Henriette Caillaux

While serving as Minister of Finance, Joseph Caillaux came under bitter attack from his political foes. The editor of the Le Figaro newspaper, Gaston Calmette, was a severe critic. Calmette received a letter belonging to J Caillaux that journalistic etiquette at the time dictated should not be published. In the letter, Caillaux appeared to admit having orchestrated the rejection of a tax bill while publicly pretending to support it. Calmette published the letter at a time when J Caillaux, in his capacity as Minister of Finance, was trying to get a progressive taxation law passed by the French Senate. The publication of his letter severely tarnished J Caillaux's reputation and caused a great political upheaval.

Cover illustration from Le Petit Journal (29 March 1914) depicting the assassination of Calmette by Madame Caillaux.

Henriette Caillaux believed that Calmette would publish other private letters that would demonstrate that she and Joseph Caillaux had had an intimate relationship while he was still married to his first wife. She felt the only way for her husband to defend his reputation would be to challenge Calmette to a duel, which, one way or another, would destroy her and her husband's life.

In the evening of 16 March 1914, Madame Caillaux entered the offices of Le Figaro wearing a large fur coat with her hands in a fur muff[5] and asked to see Gaston Calmette. When told he was away but would return within an hour, she sat to wait.[6] She was ushered into Calmette's office around 6 pm. Asking whether the editor knew why she had come, Calmette answered in the negative; immediately afterward, Henriette Caillaux fired six shots from a Browning automatic pistol into Calmette's abdomen, mortally wounding him.[5]

Henriette Caillaux made no attempt to escape and newspaper workers in adjoining offices quickly apprehended her and summoned a doctor and the police. Demanding not to be touched, she attempted to defend herself, saying that "there is no longer any justice in France" but was told curtly to be quiet. She refused to be transported to the police headquarters in a police van, insisting on being driven there by her chauffeur in her own car, which was still parked outside. The police agreed to this and she was formally charged upon reaching the headquarters.[5][7] Gaston Calmette died six hours after being shot.[7]

After substantial publicity and a lengthy investigation, her trial opened at the Paris Cour d'assises on 20 July 1914, where it promptly dominated French news.[8] The trial, which included a sexual scandal and a crime passionel by a society French lady, received twice as many column inches in Le Temps as the ongoing July Crisis which culminated in the First World War, even as late as three days before the start of hostilities.[9]

Because of the lax legal and procedural restraints in the cour d'assises, the conduct of the trial "seemed almost structured for drama [and] given a certain kind of case, it could produce a spectacle more compelling than anything the theatres could provide".[10] At the time, opinion of the assassination divided on political grounds: the left believed Calmette's character assassination had driven Madam Caillaux into temporary insanity; the right believed her a cold-blooded killer who had acted to silence a critic at her husband's request.[10]

The president of the Republic, Raymond Poincaré, made a deposition at the trial, an unheard-of occurrence at a criminal proceeding almost anywhere, and many of the participants were among the most powerful members of French society.[11] Heightening the drama, Henriette's husband threatened to release affidavits that he said he had, showing that Poincaré was behind the press campaign against him.[12] If convicted, Madame Caillaux could have been sentenced to life imprisonment at hard labour, or death. If convicted but able to convince the jury of extenuating circumstances, she could be sentenced to five years of hard labour; or if, as happened, she could convince the jury of extremely extenuating circumstances, they could return a verdict of not guilty.[13]

To that end, she "portrayed herself as the victim of passions behind her control, as a woman rendered irresponsible by emotions more powerful than will itself" and attributed her actions to "uncontrollable impulses [which made] her lose control over her own actions". The defence, coupled with the emergence of sociological theories of criminology which attributed criminal action to environmental and unconscious factors and the traditional narrative of women ruled by their passions, helped her secure acquittal on 28 July 1914.[14]