a way of lightening the most serious and solemn of France’s bitter
moments. The Parliamentary Commission had called Monsieur Monis to
appear before it. Everybody knew, Monsieur Monis as well as everybody
else, the reason of the summons. Everybody knew the seriousness of the
accusation, implied if unformulated, which lay behind it. Everybody
knew, Monsieur Jaurès as well as Monsieur Monis, that the ex-Prime
Minister would be asked whether or not it were true that he had brought
undue pressure to bear on Monsieur Victor Fabre, in order to secure,
for political and not altogether avowable reasons, a postponement of
the Rochette case.
In spite of this knowledge, here is the letter in which the President
of the Commission of Inquiry summoned Monsieur Monis. It reads like an
invitation to lunch.
MONSIEUR LE PRÉSIDENT,
A la suite des déclarations faites par le
Procureur Général, Monsieur Fabre, la commission
de l’affaire Rochette m’a chargé de vous prier
de vouloir bien vous entretenir avec elle demain
matin, mercredi, a dix heures et demie.
Veuillez agréer mes sentiments respectueusement
dévoués.
(Signed) JEAN JAURÈS.
Monsieur Monis in acknowledging receipt of this invitation when he
appeared before the Parliamentary Commission, described it as “an
exquisite little note.” “I wanted to be polite,” he said, “in return
for your politeness, and here I am.” Monsieur Monis then went on to say
that politeness was the only reason for his presence, politeness, and
the wish to protest. “I wish to protest energetically, with all my
energy,” said Monsieur Monis. “If you wish to cover this country with
a fresh crop of scandal you really must not count on my help. I will
be the victim if you like of your injustice, but I will be a proud and
silent victim.” And Monsieur Monis carried impudence to the extent of
forcing the Commission, out of sheer politeness, to admit that he had
been summoned without the least tinge of suspicion that he had done
anything to be ashamed of, and his last words to the Commission as he
left them were, “Respect and confidence.”
There was not quite so much politeness on either side, when, two years
later, Monsieur Monis gave evidence a second time before the Commission
of Inquiry. It was a Friday, of course, Friday, March 20, 1914. This
time he was forced to admit the truth of the facts he had denied so
lightly and so comfortably two years before. This time he was forced to
admit that for political reasons and on the advice of Monsieur Caillaux
he had brought pressure to bear on Monsieur Victor Fabre to postpone
the Rochette trial. In other words Monsieur Monis, who had been Prime
Minister of France in 1911, who had been forced to resign his position
in the Cabinet now in 1914 because of the revelations contained in
the Fabre statement which Monsieur Barthou had read in the Chamber of
Deputies, was forced to stand before the Parliamentary Commission which
he had hoodwinked with such extraordinary cynicism in 1912, admit that
he had hoodwinked them, admit that he had lied.
The next witness after the Monis interlude, in March 1912, was the
presiding judge of the Chamber of Correctional Appeal, Monsieur Bidault
de L’Isle. He too declared that he was “rather surprised” at having
been called before the Commission of Inquiry, he too explained that
deference for the Commission had been the sole reason of his coming. He
had received a letter from Maître Maurice Bernard, he said, in which
Rochette’s defending lawyer asked him to have the case postponed.
Maître Bernard said he was very busy, that he had several important
cases coming on, that his doctor told him that he would be ill if he
went on working so hard, and that he really couldn’t plead the Rochette
case for some months. “We never refuse an appeal of this kind from a
member of the Bar,” said Judge Bidault de L’Isle, “so I wrote to Maître
Maurice Bernard that the postponement would be granted. _I wish to
affirm in the most formal way_,” said Judge Bidault de L’Isle, “_that
the question of politics played no part whatever in the decision of
postponement._” Monsieur Jaurès tried very hard, and other members of
the Commission helped as best they could to get the truth from Judge
Bidault de L’Isle, but he repeated the statement quoted above “on his
soul and on his conscience.” On March 20, 1914, exactly two years after
this statement, Monsieur Bidault de L’Isle, who had denied two years
before that Monsieur Fabre, the Procureur Général, had told him that
the Rochette case must be postponed for political reasons, who in March
1912 had declared that the only reason for the adjournment was that
Maître Bernard had asked for it, ate his words without enjoyment, as
Monsieur Monis and Monsieur Fabre had eaten theirs. Three men, a
Prime Minister of France, the judge of one of the highest courts in
the country, and the Public Prosecutor, lied, and admitted under
pressure, when further denial was impossible, that they had trifled,
deliberately, with the truth.
Of these three men who lied and were forced to admit it, the most
pitiful figure is that of the Procureur Général, Monsieur Victor Fabre,
for he was the victim of a system. Professional secrecy in France has
become such a fetish that it has developed, from a means of preventing
doctors, lawyers, and professional men generally from revealing
unduly the secrets of those who have confided in them, into a kind of
Mumbo-Jumbo idol which protects and cloaks untruth. Now that we know
that Monsieur Victor Fabre told a deliberate lie and made a misleading
half-disclosure of the truth to the Parliamentary Commission which
examined him in 1912, we can only be sorry for the man and amazed at
the system which made such juggling with the truth seem justifiable
to him. In March 1911 Monsieur Fabre, under pressure from the Prime
Minister, Monsieur Monis, had ordered Judge Bidault de L’Isle to
postpone the trial of Rochette. In 1912 either just before or just
after his examination by the Parliamentary Commission, Monsieur Victor
Fabre had handed to the Minister of Justice, who was then Monsieur
Aristide Briand, the written statement which Monsieur Barthou read in
the Chamber of Deputies immediately after the murder of Monsieur Gaston
Calmette in 1914. This statement told the truth which he concealed from
the Commission of Inquiry two years before. Monsieur Fabre had written
his statement immediately after political pressure was brought to bear
on him; he knew, of course, of its existence when he was examined in
1912. And this is how he spoke of it when he was re-examined in 1914.
“I was surprised and afflicted when I learned that a journalist, two
years after I had handed my statement to Monsieur Briand, had boasted
of its possession and proposed to publish it. I didn’t believe this. I
thought that it was quite impossible that he should be in possession
of my statement, that he could publish it, because I did not even know
Monsieur Calmette by sight, because I had not given it to him, because
I considered the fact that the Minister of Justice had this statement
in his possession rendered it inviolable. MY CONVICTION ON THIS POINT
WAS SO STRONG THAT WHENEVER THIS DOCUMENT WAS MENTIONED TO ME I
INVARIABLY STATED THAT IT DID NOT EXIST, AND THAT THERE WAS NO FEAR OF
ITS PUBLICATION.” In plain English, Monsieur Victor Fabre admitted that
he had suppressed the truth, because he was convinced that the truth
would not be known. “I made this declaration to Monsieur Caillaux,
who appeared very uneasy at the thought that this document might be
published. I consider that I HAVE THE RIGHT AND THAT IT WAS MY DUTY TO
SAY WHAT I DID. I CONSIDER THAT I HAD NO RIGHT TO GIVE UP MY SECRET,
FOR THIS DOCUMENT WAS MINE, I COULD DO WHAT I LIKED WITH IT, I COULD
SUPPRESS IT OR TEAR IT UP. TO EVERYBODY BUT MYSELF THE DOCUMENT WAS
NONEXISTENT.”
[Illustration: _Agence Nouvelle—Photo, Paris_
MONSIEUR BARTHOU]
After this pitiful confession Monsieur Fabre, as a weak man will,
accused everybody he could think of of breaking faith with him.
“Unfortunately,” he said, “everybody had not the same reserve (this
is an exquisite word to have chosen) that I had. I do not know how my
statement passed from Monsieur Briand’s hands into other hands. I do
know that the use which was made of it was a deplorable abuse.” It was
indeed.
We know now how Monsieur Fabre’s written statement came to be read in
the Chamber of Deputies, and we can guess how Monsieur Calmette and
other journalists knew of its existence, and of its contents. Monsieur
Briand had kept the damning document while he was Minister of Justice.
When he resigned, Monsieur Briand, as his duty was, passed the document
on to the new Minister of Justice, Monsieur Barthou. Monsieur Barthou,
realizing what a political weapon the statement might become, kept it
and used it. Whether he showed it to journalists, I do not know, but we
know from the evidence of Monsieur Fabre as far as faith can be placed
in this evidence after his own confession, that only two copies of the
document were in existence. The one Monsieur Fabre kept in his own
possession until he handed it over on March 20, 1914, to the President
of the Commission of Inquiry, the other, on which he wrote “Copy for
the Minister of Justice,” he copied out in his own handwriting and
handed over to Monsieur Briand. With regard to the contents of the
document nobody now denies that they were true.
On March 20, 1914, Monsieur Fabre no longer pleaded professional
secrecy, no longer hesitated, but made this direct statement: “It is
perfectly correct that I received an order from the Prime Minister,
Monsieur Monis, to secure the postponement of the Rochette case until
after the holidays. It is perfectly true that I insisted on Judge
Bidault de L’Isle postponing the case. It is perfectly true that I told
him why. If I had gone to Judge Bidault de L’Isle and said, ‘Maître
Maurice Bernard is not very well. Put the case off for a year,’ Judge
Bidault de L’Isle would have told me that there was insufficient reason
for the postponement. I sent for Judge Bidault de L’Isle, I told him of
the interview which I had had with the Prime Minister, and of the order
which had been given me. I explained the situation to him, I adjured
him if he had any affection for me to grant what I asked. He ended by
giving way.” Then this unfortunate man, whose chief fault is weakness,
who trembled for his position, and who allowed the Prime Minister to
dictate to him in consequence, attempted to explain his act away. He
said that even if the case were postponed, even if, as duly happened,
all legal procedure against Rochette were cancelled, Rochette would
not enjoy impunity. At present he is certainly enjoying it, and he
has answered this statement of poor Monsieur Fabre more simply and
conclusively than anybody else can do. Monsieur Fabre had instructions
and carried them out against his own wish, he said. He believed, and
he believes now, that he was obliged to obey them. Under examination
he was asked why he took the Prime Minister’s orders, why he did not
go to his direct superior, the Minister of Justice, Monsieur Perrier.
His answer shows the curiously direct influence of personality in the
government of France. It shows that Monsieur Fabre considered that the
Prime Minister’s order overrode anything that the Minister of Justice
might or might not find to say. And as we know now that Monsieur Monis
gave this order for the postponement of the Rochette trial because
Monsieur Caillaux told him to, as we know that Monsieur Caillaux told
him to give it because Rochette’s lawyer, Maître Bernard, might say
things in court which would be disagreeable to the Government, might
make disclosures which would get the Government, and more especially
Monsieur Caillaux himself, into trouble, we realize that the real ruler
of France on March 2, 1911, was Henri Rochette, who fled the country
under sentence for fraud.
Monsieur Caillaux himself had an interview, or rather two interviews,
with Monsieur Fabre, who called on him on January 14, 1914, at seven
o’clock in the evening. They spoke of the Rochette affair, and (this
was the second interview) Monsieur Caillaux mentioned the order which
Monsieur Fabre had received. “He asked me,” Monsieur Fabre said to the
Commission of Inquiry (and he had asked me the same question on the
occasion of my former visit), “whether it were true that a copy of my
statement of my interview with Monsieur Monis existed and could be
published. _I replied in the negative._ He insisted. He told me that he
had information that a journalist was in possession of this document,
and that he was afraid that it would be published. I told him that this
was not possible, _that he need not be afraid of the publication of a
document which did not exist_. I said this because I was convinced, as
I was convinced up to the last minute, that this document would never
be published and could not be published. I preferred not to reveal
my secret so as not to upset Monsieur Caillaux (‘_ne pas attrister
d’avantage_ Monsieur Caillaux’), who was quite upset enough by the
campaign against him. I had the right to speak as I did because this
document was my property, and because it was useless for me to reveal
its existence as it was not to be published.”
But the further evidence of Monsieur Victor Fabre, when, in March 1914,
he told the whole truth at last, shows that the orders he received
really did come from Rochette and came almost directly from him. After
his interview with Monsieur Monis, the Procureur-Général had a
conversation with his assistant, Monsieur Bloch-Laroque, whose title
(Substitut) does not exist in England. Monsieur Bloch-Laroque and
Monsieur Fabre talked over the fact that Monsieur Maurice Bernard
had deliberately threatened Monsieur Fabre, that he had said, before
leaving the room and banging the door behind him, that “if Monsieur
Fabre did not obey, it would be the worse for him.” It is surely
unheard of, that Rochette’s lawyer should be able to have terrorized
the French Procureur-Général with such language, but Monsieur le
Procureur-Général Victor Fabre told the Commission of Inquiry, “I was
well aware of the influence and knew the friends of Maître Maurice
Bernard, and I knew that he did not say what he said without knowing
that his words would receive sanction in high places.” Maître Maurice
Bernard is an intimate friend of Monsieur Caillaux, and was his lawyer
in his divorce case.
We may resume this inner history of a series of disgraceful happenings
in the history of France in comparatively few words. Rochette has made
enormous sums of money in a very few years, and the French authorities
believe that he has swindled and is swindling the public. There are
difficulties in the way of proving this immediately. The authorities
connive at the substitution of a man of straw for a proper prosecutor
so as not to allow Rochette to slip through their fingers, and he is
arrested. By every means in his power, and the French legal code gives
him many opportunities, Rochette drags the case against him from court
to court, and succeeds in avoiding final judgment for over two years
and six months. Then, when a definite trial appears inevitable, the
Prime Minister, acting under advice from the Minister of Finance, who
has allowed himself to be terrorized by Rochette—to put the mildest
possible construction on the reason for his conduct—brings influence
to bear on the magistrature, and postpones the trial again. Rochette
in the meanwhile has left France, and has continued to prosecute his
financial schemes. There we have the Rochette case in a nutshell. There
also we have its intimate connexion with the Caillaux drama, for the
Minister of Finance who, for more or less personal reasons, persuaded
the Prime Minister to order the postponement of the trial, was Monsieur
Joseph Caillaux.
How personal were Monsieur Caillaux’s reasons for advising Monsieur
Monis to secure the postponement of the Rochette trial were shown in
a letter from Rochette himself, which he sent to the President of the
Commission of Inquiry on March 27, 1914. The letter was a very long
one. In it Monsieur Rochette told the story of how he had terrorized
the Minister of Finance, Monsieur Caillaux, into working for him.
Rochette had compiled a volume of 120 pages on the history of financial
issues made in France and floated on the market from 1890 to 1910. In
these tables it was shown that French investors had had heavy losses
amounting in all to four hundred million pounds sterling. The book was
likely to create very serious difficulties for Monsieur Caillaux, the
Finance Minister, who had been responsible for permitting many of these
issues of stock, and it was Rochette’s determination that his lawyer
should read these figures in court on the plea of showing that if some
of his issues had brought losses to the French investor other issues
under higher authority than his own had done the same thing on a larger
scale. The importance which Monsieur Caillaux attributed to this book
is proved by the fact that he spoke of it to Monsieur Monis as a
political reason for doing what Rochette wished, and postponing the
trial. It is interesting to note that there are actually thirty-eight
prosecutions waiting Rochette’s return to France.
The history of the Rochette case shows unfortunately that Madame
Caillaux’s revolver shot was not the only crime in the full story of
the Caillaux drama. There is another criminal whom a higher court must
try than the Paris Court of Assizes, there is another victim besides
Gaston Calmette. The criminal is expediency, expediency which allows
men in the positions of Prime Minister, of judge, of Public Prosecutor
to tamper with fact, to mislead and to lie in the belief that they
“have the right” to do so. The victim whom they murdered is The Truth.
XI
ABOUT FRENCH POLITICS
Perhaps the most difficult part of the life of France for an Englishman
to understand is her politics. To give with any thoroughness at all
even a slight idea of the French political parties and the opinions
for which these parties fight, would require another volume quite as
big as this one. But the object of this chapter is not an essay on the
intricacies of party politics in France, nor do I propose to attempt
a detailed explanation of the differences of opinion which divide the
parties. My object is rather to give the reader some insight into the
clockwork as it were of the inner political life of France, so as to
throw more light, within the measure of my power with the lamp, on the
Caillaux drama, which is such a salad of passion, politics, and finance.
It is, as I have said, extremely difficult for an English reader
to realize what French political life really is, for it is so very
different from political life at home, and though it might more easily
be compared perhaps to the political life of the United States it
differs in many ways and in many essentials from that also. But French
political life does resemble the political life of America in one way,
in contrast to the political life of England. Its very foundation is
familiarity, and the French politician is not generally respected by
his compatriots as one who knows more than themselves. He is admired
as one who has more cunning. The French used to take pride in the
familiarity with which they treat their politicians, for familiarity
such as is the mainspring of France’s politics used to be called
_Egalité_, and is still one of the words, in this disguise, with which
the French politician loves to conjure, and succeeds in conjuring,
votes out of an empty hat.
If I were asked to name the most powerful political class in modern
France I should plump for the _marchand de vin_. The _marchand de vin_,
the keeper of the little wineshop, with the zinc counter and the little
tables with their stone tops beyond it, which is the equivalent of the
English public house, is quite the most powerful electoral agent
existing in France, and he is recognized as such by every French
politician. At election times, or for that matter, at any time, no
French politician can afford to neglect him, and he controls votes
without number in every town, every village, and every district
throughout the length and breadth of the country.
So true is this that every Government is obliged to recognize the fact
of the _marchand de vin’s_ importance, and each succeeding Government
is put in the curious position, as it succeeds the Government before
it, of being obliged, on the score of public morality, public health,
and public well-being to discourage the consumption of strong drink
in words, and to encourage it in act. There are laws in France which
permit certain people to make and to sell alcohol. Governments from
time to time have endeavoured to remove or to restrict the privileges
which these manufacturers of alcohol enjoy, but they have never
succeeded because the _bouilleurs du cru_ as they are called, are much
too strong for them and much too strongly backed. Each succeeding
Government knows, or if it does not recognize the fact at first, the
fact is very soon made clear, that everybody connected with the wine
and spirit industry must be conciliated if votes are to be obtained,
and retained, and although France has for a good many years now called
herself a republic she is really a monarchy under the thumb of a
despot, whose name is King Marchand de Vin, and who is only nominally
under the control of Parliament. Parliament controls the _marchand de
vin_ nominally, perhaps, in France, but as the _marchand de vin_ elects
the members who form Parliament, as the _marchand de vin_ controls and
regulates the votes of the many-headed, the _marchand de vin_ reigns,
and will continue to reign supreme, for France will not stop drinking
wine till England abjures beer.
To the observer who has the advantage of aloofness as his point
of view, the thing which impresses more than anything else as the
principal characteristic of French politics is their selfishness. This
peculiarity is almost as remarkable, perhaps even more remarkable, than
the curious complications of the many political parties. To begin with,
in studying the parties the first thing which strikes one in addition
to their number is the fact that they are all, with the exception of
the Royalists and Imperialists who call themselves Conservatives, as
advanced or more advanced than any party at all in either England or in
Germany. The German Socialist, for instance, of the reddest type, has
tenets which, if he were a Frenchman, would probably make him vote with
the very moderate Left, and Monsieur Millerand, who used to be looked
upon as such a dangerous Socialist not very long ago is now considered
by the Socialists themselves old-fashioned and reactionary, while
Monsieur Briand is in French eyes a very moderate reformer, if he be
considered a reformer at all.
But here I am beginning the impossible task of attempting to divide
French politicians into parties, and explaining the views of these
parties in plain language. I must not allow myself to be led away,
by the Chinese puzzle fascination French party politics invariably
exercise, to attempt this task. I could not succeed, for by the time
this book is on the market French parties will no doubt have changed
and shaken down again into other and different shapes, for French
political combinations hold together as cohesive forces with little
more certainty than the bits of coloured glass in the kaleidoscope.
Every time a question of the least importance gives a turn to the
handle, the parties of the day, the week, or the month before
disintegrate and fall into other combinations of infinite shades of
colour.