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.”

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.

But we may talk of the selfishness of French politics, for this, 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.”

“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.

An immense amount of time has been taken up already with the hearing of witnesses who had nothing to say except to report that somebody had told them something of which knowledge had come to him from the report of somebody else, and friends of Monsieur and Madame Caillaux as well as friends of Madame Caillaux’s victim have been allowed to spend hours in the examining magistrate’s office at the Palace of Justice making speeches on behalf of the prisoner or against her which were sometimes interesting, which were more or less convincing, but which very rarely formed any real evidence such as evidence is understood in England. And all the while the collection of evidence goes on it is published in the newspapers day by day and commented on at will. More than this, witnesses, after their examination by the examining magistrate, are interviewed in the newspapers, and columns of what they have said, often with very little bearing on the case at all, often the mere expression of opinion, are published. Sometimes the publication of these interviews gives curious results. There have been cases where a witness has said little of interest in the examining magistrate’s room, and has been so effusive to a journalist afterwards that another visit to the examining magistrate has become necessary, and has secured evidence of value.