useless now, Rochette himself was asked to give evidence before the
Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry. He was delighted to attend, for he
had nothing to lose and he had everything to gain by his attendance. He
also had a great deal to say, and said it very well, for Rochette is a
born orator. Naturally enough, he took the opportunity of pleading his
own case from A to Z once more, and of denouncing the illegality of his
arrest in March 1908. He launched accusations against the police, he
launched accusations against members of Parliament, he was very rude
indeed to financiers of repute. Above all, he was always interesting,
and often amusing, and he certainly made his case appear clearer than
it had ever appeared before.
His evidence is well worthy of consideration in detail, for it must not
be forgotten that one of the men before whom he gave it was Monsieur
Joseph Caillaux, and that he gave this evidence on November 25, 1910.
A few months later, in March 1911, Monsieur Caillaux, who no doubt had
been impressed by Rochette’s powers of oratory, advised his colleague,
Monsieur Monis, of the dangers that might be incurred, politically
speaking, if pressure were not brought to bear on the legal authorities
for the postponement of Rochette’s trial, in accordance with the wishes
of this extraordinary expert in legal obstruction. It is fair to infer,
I think, that Rochette’s attitude before the Commission of Inquiry
had impressed Monsieur Caillaux considerably, but Monsieur Caillaux’s
political enemies ascribed his attitude to motives of another kind.
Rochette’s evidence, if evidence it can be called, occupies twenty-five
closely printed pages in quarto in the transcription printed for the
Commission of Inquiry of the shorthand notes which were taken. One of
the first points Rochette made was on the question of the money which
he spent on advertising his various enterprises. He admitted that
the figures quoted against him were very largely correct, that for
instance, he really had spent as much as £2500 a week for ten weeks on
advertising, “but,” he said, “it is only a question of proportion after
all. The Bon Marché, the Louvre, or the Printemps can spend thousands
on advertising where it would be criminally foolish of a small grocer
to spend hundreds. I am not a small grocer. During the period from
January 1 to March 23, 1908, in which my publicity bill was £24,000,1
did nearly half a million sterling of business.”
Rochette then made a vicious attack on Monsieur Prevet and the _Petit
Journal_, but vicious though his attack was, it was distinctly
plausible. “A shareholder of the _Petit Journal_ called on me,” he
said. “He brought some very interesting figures with him. These figures
showed that in 1901 the shareholders of the _Petit Journal_ got £2
dividend and the shares were worth £44 to £48. In 1902,” he said
“Monsieur Prevet became director and six years afterwards, at the
beginning of 1908, the shares were worth from £10 to £12 and the
dividend was only sixteen shillings! This drop in value was not due to
a general slump in the newspaper industry, for the _Petit Parisien_,
the _Journal_, and the _Matin_, all of them halfpenny morning papers,
had increased the value of their respective properties enormously.”
Rochette’s visitor maintained, Rochette declared to the Commission,
that if Monsieur Prevet’s management was disastrous to the _Petit
Journal_ shareholders, the fact was largely due to Monsieur Prevet’s
need of money, which was notorious. Rochette went, he said, into the
question of the _Petit Journal’s_ next dividend. He saw, he declared,
that it was problematical, and he therefore “inspired,” though he did
not write, the circular which had been sent to the _Petit Journal_’s
shareholders. “With regard to Monsieur Prevet’s action at this time,”
says Rochette, “if he really wanted to protect the interests of his
shareholders and not his own, all he had to do would have been to send
out a private circular of his own to the shareholders, a list of whose
names was in his possession, and convince them that my statements were
wrong. He couldn’t, of course, do this, because my statements were
right, and that is why he was afraid that I should take his position
on the paper from him at the next general meeting. That is also why I
was arrested just before that general meeting. The shares had to be
deposited at the office of the _Petit Journal_ for voting purposes
about March 19. Monsieur Prevet was able to convince himself that his
authority with the shareholders had dwindled, and he thought it safer
for himself to get rid of me.”
Several attempts were made, according to Rochette, during the month of
March 1908, to induce him to fall into cleverly laid traps which would
make his arrest easy. “These traps were laid cleverly, but not cleverly
enough,” Rochette declared, “and I was too astute to allow myself to be
caught in them. That was why,” he added, “I was arrested on Pichereau’s
disgracefully vamped-up charge.” Rochette was convinced, he told the
members of the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry, that the anonymous
letters and anonymous telephone calls warning him that his arrest
was imminent with which he was bombarded between March 8 and 21 were
police tactics for the purpose of persuading him to take flight and
so to make matters easy for everybody. “I did not take flight,” said
Rochette proudly, “and when I was arrested there were £440,000 in my
safe. I could have taken this money out at any time. I did not take
it.” Rochette declared that the examining magistrate, Monsieur Berr,
had shown unfair prejudice against him from the moment of his arrest,
and that this was so apparent that his lawyer, Maître Maurice Bernard,
had made this accusation to the examining magistrate’s face: “I know
that my client’s arrest was arranged, ‘worked’ if you will, by three
men, Monsieur Lépine, Monsieur Prevet, and yourself!” And the examining
magistrate made no reply. “Ten thousand shareholders in my companies
signed a petition against my arrest and forwarded it to the Chamber of
Deputies,” was one of Rochette’s points. “In this petition they stated
that my arrest had been caused by Monsieur Prevet with the complicity
of Monsieur Gaudrion and Monsieur Pichereau. In February 1909,”
Rochette declared, “one of the experts who was examining my books
walked into Monsieur Berr’s room in the Palace of Justice. I was in
the little room next door, and I heard Monsieur Blanc, the expert in
question, who had not seen me, ask the examining magistrate whether
my case would come on for trial before the Correctional Court before
Easter or not. This was proof that the experts and everybody else knew
at this time that I was to be sent for trial, and that the pretence of
examining my books was only a pretence and nothing more. The examining
magistrate had made his mind up to send me for trial directly he had me
under arrest. The Crédit Minier,” Rochette declared, “ought never to
have been put into bankruptcy. None of my societies ought to have been
declared bankrupt, for every creditor was paid 100 per cent. The only
money that was lost was about £160,000, and that loss was due to the
disgraceful “bearing” of my shares by speculators. It is not fair to
say that I caused this loss of £160,000 to investors. The truth is that
people who were too well informed were allowed to make £160,000 at the
expense of the public. I have done nothing to be ashamed of. I have
committed no fault. Surely the success of the Crédit Minier is not a
fault. It had twenty-five customers when I started it, and five years
later there were fifty thousand of them. I wish to point out,” said
Rochette, “that my enterprises existed and did well before my arrest,
and continue to exist after it and in spite of it. I venture to state
positively that very few financiers who suffered as I have could make
the same statement. The net result of my arrest was the heavy drop of
the shares of my enterprises, a loss of £240,000 by the Crédit Minier,
and the ruin of shareholders whom the _krach_ caught unawares. Of
the £240,000 which the Crédit Minier lost, certain speculators made
£160,000, and £80,000 went to the expenses of the bankruptcy. The
liquidator alone was paid between £12,000 and £16,000.”
Rochette told the Commission of Inquiry that he had intended taking
charge of the _Petit Journal_, as he had taken control in the _krach_
of the Say sugar refinery. He was, at that time, endeavouring to get
hold of the concession of the Paris Omnibus Company and was backing up
the Darracq group with money so that Monsieur Darracq could obtain the
concession from the Municipal Council. Monsieur Rochette, questioned
very closely by the members of the Commission, was forced to admit
that one of his lawyers, Monsieur Rabier (one of the stalwarts of the
Caillaux party in Parliament), drew about £500 a year for legal advice,
and on other occasions received sums varying from £2800 to £3200. The
members of the Commission expressed doubt about these figures, and a
curious story was told by a former clerk of Rochette’s with regard to
his book-keeping methods.
From this story it appeared that efforts were usually made by Rochette
to conceal the real amounts which were paid for their services to
newspapers and to those lawyers in the employ of the financier who
happened to be members of Parliament or political personages. Curiously
enough most of Rochette’s lawyers happened to be political personages,
and one of the lawyers of the Crédit Minier was Monsieur René Renoult,
who is a member of the present Cabinet. In many ways the examination
of Rochette by the Parliamentary Commission was an eye-opener to the
public. Accusations of venality on the part of public men are so common
in France, owing to the licence allowed in the Press, that such words
as “corruption,” “theft,” “lying” and the like have almost lost their
force when applied to men in the van of politics. But the details of
the manner in which Rochette conducted his business impressed and
alarmed the public by their unpleasant likeness to the unsavoury
details of the Panama case.
One of the members of the Commission, Monsieur Jules Delahaye,
who throughout the inquiry acted very much like a counsel for the
prosecution of every political man who was mixed up in the Rochette
affair, pointed out this unsavoury resemblance. “I consider Monsieur
Rochette to be a great corrupter of public morals,” he said. “I am not
at all content with his explanations. They do not satisfy me. There are
matters of far greater gravity behind his methods than he would have us
suppose, and I would ask my colleagues to concentrate their attention
on the items of Rochette’s expenditure for publicity with the same
intensity as the attention of the Parliamentary Commission had at the
time to be concentrated, with the results which you remember, on the
publicity accounts of the Panama Canal. In this case, as in the case
of Panama, public morals have been corrupted. Millions (“of francs”
is meant, of course) have been employed, not only to buy publicity in
the newspapers, but, as the Prefect of Police has told us, to corrupt
the moral and financial rectitude of people of all ranks and all
stations in Paris, in the provinces, all over France. I will go so
far as to say that the taint actually extended to the Church. That is
a characteristic of the affair.” (Page 547 of the official shorthand
reports of the Parliamentary Commission.)
Rochette paid, in many ways, on the plea of publicity. He was in the
habit, when he wanted to pay and to preserve secrecy for the payment,
of sending a note down to the cashier of the Crédit Minier with his
initials “H.R.” and a little cross marked on it next to the amount.
These little crosses were used in the books, it is suggested, to
signify that the amounts entered against certain names were not the
real amounts paid, which were much larger. The payments were made
directly from hand to hand by Monsieur Rochette to his political
friends and helpers, and no receipts passed. I do not propose to go
very much into detail on this uncomfortable question. The evidence
of Monsieur Duret, who acted as Rochette’s private secretary, and
that of Monsieur Yenck, a clerk in the Crédit Minier, leaves a very
uncomfortable taste in the mouth. Monsieur Yenck declared that Monsieur
Duret’s sole business was to act as intermediary between political
men and Rochette. He used to speak in very familiar terms of many
well-known politicians, and was on the friendliest terms with Rochette
himself. He always called Rochette by his first name, “Henri,” and was
in the habit of alluding to Monsieur Rabier as “Rab.” It was Duret who,
according to Yenck, secured, by political influence, the decoration
of the Legion of Honour for Henri Rochette. Yenck declared that Duret
had on one occasion made erasures in the private books of the Crédit
Minier, so as to avoid scandal. He told the Commission that Duret, whom
he had seen with a scratcher in his hand, and one of the Crédit
Minier’s private books in front of him, had explained what he was
doing by the remark: “I am very much afraid that Henri is going to be
arrested, and I don’t want the name of ‘Rab’ to be found in the books.”
(Page 566 of the official shorthand reports of the Parliamentary
Commission.)
On February 1, 1912, the judgment against Rochette was annulled on
grounds of technical irregularity, by the Court of Correctional Appeal,
and the conclusions of the Parliamentary Inquiry Commission were laid
on the table of the Chamber of Deputies. It will be remembered that
according to the statement made by the Procureur Général, Monsieur
Victor Fabre, the Prime Minister, Monsieur Monis, had brought influence
to bear on him for the postponement of the Rochette trial on appeal
from the judgment of July 1910. Monsieur Jaurès, the President of the
Committee of Inquiry, on March 20, 1912, told the Chamber the history
of the Rochette case as he knew it, and he knows it perhaps better than
any other Frenchman living except Rochette himself. He told the story
of the strangely illegal manner in which the police had had Rochette
arrested. He pointed out that the police and the lawyers had been at
loggerheads as to the procedure to be employed. The police acted in
one way, the Parquet (that is to say the legal authorities) acted in
another, and by their ill-considered lack of unity of action with the
Parquet, the police had undoubtedly served the interests of a number of
men who had speculated and had made money on the downfall of Rochette.
It was, said Monsieur Jaurès, a curious fact that while the arrest of
Rochette could not be effected for the mere purpose of protecting the
small investor, it was effected by means of a conspiracy between a
banker, Monsieur Gaudrion, who had sold Rochette shares for the fall,
and Monsieur Prevet, the director of a newspaper, who was anxious to
throttle a competitor.
In this conspiracy Monsieur Gaudrion furnished the prosecutor and
Monsieur Prevet supplied the influence. Monsieur Gaudrion did not,
himself, prosecute. He could not do so because he had been in trouble
with the laws of his country. He found a man of straw to act as
prosecutor in his stead, a man named Pichereau, and gave him shares and
money to act against Rochette. “When we examined Monsieur Gaudrion
before the Commission of Inquiry, I said to him,” said Monsieur
Jaurès, “I can understand that you, who were gambling for the fall
of Rochette shares should be anxious for the arrest of Rochette, but
why did Pichereau ruin himself by bringing an action which made the
shares in which he had invested his whole fortune perfectly valueless?”
“Gaudrion answered,” said Monsieur Jaurès, “‘The shares did not belong
to Pichereau’,” and this was the truth. Monsieur Jaurès suggested that
the conspiracy had gone even further. Monsieur Clemenceau, who was
Prime Minister, told us that he intervened because he was anxious to
scotch the legend that the Government were protecting Rochette. “I told
him to be careful,” said Monsieur Jaurès. Monsieur Prevet had told the
Commission that Gaudrion had advised him on March 19 or early on the
morning of the 20th, of the readiness of Pichereau to prosecute.
At half-past eleven on the morning of March 20, Monsieur Clemenceau
telephoned for Monsieur Lépine and told him to find a prosecutor.
Monsieur Lépine spoke to Monsieur Yves Durand, and Monsieur Yves
Durand went straight to Monsieur Prevet. “When I pointed out,” said
Monsieur Jaurès, “the significance of these dates, Monsieur Clemenceau
exclaimed. ‘It is a coincidence.’ Monsieur Lépine also said, ‘It is a
coincidence,’ and I can say no more than ‘It is a coincidence’ to the
Chamber to-day.”
Here in a few words we have the real origin of the _affaire Rochette_,
and the “coincidence” which Monsieur Jaurès pointed out to the Chamber
is a painfully suggestive one. Rochette, after his first sentence, was
allowed to drag proceedings out for many months, from July 27 of one
year to April 29 of the next, though the courts always found against
him except in very minor subsidiary actions. He then secured a further
postponement from April 29, 1911, till January 12, 1912. During all
this time Rochette had been a free man, and he was able to continue his
financial operations. His reasons for spending immense sums of money on
securing these postponements of his trial were self-evident. Monsieur
Jaurès pointed out these reasons to the Chamber. Rochette said to
himself, Monsieur Jaurès explained, that the more business he did, the
more chance he had of ultimate escape. If during these months of delay
he succeeded in bringing off one substantial _coup_ he would cease to
be the adventurer who was a danger to the small investor, and would be
considered as the clever and successful financier who had triumphed
over the illegality of his arrest in the first place.
In this speech before the Chamber, Monsieur Jaurès referred to the
contradictions in the evidence of the Procureur Général Monsieur Fabre,
the Prime Minister Monsieur Monis, and Judge Bidault de L’Isle, with
reference to the last and longest postponement of the Rochette trial
from April 29, 1911, to January 12, 1912. He alluded to the rumour
which was gaining ground that political influence had been brought to
bear on the judicial authorities for the postponement of the trial. He
expressed the regret that these rumours had not been probed until after
the truth was made clear and he declared that Monsieur Fabre had said
either too much or too little before the Parliamentary Commission. We
know the truth now. We know that political influence was brought to
bear for the postponement of the Rochette trial, we know who brought
that influence to bear, and the truckling with the truth on the part
of those concerned in the postponement must be the subject of the next
chapter of this book, for this one is, I fear, too long already.
X
“THE TRUTH, THE WHOLE TRUTH ...”
The first Commission of Inquiry closed its labours on March 20,
1912, with the hearing of three witnesses of importance. These three
witnesses were the Procureur Général, Monsieur Victor Fabre, the
ex-Prime Minister, Monsieur Monis, and the presiding judge of the
Chamber of Correctional Appeal, Monsieur Bidault de L’Isle. All three
men were questioned on the rumours of the bringing of political
influence to bear in March 1911 for the postponement of the Rochette
trial. Two years later day for day, on March 20, 1914, these three men
and Monsieur Joseph Caillaux were heard again by the Parliamentary
Commission of Inquiry. A comparison of what they said in 1912 and
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 happened as little as
possible. I am anxious to let these men exhibit their own shame in
their own words. I shall therefore resume their evidence from the
official shorthand notes which remain as its record, and the public and
their own consciences may be their judges.
“On July 27, 1910,” said Monsieur Victor Fabre, “the Correctional Court
rendered judgment in the Rochette case and Rochette appealed. Rochette
from the very beginning of his case did everything in his power, and
his power was enormous, to hamper the course of legal proceedings, and
to drag them out. Unfortunately the French criminal code plays into
the hands of a man like this,” said Monsieur Fabre, “and it is not too
much to say that when a rich man—for he must be rich—is accused and
wishes to drag out 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
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 say,” said Monsieur Fabre to
the Commission, “the affair might have been called on appeal sooner
than April 29, 1911. But there were several reasons against this. The
first, the primary reason, was the long vacation. The courts were not
to meet again until October 15, and before the trial could take place
the President of the Correctional Chamber, the Conseiller Rapporteur,
and the Avocat Général, had to be given an opportunity of absorbing the
facts of the case. This meant several long weeks’ study.”
“Another reason for the postponement of the trial till April, was the
inquiry which had been ordered into the speculation on the Bourse and
elsewhere in connexion with the Rochette affair. On April 29, 1911, the
trial was postponed till January 11, 1912,” said Monsieur Victor Fabre.
“_The postponement was granted at the request of Monsieur Maurice
Bernard. Monsieur Bernard invoked reasons of health. He wrote to the
presiding judge of the Chamber of Correctional Appeal a letter which I
have seen, in which he declares that his state of health will not allow
him to plead the Rochette case before the holidays, and asks for a
postponement. Astonishing as this may seem at first I could not oppose
this request. I assure you that it was most disagreeable to me not to
refuse it, that I was much annoyed at not being able to oppose Maître
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
Maître Maurice Bernard’s request, much as I should have liked to do
so. Maître 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 INTERVIEW
ON THE ROCHETTE AFFAIR WITH A FORMER PRIME MINISTER I CONSIDER THAT I
SHOULD BE FAILING IN ALL MY DUTY IF I WERE TO TELL YOU WHAT TOOK PLACE
AT SUCH AN INTERVIEW.” Monsieur Fabre was questioned and
cross-questioned on this statement. He declared that the last part
of it, the part in which he refers to Monsieur Monis, was purely
hypothetical. The President of the Commission of Inquiry pointed
out to him that everybody would take it to be a statement of fact.
Monsieur Fabre refused to say anything more, but maintained, under
cross-examination, his original statement that Maître Bernard’s
plea of ill-health, and nothing else, had been responsible for the
postponement, for seven long months, of the trial of Rochette.