France in the Nineteenth Century

by Elizabeth Wormeley Latimer

Since the funds furnished to Boulanger for the election expenses of his candidates, and even for his own personal expenses, came from the Royalist party, he was more bound to it than ever; but he pretended to be guided by a body that called itself the National Republican Committee, which he assured his friends, the Monarchists, he used only as a screen. When Madame d'Uzès threw her last million into the gulf, it seemed expedient to the Royalists to exact more definite pledges from Boulanger than his word as a soldier. "If the present Government of France is overthrown," they said, "and an appeal made to the people, who will fill the interregnum? Will General Boulanger, if all power is intrusted to him, consent to give it up, if the nation votes for monarchy? And with all the machinery of government in his hands, is it certain that a plébiscite would be the free vote of the people?"

A general election was to take place in the summer of 1889, at the height of the Universal Exposition. Hitherto the various elections in which Boulanger had contended had been for vacant seats in the old Assembly. He was anxious to test his popularity in Paris by standing for the workman's quarter of Belleville; and in spite of his being opposed by the Radicals in the Chamber, as well as by the Government, he was elected by a large majority.

The Government then changed its method of attack. It brought in a bill changing the selection of parliamentary candidates from the scrutin de liste to the scrutin d'arrondissement. Boulanger therefore would be eligible for election only in the district in which he was domiciled.

Besides the National Republican Committee (which the general called his screen), there was formed all over France a Boulangist society called the League of Patriots. This league was now attacked by the Government as a conspiracy. A High Court of Justice was formed by the Senate, before which its leaders were summoned to appear. Boulanger became seriously alarmed. He did not see how he could act if shut up in prison. His apprehensions were carefully augmented by the heads of the police, who had placed one of their agents about his person.[1] This man showed him a pretended order for his arrest on April 1, 1889. The question of his retirement into Belgium if his liberty were threatened had been already debated by himself and his friends. Nearly all of them were against it. "Let not the people think our general could run away," said some. But others answered, "They will say it is a smart trick; that the general has cheated the Government."

[Footnote 1: Les Coulisses du Boulangisme.]

After seeing the false document which was shown him, with great pretence of secrecy, by the police agent, the general hesitated no longer. On the evening of April 1, accompanied by Madame de Bonnemains, a lady to whom he was paying devoted attention, pending a divorce from his wife, he went to Brussels, followed by his friend Count Dillon, the go-between in financial matters between the Royalists and himself. The Cabinet of M. Carnot had learned the value of the saying, "If your enemy wishes to take flight, build him a bridge of gold."

The departure of the general threw consternation into the ranks of his followers. "It cannot be!" they cried. Then they consoled themselves with the reflection that he must soon return, as he had done once before under somewhat similar circumstances.

But he did not return. The Government had triumphed. Boulanger's power was broken; like a wave, it had toppled over when its crest was highest. The High Court of Justice condemned Deroulède the poet, Rochefort, and Dillon, to confinement for life in a French fortress. The sentence, however, was simply one of outlawry, for they were all with Boulanger.

The exiles did not stay long in Brussels. The Government of Belgium objected to their remaining so near the frontier of France,—for in Brussels a telephone connected them with Paris,—and they went over to London. There, at the general's request, he had an interview with the Comte de Paris. But their conversation was limited to useless compliments and military affairs. Boulanger's power as a political leader was at an end; the friends of the prince would advance him no more funds, and in the elections, which took place very quietly in France during the summer, he and his friends suffered total defeat.

The Government of France—strengthened not only by the success of the Exposition, by its great triumph at the elections, and by the discomfiture of its enemies, but also by the conviction forced upon parliamentary leaders that the country was weary of mere talk and discord, and demanded harmony and action—now became the strongest Government that France had enjoyed for a long time. The Republic had passed the point of danger, the eighteenth year, which had been the limit of every dynasty or form of government in France for over a century. It rallied to itself men from the ranks of all its former enemies, but its greatest victory was over the Monarchists. The wreck of their cause by the alliance with a military adventurer was a blunder in the eyes of one section of the Royalists; in the eyes of another, it was a dishonor that amounted almost to a crime.