The first feeling in Paris when the crime became generally known was one of stupefaction. The special editions of the evening papers appeared while Paris was at dinner, were snatched with wild eagerness from the hands of the hawkers, and nothing else was talked of all that evening. Gradually, as details became known, a popular wave of indignation against the murderess became so fierce that the police, informed of it, took special measures to preserve order, and numbers of police with revolvers in the great leather cases which are worn in emergencies appeared in the streets. As a proof of the hold which the drama took immediately on the imagination of the public, it may be mentioned that the theatres were almost empty that evening and that in each entr’acte the audience rushed out of the theatre altogether to get further news, or if a few remained, they waited in the auditorium for news to appear on the screens usually devoted to advertisements, instead of strolling about the theatre corridors as they usually do. An immense crowd gathered round the police-station in the Rue du Faubourg Montmartre, where Madame Caillaux had been taken. The crowd, composed for the most part of riffraff—for the Rue du Faubourg Montmartre is a favourite haunt of the very worst kind of criminals—formed a surging mass in front of the police-station with which the strong force of police found it difficult to cope. Barely a quarter of an hour after the police commissioner, Monsieur Carpin, had begun to question Madame Caillaux, her husband arrived at the police-station in a taxicab. He was recognized and hooted by the crowd, but though his usually ruddy face was deadly pale he gave no other sign that he had noticed this hostility. The only man who did not recognize Monsieur Caillaux was the policeman on duty at the door. He had orders to allow no one to pass, and barred his passage. “I am the Minister of Finance,” said Monsieur Caillaux, and pushing past the man, who stood and stared at him, he added, “You might as well salute me.” Other Ministers and politicians of note had forced their way into the police-station, and a number of journalists were among them. Stories of all sorts circulated, one to the effect that Monsieur and Madame Caillaux had had a stormy scene, and that the Minister had reproached his wife bitterly for what she had done; another, which proved to be true later on, that he had telephoned to the Prime Minister, and resigned his portfolio and his seat in the Cabinet. Monsieur Carpin, the police commissioner, received some of the journalists in his office, and gave them a short report of what had occurred. “I saw Madame Caillaux at once when she came,” he said. “She was perfectly self-possessed, but complained of feeling cold.” “You are aware,” she said, “of the campaign which Monsieur Gaston Calmette was waging against my husband. I went to some one, whose name I prefer not to mention, for advice how to put a stop to this campaign. He told me