneider, who was very surprised at my visit, introduced me
to a journalist, Monsieur Vidal, who was with him. I asked Monsieur
Schneider to go with me and see Monsieur Calmette at the _Figaro_
office. Monsieur Schneider replied, ‘There is no reason why I should
put myself out for Monsieur Calmette. He has interfered quite enough
already (_Il m’a assez mis des bâtons dans les roues_). If it had not
been for his interference, the affair would have been settled by now.’
I then told Monsieur Schneider that Monsieur Calmette had not sent me
to ask him to come, but that I thought that in his own interests and
in those of the heirs, he would do well to go to the _Figaro_ office
without delay, and tell the truth and all that he knew about this
business. Monsieur Vidal got up from his seat, and said to Monsieur
Schneider, ‘Sir, I do not advise you to go. You must know what has been
agreed.’ I insisted, and Madame Schneider, who was putting her baby to
bed in a room next door, came brusquely into the room and said to her
husband, ‘Do what Monsieur Vidal tells you, and do not go with Monsieur
de Fonvielle.’ I insisted again that he ought to go to the Rue Drouot
with me, and Madame Schneider, who showed some excitement, told her
husband to do what she suggested, adding, ‘You can’t do any good by
going. Besides, you know what you promised Monsieur Caillaux.’ I then
thought it best to go. When I got downstairs I told the two people with
me what had happened. One of them has material interests in the affair.
(Signed) Antoine de Fonvielle.”
Immediately under Monsieur de Fonvielle’s letter, Monsieur Calmette
published in the _Figaro_ of January 12 letters from two members of
the Prieu syndicate, Monsieur Boileau and Monsieur Prosper Sauvage.
Monsieur Boileau made the following declaration: “As the papers had
spoken of the Prieu affair, a meeting was called to hear what Monsieur
Schneider had to say. Monsieur Schneider declared: ‘I was very much
surprised at the fuss made in the papers. The affair was going to be
settled, and I had an appointment to-morrow, Saturday, January 10
(the meeting was at half-past eleven on the evening of the Friday),
to receive a definite proposal.’ I left the meeting with Monsieur
Schneider, and as we went away together he made this remark to me: ‘If
the affair succeeds we shall have to leave a good many feathers behind
us.’”
The third letter published by the _Figaro_ was from another member
of the Prieu syndicate, Monsieur Prosper Sauvage: “I was present at
the meeting which was called to discuss the situation created by
the articles in the _Figaro_,” he wrote. “I was one of the first to
arrive, and met Messieurs Monniot, Mazars, and Boileau. Naturally the
conversation bore on the incidents of the day, and when I expressed my
astonishment and my indignation at the proposal that the Government
should take 80 per cent. for its electoral needs while the heirs
received only 20 per cent. of the money, Monsieur Monniot declared
that Monsieur Schneider had told him about the interview which he had
had, and had confirmed these figures. He added that Monsieur Schneider
had found the rate excessively high, and quite unacceptable. (Signed)
Prosper Sauvage.”
These letters appeared in the _Figaro_ on January 12. The same day
Monsieur Calmette accused Monsieur Caillaux of having extorted £16,000
from the Comptoir d’Escompte for the party funds. Monsieur Calmette
wrote that Monsieur Ulmann, of the Comptoir d’Escompte, had been
received at five o’clock one afternoon by Monsieur Caillaux, and that
some days afterwards the £16,000 had been placed at the disposition
of the Minister of Finance. Everybody concerned contradicted these
statements very flatly, and as they have no bearing on the Caillaux
drama other than to show the bitterness and personal nature of the
attacks in the _Figaro_ against Monsieur Caillaux we may leave them on
one side.