Crimes of Paris_ A True Story of Murder, Theft, and Detection - Dorothy Hoobler [144]
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