Young Wife; Old Wife

As the message ticked in over the wire last week Paris newshawks laid fingers to noses and looked extremely wise. Ah ha said they, "Voila un autre!" The message.

"Mme Marguerite Henriot, 19-year-old cousin of Deputy Philippe Henriot, was found murdered in her garden at Lorient Police suspect a passing tramp."

This could mean only one thing STAVISKY. It was Deputy Henriot's accusations in the Chamber following the collapse of the Bayonne municipal pawnshop that started the Stavisky scandal. This young girl must have known things. Or perhaps the murder was a warning to silence Deputy Henriot. Checking over their Stavisky files, reporters made a list of tragedy. Since the Bayonne pawnshop swindle was uncovered there have been: Murder: Judge Albert Prince (TIME March 5, et seq.). Suicide: Swindler Alexandre Stavisky (TIME, Jan. 15), Director Emile Blanchard of the Agricultural Service Station Jean Brunschvik, diamond merchant whose name appeared on some Stavisky check stubs (TIME, April 2). Attempted Suicide: Lawyer Raymond Hubert who jumped into the Seine and Henri Hurlaux, Assistant Prosecutor of the Court of Appeal, who tried to drink poison. Mile Taris, witness for the prosecution, tried to jump into a canal. Racing down to Lorient after the police newshawks found that young Marguerite Henriot had been murdered and she was related by marriage to Philippe Henriot but she was not killed in the garden. Her tody was found in the house on her husband's silver fox farm, a telephone clutched in her hand. Her husband's rifle from which a full magazine had been fired Jay beside her.

Detectives soon heard a story that Michel Henriot, 23, married less than two years, had insured his wife's life for 800,000 francs. A few hours of questioning and Michel Henriot confessed. The boy's father, cousin of Deputy Philippe Henriot is prosecutor for the department of Lorient. Pale and shaken by the news he resigned, announcing that he would undertake the defense of his son.

In the dusty auditorium of the Louvre Museum a plumpish elderly woman stood up last week to deliver a lecture. Suddenly the aisles were filled with roaring ranting, young Royalists who waved walking sticks and bawled "Assassine! Assassine!" Before police could rescue the lecturer she was badly battered and bruised. The lady was Mme Henriette Caillaux.

Once before this year the Stavisky investigation harked back to the great scandal of 1914 which only the outbreak oi the World War wiped off the world's front pages. Last month Henri Rochette a swindler like Stavisky, who, more than a generation ago, bribed his way into high government immunity, cut his throat before his judges in a Paris courtroom and died just after they had sentenced him to three years in jail (TIME, April 16). Complicity in the Rochette scandal was largely the reason for the bitter press campaign which Gaston Calmette, editor of Le Figaro waged against Minister of Finance Joseph Caillaux. Finally Editor Calmette got hold of a letter that Minister Caillaux had written to the woman who later became his wife.

On March 16, 1914 Editor Calmette was about to close his desk and step out tor an aperitif when the office boy brought in a card. It read: Mme Joseph Caillaux. Smiling pleasantly, Editor Calmette received Mme Caillaux. "M. Calmette," said she, "it is needless for me to pretend that I am making a friendly call."

She fished in her reticule, pulled out a small automatic and fired one shot. Calmette dropped. Henriette Caillaux pumped four more bullets into his writhing body. Pale with fright, the office porter broke into the office.

''Don't touch me!'' shouted Mme Caillaux, "I am a woman!"

French lawyers still insist that the case against Mme Caillaux was one of the strongest chains of circumstantial evidence showing premeditation ever recorded in a French court. Star exhibit was a letter Mme Caillaux sent her husband just before dropping in on Editor Calmette: "At the hour when you will have received this letter I shall have executed justice." Nevertheless the jury, after short deliberation, acquitted Mme Henriette Caillaux. She rushed to her lawyer, kissing him with such abandon that her hat fell off and her long hair tumbled down to her waist. Royalists, just as noisy a minority in 1914 as in 1934, treated the affair as Exhibit A of the corruption of the French Republic. They stood up in the court room shouting "Assassine! Assassine!" Mme Caillaux has grown old and dumpy but a new generation of Royalists has not forgotten her.

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