The following day, after the court proceedings were over, he didn’t go to the bar in the rue des Halles, but back to his small hotel, where he wrote a letter.

My dearest Delphine,

You were right. I had to come. I’ve seen nothing like it in my life. It’s like watching two children fighting over a toy while their house, with all their family inside, burns down behind them. A windy comparison, I’m sorry. I mean the coming war will put this nonsense in perspective.

The courtroom is immense and often rowdy. The calmest person is Joseph Caillaux himself. From the other side of the court all you see is his perfectly hairless head and smooth, impassive face. He looks like a boiled egg. Hard to believe he is one of the most feared and hated men in France. When he was prime minister, a few years ago, he did a private deal with the Germans. You probably remember. He let them have part of the Congo in return for their leaving French interests alone in Morocco. The Germans withdrew their gunboats from Agadir, after which many in his own party, who are worried about the waning of French virility, accused the pacifist Caillaux of depriving them of the war they ‘needed’ to prove themselves a warrior nation once more.

Today I got a closer look and could see his stiff collar and stud, his beautiful silk tie with its pearl pin and dove-grey waistcoat. A boiled egg maybe, but a dressy one. There’s something about him that seems wound up wrong. He’s out of step with the times. France wants a warrior, not a fixer. Also, he exudes a powerful self-interest. He refers to his wife as ‘my poor child’, but you feel he already has replacements in mind, that he’ll make a decision about her future in the same way he dealt with Agadir and income tax, swiftly and without looking back.

I’ve run into Maxwell, the Englishman from Panama. He’s quite unchanged. He sees the world in simple terms, but those terms are helpful to me. We smack each other on the back and buy more drinks. He tells me about his plans to retire one day to a town on the coast of Suffolk, a house overlooking the sea.

The trial turns on whether Mme C was really herself when she pulled the trigger. We’ve heard a lot about the weakness of the female mind. There have been quotations from a psychologist, a disciple of the famous Pierre Janet, about how women’s passions overrun their meagre resources of character. One paper even claimed that on the day of the crime Mme C was undergoing her monthly period. So that explains a murder! To her supporters, she’s described as frail and either weeping or on the verge of tears. The prosecution presents her as an accomplished marksman who practised pistol shooting on an indoor range at the gunsmiths Gastinne-Renette – a killer, emotionless and calculating. According to the papers that support this view, she has shed not a single tear, but has remained frighteningly detached. I don’t think both reports – constantly in tears, utterly dry-eyed – can be accurate.

But, my dearest D, no one seems to care what’s really going on. All of Russia was fixed on the visit of Poincaré and what it meant for an alliance. In Paris, you need to get through eight pages of gossip and sex before you reach even a short account of it.

What are your plans? Please consult Erich’s father about what he thinks will happen to ‘enemy nationals’ in the event of war. I will try to find out more from my editor when I cable my report this evening. There is talk here of camps in which foreigners will be made to work.

It may be best for you to leave by train while you still can. It might also be an idea for me to stay in Paris and wait for you, though of course I don’t know what arrangements the French will make for people like me. I like Paris well enough, but I don’t want to be locked up (though I suppose it might be better that way than actually fighting against your countrymen and killing them).

Keep buying the newspapers and see what advice you can find. Should you also visit your embassy and see what they say?

The timing is awful. If only I could get away, but I have to wait for the verdict of this insane trial. Cable me if necessary at the hotel.

Je t’embrasse très fort, ma minouche.

A