General Boulanger has replied to the charges brought against him
by the Government, by stating some of the objects for which the secret funds expended by him were applied. He had, for instance, got hold of a list of the spies employed in Prance by a foreign Power, by the trick of getting it out of the keeping of its custodian for a single night, making a copy of it, and returning it to its place before the morning; and, again, he had spent a large sum of secret-service money on the Schnitbele incident, when France and Germany were brought (in General Boulanger's belief) so near war by the seizure of a French officer who had been decoyed on to German soil.
On this occasion, General Boulanger had told the Cabinet that he was prepared to send fifty thousand men to the frontier. Again, he had spent much in subsidising the paper of the German Socialists, in the hope that, in case of war, he could make use of the German Socialists against their country. Whether these and similar statements will increase his popularity with France is doubtful. Probably they indi- cate with truth the kind of way in which General Boulanger used the public money with the misappropriation of which he is charged. He has probably not been a peculator. He has only been lavish enough in spending public money for dubious objects conceived and approved only by himself. The public trial of the General has begun with a long speech of the French Prosecutor, which is not yet at an end, and which does not seem to be very impressive. General Boulanger is again going to challenge the electors of one of the Paris divisions to return him,—the division of Montmartre.
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