"The General will dine this evening at the Café Durand."
The Café Durand, of course, was opposite the Madeleine. We stopped there on our way about town. We lunched there, and made friends with the head waiter, Edmond, a portly personage of manner and renown. Edmond was enlisted, as Joseph had been. And he signed his portrait with a flourish quite royal—Edmond Ulray.
Could R-H. see the private room in which General Boulanger and his friends would dine that evening?
But certainly. And Monsieur could draw it if he chose.
Of course, that was what he chose to do. And when the evening came, it was quite a simple matter for Edmond to arrange that R-H., without being seen, should draw "Le brav' Général", and Comte Dillon, and Paul de Cassagnac, Henri Rochefort, and Paul Deroulade, at the table, in the front room, up one flight, on the corner overlooking the Madeleine.
Here was the centre of interest that night,—that room in the Café Durand. Would "Le brav' Général" press the button there, spring his coup d'état, show himself to the crowd, and proceed triumphantly from there to the Élysées? That was what the crowd expected. That was what it wanted. I was outside with the crowd. R-H. was inside, sketching. It was marvellous how quickly he worked.
The crowd knew that Boulanger was in the Café Durand; they knew that Jacques was in a café on the opposite side of the way; they knew which was the winner. And the thoroughfares were packed with people. They wanted to march, they wanted to sing, they wanted to cheer. But nobody started them. There was no demonstration. Neither side wished a demonstration to go the wrong way. Both sides knew that the government had determined to put down riots, revolutions, and disorders. But why did n't somebody start something? Jacques, being defeated, did not show himself. Boulanger was victorious, but he did not show himself. The crowd moved back and forth, packed within the boulevards. But nothing happened. No hero appeared at a window; nobody made a speech; not a curtain was drawn aside; not a flag fluttered. By midnight the crowd had gone home to bed.
And that is why I prophesied that night Boulanger's utter collapse and his probable flight for safety. Little wisdom was required to make the prophecy. A man who has the ball at his foot and doesn't kick it is not the "saviour" of a nation. Boulanger had lost his chance. The next day he was no longer the most popular of Frenchmen.
He "saved France" by his failure.
A little later he fled to Belgium. A little later still he turned up in London, as I have said. But he did not stay long at the Hotel Bristol. He took a furnished house, Number 51 Portland Place, brought his horses from Paris, and gave out that he would ride in the Park at the fashionable hour. But he did not ride. And as he did not keep his word in so small a matter, London lost what small interest it had in him when he did ride, or when he received. One day "a grand Boulangist demonstration" was announced to take place at the Alexandra Palace. Proceedings, more or less elaborate, were advertised, and they were to end with a "banquet" at five shillings a head. Covers were to be laid for twenty-six hundred persons. Only six hundred persons appeared. Boulanger was to be "the lion of the season." I don't know who thought so besides himself. He issued an address "To the People; My Sole Judge", meaning the people of Paris. The address was nine columns long!