General Boulanger, defeated even in Paris, where he had hoped
to carry the municipal elections, but seated only one councillor, has retired from the scene. In a letter published on Saturday, he requests his committee to dissolve itself, and announces that in future he will have "no intermediary" between himself and his supporters, and will devote himself to studying the questions interesting to the industrial classes. He "remains the soldier of France and the democracy," but will await his country's call. His career is probably ended ; but it will remain for years a temptation to aspirants, who will remember how very nearly an officer of mediocre capacity fixed on himself the regard of France. If General Boulanger had been a little bigger man in soul, he might have dismissed the Republic. As it is, he has shared the fate of Lafayette, though he has not retained the respect which never entirely quitted his prototype. Lafayette was as vain as Boulanger, and a soldier of much the same type ; but he was a sincere Liberal, and sought no dictatorship.
