320 



FRANCE. 



vance the 2 francs. Reinach received 3,390,000 

 francs under the head of commissions, besides 

 2,590,000 francs for advertisement. This was 

 outside of the large sums that he at first re- 

 ceived to pay for political and newspaper influ- 

 ence, and latterly extorted and applied to his 

 private uses. He was believed to have been in 

 turn the victim of . Herz, whose demands upon 

 him caused his death and the subsequent inves- 

 tigations. The accounts of his estate showed 

 that he had paid over to Herz more than 11,- 

 000,000 francs. Reinach had received about 10,- 

 000,000 francs in 1884, and in 1888 he demanded 

 10,000,000 or 12,000,000 francs more for the al- 

 leged purpose of satisfying the extortionate de- 

 mands of Herz, declaring that the Panama en- 

 terprise would be ruined if he did not obtain it. 

 Charles de Lesseps supposed it to be a plot con- 

 cocted between them, and refused to pay out 

 any more. At this the three chiefs of the Radi- 

 cal party, Ministers Floquet and de Freycinet 

 and Dr. Clemenceau, sent for him and besought 

 him to satisfy Reinach's demands, if he could, 

 and thus avert a financial crash that would ag- 

 gravate the political crisis. 



Toward the close of 1892, in the course of a 

 business dispute between Cornelius Herz and 

 Baron Reinach, the manipulator of the corrup- 

 tion fund, the former threatened to reveal the 

 secret history of the Panama loans. Reinach 

 either took poison or died from apoplexy, 

 brought on by fear of prosecution. The Oppo- 

 sition Deputies and newspapers demanded an 

 investigation of the affairs of the Panama com- 

 pany. M. Ricard, the Minister of Justice, set 

 the police to work, and when the counterfoils of 

 checks drawn by Reinach were discovered with 

 the names or initials of prominent politicians 

 upon them, he insisted, against the wishes of most 

 of his colleagues, on bringing everything to light. 

 There were 26 checks of the aggregate amount 

 of 3,390,000 francs. The Procureur-General was 

 unwilling to prosecute, and was replaced by M. 

 Tanon, who applied to the Chambers for leave 

 to prosecute five Senators and five Deputies. 

 Of the persons inculpated five had been members 

 of former ministries, one had been Governor- 

 General of Algeria, another Prefect of the Seine. 

 A criminal investigation had already been opened 

 against Charles de Lesseps, Marius Fontane, and 

 Henri Cottu, directors of the company, and Sans 

 Leroy, an ex-Deputy. The accused Deputies 

 were Emmanuel Arene. Dugue de la Fauconnerie, 

 Antonin Proust, Jules Roche, and Rouvier, who 

 had retired from the Ministry of Finance a few 

 weeks before. The impugned Senators were 

 Beral, Albert Grevy, Leon Reault, Deves, and 

 Thevenet. Dugue de la Fauconnerie was a Bona- 

 partist, the others all Republicans. 



At the beginning of the judicial investigation 

 of the cases against the directors, in January, 

 1893, Charles de Lesseps made a clean breast of 

 his transactions, acknowledging that he had sub- 

 mitted to the extortions of Reinach, Balhaut, 

 and other blackmailers, winked at the fictitious 

 syndicates under cover of which they worked, 

 and connived at the bribery of the press and the 

 corruption of Deputies and Senators. He ab- 

 solved his fellow-directors from all responsibility, 

 saying that they had acted only under his direc- 

 tions. During the trial the police made great 



efforts to arrest one Arton, an intermediary be- 

 tween Reinach and the bribe-takers, who had. 

 shown a list containing the names of 172 legis- 

 lators and public functionaries, 104 of them 

 Deputies and Senators, who were said to have 

 received bribes. Dr. Cornelius Herz, an Ameri- 

 can citizen, distinguished as an electrician, who 

 had been intimate with Boulanger and other 

 eminent Frenchmen, was believed to have been 

 deeply involved in the business, and an applica- 

 tion was made for his extradition from England, 

 which was refused. Ex-Minister Rouvier, who 

 had resigned the portfolio of Finance as soon as 

 the scandal first came out on the death of Rein- 

 ach, defended in the Chamber the act of taking 

 50,000 francs of Panama money when there was 

 no appropriation available for combating the 

 enemies who sought to destroy the republic, 

 and he was compelled to apply to his friends for 

 aid, as "any statesman worthy of the name" 

 would have done. 



The examining magistrate absolved from ac- 

 cusation ex-Ministers Jules Roche and Thevenet 

 and Deputy Emmanuel Arene. True bills for 

 bribery and corruption were found against 

 Charles de Lesseps, Fontane, Blondin, and Ar- 

 ton, and against Senator Beral, Deputies Dugue 

 de la Fauconnerie and Proust, and ex-Deputies 

 Balhaut, Sans Leroy, and Gobron. Ex-Deputy 

 Pesson, whose name was found on Reinach's 

 list, had died, and ex-Deputy Le Guay was in 

 prison on another charge. Barbe, the former 

 Minister of Agriculture, who was set down on 

 the list for 450,000 francs, was also dead. 



The trial of the directors and Eiffel on the 

 charge of fraud was concluded on Feb. 9. 

 Ferdinand de Lesseps. who was a paralytic, un- 

 able to appear at the trial, was sentenced to five 

 years' imprisonment and a fine of 3,000 francs ; 

 his son received the same sentence, and Fon- 

 tane and Cottu were sentenced to two years' 

 imprisonment and 3,000 francs fine. Gustave 

 Eiffel was convicted of breach of trust, having, 

 after receiving 120,000,000 francs for the con- 

 struction of 10 locks, which were to be com- 

 pleted before 1890, taken no steps to fulfill his 

 contract before the collapse of the company. 

 He was sentenced to imprisonment for five 

 years and a fine of 20,000 francs. The day be- 

 fore these severe sentences were pronounced 

 Godfrey Cavaighac delivered a speech, which 

 the Chamber acclaimed as the expression of its 

 views and ordered to be placarded Throughout 

 France, in introducing a resolution (i to sustain 

 the Government in the repression of all acts of 

 corruption and to prevent the recurrence of 

 governmental practices which it reprehends." 

 This resolution, though implying a stricture on 

 the Government for having neglected to bring 

 to light all the facts regarding the bribery of 

 members and the secret relations of former 

 ministers and the Panama corruptionists, was 

 accepted by M. Ribot to avoid a defeat. In his 

 speech Cavaignac dwelt on the spectacle of a 

 minister accepting money for bringing in a bill, 

 the unsuspected activity in French politics of 

 international financial agents, the distribution 

 of large sums for illusory advertising, marking 

 as " damaged merchandise " the press which was 

 looked upon as the guardian of French liberties, 

 the phenomenon of men of social position re- 



