In spite of the persistent and unfailing confidence of his shareholders public opinion began to make itself felt, and as always happens in France when public opinion is roused, a great deal of mud began to be flung and accusations of corruption became very frequent and were directed against the highest in the land. The Government was hotly accused of laxity, and Monsieur Georges Clemenceau, who was Prime Minister in 1908, was accused of moral complicity with the financier Rochette. It is a curious proof of the poetical justice, which comes to its own even in financial questions, that these accusations against Monsieur Clemenceau did more to cause the eventual downfall of Rochette than anything which had happened before. They made “the tiger” angry, and when Monsieur Clemenceau grew angry with Rochette, the day of Rochette’s wane had dawned. Accusations were launched against the high magistrates, who were accused of weakness and of being afraid to take action. Members of Parliament were directly accused in the public Press of protecting Rochette and his enterprises, and of taking money for so doing. No day passed without the launching of an accusation against some member of the Chamber or the Senate of having accepted heavy bribes to cover Monsieur Rochette, or to back him up, and the names of numbers of well-known men who are now more or less indirectly connected with the Caillaux drama were constantly mentioned at the time in connexion with Rochette, the financier. The connexion between the two cases, the case of Rochette and the Caillaux drama which followed the attack in the _Figaro_ on Monsieur Caillaux’s conduct in connexion with it, is curiously close. There have been two Parliamentary inquiries into the Rochette affair. In the first one in 1911, among the members of the Parliamentary Commission we find the names of Monsieur Caillaux himself (he very nearly, in fact, was the president) and of Monsieur Ceccaldi, who was approached by Monsieur Caillaux on the afternoon of the crime, and to whom the Minister of Finance confided his uneasiness with regard to his wife. In the list of the second Commission Monsieur Ceccaldi’s name and others closely connected with the Caillaux drama appear once more. But there was no question, yet, in 1908, of a Rochette inquiry, for the _affaire Rochette_ was only just beginning. Monsieur Clemenceau fired the first shot, as Monsieur Clemenceau was bound to do. There had been talk on the Bourse, there had been talk in the newspapers, Monsieur Clemenceau had been accused of slackness, and he had made up his mind that he would not justify the accusation.