The history of the Rochette case shows unfortunately that Madame Caillaux’s revolver shot was not the only crime in the full story of the Caillaux drama. There is another criminal whom a higher court must try than the Paris Court of Assizes, there is another victim besides Gaston Calmette. The criminal is expediency, expediency which allows men in the positions of Prime Minister, of judge, of Public Prosecutor to tamper with fact, to mislead and to lie in the belief that they “have the right” to do so. The victim whom they murdered is The Truth. XI ABOUT FRENCH POLITICS Perhaps the most difficult part of the life of France for an Englishman to understand is her politics. To give with any thoroughness at all even a slight idea of the French political parties and the opinions for which these parties fight, would require another volume quite as big as this one. But the object of this chapter is not an essay on the intricacies of party politics in France, nor do I propose to attempt a detailed explanation of the differences of opinion which divide the parties. My object is rather to give the reader some insight into the clockwork as it were of the inner political life of France, so as to throw more light, within the measure of my power with the lamp, on the Caillaux drama, which is such a salad of passion, politics, and finance. It is, as I have said, extremely difficult for an English reader to realize what French political life really is, for it is so very different from political life at home, and though it might more easily be compared perhaps to the political life of the United States it differs in many ways and in many essentials from that also. But French political life does resemble the political life of America in one way, in contrast to the political life of England. Its very foundation is familiarity, and the French politician is not generally respected by his compatriots as one who knows more than themselves. He is admired as one who has more cunning. The French used to take pride in the familiarity with which they treat their politicians, for familiarity such as is the mainspring of France’s politics used to be called _Egalité_, and is still one of the words, in this disguise, with which the French politician loves to conjure, and succeeds in conjuring, votes out of an empty hat.