Gaston Calmette (30 January 1858 in Montpellier – 16 March 1914, Paris) was a French journalist.
In January 1914 Calmette, who had been editor of the newspaper Le Figaro since 1902, launched a campaign against Minister of Finance Joseph Caillaux, who had introduced progressive taxation and was known for his pacifist stance towards Germany during the Second Moroccan Crisis, in 1911. During this campaign, which was orchestrated by Louis Barthou and Raymond Poincaré, Le Figaro published several letters from the Minister's private correspondence. Caillaux's second wife Henriette, fearing that the newspaper would also make public a love letter that showed how he was already having a relationship with her during his first marriage, entered Calmette's office on 16 March 1914 and shot him four times. Calmette died instantly. Caillaux had to resign his post the next day, but during a spectacular trial later that year his wife was acquitted.
Marcel Proust dedicated Swann's Way, the first volume of his novel In Search of Lost Time, to Calmette 'as a testimony of deep and affectionate recognition'.[1]
Calmette was the brother of the bacteriologist Albert Calmette.
References
Bibliography
- Berenson, Edward The Trial of Madame Caillaux (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, c1992, 1993). ISBN 0-520-08428-0
- Kershaw, Alister Murder in France (London: Constable & Company, Ltd., 1955), 90-117.
External links
- (French) Biography
- (French) Mme Caillaux tire sur Gaston Calmette
- (French) Une épouse outragée
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