BOULANGISM IN FRANCE.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."] SIR,—After a careful study of the Boulangist movement in Paris and various parts of France, I am convinced that the English Press is inclined to make too much of its importance. Of course, General Boulanger's marvellous majority in the Department of Le Nord, following on his return in L'Aisne and La Dordogne, seemed to proved that Boulangism was a great and increasing force. I was myself more than half carried away by this belief. Further investigation on the spot has, however, convinced me that, in himself, General Boulanger is by no means a great power in France ; he is only great as a rallying cry, and as a tool in the hands of reactionaries com- bining to make use of him. It is in this light that General Boulanger's triumphant majorities are to be read. But although he has no party at his back, and very few intelligent supporters, his following of loafers, discontented and younger soldiers, might in any given department be swollen into a majority, provided the Royalists, Bonapartists, and Clerieala combined, as they did in Le Nord, to vote for him. In last Sunday's election in the Isere, General Boulanger, whose partisans worked hard for him though he was not formally a candidate, only obtained 4,000 votes. But the 90,000 reactionary voters, who might have given him a majority, stayed away from the poll. The manifesto of the Comte de Paris, which appeared last week, probably had much to do with their abstention.
I think it is hardly possible that General Boulanger would now be accepted by the French nation as a leader either in peace or war, unless the nation lost its head if war broke out suddenly. He is too universally discredited amongst honourable and intelligent Frenchmen, in spite of the un- doubted enthusiasm he excites in the breasts of young soldiers, and of his wide popularity with frequenters of taverns all over Six-Mile Bottom, near Newmarket, May 3rd.
P.S.—The consideration of the Revision scheme has been adjourned sine die by the Chamber.
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