On the occasion of this interview, which was a long one, lasting a full hour at the beginning of the afternoon, and another half-hour later the same day when I submitted what I had written to Monsieur Caillaux before sending it to London, in order that there should be no discussion possible afterwards as to what he had really said, a good deal passed which I did not put into print.
In the interview as printed appeared an allusion by Monsieur Caillaux to the undue interference by Englishmen in France’s home affairs. Monsieur Caillaux spoke that afternoon with ebullient freedom of expression about the British Ambassador in Paris, Sir Francis Bertie. He declared that Sir Francis went out of his way to make trouble and that he had worked against him (Monsieur Caillaux) in London for the sheer pleasure of stirring up strife.
I thought it quite unnecessary to say these things aloud in an English newspaper, especially as, after saying them, Monsieur Caillaux asked me not to include them in the interview as he had no wish for a newspaper discussion with the British Ambassador. I quote them now merely for the purpose of showing the peculiar and unstatesmanlike quarrelsomeness of Monsieur Caillaux’s temper. The man has very little self-restraint, and while many of his public acts and public sayings prove this, few of them prove it so conclusively as his outburst in his room at the Ministry of Finance, in the presence of the representative of an English newspaper, against the British Ambassador in Paris.
Following up these attacks on his personality the Figaro impugned Monsieur Caillaux’s honour. It did this with the outspokenness which is a peculiarity of French newspaperdom, and which would be magnificent if it were not so frequently misused. Monsieur Caillaux was accused of changing his policy half a dozen times with the one pre-occupation of retaining his portfolio, was twitted with self-contradiction with regard to the income-tax law, and the immunity from taxation of French Rentes, and was openly taxed with encouraging dishonourable and dishonest speculation, if not of indulging in it himself. According to the Figaro Monsieur Caillaux made deliberate arrangements to allow friends of his to speculate and make large sums of money on the Paris Bourse, tuning his public statements to time with the deals of the speculators, and in answer to these accusations Monsieur Caillaux said nothing.
“The income-tax was Monsieur Caillaux’s hobby horse. He has stated frequently that he has always been in favour of it,” wrote the Figaro one day. “For many years the income-tax was the principal item of Monsieur Caillaux’s political programme, and he told his constituents at Mamers that his political programme had never changed in its main lines.” Then the Figaro reproduced in facsimile Monsieur Caillaux’s letter to the first Madame Caillaux in which the words occurred: “I crushed the income-tax while pretending to defend it.”
But these attacks on Monsieur Caillaux were by no means the only ones, and Monsieur Calmette also accused Monsieur Caillaux of favouring Rochette’s escape and interfering with the course of justice. These are the broad lines of the Figaro campaign against Monsieur Caillaux.
That some of the attacks were justifiable is undoubtedly the fact. That the manner of them was a worthy one is more open to discussion. Politicians must of course expect to be attacked by newspapers which oppose them, but there is little doubt that the bitterness and the persistence of this newspaper campaign worked its victim up to a state of frenzy, and the calm observer knows what effect daily attacks on a public man are likely to have on that public man’s life within the four walls of his home. Monsieur Caillaux’s excited declaration to the President of the Republic, his excitement in the motor car, when, driving with Madame Caillaux he declared that he would go down to the Figaro and chastise Monsieur Calmette, show the man’s state of mind, and show us very clearly how that state of mind is likely to have reacted on his wife. I repeat that this book is in no sense an apology for Madame Caillaux’s act of murder. I repeat that I do not wish to defend either Monsieur Caillaux or his wife. But in common fairness I cannot do otherwise than present as faithfully as possible the effect of the Figaro campaign against him, on Monsieur Caillaux and on his constant companion. Nor do I hesitate to say that while the bitterness of the Figaro campaign in no way excuses the murder of its editor by Madame Caillaux, no one can deny, I think, that it explains it.