Henriette Caillaux (5 December 1874 – 29 January 1943) was a
Parisian socialite
A socialite is a person from a wealthy and (possibly) aristocratic background, who is prominent in high society. A socialite generally spends a significant amount of time attending various fashionable social gatherings, instead of having traditio ...
and second wife of the former
Prime Minister of France
The prime minister of France (french: link=no, Premier ministre français), officially the prime minister of the French Republic, is the head of government of the French Republic and the leader of the Council of Ministers.
The prime minister ...
,
Joseph Caillaux
Joseph-Marie–Auguste Caillaux (; 30 March 1863 Le Mans – 22 November 1944 Mamers) was a French politician of the Third Republic. He was a leader of the French Radical Party and Minister of Finance, but his progressive views in opposition ...
. On March 16, 1914, she shot and killed
Gaston Calmette
Gaston Calmette (30 July 1858 – 16 March 1914) was a French journalist and newspaper editor, whose death was the subject of a notable murder trial.
Biography
Calmette was born in Montpellier. He was educated at Nice, Bordeaux, Clermont-Ferr ...
, editor of the newspaper ''
Le Figaro
''Le Figaro'' () is a French daily morning newspaper founded in 1826. It is headquartered on Boulevard Haussmann in the 9th arrondissement of Paris. The oldest national newspaper in France, ''Le Figaro'' is one of three French newspapers of reco ...
''.
Early life and marriages
Henriette Caillaux was born Henriette Raynouard, at
Rueil-Malmaison
Rueil-Malmaison () is a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, in the Hauts-de-Seine department, Île-de-France region. It is located from the centre of Paris. In 2017, it had a population of 78,152. It is one of the wealthiest suburbs of Par ...
on 5 December 1874. At the age of 19, she married Léo Claretie, a writer twelve years her senior. They had two children. In 1907 she began an affair with
Joseph Caillaux
Joseph-Marie–Auguste Caillaux (; 30 March 1863 Le Mans – 22 November 1944 Mamers) was a French politician of the Third Republic. He was a leader of the French Radical Party and Minister of Finance, but his progressive views in opposition ...
while both he and she were still married. In 1908, she divorced Claretie; Caillaux had more difficulties in divorcing his wife, but he eventually did so and they married in October 1911.
She claimed she found in her second marriage "the most complete happiness"; their joint assets were worth around 1.5 million francs, placing them among France's wealthiest couples and allowing them to live in what she described as "great comfort". The circumstances of the marriage, along with substantial public scrutiny by political enemies, however, opened up lines of attack against the couple in terms of moral corruption.
Shooting of Gaston Calmette
Background
While serving as
Minister of Finance
A finance minister is an executive or cabinet position in charge of one or more of government finances, economic policy and financial regulation.
A finance minister's portfolio has a large variety of names around the world, such as "treasury", " ...
, Caillaux came under bitter attack from his political foes. The editor of the ''
Le Figaro
''Le Figaro'' () is a French daily morning newspaper founded in 1826. It is headquartered on Boulevard Haussmann in the 9th arrondissement of Paris. The oldest national newspaper in France, ''Le Figaro'' is one of three French newspapers of reco ...
'' newspaper,
Gaston Calmette
Gaston Calmette (30 July 1858 – 16 March 1914) was a French journalist and newspaper editor, whose death was the subject of a notable murder trial.
Biography
Calmette was born in Montpellier. He was educated at Nice, Bordeaux, Clermont-Ferr ...
, was a severe critic. Calmette received a letter belonging to 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 Caillaux, in his capacity as Minister of Finance, was trying to get a
progressive taxation
A progressive tax is a tax in which the tax rate increases as the taxable amount increases.Sommerfeld, Ray M., Silvia A. Madeo, Kenneth E. Anderson, Betty R. Jackson (1992), ''Concepts of Taxation'', Dryden Press: Fort Worth, TX The term ''progre ...
law passed by the
French Senate
The Senate (french: Sénat, ) is the upper house of the French Parliament, with the lower house being the National Assembly (France), National Assembly, the two houses constituting the legislature of France. The French Senate is made up of 34 ...
. The publication of his letter severely tarnished Caillaux's reputation and caused a great political upheaval.
The shooting
Henriette Caillaux believed that Calmette would publish other private letters that would demonstrate that Caillaux and she had had an
intimate relationship
An intimate relationship is an interpersonal relationship that involves physical or emotional intimacy. Although an intimate relationship is commonly a sexual relationship, it may also be a non-sexual relationship involving family, friends, or ...
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
A duel is an arranged engagement in combat between two people, with matched weapons, in accordance with agreed-upon Code duello, rules.
During the 17th and 18th centuries (and earlier), duels were mostly single combats fought with swords (the r ...
, which, one way or another, would destroy her and her husband's life. Madame Caillaux made the decision to protect her beloved husband by sacrificing herself.
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 and asked to see Gaston Calmette. When told he was away but would return within an hour, she sat to wait. 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.
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. Gaston Calmette died six hours after being shot.
Trial
After substantial publicity and a lengthy investigation, her trial opened at the Paris
Cour d'assises
In France, a ''cour d'assises'', or Court of Assizes or Assize Court, is a criminal trial court with original and appellate limited jurisdiction to hear cases involving defendants accused of felonies, meaning crimes as defined in French law. ...
on 20 July 1914, where it promptly dominated French news. 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
The July Crisis was a series of interrelated diplomatic and military escalations among the major powers of Europe in the summer of 1914, Causes of World War I, which led to the outbreak of World War I (1914–1918). The crisis began on 28 June 1 ...
, even as late as three days before the start of hostilities.
Because of the lax legal and procedural restraints in the ''cour d'assises'', the conduct of the trial "seemed almost structured for drama
ndgiven a certain kind of case, it could produce a spectacle more compelling than anything the theatres could provide". 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.
It featured a
deposition from the president of the Republic, an unheard-of occurrence at a criminal proceeding almost anywhere, along with the fact that many of the participants were among the most powerful members of French society. Heightening the drama, Henriette's husband threatened to cause a further scandal during the trial by releasing affidavits allegedly in his possession which showed that Poincaré was behind the press campaign against him.
If convicted, Madame Caillaux could be subject to life imprisonment at hard labour or death. Alternatively, if she could convince the jury of extenuating circumstances, she could be sentenced to five years of hard labour; or, as would emerge, if she could convince the jury of extremely extenuating circumstances, they could return a verdict of not guilty. 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
hich madeher 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.
Later life
In the early 1930s she was awarded a diploma of the
École du Louvre
The École du Louvre is an institution of higher education and grande école located in the Aile de Flore of the Louvre Palace in Paris, France. It is dedicated to the study of archaeology, art history, anthropology and epigraphy.
Admission is ...
for her thesis on the sculptor
Jules Dalou
Aimé-Jules Dalou (31 December 183815 April 1902) was a 19th-century French sculptor, admired for his perceptiveness, execution, and unpretentious realism.
Early life
Born in Paris to a working-class family of Huguenot background, he was raised ...
. She published a reference book in 1935 in which she established an inventory of the work of this artist. She died in 1943.
Legacy
![The Caillaux Case](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/62/The_Caillaux_Case.jpg)
In 1918, an American silent film, ''The Caillaux Case'', was released by
Fox Film
The Fox Film Corporation (also known as Fox Studios) was an American Independent film production studio formed by William Fox (1879–1952) in 1915, by combining his earlier Greater New York Film Rental Company and Box Office Attractions Film C ...
. Directed by
Richard Stanton
Richard Stanton (October 8, 1876 – May 22, 1956) was an American actor and director of the silent era. He appeared in 68 films between 1911 and 1916. He also directed 57 films between 1914 and 1925. He was born in Iowa and died in Los An ...
, it featured
Madlaine Traverse
Madlaine Traverse (born Mary Businsky; August 1, 1875 – January 7, 1964) was an American stage and screen actress from Cleveland, Ohio. In the course of her career she is alternately billed as "Madaline Traverse", "Madeline Traverse" and "Madel ...
as Henriette Caillaux and Eugene Ormonde as Gaston Calmette. The film portrays both Henriette Caillaux and her husband as pro-German conspirators and traitors to France. Before and during World War I, Joseph Caillaux had indeed been an advocate of peaceful compromise with Germany, and at the end of 1917 while the war was still going on, he was charged and convicted of treason. The film was not a financial success.
In 1968 a German television film ''Madame Caillaux'' was made.
A 1985 made for
French television
Television in France was introduced in 1931, Timeline of the introduction of television in countries, when the first experimental broadcasts began. Colour television was introduced in October 1967 on France 2, La Deuxième Chaîne.
Digital terre ...
film called ''L'Affaire Caillaux'' and a 1992 book titled
Trial of Madame Caillaux' by American history professor Edward Berenson recount the event. In addition,
Robert Delaunay
Robert Delaunay (12 April 1885 – 25 October 1941) was a French artist who, with his wife Sonia Delaunay and others, co-founded the Orphism art movement, noted for its use of strong colours and geometric shapes. His later works were more abstra ...
used an illustration of the assassination as the basis for his 1914 painting ''Political Drama''.
I think I see...
at the National Gallery of Art
The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of char ...
References
Sources
*
*
*
Further reading
* Kershaw, Alister. ''Murder in France''. (London: Constable, 1955), 90-117.
* Shankland, Peter. ''Death of an Editor: The Caillaux Drama''. (London: William Kimber, 1981)
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Caillaux, Henriette
1874 births
1943 deaths
French assassins
Feminism and history
People acquitted of murder
Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery