The Trial of Madame Caillaux (Paperback, Revised)

Early in the evening of 16 March 1914 Henriette Caillaux, the wife of a powerful French cabinet minister, paid an unexpected call to her husband's most implacable enemy, Le Figaro editor Gaston Calmette. Madame Caillaux wore an expensive fur coat with a large fur muff to protect her hands from the wintry cold. Concealed inside the muff was a Browning automatic. After murmuring a few words, she drew her weapon and fired six shots at point-blank range. Calmette slumped to the floor, fatally wounded; office workers seized Madame Caillaux, smoking gun in hand. Four months later Henriette Caillaux stood accused of murder before the Paris Cour d'assises. The date was 20 July 1914, just two weeks before Europe exploded into war. So mesmerizing was the trial that for seven long days the French press virtually ignored the looming conflict. As late as 29 July, some seventy-two hours before France mobilized for war, several leading journals devoted more front-page space to the Caillaux Affair than to the hostilities abroad. In this elegant work of microhistory, Edward Berenson tells the story of what was for commentators of the Belle Epoque "the trial of the century". Never before had a criminal proceeding featured depositions from the president of the Republic; many of its participants ranked among the most powerful and noteworthy members of French society. They included two former prime ministers, cabinet ministers, members of parliament, directors of the leading newspapers, medical experts, literary celebrities, and intellectual luminaries. From his close analysis of this discrete but momentous event, Berenson draws a fascinating portrait of the wider field of politics and culture surroundingit. He considers the ways in which French men and women perceived some of the most fundamental concerns of their age: the meaning of crime and criminality, the power and venality of the press, the changing relations between women and men. The Caillaux Affair is a gripping narrative history that gives us new and unsuspected insight into France of the Belle Epoque.