For more than a year the popularity of “Le brav’ General” kept the various ministries that succeeded each other in Paris and their officials all over France, in perpetual anxiety.  Boulanger made journeys almost like royal progresses into the Departments.  Everywhere crowds cheered him, reporters followed him, his name was in everybody’s mouth, his doings filled columns of the newspapers in many languages, and his flower, the carnation, was embroidered on tablecloths and worn in button-holes.  All newspapers and reviews seem to have agreed that no man had been so popular in France since the days of the Great Emperor.  He liked the position thrust upon him, and accepted gracefully and graciously the adoration he received,—­an adoration born partly of infectious curiosity, partly from a love of what is phenomenal, partly from the attraction of the unexpected, and above all from the national need of some object of idolatry.  France had been long destitute of any one to whom she might pay personal devotion.  Every peasant’s cottage throughout France was soon decorated with his chromo.  He has even been seen on his black horse adorning the bamboo hut of a king in Central Africa.  Pamphlets, handbills, and brief biographies were scattered by his friends throughout the Provinces.  His very name, Boulanger—­Baker—­helped his popularity.  A corn-law passed in France was obnoxious to the country, as tending to make bread more dear; “Boulanger is to bring us cheap bread!  Long live our Boulanger!” became the popular cry.

But all this enthusiasm seems to have been founded only on expectation.  General Boulanger had done nothing that might reasonably have attracted national gratitude and adoration.  Yet there was a strong feeling throughout France that Boulanger would save the country from what was called the Parliamentary regime.  France had become weary of the squabbles of the seven parties in the Chamber, of the rapid changes of ministry, of the perpetual coalitions, lasting just long enough to overthrow some chief unpopular with two factions strong enough by combination to get rid of him.  The Chamber, it was said, though unruly and disorganized, had usurped all the functions of government, and a republic without an executive officer who can maintain himself at its head, has never been known to stand.  In France fashion is everything, and in France, in 1888, it was the fashion to speak ill of parliamentary government.

“Why am I a Boulangist?” cried a young and ardent writer of the party.[1] “Why are my friends Boulangists?  Because the general is the only man in France capable of carrying out the expulsion of mere talkers from the Chamber of Deputies,—­men who deafen the public ear, and are good for nothing.  Gentlemen, a few hundreds of you, ever since 1870, have carried on the government.  All of you are lawyers or literary men, none of you are statesmen.”

[Footnote 1:  Le Figaro.]