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.”