Paris, Le Figaro editorial office, March 16, 1914. Henriette Caillaux, second wife of the Minister of Finance, Joseph Caillaux, after being his lover since she was 17, fires six shots at the newspaper’s director, Gaston Calmette, who dies shortly after. . Henriette thus wants to put an end to the newspaper’s campaign that, at the dawn of an election, intends to politically annihilate her lover, while at the same time defending his honor, since the journalist had published confidential letters accusing him of corruption, among which is one addressed to her, given by his jilted first wife.
The trial, turned into a spectacle, makes the front pages of the national press and postpones the imminence of the Great War. Crime of honor or passion? Mme. Caillaux is exonerated. The verdict is delivered on the day the First World War breaks out.
