Monsieur Caillaux considered, he said, that the letters (the “Ton
Jo” letter and the other two) formed a trilogy, so that if one were
published, publication of the two others was likely. When Monsieur
Desclaux told him what Monsieur Vervoort had said, Monsieur Caillaux
answered, “These letters have been stolen from me. Their publication
would cause me pain because of their intimate bearing on my private
life. I cannot believe that any journalist could have so little
respect for himself or his profession as to make use of such weapons.”
Monsieur Desclaux replied that neither Monsieur Vervoort nor his
editor, Monsieur Pierre Mortier, were going to use the letters. Some
weeks after this Monsieur Caillaux married his present wife. Monsieur
Caillaux at this point in his evidence broke off to declare to Monsieur
Boucard that his second marriage was a very happy one. This declaration
was not as unnecessary as it sounds at first sight, for long before the
actual drama, during the weeks of the bitter campaign in the _Figaro_
against the Minister of Finance, from January’s beginning till the day
of M. Calmette’s death, and afterwards, Paris gossip had been very
busy with the names of both men. They were said to be rivals in their
private lives. I do not care to go into the details of the gossip which
associated their names in rivalry, for this gossip, in which another
woman’s name was mentioned, is decidedly unpleasant. Monsieur Calmette’s
married life would have been cut short by the law courts if death had
not intervened, and if Monsieur Calmette had been killed on March 17,
instead of on the 16th, his wife would no longer have been Madame
Calmette. Divorce proceedings between the two had culminated, and the
divorce would have been made absolute on that day. As it was Madame
Calmette, whose father, Monsieur Prestat, is the chairman of the
_Figaro_ Company, learned the news of her husband’s murder only the
day after it occurred. She had been away from Paris, and returned in
the evening of March 16. As she left the railway station she heard
the newspaper hawkers shouting the news, but believing that they were
announcing the fall of the Cabinet did not take sufficient interest
in the details to buy a paper. Next morning telegrams of condolence
from her friends, and perusal of the morning papers told her what had
happened, and incidentally apprised her that she inherited as his widow
a much larger share of Monsieur Calmette’s large fortune than would
otherwise have been hers. Gaston Calmette was of course a very rich
man, for some years ago Monsieur Chauchard, the founder and principal
shareholder of the _Magasins du Louvre_ had left him a large slice of
his great wealth. Paris gossip had, as I have said, been busy linking
the names of Messieurs Calmette and Caillaux, and this is not to be
wondered at when it is remembered that Monsieur Calmette was on the
point of being divorced, that Monsieur Caillaux had been divorced once
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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