General Boulanger is one of the oldest men who has
tried for supreme power in France. He was born in 1837, and is therefore fifty-one years old. His mother was a Miss Griffith, believed to have been a Welsh lady, and he is in person singularly unlike the popular idea of him. There is not a trace of the charlatan in his face, which is that of a thoughtful, over-determined Staff officer trained to scientific thinking, and as much German as French. He has had thirty years' experience in the Army, though not in high positions, and is reckoned by his comrades an excel- lent, if not a first-class officer. They say he can organise, and this is repeated more strongly by those who were in a position to watch his short-lived administration of the War Office, where he made himself at once supreme, and where he contrived, without relaxing discipline, to make himself considered the soldier's friend. Of his inner character his acquaintances seem to know little, but they credit him with daring courage, much ambition, and a most determined will. He professes to be without party feeling, and is pro- bably at heart, like most strong men in France who are not Legitimists, a Jacobin who can govern.
