The Crimes of Paris: A True Story of Murder, Theft, and Detection (40 page)

viii

If Henriette had hoped to save her husband’s political career, she only partially succeeded. He was forced to resign his post as finance minister, though he continued to hold his seat in the legislature — indeed, he was re-elected a little more than a month after the murder. As for Henriette, bail was not granted in capital cases, and she was given the same cell in Saint-Lazare Prison where Meg Steinheil had been incarcerated. She enjoyed more amenities, however, including a new stove, a lamp, and a foot rug from the warden’s own office. She was also permitted to order meals from fine restaurants, and another female prisoner was actually assigned to be her maid.

Those were not the only signs of favoritism. The
juge d’instruction
in the case, Henri Boucard, conducted only a six-week investigation — very brief for a major crime. Of course, Henriette freely admitted killing Calmette, but Boucard uncritically accepted her explanation that she had feared the editor would publish the letters she had written to Caillaux five years earlier — a relevant point because that motive would make this case a
crime passionnel
and increase the likelihood that the jury would find Henriette not guilty.
³⁰
Indeed, as many as one out of three defendants in murder trials claimed that theirs was a crime of passion in order to increase their odds of acquittal.

French jurors were not expected to fully understand the law; they were instructed to reach a verdict based on the “impressions” they received from observing the presentation of the case.
³¹
These impressions were very often influenced by sympathy, not only for the victim, but also for the perpetrator of the crime.

Louis Proal, one of the era’s most esteemed experts on the
crime passionnel,
published a seven-hundred-page book on the subject, in which he regretted the tendency for popular authors to glorify criminals, particularly those who acted out of a sense of honor. “Novels and plays,” he wrote, “have so extolled the nobility of crimes of passion and so eloquently justified revenge that juries, quite forgetting the duty they have been summoned to fulfill, fail entirely to defend society and pity, not the victims, but the authors of crimes of this nature.”
³²
That was certainly what Mme. Caillaux was counting on.

ix

Her trial began on July 20, 1914. Three weeks earlier, far away in the city of Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Gavrilo Princip had shot and killed Archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary. The latter event would be the spark that ignited a world war, but the newspapers of Paris devoted most of the space on their front pages to Henriette.

Once more, requests for tickets to the visitors’ gallery far outnumbered the available seats. As the trial opened, Henriette entered, clothed in black and wearing a circular hat with tall plumes. It set off her blond hair and fair skin, as did a heavy coating of powder that made her look like a wraith.

Presiding judge Louis Albanel, a close friend of the Caillaux family, was inordinately deferential in his opening interrogation. He asked a few prompting questions and then let Henriette speak for nearly three hours, telling about her life with Caillaux and the anguish that Calmette had brought to her. In contrast to Meg Steinheil, she was dignified rather than emotional. She stressed that as the wife of a minister, she endured along with him the attacks of political enemies. “One day,” she testified, “I visited a fashionable
couturier
’s establishment where there were a great many people. One of two ladies seated nearby… leaned over to the other and said: ‘You see the lady beside me dressed in black? She is the wife of that thief Caillaux.’”
³³

Henriette’s greatest fear was that Calmette would print the letters she had written her husband before their marriage. Her father had told her that a woman who took a lover “is a woman without honor,” and she dreaded the public disgrace such revelations would bring. Now, of course, everyone knew about the letters, including her nineteen-year-old daughter: “I am obliged to blush in front of her,” Henriette said.
³⁴

She denied that her actions on the day of the murder showed premeditation. When she bought the pistol, she was only replacing the one she had lost. The note she had written to her husband, in which she said, “It would be I who would render justice,” meant nothing. “I attached no importance to it,”
³⁵
she said, but it is doubtful that anyone in the courtroom believed her.

The most gripping part of her testimony promised to be her account of the murder, but it was surprisingly dry. Describing how she sat for an hour waiting for Calmette to arrive, she said she thought she heard all around her the newspaper’s employees telling jokes about her husband. As she entered the editor’s office, “the gun went off all by itself.” Henriette paused and said, “I regret it infinitely.” With that, she stopped, and Magistrate Albanel had to prompt her to show more remorse, but she merely added, “It was fate. I regret infinitely the unhappiness I have caused.”
³⁶

If the spectators were a little disappointed at her low-key performance, they would be gratified by the rest of the proceedings, in which the trial became a contest between Joseph Caillaux and the murder victim. External events in Serbia, Austria, and Germany were ominously leading toward a general war in Europe, a war that Caillaux had tried to avoid but many other French politicians were willing, even eager, to fight. Nonetheless, all the major Parisian newspapers printed the full transcript of each day’s proceedings at the trial — requiring them to add extra pages and often to devote as much as 60 percent of their entire contents to the trial.

Caillaux himself took the stand on the second day, preening and looking as if he were in charge of the proceedings. (Because he was a member of the legislature, he had special privileges: he was allowed to use notes while testifying and did not have to be sworn in.) He began by describing the unhappiness he felt in his first marriage and how he sought relief in the arms of Henriette. In the divorce settlement, Berthe had promised to destroy the letters she had stolen from his desk, but clearly she had not, and when his love letter to
her
(the “Ton Jo” letter) had appeared in
Le Figaro,
he concluded that his letters to Henriette would be next.

Having been accused in
Le Figaro
of “infamy and treason,” Caillaux felt entitled to respond, and the judge did not stop him as he launched into a defense of his political career, including the negotiations with Germany during the Agadir Incident. For good measure, he virtually accused Calmette of treason, alleging that
Le Figaro
had ties to German banking interests and had received funds from political parties in Austria-Hungary. As everyone was aware, both these countries were now threatening war against Serbia, an action that would bring a declaration of war by France in a week’s time.

The following day, the president of the board of directors of
Le Figaro
contradicted Caillaux’s charges against the newspaper and its murdered editor. Pointedly, he said, “The lion attacks the living, the jackal attacks the corpse.” One of the lawyers representing the Calmette family
³⁷
added, “I know of no enterprise more shameful than coming before a public audience to profane the tomb one’s wife has opened!”
³⁸

Returning to matters that would seem more relevant to the trial, the court heard a series of witnesses testify about Henriette’s emotional state leading up to the murder. The salesman from the gun store said that she was quite calm and, for a woman, showed good marksmanship on the test-firing range. Friends of hers, however, stated that they could see that
Le Figaro
’s campaign was affecting her deeply.

The next day, the prosecutor called Caillaux’s first wife, Berthe, to the stand. Except for a pair of white gloves, she was dressed in mourning clothes, even though Calmette was no relation to her. Berthe admitted that she had photographic copies made of the eight letters between her husband and Henriette. Labori, the defense attorney, pointed out that the divorce agreement had obliged her to destroy any correspondence, and that Caillaux had paid her generous alimony to ensure her compliance. She denied that, saying that Caillaux had asked for her word of honor that she would destroy the correspondence, and she had refused because
his
word of honor was worthless. She launched into a catalog of grievances against him.

Yet Berthe still insisted that she had not given Calmette the copy of the “Ton Jo” letter that he published, although she admitted that her sister (who had arranged for the photographing of the letters) might have done it. And what, she was asked, of the other letters? Berthe astonished the court by taking a sheaf of photographs from her purse and announcing that she had them right here.

Their appearance set off extended sparring among the lawyers and judge as to whether Berthe should be permitted — or compelled? — to read the letters aloud. Since no one was quite sure how the jury would react to them, only the lawyers for the Calmettes urged that their contents be made public. Finally it was agreed that the defense attorney should read them privately and determine if they were relevant.

Caillaux asked for and was granted permission to respond to Berthe’s charges, as if he were the person on trial. He said it had been a mistake for him to marry her, because she was not of the same “stock” as he, even though they had been “perfect friends.” Still in the courtroom, Berthe began to shout back at him, “Be quiet! You dishonor yourself!” Caillaux added that he left her because his “dignity” had not permitted him to continue living with her. “I will say nothing more,” he added, allowing his listeners to assume the worst about her conduct.
³⁹

To that, Berthe stood and shouted, “No, I summon you to say everything. I demand it!” He needed no more prompting and, pointing, hit her with the allegation that when she entered his house, she had “not a single centime!” Now, out of concern for her welfare, he had given her nearly half his fortune. “I do not understand what protestations such a woman can raise,” he said.
⁴⁰

Berthe announced she would no longer respond to Caillaux’s insults, and pardoned him. Not to be outdone, he in turn pardoned her. Throughout, the judge had made no move to stop their bickering. That was a mistake, because during the next three days, such outbursts became more common. Caillaux now stood next to his wife at the defendant’s rail, as if protecting her or perhaps acknowledging that the trial was as much about him as about her.

Labori returned on the following day and announced that he would read aloud only the three letters written from Caillaux to Henriette. This drew a protest from Charles Chenu, representing the Calmette family, who wanted the jury to hear Henriette’s letters as well. The prosecutor suggested that Chenu be allowed to read those letters privately. Berthe, who had returned to see what would happen, declared that all the letters should be read aloud. This set off a shouting match among the lawyers and Berthe, which finally roused Magistrate Albanel from his permissive mood. He proposed a recess, only to have one of the two assistant judges remark quietly, “Monsieur, you dishonor us!”
⁴¹
evidently prompted by Albanel’s apparent intention to save the defense attorney from embarrassment.

That became even more obvious with the testimony of the next witness. Postponing the reading of the letters, Magistrate Albanel allowed Caillaux’s closest friend in the legislature, Pascal Ceccaldi, to give testimony. It soon became clear that Ceccaldi’s only purpose was to smear poor Calmette, saying among other things that the editor had speculated in German stocks and slanted the news coverage in
Le Figaro
to ensure that his stocks would rise. These charges again led to a shouting match that the chief judge allowed to continue unabated.

Ceccaldi’s calumnies were interjected into the trial at Caillaux’s request. After he finished, the prosecution responded with two character witnesses for the dead man: Henry Bernstein, a young playwright, and Albert Calmette, the editor’s brother. Bernstein asked how Caillaux could attack the honor of a man his wife had murdered. It was a taunt Caillaux would not forget. Albert Calmette then related that he had been given the papers his brother carried in his coat. These included all the now-famous documents: the “Ton Jo” letter, the Fabre memorandum, and the
documents verts.
Reading the last of these, Albert realized they were secret state papers and gave them to President Poincaré, who thanked him for “doing his duty.” This was an embarrassing revelation, because the government, in order to avoid diplomatic repercussions, had already declared that the
documents verts
were forgeries. Albert Calmette concluded by saying that his brother was an honorable man who would have told Henriette — had she but asked before firing her pistol — that he would never publish her private letters. He turned to Labori, Henriette’s defense attorney, and asked if that was true. Embarrassed, because he had known Calmette for years, Labori merely nodded.

The excitement did not end when the court adjourned for the day. In chambers, Magistrate Albanel demanded an apology from the assistant judge who had criticized him. He received it, but in the next morning’s
Le Figaro,
Albanel read a report of the incident, along with a statement by the assistant judge saying that he had nothing to apologize for and that he felt Albanel was showing partiality to the defendant. Albanel responded by giving an interview to another newspaper in which he indicated he might have to require satisfaction for this insult. He would not rule out challenging his fellow judge to a duel — in those times, not an empty threat.