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.
Agence Nouvelle—Photo, Paris
ROCHETTE IN COURT