Gaston Calmette
Encyclopedia
In January 1914 Calmette, who had been editor of the newspaper Le Figaro
Le Figaro
Le Figaro is a French daily newspaper founded in 1826 and published in Paris. It is one of three French newspapers of record, with Le Monde and Libération, and is the oldest newspaper in France. It is also the second-largest national newspaper in France after Le Parisien and before Le Monde, but...
since 1902, launched a campaign against Minister of Finance Joseph Caillaux
Joseph Caillaux
Joseph-Marie–Auguste Caillaux was a major French politician of the Third Republic. The leader of the Radicals, he favored a policy of conciliation with Germany during his premiership from 1911 to 1912, which led to the maintenance of the peace during the Second Moroccan Crisis of 1911...
, who had introduced progressive taxation and was known for his pacifist stance towards Germany during the Second Moroccan Crisis
Agadir Crisis
The Agadir Crisis, also called the Second Moroccan Crisis, or the Panthersprung, was the international tension sparked by the deployment of the German gunboat Panther, to the Moroccan port of Agadir on July 1, 1911.-Background:...
, in 1911. During this campaign, which was orchestrated by Louis Barthou
Louis Barthou
Jean Louis Barthou was a French politician of the Third Republic.-Early years:He was born in Oloron-Sainte-Marie, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, and served as Deputy from that constituency. He was an authority on trade union history and law. Barthou was Prime Minister in 1913, and held ministerial office...
and Raymond Poincaré
Raymond Poincaré
Raymond Poincaré was a French statesman who served as Prime Minister of France on five separate occasions and as President of France from 1913 to 1920. Poincaré was a conservative leader primarily committed to political and social stability...
, Le Figaro published several letters from the Minister's private correspondence. Caillaux's second wife Henriette
Henriette Caillaux
Henriette Caillaux was a Parisian socialite and second wife of the former Prime Minister of France. She is remembered as an assassin.-Biography:...
, 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.
Robert Delaunay
Robert Delaunay
Robert Delaunay was a French artist who, with his wife Sonia Delaunay and others, cofounded the Orphism art movement, noted for its use of strong colours and geometric shapes. His later works were more abstract, reminiscent of Paul Klee...
used an illustration of the assassination as the basis for his 1914 painting Political Drama.
Marcel Proust
Marcel Proust
Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust was a French novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental À la recherche du temps perdu...
dedicated Swann's Way, the first volume of his novel In Search of Lost Time
In Search of Lost Time
In Search of Lost Time or Remembrance of Things Past is a novel in seven volumes by Marcel Proust. His most prominent work, it is popularly known for its considerable length and the notion of involuntary memory, the most famous example being the "episode of the madeleine." The novel is widely...
, to Calmette 'as a testimony of deep and affectionate recognition'.
Calmette was the brother of the bacteriologist
Microbiology
Microbiology is the study of microorganisms, which are defined as any microscopic organism that comprises either a single cell , cell clusters or no cell at all . This includes eukaryotes, such as fungi and protists, and prokaryotes...
Albert Calmette
Albert Calmette
Léon Charles Albert Calmette ForMemRS was a French physician, bacteriologist and immunologist, and an important officer of the Pasteur Institute. He discovered the Bacillus Calmette-Guérin, an attenuated form of Mycobacterium used in the BCG vaccine against tuberculosis...
.