unfortunately, does not change. In a country where politics are so
mixed that the elector understands very little about them, it is not
difficult to catch votes by arguments of another kind. Our business
just now being with the Caillaux drama, it may not be a bad method of
explaining how French politicians gain the authority to govern, by
some sidelights on the election at Mamers of Monsieur Joseph Caillaux.
Immediately after Madame Caillaux had shot the editor of the _Figaro_
dead her husband resigned office. He was of course obliged to do this.
Immediately after his resignation he announced that he intended to
retire from public life entirely, and would take no part in politics
in the immediate future. He had hardly made this announcement, which I
mentioned on page 79, before he changed his mind, and announced that
owing to the insistence of his constituents he would be a candidate for
re-election when the general election took place, but that he would
not canvass, and that his friend Monsieur D’Estournelles de Constant
would canvass for him, while he himself would remain in the retirement
demanded by the situation of his wife. A very few days after this
second change of plans Monsieur Caillaux changed his mind once more
and determined to canvass Mamers. He has been re-elected. It is not
uninteresting to glance at the reason why.
Any foreigner might have imagined that there was no possible chance
for any body of electors to re-elect Monsieur Joseph Caillaux as
their representative. The fierce light which played so recently and
so unsparingly on his political career had scarcely shown him to be
a desirable member of Parliament. It would be difficult, one would
think, for Frenchmen to vote for the man who had made such a number
of mistakes, and who had been connected, as Monsieur Caillaux was
connected, with the negotiations disclosed in the chapters in this
volume on Agadir and the _affaire_ Rochette. But the foreigner would
not realize, and Monsieur Caillaux realized, very conclusively, that
the peasants of the Sarthe district cared little or nothing for the
revelations in the Paris Press, and cared a great deal for Monsieur
Caillaux’s personality.
To anybody who has not lived among them, the ignorance of the French
peasant in the country districts on the affairs of his country must be
incredible. How crass this ignorance can be may be imagined from the
absolute fact that in many parts of Monsieur Caillaux’s constituency
the electors, who have returned him to the Chamber of Deputies again,
are absolutely convinced that Monsieur Calmette is not dead at all,
and that the story of his murder by Madame Caillaux has been put about
by Paris journalists merely to do Monsieur Caillaux harm. The peasants
of the Sarthe believe, in many cases, that Monsieur Calmette is still
alive, and is keeping out of the way, in hiding somewhere. “Tout ça,
c’est des histoires de Parisiens” is the popular view. The distrust
of the townsman in general, and of the Parisian in particular, which
prevails in many French country districts and in Normandy and Brittany
even more than elsewhere, was a remarkable asset for Monsieur Caillaux
when he asked for the suffrage of the Sarthe peasantry.
Some idea of this asset and the way in which he used it can be obtained
from his letter to his constituents in which he thanks them for
electing him. The letter, which is dated “Mamers, May the 1st,” has
been posted on the walls all over the constituency. “My dear friends,”
writes Monsieur Caillaux, “How can I express my gratitude, and my
emotion? In spite of the pressure exerted by the whole strength of the
reactionary parties, in spite of the money which flowed like water,
in spite of an unqualifiable campaign of calumny and of lying, the
constituency of Mamers has given me a majority of nearly 1500 votes
over my opponent.”
“You have avenged your deputy for the odious
attacks and the defamation of which he has been
the object. You know that their origin was his
love of peace, which was made clear in the treaty
of November 4, 1911 (this is the Agadir treaty),
and his wish to make rich men contribute more
freely to the expenses of the country.
“Once more I thank you from my whole heart. More
than ever I will be the untiring defender of your
rights and of your interests. More than ever I
will do my utmost to ensure to France and the
Republic order, stability, and reform. Believe,
my dear friends, in my affectionate devotion to
your interests.
“J. CAILLAUX.”
Does not this letter breathe with surprising clarity humbug of the
broadest? Whatever one may think of Monsieur Caillaux, no one has yet
accused him of poverty, and his opponent in the Sarthe was quixotic
enough to refrain from much mention of the Caillaux drama at election
time, so that the campaign of calumny was purely imaginary. And, to top
everything, when he did mention it and the Rochette case in a final
poster, Monsieur Caillaux challenged him to a duel, for “maligning
the electors of Mamers!” The duel was “fought” before journalists,
photographers and the cinematograph. The snapshots show that Monsieur
Caillaux fired in the air, and his opponent fired into the ground. So
everybody laughed, and “honour was satisfied.” But Monsieur Joseph
Caillaux is looked upon _as a victim_ in the Sarthe! The peasants there
understand nothing and care less about foreign politics. They approve
Monsieur Caillaux’s opposition to three years’ military service,
because Germany is far away and is only a name to them, and they prefer
their sons to be called away from the land for two years instead of
three. They approve Monsieur Caillaux’s suggestion of taxing the rich,
because they have never troubled to understand it, and it sounds good
to them, and most of all, and above all, they approve of Monsieur
Caillaux because he is rich, powerful, and generous in his constituency.
It must be understood that I am using Monsieur Caillaux and the Sarthe
as an example of the conditions which prevail in many parts of France.
The French elector in many of the country districts is decidedly more
ignorant than one could believe possible, and in almost all parts of
the country he is selfish. Here, again, I may be allowed to quote some
of the electioneering literature of the Sarthe to show the kind of
benefits which appeal to French electors. Political considerations,
benefits to the nation, national defence, big projects—“Tout ça c’est
des balivernes”—is the French peasant’s verdict. A candidate who is
wise will, if he wants to gain favour in a constituency, tell his
constituents as little as possible about political measures and as much
as possible of the things concerning them directly which he has done
in the past, and which he hopes to do in the future. The drainage of
a village will gain more votes than the most important law imaginable
for the benefit of France. Monsieur Caillaux, or rather his friends,
reminded the people of the Sarthe that Monsieur Caillaux had obtained
for them heavy subventions from the Pari-Mutuel for the support of
a hospital, that in the last few years he had secured over £4000
for them from the Government for local interests, that all kinds of
institutions had been helped, that the nuns had been well treated (oh!
Monsieur Caillaux!), that this village had a new pump, and that one
a new road, in a word, that owing to the power of Monsieur Caillaux,
and the cleverness of Monsieur Caillaux, and the influence of Monsieur
Caillaux, the peasants of La Sarthe had obtained, and were likely to
obtain, greater advantages than the peasantry of any other part of
France as long as he remained their member.
These were the reasons which caused Monsieur Caillaux’s re-election,
and these are the reasons which militate above all others in France
at election times. The natural result of elections conducted on the
narrow-minded basis of selfish advantage is that the deputies, when
they are elected, are as selfish as their constituents’ reasons for
electing them have been. I suppose every country has the government
which it deserves. The French are very certainly governed by a body
of men who do not neglect their own interests. I do not mean to imply
that they do neglect those of their country, but I do say that the
conservation of power and their own welfare take the first place in
their minds, and that is so certain that “L’Assiette au Beurre,” which
expression we may translate “The Cream Jug” is dipped into very freely
by members of all parties who have access to it, in every French
Parliament. The principal vice of the government of France, to my mind,
is the payment of deputies. The class of man is growing in France who
serves his country because his country pays him six hundred pounds a
year to do so, and because there are plenty of pickings over and above
the annual stipend of £600. A French deputy makes very free use of
his right of free travel on all the railways, supplies his family and
friends with free stationery, economizes, through his influence, in
countless little ways, money which the ordinary citizen has to spend
from the fruits of his labours. The French politician is essentially
a professional of politics, places party considerations above all
others, because these keep him in power and allow him access to the
“cream jug,” and is not in the least ashamed of using his influence for
personal benefit either directly or indirectly.
I do not think it unfair criticism to point out that it is this
mentality which makes for such corruption in French politics as we had
to deplore at the time of the Panama scandal, for such corruption as
was seriously suspected during the progress of the Rochette case, and
for the undue use of influence which is considered quite natural on the
part of individual members of the governing bodies of France, by which
I mean not the Government alone, but also the Chamber and the Senate,
which undue use of influence culminated in the shameful apotheosis
of the scene in the room of the Prime Minister which resulted in the
postponement, with its consequences, of the trial of the financier
Rochette. The inner history of the Caillaux drama differs in details
from the inner history of other French scandals, but it differs very
little from them in essentials. In every case when one of these
unsavoury ulcers on France’s fair name festers and bursts we find the
same pus in it. The root of all the evil is the inherent selfishness of
the French character, and I am not disinclined to believe that there
is a great deal of inherent dishonesty too at the root of the evil. A
Frenchman will often refuse to keep a promise in commercial matters
because the man to whom he made it can produce no _written_ proof that
the promise was given. Business men will refuse business interviews
without the presence of a witness. There are severe laws in France
compelling, under severe penalties, the restoration to the unknown
owner through the police authorities of anything of value found lying
about. But ask anybody who has picked up money in the street what he
would do with it if nobody saw him pick it up. The Frenchman is frank.
He will laugh and will maintain his right to pocket this find, because
if _he_ loses anything he knows that the person who finds it will
pocket it if he dare. I have seen respectable Frenchmen swindle other
respectable Frenchmen out of a halfpenny in a Paris omnibus. It is not
the halfpenny that is important, it is the mentality which underlies
the theft. It may seem a far cry from the theft of a halfpenny to the
Rochette scandal, but you can trace the connexion very easily if you
care to think the matter out. And if you think it out with care, you
cannot fail to see that this basis of selfishness, permeating upwards
through every vein of French private, public, and political life, has
been directly responsible for the Caillaux drama and for the results
which that drama has had and will have on the life of France in the
future.
XII
BEFORE THE LAST ACT OF THE DRAMA
A French criminal trial is in every respect as unlike a criminal trial
in England as can well be imagined. To begin with, if the Caillaux
drama had been English, if the wife of an English Cabinet Minister
were at the present moment in Brixton gaol awaiting her trial because
she had walked into Printing House Square and shot the editor of the
_Times_, this book, by the mere fact of its appearance, would send me
and the publisher to prison for contempt of court. In France, not only
is there no contempt of court in comment on a case sub judice, but the
preliminaries of a great criminal trial are conducted in the open. Ever
since the murder of Monsieur Gaston Calmette the Paris papers have
contained long daily digests of the evidence collected on the details
of the murder, and this evidence has been commented on every day, and
with the utmost freedom, by the Paris newspapers. There is a special
magistrate known as the _juge d’instruction_, whose duty it is, if I
may put it so, to try the case before it comes into court, and to hand
to the judge who presides over the trial his opinion on the prisoner’s
innocence or guilt, his full reasons for that opinion, and the evidence
in résumé which he has collected to enable him to form it. In other
words, directly a crime has been committed, whether the supposed
criminal be arrested or not, a _juge d’instruction_ or examining
magistrate is appointed, and from the moment of his appointment he
takes entire charge of the case. The prisoner is entirely in his hands.
That is to say, he disposes of her while she is awaiting trial, under
certain rules and regulations of course, as he thinks fit. He may
question her as often or as seldom as he wishes, either in his room at
the Palace of Justice or in her cell, the only proviso being that he
is not allowed to question her without the presence of her lawyer, and
that at each interrogatory his sworn clerk, known as the _greffier_,
must be present to take down his questions, and the prisoner’s answers,
and at the end of each interrogatory to obtain the prisoner’s signature
at their foot. The examining magistrate’s work is of course by no means
confined to his examination of the prisoner. As soon as he has digested
the first details and circumstances of the crime he has full power to
summon and to examine anybody and everybody whom he considers likely
to have any evidence to give which may help him in his judgment on the
case.
So wide are the powers of an examining magistrate, that he may if
he wishes arrest not only presumable accomplices but any unwilling
witness. It has happened before now that a witness has preferred to
remain away from the room of a French examining magistrate and has
been sent for by him and brought under arrest to him to give evidence,
and a witness who has signed an untrue statement in the examining
magistrate’s office is not unfrequently, when convicted of perjury at
the trial, where he has repeated this evidence on oath, arrested in
court. It sometimes happens, too, that witnesses contradict in court
the evidence which they have given to the examining magistrate. If they
do so they enjoy impunity, unless, they are proved to commit perjury in
their contradiction, for evidence to a _juge d’instruction_ is not
given on oath. It happens very frequently too, in fact it almost always
happens, that numbers of people for whom the examining magistrate
has never thought of sending write to him that they have evidence to
give, and desire to be heard. The prisoner and the prisoner’s lawyer,
even the prisoner’s friends, are encouraged also to give the names of
any people from whom they wish the examining magistrate to collect
evidence. Practically therefore in a French criminal case the criminal
is tried twice over, once by the examining magistrate, and a second
time in the court of assizes before a jury. And the first trial is the
more important of the two, because of the influence of the examining
magistrate’s report on the minds of the judge and of the jury, at the
assize court trial. The examining magistrate has the right to acquit a
prisoner without sending him or her for trial at all if he finds that
there is no case.
It happens, however, comparatively rarely in practice, that a
_non-lieu_, as it is called, is pronounced by the examining magistrate,
as it is a very bad mark against the name of any _juge d’instruction_
to allow a prisoner to be set at liberty without very conclusive proof
of innocence. If there be the slightest doubt the prisoner is always
sent for trial. The benefit of the doubt is practically non-existent in
the conduct of a French criminal case in its preliminary stages, and it
may be taken as a fact that whereas a prisoner in England is considered
to be innocent until guilt has been proved, the reverse is the French
method, and a prisoner in France is considered to be guilty until
conclusive proof of innocence has been given and accepted.
Another feature of the preliminary stages of a French criminal trial
is the manner in which the evidence which the examining magistrate
collects is made public as he collects it. The examining magistrate
receives members of the Press during the days, weeks, and often months
of his preliminary examination of the evidence, and to all intents and
purposes the evidence which has been laid before him is put at their
disposal for publication. It is very rarely indeed that an examining
magistrate in France withholds any of the evidence he collects from the
newspapers, and as each item is usually laid before the public,
commented on at length, and frequently distorted in accordance with the
views of the staff of the newspaper which reproduces it, the public try
a case while it is in process of trial, and the newspapers criticise
the examining magistrate’s conduct of the long examination and deliver
a verdict of their own before the jury have an opportunity of doing
so. These methods form part of the legal code of France, and as such,
open to criticism though they may be, are never criticised. The methods
of preliminary trial of a French criminal case present of course this
grave disadvantage, that every one of the twelve jurymen and the two
supplementary jurymen before whom the case is tried, practically hear
or read all the evidence before they see the witnesses and hear them
in court, and practically have tried and have judged the case in their
own minds, however impartial they may try to be, before they come into
court to try and to judge it.
I have already mentioned the freedom of action which the examining
magistrate enjoys in France. This is unlimited. An examining magistrate
is hampered by nothing at all in his examination of the prisoner,
or of witnesses for and against, except by the dictates of his own
conscience. As it is human nature for a man to shrink from the
acknowledgment that he has been mistaken, it is obvious that a French
examining magistrate who starts with the idea that his prisoner is a
guilty man or woman will do everything in his power, and his power
has no limit except his own conscience, to prove the guilt of his
prisoner. He may, and often does, use dramatic methods to force a
confession. He may, and often does, lie to the prisoner for the purpose
of extracting a confession. He may, and often does, misreport to the
prisoner evidence which has been given him so as to entrap a guilty
prisoner, whom he can manage to convince that the game is up, into a
full confession of guilt. There have been many cases known of abuse of
this power. It has happened before now that a prisoner, accused of a
crime of which he or she is perfectly innocent, has actually confessed
to the crime rather than endure the mental torture of the examining
magistrate’s persistent cross-examination.
And in the hands of an unscrupulous man, even when that man honestly
believes in the guilt of the prisoner he is examining, mental torture
is not the only form of torture which may be inflicted. Of course there
are no thumbscrews, rack, or water torture in existence in France
nowadays, but there are other and more refined methods of coercion
which an examining magistrate may use, and often does use, against the
prisoner whose case is under consideration. Pathetic mention of these
methods was made, I remember, during the trial of the motor bandits by
one of the prisoners whom the court afterwards acquitted. All the small
comforts which a prisoner (a _prévenu_ is the French expression) may
enjoy while awaiting trial rest entirely on the good or ill will of the
examining magistrate, and he is paramount to permit them or to remove
them, as his will or his fancy dictates. During these preliminary
stages of the trial nobody has any right to interfere with an examining
magistrate or to question his decision on any matter whatsoever. The
prisoner’s lawyer or the prisoner may of course protest, and the
protest must be registered by the clerk, who is always present. But it
rests entirely with the examining magistrate how much severity and how
much leniency are shown to the _prévenu_ while the preliminary trial
proceeds.
Another thing which remains entirely at the examining magistrate’s
discretion is the length of this preliminary trial. He is free to
conclude his examination when he wills. As soon as he considers that
the evidence he has collected is sufficient to allow him to send the
case for trial, and to hand his opinion on it, with the reasons for his
opinion, to the judges, the date of trial is fixed. He may send in this
opinion in a few days, he may take many months over it if he wishes,
and though the imprisonment of a prisoner before trial ranks as part of
the sentence after conviction, an examining magistrate who has taken
a very long time over his preliminary examination may inflict very
serious hardship on a prisoner whom the assize court acquits at the end.
In the case of Madame Caillaux it is probable that the trial will come
on in July or possibly even after the holidays, in September. It is in
everybody’s interest that the trial should not be heard too soon. The
judges need time to probe every tittle of the evidence, the
Government—though the Government will hardly dare to interfere, I
think—will prefer the case to be heard when Paris is comparatively
empty, and the defence will find in a long detention in Saint Lazare
pending her trial a useful argument for mercy to the prisoner.
The work of an examining magistrate in France is conducted with a
curious absence of formality. The prisoner or the witnesses come to his
room in the Palace of Justice, and in the case of a prisoner the guards
withdraw. The magistrate collects his evidence in a very conversational
way. He chats with the prisoner and with the witnesses whom he calls,
he interrupts them, he bullies them if he thinks fit, he allows them
to speak or he reads them a lecture, exactly as he likes, he makes
statements, and takes note of contradictions, and he frequently calls
three or four witnesses together and allows them to discuss points in
the case while he listens to the discussion.
This method, I may remark, is often a very fruitful means of getting at
the truth. The absence of formality has often proved to be a great help
to the course of French justice. The French law and English laws have
very different ideas on the subject of evidence. To give an idea of
what is considered perfectly relevant and perfectly admissible evidence
in France, Madame Caillaux, during the course of her preliminary
examination by Monsieur Boucard, the examining magistrate in charge
of her case, made the following extraordinary request to him. “I am
informed,” she said, “that, in the opinion of the great surgeon Dr.
Doyen, the life of Monsieur Calmette might have been saved after I shot
him if he had been treated differently.” Madame Caillaux’s contention
was that the doctors who attended Monsieur Calmette after she had shot
him might have treated him in such a way as to ensure his recovery, and
she asked the examining magistrate to call Doctor Doyen, who, after
reading the report of the autopsy made by the sworn medical experts
after Monsieur Calmette’s death, was of the opinion that the surgeons
who attended him might have saved his life. Evidence of an equally
irrelevant nature is considered perfectly admissible in any French
criminal trial, and evidence as to character and motive very frequently
admits in France of an immense abuse of the examining magistrate’s
time. In the Caillaux case, for instance, friends of the murdered
man have been prolific with evidence to the effect that from their
knowledge of Monsieur Calmette they consider it most unlikely that he
would ever have printed the letters which play so large a part in the
evidence for the defence, and the publication of which Madame Caillaux
feared and anticipated.