When, by the death of M. Ringuier in the early spring of 1888, a seat from the Aisne was suddenly vacated, the freemasons of Laon, as I have stated, selected M. Doumer as the Republican candidate to fill it. M. Doumer's friend, M. Floquet, was not then at the head of the Government, and General Boulanger was still in command of his army-corps at Clermont, coming up to Paris, as the Government affirmed, disguised and wearing blue spectacles, to organise political mischief, and generally making himself a terror and a trouble to the 'true Republicans,' who had made a great man of him for their own purposes.
'Eight days before the election, which was fixed for March 25, 1888,' says M. Doumer, in his address of this year to the voters, "I had no competitor, and my election seemed to be certain."'
No doubt. The 'Brethren' had arranged everything.
But suddenly the skies darkened! The Government of M. Tirard plucked up courage to make head against the 'brav' Général.' General Boulanger was relieved of his command at Clermont.
Thereupon the Boulangists resolved to avail themselves of the impending election at Laon as an opportunity of responding to the attack of the Government by a demonstration of their strength in the provinces; and M. Doumer was suddenly served with a notice that the seat of which he had felt so sure would be wanted for General Boulanger!
It was a cruel and a critical moment. What was to be done? To withdraw from the contest was to take sides virtually with General Boulanger against the Tirard Government, and much as M. Floquet and the friends of M. Doumer disliked M. Tirard, they were not ready to throw in their lot at that moment against him. So the Brethren, as my friend believes, were called upon to bring about an arrangement. What General Boulanger wanted was not to fill the seat for Laon; it was only to be elected to fill the seat for Laon. Plainly, therefore, the course of practical wisdom, for M. Doumer was to come to an understanding with the friends of General Boulanger. So this was done.
The Parisian Committee of the General came into the Aisne, and at a conference, which M. Doumer admits that he held with them at Tergnier, it was agreed that after the first balloting, on March 31, 'the voters who then voted for General Boulanger as a protest, should vote for M. Doumer at the second balloting, and so elect him.'
The first balloting came off in due course of time. Both M. Doumer, the Republican candidate, and M. Jacquemont, the Conservative candidate, were left in the rear by General Boulanger, who received some forty thousand votes—the election being held in 1888 under the scrutin de liste adopted, before the elections of 1885, by the Republicans, in order to remedy what they had denounced as the 'intolerable' evils of the scrutin d'arrondissement. Under the stress of the Boulangist panic, these same Republicans suddenly threw the scrutin de liste over again in 1889, to readopt and reimpose upon their beloved country the 'intolerable' evils of the scrutin d'arrondissement!
The second balloting was to take place on March 31. Suppose that General Boulanger should take it into his head to force the fighting on that day at Laon—worse still, try to make an 'arrangement' with the Conservative candidate? What would then become of M. Doumer? So, on March 28, M. Doumer tells us he went up to Paris, from Laon in company with the chairman of one of the Republican committees, and there had an interview with a leading member of the committee of General Boulanger, the result of which was that the 'brav' Général' published a letter, in which he announced to the electors of the Aisne that he could not accept a seat which he could only occupy to the detriment of competitors 'beside whom, and not against whom, he had allowed himself to be made a candidate.' He wound up by requesting his friends in the Aisne 'to vote at the second balloting for the candidate who would best support the honour of the country and the interests of the Republic.'
Then came, at Laon, a meeting of the Republican Committee of the Aisne, at which the chairman of the meeting, M. Lesguillier, was instructed to do his best to 'dissipate the somewhat equivocal effect' of the language used by General Boulanger in his letter, and to induce the Boulangist committee to work, on the 31st, for the election of M. Doumer. And so, on March 31, 1888, M. Doumer was finally put into the seat, which enabled him to draw up his model report on the great question of 'co-operation.' That the Boulangists of Laon are not wholly delighted with the course of M. Doumer in the late Chamber, and that the working-men of Laon are not deeply impressed by the value to them of his model report on 'co-operation,' may be inferred from his defeat by the Boulangist candidate M. Castelin under the scrutin d'arrondissement in September, 1889.