“Since 1911,” said the _Figaro_, “the French Prime Ministers and Finance Ministers had successively expressed their opinions that Monsieur Spitzer took too large a share in every sense of the word of the big loans which were launched on the Paris market. In consequence Monsieur Spitzer’s re-election to the board of the Société Générale in 1913 was indirectly opposed by the Government. Monsieur Spitzer, in deference to the expression of this opinion which was conveyed to the Société Générale by a permanent official of the Ministry of Finance, resigned his position on the board of the Société Générale, but he remained on the board of the Crédit Foncier Argentin and on the board of the Crédit Foncier Egyptien, of which two boards of directors Monsieur Caillaux was a member. The intermediary between the Government and the Société Générale in the secret and delicate negotiations which resulted in the resignation of Monsieur Spitzer had been Monsieur Luquet, one of the principal permanent officials in the Ministry of Finance. Shortly after Monsieur Caillaux’s return to power an intimate friend of Monsieur Spitzer, Monsieur André Homberg, a director of the Société Générale, and another financial magnate whose name the _Figaro_ does not mention, called on Monsieur Caillaux at the Ministry of Finance, and shortly afterwards Monsieur Luquet was superseded and was succeeded in his post by Monsieur Privat-Deschanel, the general secretary of the Financial office, the man in whose presence Madame Gueydan had burned her husband’s, Monsieur Caillaux, letters. In other words, Monsieur Calmette accused Monsieur Caillaux of allowing himself to be influenced by his financial friends to serve their financial needs by the removal of a useful servant of the country. On the following day, January 16, the _Figaro_ launched another accusation against Monsieur Caillaux, that of interfering between two big shipping companies in order to please his financial friends.” There is no need to go into the details of the quarrel between the South Atlantic Company and the Compagnie Transatlantique. Suffice it to say that the _Figaro_ accused Monsieur Caillaux of acting in an arbitrary fashion and taking orders for his conduct from certain financial magnates, among whom was Monsieur André Homberg of the Société Générale. On January 19, Monsieur Gaston Calmette announced for the following day a series of articles describing “the nefarious part played by Monsieur Caillaux in the events which preceded the sending of a German gunboat to Agadir.” On the 20th this series of articles began. They continued without intermission till January 24. I shall refer to them more fully in another chapter of this book.