The baiting of M. Caillaux began when M. Charles Bertrand
asked what M. Caillaux was doing in . the Chamber. He recalled the great " defeatist " intrigue of 1917, traced M. Cail]aux's connexion with it and reminded the Chamber how in 1920 M. Caillaux had been convicted by the Senate, the highest tribunal in the country, for corresponding with enemy subjects. Was M. Caillaux a man likely to restore confidence in the country ? The right thing for M. Caillaux to do would be to demand a revision of the Senate's verdict Instead of that he had crept back, profiting by the amnesty declared for party purposes. His presence on the Government benches was " an insult to the dead and to the living." Other attacks on M. Caillaux followed, and the victim, according to the reports of eye-witnesses, with difficulty restrained himself from retorting. Although flushing and paling alternately, he remained master of himself, however, and left to M. Painleve and M. Briand the task of defence. M. Painleve replied ..xtremely well on the whole, and the Administration were satisfied with their first brush with the enemy. A vote of confidence in the Government was carried by 304 votes to 218. On Wednesday M. Herriot was elected President of the Chamber. Some personal fights in the Chamber showed how high feeling ran, but the Govern- ment on the whole has made as good a start as could have been expected.
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