1888] Boulanger at Paris 3 



dull, not at all like a soldier, and with a hand the most disagreeable to 

 touch of any she remembered. She could not explain in what the 

 repulsion consisted.' Nevertheless, she seemed impressed with him. 

 He is floated financially, she tells me, by Mrs. Mackay the American, 

 and if war comes, he may yet achieve his fortune." 



This resulted in my being taken (15th Nov.) by Lacretelle to see the 

 General at his house near the Barriere de l'Etoile. The moment of 

 our visit was that of the very height of his popularity, when it was 

 believed in Paris that he was about to repeat the adventure of Prince 

 Louis Napoleon in 185 1, when France, tired of her constitutional 

 regime and a Republic which had brought her no credit, was ready for 

 " a Saviour of Society," who should restore to her something of her 

 military glory. This might be effected either by a restoration of the 

 monarchy, or by Boulanger's proclaiming himself Dictator. The thing 

 seemed possible enough, especially in Paris, where the idea of a guerre 

 de revanche against Germany had still many adherents. I, as member 

 of the acting Committee of the Peace and Arbitration Society, was 

 interested to find out how far the General, if he succeeded, was likely 

 to prove a serious danger to the peace of the world, and it was with 

 that view principally that I hailed the opportunity of an interview. 

 Lacretelle, the deputy, though personally friends with the General, was 

 a strict Republican of the Victor Hugo school, and opposed to ideas 

 of war for any purpose, and he had assured me that the popular hero 

 was in reality no swashbuckler, though he gave himself the airs of 

 one for popularity's sake with his principal supporters, Royalists and 

 Bonapartists, who affected to quarrel with the Republic for having 

 agreed to a cession of the lost provinces when peace was made with 

 Germany in 1871. England, however, was at that date regarded in 

 France as the chief enemy, and Alsace-Lorraine was already beginning 

 to be forgotten in favour of Egypt. The following is the account my 

 diary gives of the visit, but I wrote a much fuller and better one to 

 the " Times," which was published in it a few days later : 



" i$th Nov. — With Lacretelle at 10 o'clock to call on General 

 Boulanger. He lives in one of the streets beyond the Barriere de 

 l'Etoile, and we found the house crowded. Not only were the two 

 anterooms full, but the staircase also, men of every rank of life, from 

 the priest to the decayed soldier and the artisan, a few women, too. 

 After waiting nearly an hour, we were let in by special favour, most 

 of the suppliants (the mulatto button boy who did the honours of the 

 waiting room told us) having no chance whatever of an audience. 

 The General's reception room is on the second floor, a singular room, 

 as you go down half-a-dozen steps to the level of the floor when the 

 door to it is opened. It is a very large place with a single table at the 

 far end of it and some Louis XIV chairs. The General, who was at 



