The Trial of Madame Caillaux

Early in the evening of 16 March 1914, Henriette Caillaux, the wife of a powerful French cabinet minister, paid an unexpected call on her husband's most implacable enemy, "Le Figaro" editor Gaston Calmette. Concealed inside the muff that protected her hands from the wintry cold was a Browning automatic. After murmuring a few words, she fired six shots at point-blank range. Calmette slumped to the floor, fatally wounded; office workers seized Madame Caillaux, smoking gun in hand. Four months later - just two weeks before Europe exploded into war - Caillaux stood accused of murder. So mesmerizing was the trial that for seven long days the French press virtually ingnored the looming conflict. The author tells the story of what commentators called "the trial of the century". Never before had a criminal proceeding featured depositions from the president of the Republic. Never before had so many trial participants ranked among the powerful and noteworthy members of French society. From his analysis of this discrete but momentous event, the author draws a portrait of the wider field of Belle Epoque politics and culture. He considers the ways in which French men and women perceived some the fundamental concerns of their age: the meaning of crime and criminality, the power and venality of the press, and the changing relations between women and men.