We have said, perhaps, enough of General Boulanger else- where,
but we wish to point out here that even since his death no one has seemed able to state what his political opinions were. He never, that we can recollect, professed any, except hatred of " Parliamentariam," to which he ascribed all evils in France. He allied himself with the ultra-Reds, and with the Monarchists, and even coquetted with the Clericals, his idea probably being that if he attained power and could win a great campaign, he would be permitted to reign in luxury without being required to adhere to any policy whatever. He was a good soldier and administrator, but if be had any ray of genius, it was for acting the great part to which, when crises came, he never could live up. In private life he was a most amiable man, with bourgeois tastes for rich cooking, fine wines, and a showy establishment. He received large sums of money, from Orleanists principally, and spent them on his party and himself, probably intending to repay them, if he succeeded, to the party with which he broke faith. He had no nobility in him, as his conduct to the Duo d'Aumale showed; but he probably was unconscious of the baseness of much of his conduct, thinking of himself only as an actor playing on a stage, and irresponsible for the role assigned him. Nothing was quite sincere in him except his indifference to death, and the histrionic impulse entered into that too. He will remain, probably, in history like Aaron Burr in America, an in- teresting because perplexing and yet insignificant figure.
