848 



FRANCE. 



the headquarters of the army corps that he 

 commanded, and take care that his name 

 should not be improperly used by his friends 

 in the future. Not many days afterward he 

 broke his parole by going to Paris in dis- 

 guise, where he was recognized by an army 

 officer, and on investigation it was found that 

 he had personally directed the electioneering 

 campaign by means of cipher telegrams. For 

 these acts he was relieved of his command and 

 placed in non-activity, called before a court- 

 martial, consisting of five generals, on March 

 26, 1838. This was the signal for demonstra- 

 tions for and against Boulanger, and, while his 

 trial was pending, he was a candidate at Mar- 

 seilles, receiving a small vote, and in Aisne, 

 where he headed the poll in the primary elec- 

 tions, although as an officer in active service 

 he was ineligible, and then withdrew in favor 

 of one of his partisans. He defended himself 

 before the military court by saying that he 

 came to Paris to visit his sick wife and deny- 

 ing his participation in the electoral canvass ; 

 but when confronted with the telegraphic 

 dispatches, he made no answer. The court 

 voted unanimously against him, and President 

 Carnot signed the decree placing him on the 

 retired list. Freed thus of the restraints im- 

 posed by his military duties, he openly took 

 the field as a candidate for the department of 

 the Nord with an address in which he accused 

 the Chamber of suppressing the defenses of the 

 nation, and the Senate of checking every re- 

 form, and his judges of condemning him for 

 reasons which they dared not avow. His con- 

 demnation gave him a greater prominence than 

 he had before. The antagonists of the third 

 republic Imperialists, Clericals, Royalists, and 

 many extreme Radicals and Socialists sup- 

 ported him, openly or secretly, as the repre- 

 sentative of dissatisfaction with the existing 

 order of things and with the men who con- 

 trolled the policy of the nation. His popularity 

 rested chiefly on the military reforms that lie 

 had effected as Minister of War. He was re- 

 garded among the common soldiers and the 

 peasantry as the creator of an army that was 

 capable, or soon would be, of avenging Sedan, 

 and in his speeches he hinted vaguely at war. 

 The rural voters, who formerly adhered to the 

 empire, at the beck of Bonapartist leaders, 

 now turned to Boulanger as the embodiment 

 of the idea of personal government, which is 

 strong among the French peasantry. Bou- 

 langer called himself a democratic Republican, 

 although his political friends and financial sup- 

 porters were Bonapartists; and, in his demand 

 for a revision of the Constitution, he hinted at 

 a system resembling that of the United States, 

 in which the President should be chosen by a 

 plebiscite, and the ministers be responsible to 

 him, and not to Parliament. The Monarchist 

 and Socialist factions that constituted his party 

 each hoped to shape the changes after their 

 own ideas. He was elected by a majority of 

 100,000 in the Nord, where Bonapartists and 



Republican extremists are strong. He was 

 elected in the Dordogne also, but took his seat 

 as deputy for the Nord department. The pro- 

 gramme on which he was elected, chiefly by 

 Bonapartist votes, was dissolution, revision, 

 and a constituent assembly. He made his ap- 

 pearance in the Chamber on June 4, and ar- 

 raigned parliamentarism, characterizing cabi- 

 nets as servile tools of selfish coalitions, and 

 the President as a mere log. Expressing a 

 Platonic belief in the Radical plan of abolish- 

 ing both the Senate and the presidency, he 

 proposed as a practical solution the election 

 of the Senate by universal suffrage, the sub- 

 mission of laws to a referendum, and the elec- 

 tion of the President directly by the people, 

 who desired to have a visible head of the Gov- 

 ernment. Then a national policy would take 

 the place of intrigue, and France would enter 

 on the condition of having fixed and regular 

 governments. M. Floquet in his reply de- 

 scribed the scheme as veiled CaL-sarism, and 

 alluded to one of Boulanger's manifestoes, in 

 which he said that the people must be cared 

 for like a child. 



On July 12 Gen. Boulanger appeared in the 

 Chamber again, in order to bring forward a 

 motion for the dissolution of the Chamber, 

 supporting it in a speech denunciatory of the 

 existing Chamber and of the Government. The 

 Prime Minister replied in caustic terms, de- 

 scribing him as one who, having passed from 

 vestibules into antechambers, yet had the 

 effrontery to insult tried Republicans, the least 

 of whom had done the republic more good 

 than he could do it harm; whereupon Gen. 

 Boulanger declared that M. Floquet had "im- 

 pudently lied " in speaking of him as a fre- 

 quenter of antechambers, and announced that 

 he resigned his seat, his letter of resignation 

 being already in the speaker's hands. His 

 purpose was to obtain another election from 

 the people. He at once presented himself as 

 a candidate to fill a vacancy in the representa- 

 tion of the Ardeche, but was defeated, as was 

 his nominee, Paul D6roulede, the apostle of 

 revenge, in the Charente. His revision scheme 

 was presented, and referred to the committee 

 on revision that had been appointed at the be- 

 ginning of the new ministry. During the five 

 months of the existence of his party of Na- 

 tional Protest, which was amply supplied with 

 Bonapartist funds, he had received in the va- 

 rious by-elections fully half a million votes. 

 The insult to the Premier resulted, as was ex- 

 pected, in a duel. Gen. Boulanger's seconds 

 were M. Laisant and Count Dillon ; M. Flo- 

 quet's were MM. Clmenceau and Georges 

 Perin. The insulted party chose swords as the 

 weapons. They met on the following morning. 

 Gen. Boulanger showed a determination to 

 make the duel fatal, rushing into close quarters 

 with impetuosity, and, after the interchange 

 of slight wounds on both sides, M. Floquet, in 

 parrying a thrust, pierced him in the throat, 

 inflicting a severe wound close to the carotid 



