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The medical testimony complete, the prosecution rested its case. The next day, before the defense could begin its presentation, Caillaux once more asked, and received, permission to make a statement. This one was truly startling. He flourished what he said was a copy of Calmette’s will — by law, a private document. When Magistrate Albanel asked how he had obtained it, Caillaux haughtily declared, “In the same manner by which M. Calmette obtained his copy of the ‘Ton Jo.’” 45 Despite heated objections by Chenu, Caillaux obtained permission to read it aloud — surely getting his revenge for the publication of the “Ton Jo” letter.

It appeared that Calmette’s estate totaled some thirteen million francs. Some of that had accrued from investments, but six million francs had been a gift from Calmette’s mistress. Caillaux mocked the memory of a man who would make a fortune in the bedroom. Then he asked rhetorically what kind of person would defend such a man, singling out Henry Bernstein, whose testimony had particularly stung Caillaux. Referring to the playwright, he said, “When one has not fulfilled one’s duty to the nation, one is ill-equipped to give certificates of morality to others.” 46 The implication was clear — that Bernstein had been a draft dodger.

Chenu was finally able to ask what relevance all this had to the case (the question had seemingly not occurred to Magistrate Albanel). Caillaux responded that “there is something worse than to lose one’s life, and that is to save it when one, by turns, attacks women and enriches oneself at their expense.” 47 In other words, it was relevant only as character assassination of the man Caillaux’s wife had killed.

The defense was then allowed to present its case. It called Dr. Eugène Doyen, another surgeon, who used a diagram of the murder scene to argue that Henriette had aimed her first two shots at the floor, intending only to frighten Calmette. However, the recoil from the pistol tended to bring her arm up at the same time that Calmette was dropping to the floor to shield himself. Unfortunately this brought him into the path of Henriette’s fatal bullet.

Chenu was highly indignant at this reconstruction. Having tried to blame the physicians for Calmette’s death, the defense was now saying it was Calmette’s own fault for throwing himself into his murderer’s range of fire. Chenu demanded that the other physicians be recalled to the stand to refute Doyen’s testimony.

The doctors were conferring when the door of the courtroom burst open and Henry Bernstein strode in. He had been informed via telephone of Caillaux’s earlier comments. Shouting, “Caillaux! Are you there? Because I do not insult adversaries in their absence!” he marched to the front of the room. With no attempt from the judges’ bench to stop him, he began to denounce Caillaux as “a man climbing atop the coffin of his wife’s victim in order to speak to you more loudly.” 48

After saying that the documents verts — which officially still did not exist — proved that Caillaux was a traitor, Bernstein took up the charge of draft dodging that Caillaux had leveled against him. It was true, he admitted: as a young man serving in the army, he had fled to Belgium after five months of service and only returned to France after a general amnesty. It was, Bernstein said, a mistake of youth. But now he had enlisted in an artillery unit and would be sent into combat should France mobilize for war. “The mobilization may be tomorrow,” he pointed out, and he was only about a week too soon. Turning directly to Caillaux, he had a final riposte: “I do not know what day Caillaux leaves for the front, but I must warn him that during a war, he cannot have himself replaced by his wife; he will have to fire himself!” 49 The cheers from the spectators finally forced Albanel to call a recess.

The defense presentation was brief, concluding with testimony from a colonel in an artillery regiment who claimed expertise in ballistics. He was there to confirm Dr. Doyen