The Caillaux Drama

According to the Figaro, a Monsieur Arthur Spitzer, an Austrian by birth, a Frenchman by naturalization, and one of the most influential directors of the big French bank, the Société Générale, had gained his position there owing to the influence and recommendation of Sir Ernest Cassel.

“Since 1911,” said the Figaro, “the French Prime Ministers and Finance Ministers had successively expressed their opinions that Monsieur Spitzer took too large a share in every sense of the word of the big loans which were launched on the Paris market. In consequence Monsieur Spitzer’s re-election to the board of the Société Générale in 1913 was indirectly opposed by the Government. Monsieur Spitzer, in deference to the expression of this opinion which was conveyed to the Société Générale by a permanent official of the Ministry of Finance, resigned his position on the board of the Société Générale, but he remained on the board of the Crédit Foncier Argentin and on the board of the Crédit Foncier Egyptien, of which two boards of directors Monsieur Caillaux was a member. The intermediary between the Government and the Société Générale in the secret and delicate negotiations which resulted in the resignation of Monsieur Spitzer had been Monsieur Luquet, one of the principal permanent officials in the Ministry of Finance. Shortly after Monsieur Caillaux’s return to power an intimate friend of Monsieur Spitzer, Monsieur André Homberg, a director of the Société Générale, and another financial magnate whose name the Figaro does not mention, called on Monsieur Caillaux at the Ministry of Finance, and shortly afterwards Monsieur Luquet was superseded and was succeeded in his post by Monsieur Privat-Deschanel, the general secretary of the Financial office, the man in whose presence Madame Gueydan had burned her husband’s, Monsieur Caillaux, letters. In other words, Monsieur Calmette accused Monsieur Caillaux of allowing himself to be influenced by his financial friends to serve their financial needs by the removal of a useful servant of the country. On the following day, January 16, the Figaro launched another accusation against Monsieur Caillaux, that of interfering between two big shipping companies in order to please his financial friends.”

There is no need to go into the details of the quarrel between the South Atlantic Company and the Compagnie Transatlantique. Suffice it to say that the Figaro accused Monsieur Caillaux of acting in an arbitrary fashion and taking orders for his conduct from certain financial magnates, among whom was Monsieur André Homberg of the Société Générale. On January 19, Monsieur Gaston Calmette announced for the following day a series of articles describing “the nefarious part played by Monsieur Caillaux in the events which preceded the sending of a German gunboat to Agadir.” On the 20th this series of articles began. They continued without intermission till January 24. I shall refer to them more fully in another chapter of this book.

On January 26, Monsieur Gaston Calmette called Monsieur Caillaux to account in the Figaro on the question of a heavy fine of £325,000 which had been inflicted on a Paris bank (the Banque Perrier) for the non-observance of certain formalities in connexion with an emission of two million pounds sterling of Ottoman bonds. Monsieur Gaston Calmette returned the next day to the question, twitting Monsieur Caillaux somewhat cruelly with his inability to give a satisfactory reply. On Wednesday, January 28, he returned to the charge again and at some length on the front page of the Figaro, dropping it on the 29th for an article of two columns and a half on Monsieur Caillaux’s connexion with the Crédit Foncier Egyptien and the Crédit Foncier Argentin.

In this article Monsieur Calmette deliberately accused Monsieur Caillaux of allowing quantities of South American bonds and shares an official quotation on the Paris Bourse because Monsieur Spitzer, Monsieur Ullmann and others of his financial friends were interested in placing these bonds in France. Monsieur Calmette declared that during the six months of Monsieur Caillaux’s tenure of office as Finance Minister in 1911, that is to say from February to June of that year, South American bonds and shares to the amount of forty million pounds sterling received an official quotation on the Paris Bourse, and he drew up and published a Table showing the prices at which the quotations had been given, and the depreciation of these stocks and shares during the three years which followed. The depreciation is about twenty-five per cent. In other words, according to the Figaro, Monsieur Caillaux’s admission of these enormous blocks of South American bonds on the Paris Bourse resulted in a loss to French investors of ten millions sterling.

Naturally enough Monsieur Caillaux replied through the official Havas agency, and in reply to his communiqué Monsieur Calmette on January 30 returned to the charge, emphasising his original accusations.

On the first of February Monsieur Caillaux visited his constituency of Mamers. The Figaro on that day published a long and bitter article describing the misdeeds of the Minister of Finance since his entry into politics. On the 2nd it published two columns more containing a sarcastic appreciation of Monsieur Caillaux’s visit to Mamers. On February 5, Monsieur Caillaux was accused in the Figaro of postponing the French loan and so inducing French investors to place their money elsewhere, notably in Italy. On February 7 the Figaro accuses Monsieur Caillaux, of “continuing to earn the gratitude of the Triple Alliance.” After adjourning the French loan and so facilitating the success of one Prussian loan, and the preparation of a second, “Monsieur Caillaux,” he is told by the Figaro, “has enabled the Hungarian Government to contract a loan of twenty millions sterling.” “When all our enemies have filled their Treasuries,” says the Figaro of February 7, “perhaps Monsieur Caillaux will make up his mind to reveal the great plans and schemes to which he has subordinated the eventual issue of a French loan.“ On Sunday February 8 the Figaro contented itself with publishing a photograph of Monsieur Caillaux, and making fun of it, but day by day no number of the paper appeared without an attack on him of one kind or another. On February 11, announcing the Finance Minister’s resignation from the board of the Crédit Foncier Argentin, Monsieur Calmette comments on it in these words: “Monsieur Henri Poirier, an intimate friend of Monsieur Spitzer, has taken his, Monsieur Caillaux’s, place provisionally. When Monsieur Caillaux wishes to return to the board there is no doubt that Monsieur Poirier will make way for him.” On February 19, commenting on the statement in the Senate of Monsieur Caillaux, two days before, that he had never said in 1901 that a Minister of Finance would never consent to interfere with all the taxes, the Figaro gives him the lie direct, quotes the speech he made on July 4, 1901, and declares that it is a complete condemnation of his whole fiscal policy at the present time. On the 20th Monsieur Calmette returns to the charge, compares several speeches of Monsieur Caillaux made at different dates, and comments on them in these words: “Monsieur Caillaux modifies his declarations and his financial programme according to whether he is a Minister in power or anxious to become one, according to whether he is speaking so as to remain in office or speaking against the Ministry so as to overthrow it.” On February 25 Monsieur Gaston Calmette returns to “the secret combinations of Monsieur Caillaux,” and the big fine of £325,000, “which was imposed but never collected,” and ends his article by the accusation that Monsieur Caillaux, for private reasons, authorized a loan issued by a South American bank after the authorization had been refused three times by his predecessor Monsieur Pichon. On Thursday, February 26, the Figaro returns to the attack on the same subject. On March 2, 1914, Monsieur Calmette published a letter written on December 19, 1908, by Monsieur Caillaux, who was then Minister of Finance, to Monsieur Clemenceau, who was then Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior. In this letter Monsieur Caillaux protests against the publication in the Journal Officiel of advertisements of foreign lottery bonds. “Six months after the date of this letter,” says Monsieur Calmette, “the Clemenceau Cabinet fell, and Monsieur Caillaux in the following autumn became President of the board of the Crédit Foncier Egyptien. He remained President of that board till January 1914, even while he was a member of the Cabinet again from March 2, 1911, till January 10, 1912. In December 1908 while Monsieur Caillaux was Minister of Finance and was not yet on the board of the Crédit Foncier Egyptien he had refused the introduction on the Paris market of 800,000 lottery bonds. In 1912 he authorized their introduction.” “Our plutocratic demagogue,” writes Monsieur Calmette, “had found in the interval between 1908 and 1912, 100,000 good reasons for suppressing his refusal of 1908 to give these bonds a market.”

This article is of course a deliberate accusation of financial and political dishonesty. On March 3, Monsieur Calmette returns to the question of the South Atlantic Shipping Company. On the 4th, Monsieur Calmette warns the public against a loan which is to be issued by this company, and suggests that Monsieur Caillaux’s reasons for encouraging it are reasons of party policy, and anything but straightforward. On March 5 the Figaro, over the signature of Monsieur Gaston Calmette, accuses Monsieur Caillaux publicly of facilitating a Stock Exchange coup by enabling his friends to gamble, with a certainty of success, in the price of French Rentes on the Paris Bourse.

This accusation needs a few words of explanation. The budget proposals contained one item of supreme interest to French investors. This was the taxation of stocks. On March 4 at five o’clock it became “known” in the lobbies of the Chamber and in the newspaper offices of Paris that Monsieur Caillaux intended to omit French Rentes from his scheme of taxation. Naturally this expected immunity of French Rentes from taxation was the reason of a rise of French Rentes. On the Thursday, March 5, Monsieur Caillaux contradicted the rumour of the afternoon before, and declared that he intended to propose the taxation of French Rentes. At twenty minutes to twelve on that morning, when the sworn brokers of the Paris Bourse fixed the opening price, the official contradiction had not reached them. At twelve o’clock, when the opening price was published on the Bourse, Rentes were up to 88.80, the highest price which had been reached since the declaration of war in the Balkans. A large amount of stock changed hands at this high price. Seven minutes later Monsieur Caillaux’s communiqué was generally known, and Rentes fell forty centimes in a few minutes, entailing heavy losses.

Monsieur Barthou made a cynical and characteristic comment on this Bourse operation. “The money was not lost to everybody,” he said. On March 8 Monsieur Gaston Calmette stigmatizes Monsieur Caillaux’s behaviour with reference to the immunity and taxation of French Rentes as “a double pirouette, a looping-the-loop act which allowed certain friends of the Minister of Finance, of whom he was very fond and whom he kept very well informed, to execute a most audacious Stock Exchange coup.”

Monsieur Calmette follows this up by a personal attack on Monsieur Caillaux, who, he declared, stated through the Agence Havas on December 28 that he had resigned his position on the board of the Crédit Foncier Egyptien and the Crédit Foncier Argentin, that Monsieur Caillaux had mis-stated the truth, and that he was still a member of these boards and drawing a large sum for his services. On March 10 Monsieur Calmette attacked Monsieur Caillaux in an article which occupied nearly three columns of the front page of the Figaro, on his behaviour in the Rochette case.

This article was of course written with the knowledge that the letter of Monsieur Victor Fabre, the Procureur Général, which appears earlier in this volume, would, if published, support the charges made by Monsieur Gaston Calmette against Monsieur Caillaux, and Monsieur Monis. It marks the last stage of this long series of personal attacks in the Figaro, far too many of which attacks appear to be only too well deserved.

“For Rochette to escape from legal punishment for his crime against the investing public it was necessary that his case should not come on for trial on April 27, 1911,” wrote Monsieur Calmette in the Figaro on March 10, 1914. The meaning of this is that by French law a prosecution which has not been followed by execution within three years falls to the ground and becomes null and void. Rochette would be a free man if he remained unsentenced three years after his first prosecution in 1908. On March 2, 1911, wrote Monsieur Calmette, “Monsieur Caillaux became Minister of Finance in the Cabinet of which Monsieur Monis was Prime Minister, and Monsieur Perrier Minister of Justice. Rochette had been arrested on March 20, 1908. On May 8 he was released provisionally. He was tried on July 27, 1910, sentenced to prison, appealed, and was able to continue his inroads on the private fortunes of France in all tranquillity. Rochette in 1908 continued to speculate and continued to empty France’s woollen stocking. He got seventy-two million francs of small investors’ money before his arrest, he got sixty-eight million francs more out of it afterwards. If his case did not come on before the three years were up he would be a free man.”

Monsieur Calmette then tells the story of the pressure which was brought to bear by Monsieur Monis and Monsieur Caillaux on Monsieur Fabre and on Judge Bidault de L’Isle, which story we know in all its details now, and he comments on it in these words: “Rochette was saved. All he had to do was to wait for the previous procedure to be proclaimed null and void, and this was done on February 2, 1912. When, to his amazement, a new suit was commenced under the Cabinet of which Monsieur Poincaré was Prime Minister, Rochette took flight. He is a free man to-day, freer and better protected than all of us. He will smile as he reads this indiscreet account of his troubles which are over, and in his gratitude he will send from overseas a gracious greeting to the Minister of Finance, his saviour and his friend. Monsieur Caillaux it was who demanded, who obtained, who insisted on, the various postponements which allowed Rochette to thieve with impunity. Monsieur Caillaux it was who allowed Rochette to proceed during the long legal procedure with the systematic spoliation of the public purse for which he had been arrested, tried, and sentenced once. The protector, the accomplice, of this shady financier is Monsieur Caillaux. Monsieur Caillaux it was who in exchange for subventions of money to the newspapers which supported him and his policy facilitated, prolonged, and increased the strength of the influence of this Stock Exchange adventurer on the public whom he was ruining.

“There you have the plutocratic demagogue! There you have the man of the Congo, the man who nearly made us quarrel with England and with Spain, the man of the Crédit Foncier Egyptien lottery bonds, the man who drew money for serving on financial boards and for services rendered, the man who indulged in secret machinations and criminal intervention, the Finance Minister of the Doumergue Cabinet! Neither the Commission of Inquiry nor Monsieur Jaurès ever really understood the Rochette affair. They guessed something about it, they felt what it meant, instinctively, and they stopped their inquiry, frightened by so much illegality, disgusted at so many crimes. Now you know the truth of it all. Here it stands revealed in all its nakedness to the public whose savings have been stolen. It can be resumed in one word—infamy! It can be resumed in one name—Caillaux!”

On March 11, Monsieur Calmette pointed out that Monsieur Caillaux had issued no official contradiction to the terrible accusations in the Figaro of the day before. On Thursday, March 12, he called public attention again to Monsieur Caillaux’s silence, and in heavy black type in the very centre of the front page of his paper appeared these three lines, which were, so soon, to be fraught with tragic consequence.

“WE SHALL PUBLISH TO-MORROW A CURIOUS
AUTOGRAPH DEDICATED BY MONSIEUR
JOSEPH CAILLAUX TO HIS ELECTORS.”

On Friday, March 13, 1914—those of my readers who are superstitious will take note that it was a Friday and a thirteenth of the month—the “Ton Jo” letter appeared on the front page of the Figaro.

VII
THE “TON JO” LETTER

That is the “Ton Jo” letter. That is the document which, printed in big black type in the centre of the front page of the Figaro on Friday, March 13, 1914, and re-printed in facsimile lower down on the same page, was followed on the 16th by the revolver shots which killed Monsieur Gaston Calmette. The letter was written by Monsieur Caillaux on July 5, 1901—thirteen years before it was published in the Figaro. When he wrote it Monsieur Caillaux was Minister of Finance in the Waldeck-Rousseau Cabinet, and apart from the tragic event which followed close on its publication, the letter is a curious and upsetting confession of political duplicity. The income-tax has been Monsieur Joseph Caillaux’s hobby horse for many years. It is an uncomfortable sensation to read, over his own signature, this confession, in his own handwriting, that while appearing to fight for the tax he was really doing his best to crush it out of sight. The natural deduction was of course that Monsieur Caillaux was now, in 1914, pursuing the same tactics which he pursued thirteen years ago.

Once again his speeches have shown him as a partisan of the income-tax, and a partisan of the taxation of French Rentes. The “Ton Jo” letter leaves us uncertain whether this partisanship is not merely a political move, and whether Monsieur Caillaux may not again be “crushing the income-tax while appearing to defend it.” His own letter is a terrible comment on his policy, and it is difficult to exaggerate the shock which the publication of this letter caused in Parliament and among the supporters of the Minister of Finance and of the present Government.

Needless to say, Monsieur Gaston Calmette made the most of it. He embodied the letter in a long article in which he repeated his former accusations against Monsieur Caillaux, accused him of conniving at the escape of Rochette from justice because Rochette’s money was useful to his personal policy, accused him of deliberate lying in the announcement he made of his resignation from the board of the Crédit Foncier Egyptien, accused him openly of felony in connexion with the Bourse coup and the tax.

The “Ton Jo” letter was not published in its entirety. Monsieur Calmette wrote that he suppressed the end of it because that referred to a subject which had nothing to do with fiscal questions. The name of the person to whom it was written was also suppressed, but every one in Paris knew very soon that the letter had been written to Madame Gueydan-Dupré, who afterwards—five years after the letter’s date, when she was divorced—became the wife of Monsieur Caillaux. When the letter was written in these intimate terms Madame Gueydan-Dupré, whom Monsieur Caillaux addressed with the familiar “tu” which means so much in French, his note to whom he signed “Ton Jo,” was the wife of another man. When that letter was published, the woman, to whom it had been written thirteen years before, had been the wife of Monsieur Joseph Caillaux for five years and had ceased to be his wife, had been divorced from him for two years.

It is easy to imagine the feelings of the present Madame Caillaux, of the successor of Madame Gueydan in Monsieur Caillaux’s affections, when she saw this letter reproduced in facsimile on the front page of the Figaro, and realized that all France was reading between the lines. It can have mattered very little to her that Monsieur Calmette had suppressed the last few lines of this letter. The mere fact that the first part of it was published, that in his article he made it clear that he knew how it had begun and ended, and made clear to others to whom it had been written, was all-sufficient for the woman who now bears Monsieur Caillaux’s name. That woman knew that there had been other letters in existence. She knew that Monsieur Caillaux had written letters to her which had been at one time in the possession of the woman to whom this “Ton Jo” letter was addressed, and these letters contained, as she well knew, the same mixture of love and politics as the document published on that Friday, March 14.

Her own married life before she became Monsieur Caillaux’s wife had not been happy. She knew and dreaded the power and the will to injure of a woman scorned. She knew of course of the dramatic scene which had occurred before she married Monsieur Caillaux, between her husband and his first wife, Madame Gueydan. She knew that the letters which she dreaded had been destroyed on that occasion, but she knew, too, that their destruction had been obtained at the price of a reconciliation between Monsieur Caillaux and his first wife, and she knew, no woman better, that Monsieur Caillaux had not kept to the spirit of the bargain, had obtained a divorce from his first wife, shortly after the destruction of these letters, and immediately after his divorce had become her own husband. She was not sure that there were no copies of the letters in existence.

One shudders to visualize that interview between husband and wife on the morning of Friday, March 13. One can realize the fears which were expressed, the mud of past years which was stirred. And that morning, we may be fairly certain, the first thought of desperation was born in Madame Caillaux’s brain. Can you not see this woman thinking, pondering, murmuring to herself, “This must be stopped”? Can you not see her snatching at her copy of the Figaro next morning, skipping with an impatient shrug of the shoulders her husband’s communiqué to the Agence Havas, and reading down the page with anxious eyes to see whether the revelation of the letters which she feared would follow? One shudders at the mental picture of the lives of Monsieur and of Madame Caillaux, of this man and this woman, during the days which followed the publication of the “Ton Jo” letter. And when she saw, on Monday, March 16, that Monsieur Calmette had not stopped his campaign against her husband although three days before, on the 13th, he had said “My task is finished” one can realize her anguish—the anguish of fear.

VIII
AGADIR

In almost every newspaper article which I have read on the Caillaux drama one sentence has invariably amused me. “The question of Agadir,” we read, in French and English papers both, “is too fresh in the reader’s mind for any exhaustive reference to it here to be necessary.” But memories are short in these fast-living days, and though the history of Agadir is recent history, no story of the Caillaux drama can be complete without recalling it at length. For one of the accusations against Monsieur Caillaux as a politician which the Figaro made constantly is that Monsieur Caillaux made mistake on mistake, and was misled by his hatred of the Ministers who had been instrumental in the original and comparative settlement of the Moroccan difficulties, to do grave wrong to France over the Agadir matter.

His hatred of his parliamentary opponents, it was said at the time, was very nearly instrumental in creating serious international complications. Further imprudence was shown by his endeavour to palliate the effect of his first ill-considered act, and he was finally forced to consent to concessions on behalf of France which France need not have made at all if Monsieur Caillaux had been more prudent from the beginning.

This, stripped of all vituperation, is the accusation which Monsieur Caillaux has to answer before the tribunal of history. Let us look into it. In order to do so we must go back to the Act of Algeciras. It will be remembered that the Act of Algeciras gave France the right of policing Morocco because of its neighbourhood to Algiers. Three years after the Act of Algeciras French troops were in occupation of certain portions of Moroccan territory, and the jingo party, the Pan-Germanists, in Germany were protesting with heat against this military occupation.

The peace party in Germany, however, had other views. There was a feeling that an understanding on the basis of the act of Algeciras between France and Germany might lead to a weakening of the Entente between France and Great Britain, and be useful economically to German enterprise.

On February 8, 1909, when Monsieur Clemenceau was at the head of the French Government with Monsieur Stephen Pichon as his Foreign Minister, Germany recognized, more freely than it had recognized before, the interests of France in Morocco for the maintenance of order, and promised collaboration economically. A secret letter changed hands, confirming this agreement, and admitting that Germany should remain disinterested in the politics of Morocco. In this same letter it was admitted also that the economic interests of France in Morocco were more important than the economic interests of Germany. The importance of this letter rested of course on the fact that it practically entailed the suppression of immediate friction between the two countries.

The Clemenceau Cabinet worked hard to carry the good work further still, so that the spirit of this Franco-German understanding should be extended to the Congo. The French representative of the bondholders of the Moroccan debt, Monsieur Guiot, who had been in the French Foreign Office, paid a visit to Berlin, and the result of his negotiations with the German Foreign Office in the Wilhelmstrasse was a memorandum dated June 2, 1909, by which it was decided to create a Franco-German Company for the purpose of exploiting certain concessions. On June 5 the French Minister for Foreign Affairs, Monsieur Pichon, took counsel with the French Colonial Minister, Monsieur Milliés-Lacroix, on the advantages and disadvantages of this Franco-German collaboration.

At the end of July 1909, the Clemenceau Cabinet fell. Monsieur Briand became Prime Minister and retained Monsieur Pichon at the Quai d’Orsay, but Monsieur Clemenceau dropped out of the Cabinet and Monsieur Caillaux was no longer Minister of Finance.

It is not too much to say that the Clemenceau-Caillaux alliance dates from this little upheaval in French internal politics, and it was at this point that Monsieur Caillaux’s enmity to Monsieur Briand and Monsieur Pichon first led him astray.

On August 2, 1909, the N’Goko Sanga Company, in reply to a letter from the Minister for Foreign Affairs offered to give up, against a substantial indemnity, a portion of the territory for which it held concessions. A commission was formed to discuss terms, but it was not till April 29, 1910, that the amount of the indemnity was definitely stated. The indemnity was to be F2,393,000 or £95,720.

On February 17, 1910, after the French and German Governments had signified in October of the year before their approval of the provisional agreement between Monsieur Guiot and the Wilhelmstrasse, the Moroccan Company of Public Works was formed. It had a capital of F2,000,000, fifty per cent. of which was in French hands, twenty-six per cent. in German hands, and the remaining twenty-four per cent. in the hands of the other Powers who had signed the Act of Algeciras. Then parliamentary politics in France had their say in the matter, and the Radicals, Socialists and Radical-Socialists in France, with Monsieur Caillaux in the foreground of debate, made use of the question of the N’Goko Sanga indemnity as a weapon in Parliament against Monsieur Briand.

In consequence of this, the summer of 1910 did not bring with it any definite advance in the Franco-German understanding which had appeared to be so full of promise. In November 1910, after the strike of railway men had weakened the authority of the French Government somewhat, the N’Goko Sanga question came up in Parliament once more, and the Franco-German understanding on Moroccan affairs and the affairs of the Congo became enveloped in an immense haze of words. By February 1911 the German negotiators began to show impatience, although on or about the 15th of the month the Imperial Government had, to all practical intent, agreed to allow, to a Franco-German company, concessions in the German Cameroons. A fortnight after that, on February 28, 1911, Monsieur Briand and his Cabinet were forced to resign. On March 3, Monsieur Monis became Prime Minister of France, and Monsieur Caillaux was his Minister of Finance. The Monis Cabinet found itself weighted with immense responsibility. The situation in Morocco was extremely difficult, and the French Government found itself on the horns of a dilemma. On the one side were the promises made and the engagements formed by the Governments in France which had preceded Monsieur Monis, owing to which the Monis Cabinet was obliged, if it wished to remain true to the policy on which it had gained power, to break with the line of conduct followed by former French Cabinets in relation to Germany for two years. On the other side was the very real danger of breaking, without any other reason than that of internal politics, with the pacific policy of the last twenty-four months.

The internal troubles in Morocco, making French military action a necessity, put the French Government in the awkward position of giving Germany the appearance of a real grievance by the military steps which had to be taken, and the Pan-Germanists of course jumped at the pretext for accusing France of laying forcible hands, or attempting to lay forcible hands on Morocco in spite of all past treaties and agreements and without ensuring to Germany the share which had been promised her in 1909.

I would ask the reader of this book who has had the strength of will to struggle with the tortuous paths of Franco-German difficulties which led to the Agadir climax, to memorize this situation for the sake of a clearer comprehension of what follows. On the one side two years of Anglo-French negotiations which promised comparative peace for the future; on the other, the sudden breaking off of all negotiations and apparent disregard on the part of France for everything which had smoothed over the situation before. The fact that the change of policy had become a necessity owing to Cabinet changes in France and the promises made by members of the new Cabinet to their constituents could not be offered as a reason. At the best they could be offered as an excuse, and it was this necessity of making excuses which enabled the German Government to voice the claim for compensation which was to result in a territorial loss which France will never forgive the Ministers who were responsible, and which will make it difficult for either of them to take leading parts in France’s government again for many years to come.

The first thing which the Monis Cabinet did was to bulldose (it seems the only word to use) the question of the Franco-German understandings in Congo and Cameroon. This measure was taken in spite of warnings in high quarters in France. President Fallières is known to have been against the measure and to have expressed his views as forcibly as the French Constitution allowed him to express them, and Monsieur Conty, the director of political affairs in the French Foreign Office, was distinctly adverse to the measure as well. Monsieur Conty knew that for twenty years past, one of the principal pre-occupations of the German Government was the African question, and he knew that the German colonial party was very warmly supported by the Pan-Germanists, and had considerable influence with the Kaiser himself.

On these grounds in a note which he handed to Monsieur Cruppi, Monsieur Conty (who is now in 1914 the French Minister at Pekin) pointed out the wire-pulling powers of the German interests in the Cameroon and Congo companies, and warned the French Government that there was grave danger to peace in ignoring their claims. He pointed out that while the Kaiser was known to be pacific and conciliatory at the time, he might be forced by the Pan-German and colonial interests to demonstrate again as he had demonstrated once before at Tangier, and that the result was almost bound to be France’s abandonment to Germany of advantages which she might, by a show of generosity now, keep secure.

How right Monsieur Conty was Monsieur Caillaux himself was obliged to admit nearly a year later when in the Senate he said: “I do not deny that the rupture of the Franco-German partnership in Cameroon and the Congo had diplomatic consequences.” Unfortunately at this time (March 1911) the principal pre-occupation of the Monis Cabinet was its desire to break away from the policy of the Cabinet of Monsieur Briand to which, logically, it should have adhered.

Monsieur Caillaux was credited at the time with one of those famous epigrammatic outbursts of his which have done him harm on various occasions, when, as this one must be, they are quoted against him. “We really can’t have Briand’s policy mounted in diamonds and wear it as a scarfpin,” Monsieur Caillaux is reported to have said. The epigram, whether he made it or not—and I believe that he did make it—expresses very neatly—far too neatly—the chief motive which underlay the policy of the Monis Cabinet at that time, and which was the main cause of that Cabinet’s stubborn opposition to the advice of Monsieur Conty and the advice of the President of the Republic himself.

On March 29, in spite of an eloquent and perfectly constitutional warning from Monsieur Fallières at a Cabinet Council, the Colonial Minister in the Monis Cabinet, Monsieur Messimy, was instructed to declare the consortium in Cameroon and the Congo arrangement impossible. He made this declaration before the Budget committee at the end of March and to the Chamber of Deputies on April 4. On April 3, the French Government learned of serious trouble in Morocco. Several tribes were rising, and military intervention became inevitable. German irritation was growing. The German object, or at all events one of Germany’s main objects, in the discussions and negotiations which began in 1909 and broke off so suddenly and so dangerously in 1911 had been to ensure a German share in the public works which were becoming needful in Morocco. Germany had received as the price of a concession to France an assurance that this share would be granted. In the secret letter, which I have mentioned already, Germany admitted the pre-eminence of French interests in Morocco, and approved the constitution of a society of public works in which the German share of capital was to be much smaller than the French share.

When the Monis-Caillaux-Cruppi Cabinet took the reins in France, the German Government asked the French Government to intervene semi-officially so that the promised interests of the German shareholders should be properly protected. The French Government refused. Such intervention would be equivalent, it was explained, to admitting privilege or monopoly, and such an admission was against all Radical principles.

The German Government, with great patience, pointed out that what was really required was some sort of a guarantee that a French tender should not be accepted to the prejudice of the German share of the concessions. The question was one which lent itself to much discussion, many words, long correspondence and wearisome delays, and presently the question of the railways complicated it still further. In the secret letter of 1909 it had been stipulated that the directors of the Moroccan railways should be French. The German Government now claimed that this clause should be taken to mean that only the directors of the railway lines should be Frenchmen and that a large proportion of the subordinate railway servants should be German. Here again Monsieur Caillaux’s unfortunate propensity for epigram did not forsake him. “We can’t have German stationmasters in spiked helmets in the railway stations of Morocco,” he said.

The French Government made no counter-proposal with regard to the management of the Moroccan railways, and the Berlin Government remained silent on the question. This silence gave all thinking men considerable grounds for uneasiness. It was felt that a very thinly veiled antagonism on all questions of detail was making itself very apparent at the Wilhelmstrasse. There was no definite decision made with regard to Moroccan mining rights either, and it was just about this time that the claims and concessions of the Mannesmann Brothers began to be spoken of.

The situation became quite critical, and there is no doubt that the critical trend of the situation was due very largely to the determination of the Monis Government not to “have Monsieur Briand’s policy mounted as a scarfpin.” If Monsieur Cruppi and his colleagues had been able to approve the convention with Germany for N’Goko Sanga and the Congo which Monsieur Pichon had prepared, there would have been no excuse for the remark which was made soon afterwards to the French Ambassador in Berlin by Herr von Kiderlen Waechter. “When the railway question fell through I saw that you had made your minds up not to work in concert with us in any matter whatsoever.”

Things were going from bad to worse in Morocco itself, and French troops had to be sent on the road to Fez. On April 3, 1911, the French Government ordered French troops to co-operate with the Sultan in the chastisement of rebel bands. On April 17 (President Fallières had left for Tunis on the 15th), the French Government placed 2400 men at the disposal of General Moinier. On April 23, a column was sent to the suburbs of Fez and on May 21 the French tricolour floated beneath the walls of the Moroccan capital.

The German Government said nothing, but a rumble of popular displeasure was heard all over Germany. Herr von Kiderlen Waechter and the German Chancellor received in stony silence the communication made by the French Ambassador in Berlin, Monsieur Jules Cambon, that it had been necessary to send French troops to Fez to protect French subjects and to preserve order. German official newspapers announced, unofficially but obviously on official inspiration, that Germany was about to resume her freedom of action.

At this time there was question (it was about the end of April) of a railway from the German Cameroons to the Belgian Congo. The line would of course, as a glance at the map shows, have to run through the French Congo. For the moment it looked as though there was a loophole for agreement which might lead to others, in this German line across French territory. This hope disappeared however, and in May 1911 the Agadir coup was decided on. Germany realized that the only way of obtaining “compensation” was a threat. The Panther went to Agadir. The French Ambassador had a conversation with the German Secretary of State at Kissingen. The German Press was howling. Herr von Kiderlen Waechter answered Monsieur Jules Cambon’s question as to what Germany wanted, in these words: “See what you can give us in the Congo.” A few days later the Monis Cabinet fell, the Caillaux Cabinet came into power, and the Panther and the Berlin arrived off Agadir. The question of compensation had become acute.

At the beginning of July 1911, English opinion was favourable to Germany’s desires. The Potsdam agreement had soothed Russian fears in the East, France’s march on Fez had excited Spain and made her uneasy, and Italy was beginning to cast greedy eyes on Tripoli. There was very little protest internationally, at first at all events, when the Panther and the Berlin went to Agadir. Monsieur de Selves, the French Foreign Minister, left Paris for Holland on July 3. On July 4, Monsieur Caillaux, who as Prime Minister took over the Foreign Office while Monsieur de Selves was away, instructed Monsieur Paul Cambon to advise the British Government that France would make no immediate retort to the threat of Germany off Agadir. Monsieur Caillaux gave these instructions in direct opposition to the opinion of Monsieur de Selves which he expressed very clearly in a long telegram from Holland to Paris.

In spite of this telegram from the Minister for Foreign Affairs Monsieur Caillaux telegraphed to Monsieur Paul Cambon as follows: “The German Government has invited us to enter into conversation with regard to Moroccan affairs. We must therefore ask the German Government first of all to explain the object of this conversation. According to the reply of the German Government it will be time, after it has been made, for us to decide whether we should make a naval demonstration in the southern waters of Morocco. I beg you therefore to avoid advising the British Government of any intention for the moment on our part of sending warships either to Agadir or to Mogador.”

The British Cabinet had been asked by Monsieur Paul Cambon, on the instructions of Monsieur de Selves, as to England’s intentions, but before a reply was given Monsieur Caillaux’s telegram had arrived. The Russian Government remained passive. Germany realized that her bluff would not be called. On July 7 Monsieur de Selves returned from Holland, and Herr von Schoen, the German Ambassador in Paris made the first suggestion of “compensation.” France, in principle, was not averse to compensation of a kind. If it was to be a question of the Congo she asked Germany to explain what she wanted.

There was no objection in Paris to a rectification of the Cameroon frontier line, but France wanted to know what Germany was prepared to do in exchange in Morocco. Herr von Kiderlen Waechter on July 30 suggested that an agreement which should follow the lines of the 1909 understanding might be possible. Monsieur de Selves immediately asked, through Monsieur Jules Cambon, for a written note explaining and setting forth this suggestion. It was not till July 15 that the French Government knew what the German demands really were, and decided that on such lines as the cession of all Gabon and all the Congo between the ocean and the Sanga it was quite useless to continue talking. English opinion became uneasy at Germany’s demands.

Lord Morley wrote in the Times on July 19, “If we do not learn by other means what is going on at Agadir, public opinion may be that we ought to go and see for ourselves.”

Belgian opinion became alarmed at the menace to the Belgian Congo. On July 21, Sir Edward Grey spoke very clearly and Mr. Lloyd George declared the same evening that war was better than peace with humiliation. He added that the safety of Great Britain’s commerce overseas was no question of party, and that the national honour was at stake. England to a man showed that it was prepared to back France against the German demands. The Franco-British Entente Cordiale, which had been asleep for a fortnight, became more wideawake than ever. Mr. Asquith described the situation as “extremely difficult.”

The situation of the German Government in view of this awakening of public opinion seemed to have two issues only. Either an ultimatum in reply to the French Government’s refusal to submit, or the acceptance in principle of a rectification of the Congo-Cameroon frontier and the granting to France of sufficient authority to cope with the threat of anarchy in Morocco. An ultimatum would have meant war, and Germany would have appeared to be the aggressor. The abandonment of her claims was an awkward step to take.

It seems, however, likely that Germany would have taken it, if she had not believed that secret negotiations with prominent men in France were possible. The conduct of these secret negotiations without the knowledge of Monsieur de Selves is the reason which induced Monsieur Clemenceau to say later that Monsieur Caillaux ought to be impeached by the high court for high treason. It is very difficult to state with absolute precision exactly what these negotiations were. According to Monsieur Caillaux the first mention of the Belgian Congo was made by Monsieur von Lancken, but there seems to be every reason to believe that Monsieur Caillaux lost his head a little and introduced the question himself. If this be so Monsieur Caillaux committed a grave fault in tactics, and it appears certain that the German Government considered Monsieur Caillaux an easier person to deal with in these matters than his Foreign Minister. Monsieur Caillaux’s opinions on the value to France of British help were certainly very well known—too well known in fact—in the German Embassy in Paris. Monsieur Caillaux was believed by the German Foreign Office to put no faith in eventual help in France’s need from the British army. This anxiety on the part Monsieur Caillaux, and the knowledge of this anxiety in German official quarters, enabled the Wilhelmstrasse to exercise indirect pressure.

It is not known exactly, and I do not suppose ever will be known exactly, what negotiations were carried on with Herr von Gwinner of the Deutsche Bank and with or through Sir Ernest Cassel. But on July 28, the German Government was convinced that Monsieur Caillaux was ready to treat. On that date, when Monsieur Jules Cambon asked the German Foreign Minister whether Germany were not ready to find some means of transaction other than the mutilation of the French Congo, Herr von Kiderlen Waechter replied: “No, the question is no longer what it was.” This reply is noted in the French Yellow Book.

Monsieur Caillaux’s personal interference in the negotiations undoubtedly allowed the German Foreign Office time to breathe, and the Cabinet of Berlin took care to fix her claims on the Congo in such a way as not to justify British alarm, and to offer with one hand what it withdrew with the other, in Morocco. These negotiations lasted fully three months, during which time it is not too much to say that France and Germany, or better still France, Germany and Europe generally, were on the very verge of war more than once.

Rumour has been busy with sidelights on the negotiations which took place, and not the least interesting of these sidelights is afforded by the telegram which is said to have passed between Berlin and Paris, between the Wilhelmstrasse and the German Embassy: “Do not waste time in discussion with De Selves or Cambon. We can get more out of Caillaux.” I do not know whether these are the exact words of the famous telegram, but they are certainly the gist of its meaning. It may be taken as certain that the telegram was sent and received, that Monsieur de Selves obtained possession of it, and that Monsieur Calmette would have published it in the Figaro in the course of his campaign against Monsieur Caillaux if he had not been induced to refrain from so doing on patriotic grounds. Several people have seen and read this telegram. After the death of Gaston Calmette it was found in his pocket book with a bullet-hole through it, and handed over, by the brothers of the dead man, to Monsieur Raymond Poincaré in person, for safe keeping. It is the telegram which is currently known as “the green document” because of the paper on which it was transcribed. The French Foreign Office was in possession at this time of the cipher which was used for telegraphic communications between Paris and Berlin by the Wilhelmstrasse and the German Embassy in Paris. Monsieur de Selves knew therefore that “the green document” had been sent, knew its contents, and had a very stormy interview with Monsieur Caillaux, his Prime Minister, in consequence.

The interview was a dramatic one. Monsieur de Selves when he learned of “the green document” consulted Monsieur Clemenceau and Monsieur Briand. He spoke of it, I believe, in other quarters also, and eventually he asked President Fallières to confront him with Monsieur Caillaux so that the discussion on Monsieur Caillaux’s interference with the negotiations between the French and German Foreign Offices should take place in the presence of the President of the Republic. Monsieur Caillaux, in a fury of indignation, declared to Monsieur Fallières that there was no truth in the insinuation contained in the message, and went straight to the German Embassy to ask what they meant there by the assertion made in “the green document.” The obvious answer to this ill-considered step was an immediate change in the Wilhelmstrasse cipher. Monsieur Caillaux, by his fit of anger and his imprudence, had lost to his Government a valuable source of information.

There is no need here to give the details of the agreement with Germany which was concluded not very long after the events just mentioned. There can be little doubt, I think, that France might have made a much better bargain if Monsieur Caillaux had been a little cooler and shown less unwisdom. On November 6 Monsieur Caillaux in a speech to his constituents at Saint Calais defended his policy. A week after this speech the German treaty was discussed for a full week in the Chamber, and accepted on November 21. During this week’s debate Monsieur Caillaux was attacked with some vivacity, and Monsieur de Selves’ attitude gave cause for much excitement. On January 9, 1912, the Senate sitting in committee discussed the Franco-German treaty. In the course of this discussion Monsieur Caillaux, the Prime Minister, explained the conditions under which the negotiations for Franco-German collaboration in the N’Goko Sanga Company and the Congo Cameroon Railway had fallen through, and made this declaration: “An attempt has been made in the Press and elsewhere to establish the story that negotiations with Germany were carried on outside the negotiations of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. I give my word of honour that there were never any such negotiations beyond those carried on through diplomatic channels.”

This declaration was listened to in deep silence, which Monsieur Clemenceau broke. “Will the Minister for Foreign Affairs,” said Monsieur Clemenceau, “state whether documents are in existence showing that our Ambassador in Berlin complained of the intrusion of certain people into the diplomatic negotiations between France and Germany?”

The members of the senatorial commission all turned to Monsieur de Selves, but Monsieur de Selves remained silent. Monsieur Caillaux, who had sat down, jumped up again, but Monsieur Clemenceau prevented him from speaking. “I am not addressing myself to you, Monsieur le President du Conseil,” he said. “I put this question to the Minister for Foreign Affairs.”

Monsieur de Selves, who showed considerable emotion and some hesitation, rose from his seat and said, “Gentlemen, I am divided between the wish to speak the truth and the responsibilities of my situation as Minister for Foreign Affairs. I ask the permission of the commission to remain silent and to give no answer to the question Monsieur Clemenceau has just asked.” “Your reply,” said Monsieur Clemenceau, “may be perfectly satisfactory to my colleagues, but it cannot be satisfactory to me. I maintain that your reply cannot and does not give satisfaction to the man to whom you have already given your confidence. I am that man, and I will add that you gave me your confidence unsolicited.”

There was a moment of extreme tension, of extreme uneasiness, almost of stupor. Monsieur Clemenceau had spoken with great emphasis. His meaning was self-evident. The situation was a painfully dramatic one, for the statement of Monsieur Caillaux, the Prime Minister, that there had been no negotiations carried on without the knowledge of the Minister for Foreign Affairs appeared to be in flagrant contradiction with Monsieur de Selves’ reticence, and the statement was given the lie direct by Monsieur Clemenceau. The emotion was such that the session of the senatorial commission broke up there and then, and the senators dispersed after adjourning to another day.

That afternoon there was a confidential interview between Messrs. Caillaux, Clemenceau and De Selves, and the same evening the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Monsieur de Selves, handed in his resignation to the President of the Republic in the following letter, dated Paris January 9. “Monsieur le Président,” he wrote, “After the painful incident which occurred to-day at the session of the senatorial commission, I have the honour to ask you to accept my resignation as Minister for Foreign Affairs. It would be impossible for me to undertake any longer the responsibility of a foreign policy for which unity of views and unity of action are withheld from me in the Cabinet. My anxiety to obtain a satisfactory result in official negotiations of difficulty and to obtain the approval of Parliament on my efforts has been responsible for my remaining in office so long. But the double anxiety I have endured neither to withhold the truth, nor to fail in my duty to my colleagues, makes it impossible for me to remain in the Cabinet. I shall always remember the forbearance and kindness with which you have honoured me in delicate circumstances which it is impossible for me to forget. I beg you to receive, Monsieur le Président, the assurance of my profound respect.”

We know now that Monsieur Clemenceau alluded to the “document vert” when he made the accusation against Monsieur Caillaux to which I have already referred. The President of the Republic accepted the resignation of Monsieur de Selves on the evening of January 9, and on January 10, 1912, the Caillaux Cabinet was forced to resign office.

IX
L’AFFAIRE ROCHETTE

In the first chapter of this book is reproduced in extenso the statement of Monsieur Victor Fabre, Procureur Général, a legal official of judge’s rank, whose position somewhat resembles that of the Public Prosecutor in England. Monsieur Fabre, the gravity of whose statement caused the downfall of the Monis-Caillaux Cabinet, declared that pressure had been brought to bear on him to postpone or adjourn the trial of a financier named Rochette, who, since the postponement of his trial has escaped abroad, and is abroad still.

The bearing of this statement on the Caillaux drama will be seen in a moment by the perusal of the examination on March 20, 1914, of Monsieur Monis and of Monsieur Caillaux by the parliamentary commission appointed after the storm caused by Monsieur Barthou’s reading of Monsieur Fabre’s statement to inquire again into the facts of the postponement of Rochette’s trial. I quote the details from the official records transcribed from the shorthand notes of the parliamentary inquiry which are in my possession. The inquiry was voted by the Chamber of Deputies on March 17. I may add here that Monsieur Fabre, whose written statement made it necessary, was punished for making that statement, or, rather, for allowing himself to be coerced by the Prime Minister and Monsieur Caillaux, and now occupies a position of lower rank with a smaller salary, at Aix instead of Paris. His successor as Procureur Général, Monsieur Herbaux, will probably act as public prosecutor when Madame Caillaux is tried. On March 20, 1914, at half-past nine in the morning, Monsieur Monis, who was by then no longer Prime Minister, was introduced before the Commission of Inquiry, consisting of Monsieur Jaurès, who presided, and thirty-two other deputies. “Early in the month of March 1911,” said Monsieur Monis, “when my Cabinet was barely a fortnight old, I received the visit of the Minister of Finance, Monsieur Caillaux. Monsieur Caillaux told me that he was anxious to oblige the lawyer, Maître Maurice Bernard, who had represented him in his divorce proceedings against his first wife (Madame Gueydan Dupré), and that Maître Bernard had asked for a postponement of the Rochette affair.”

“Monsieur Caillaux,” Monsieur Monis said, “pointed out that apart from his own wish to oblige Maître Bernard it might be dangerous, for political reasons, to refuse his request for the postponement of the Rochette trial.” “Maître Bernard,” he said, “is a very vehement man, and a lawyer of great gifts. If the trial takes place now he is certain to point out the number of issues of bonds and shares which have been made in recent years on the Bourse, and authorized by the Government, which have dwindled in value, which have caused heavy loss to investors, which issues of stock have never, for all that, resulted in the taking of legal proceedings. An outcry is sure to be raised round a speech of this kind in the Law Courts, and the outcry is sure to have political results. One of the first of these will surely be a number of questions in the Chamber of Deputies. The Government has troubles enough of its own just now without adding to them in this way. It will be much wiser to grant Maître Bernard’s request and postpone the trial.”

It was as a result of this conversation between Monsieur Monis, the Prime Minister, and his colleague the Minister of Finance, Monsieur Caillaux, that the trial of Rochette was postponed. Even without going into any details now, though I am afraid that it will be necessary to go into a good many details presently, the verbatim report of this interview throws a curious light on the close connexion in France between the Government of the country and the country’s legal procedure. Monsieur Caillaux’s reference to Rochette’s power, or rather the power of Rochette’s lawyer, of causing the Government serious inconvenience by an exposure of the number of losses to which French investors have been subjected recently, points very clearly to a none too heavily veiled attempt on the part of Rochette to blackmail the Minister of Finance, and not only points to such an attempt, but looks very much as though it had succeeded, for the blackmailer’s object in this case was not money but time, and he was given time to escape doing it. But perhaps the best way to realize what this man Rochette was and is, and how he obtained the power of forcing the French Government to take so strange a step as to order a judge and the Public Prosecutor to postpone his trial and so secure his impunity and his escape from all further worry, is to look into the history of Monsieur Rochette himself from the beginning.

Rochette was the son of country farmers, or field labourers—people at all events in poor circumstances. His early years are wrapped in mystery, for although it is currently believed that he was an errand boy and afterwards a waiter in a small café in a little town near Fontainebleau, Rochette himself has always denied this. What is certain about him is that in 1903 or 1904, nine or ten years ago, Rochette, who had just finished his military service and who was therefore twenty-three or twenty-four years old at the most, came to Paris and became a bank clerk. He had a little money even then, which he himself says he inherited and which was £2000 or £2500 at the most. He used this money to launch several financial enterprises, and succeeded in obtaining an incredible amount of credit for them with incredible rapidity.

This young man, whether he be a swindler or not, and even now that is an open question, is undoubtedly a financial genius with a wonderful charm of manner. He made use of these two assets to start several companies, the first of which were the Banque Franco-Espagnole, the Crédit Minier, the Société des Mines de la Nerva, the Laviana, the Val d’Aran, the Paral Mexico, the Union Franco-Belge, the Syndicat Minier, the Mines de Liat, the Buisson Hella and the Manchon Hella.

The flotation of nearly all these companies of different kinds, for the exploitation of banks, mines, electric lamps and incandescent gas mantles, was an immediate success, and hundreds of thousands of pounds flowed into the coffers of this young financier. The Crédit Minier in Paris, which was his headquarters, employed an enormous staff of clerks, had gorgeous offices, and very shortly after its foundation bore the appearance of a prosperous bank doing an enormous business. As a matter of fact the Crédit Minier and Rochette really did an enormous business, for not only from Paris, but from the provinces, where he had branches everywhere, Rochette reaped a harvest of gold which flowed in like Pactolus from the pockets of small investors who believed in him. At the very beginning their belief was well justified, for everything Rochette touched turned to gold.

Very soon after his establishment in Paris Rochette was said to be worth somewhere between three and four million pounds sterling. Of course most of this money was employed in his financial enterprises, but these were successful beyond the dreams of avarice, and the prices of shares in the Rochette flotations rose and rose continuously. To mention one only among the number, shares of the Hella Gas Mantle Company which had been issued at £4 a share ran up in the course of a very few months to nearly £21 (518 frcs. was the exact figure) a share. Some idea may be formed of the confidence inspired by Rochette from the fact that when, in 1908, five years after his first appearance on the Paris market, the financier was arrested, ten thousand shareholders of his companies signed a petition for his immediate release, and sent it to the Chamber of Deputies.

At the time of his arrest there were many more people than these ten thousand shareholders who pinned their faith to Rochette and his enterprises, and who maintain even now that his downfall was due to a conspiracy against him by financiers who were interested in the fall of his shares. To a certain extent this contention was true, as we shall see later on by some of the evidence given on oath before the Commission of Inquiry. A number of charges were formally made against Rochette by a number of people who had lost money and considered him responsible for the loss. These charges became so many that the Public Prosecutor, after consulting the Minister of Justice sent for Monsieur Rochette one day, and asked him, in view of the fact that a number of the actions brought against him had been amicably arranged between the parties while others of a graver nature charging him with fraud had resulted in acquittal, whether he would consent to a friendly though judicial examination of his books. This examination took place, took place it may be remarked at the expense of Rochette himself, who was perfectly willing to pay for it, and the accountants’ verdict was by no means altogether unfavourable to the young financier. Rochette, having triumphed, continued his issues of companies, and general opinion began to rank him with the Rothschilds and the other overlords of high finance.