Word: caillaux
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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...became known (TIME, May 19), he has become a political possibility; for there is, according to report, every chance that he will be pardoned by the next French Government. Rumors to the effect that he was a dying man, and therefore already politically dead, had but one effect: M. Caillaux brought suit for 100,000 francs against a Paris journal for libelous report of his ill-health, took necessary steps to prove that he was physically fit and capable of taking an active part in public affairs...
...Joseph Caillaux comes of a good family, wealthy and conservative. He was educated at a smart Jesuits' school and later at the École des Sciences Politiques; became an expert in financial affairs. In his earlier 'days it was said of him that he was "well-dressed, dashing, impertinent, conceited." Many were the complaints of his hauteur. Before the War his political star several times slipped from its position of ascendancy behind the void of the horizon. Ex-Premier Clemenceau once said: "I have two Ministers with whom I can do nothing; one is Briand, the other is Caillaux...
Then there was the code incident. The French Government had for some years known the code used between the German Embassy in Paris and the Wilhelmstrasse (German Foreign Office). One day, so the story runs, M. Caillaux was in conclave with a German official. Said he: "Why should Germany refuse me this? I know the German Government has already instructed its Ambassador to grant it." Result: Germany changed the code, and France lost one of her most important defenses...
Among many people who conceived political and personal hatred for Joseph was M. Gaston Calmette, Managing Editor of the Figaro. Early in 1914, when Caillaux became for the third time Minister of Finance, in the Cabinet of Premier Doumergue, Calmette directed an intense and violent campaign against him and incriminatory facts were published...
These attacks had undoubtedly greatly angered Caillaux; for one day in March, 1914, there appeared at the office of the Figaro Mme. Caillaux, third wife of Joseph, herself a divorcee. Her card was handed to Calmette, who with a gesture of impatience, showed it to Paul Bourget. "What are you going to do?" said the latter. "She is a woman. I must receive her," replied Calmette...