That some of the attacks were justifiable is undoubtedly the fact. That the manner of them was a worthy one is more open to discussion. Politicians must of course expect to be attacked by newspapers which oppose them, but there is little doubt that the bitterness and the persistence of this newspaper campaign worked its victim up to a state of frenzy, and the calm observer knows what effect daily attacks on a public man are likely to have on that public man’s life within the four walls of his home. Monsieur Caillaux’s excited declaration to the President of the Republic, his excitement in the motor car, when, driving with Madame Caillaux he declared that he would go down to the _Figaro_ and chastise Monsieur Calmette, show the man’s state of mind, and show us very clearly how that state of mind is likely to have reacted on his wife. I repeat that this book is in no sense an apology for Madame Caillaux’s act of murder. I repeat that I do not wish to defend either Monsieur Caillaux or his wife. But in common fairness I cannot do otherwise than present as faithfully as possible the effect of the _Figaro_ campaign against him, on Monsieur Caillaux and on his constant companion. Nor do I hesitate to say that while the bitterness of the _Figaro_ campaign in no way excuses the murder of its editor by Madame Caillaux, no one can deny, I think, that it explains it. VI CALMETTE V. CAILLAUX Whenever an official in the French Colonial Office had to refuse the application of a subordinate for leave, he would tone down his refusal with the metaphor, “We’ll try and give you leave at all events before the _affaire_ Prieu is decided finally.” For many years _l’affaire_ Prieu had been the Jarndyce _v._ Jarndyce case of the French Colonial Office, and it was almost forgotten when Monsieur Caillaux and the _Figaro_ brought it back at a bound into the domain of actuality. The case was forgotten so thoroughly that when the _Figaro_ mentioned it under the title of “Monsieur Caillaux’s Secret Combinations” in an article signed by Monsieur Gaston Calmette on January 8, 1914, the name Prieu was misspelled “Priou”. The case in itself was one of concessions in Brazil. In the early years of the Third Republic a French merchant named Prieu died in France after a long life spent in Brazil. He had been a rich man and with the help of the French Consul in Rio de Janeiro had secured certain profitable concessions. At his death the French Government considered that these concessions lapsed to the State, and sold them. Monsieur Prieu’s heirs claimed from the State a considerable sum, something between £120,000 and £160,000, of which their lawyers contended that the Government of France had frustrated them. The case dragged on for many years, and in 1909, when Monsieur Cochery was Finance Minister and Monsieur Renoult Under Secretary of State for Finance (Monsieur Renoult is Minister of the Interior in the Doumergue Cabinet), the case was practically shelved.