NEWS OF THE WEEK.
GENERAL BOULANGER has given Parisians a, new surprise. Being informed by his friends, or, as he says, by the police, that it had been decided to arrest him, and afterwards try him before the Senate, which is being con- stituted by special Act a High Court for the trial of treason, he called a council of his principal supporters. They recom- mended him to quit France for a time, and he accordingly fled on Monday to Brussels, whence he issued a manifesto, declaring that " those who retain power in contempt of the public con- science "are about "to accuse him before an exceptional tribunal constituted by exceptional laws." He will not place himself under the jurisdiction of a Senate " composed of persons blinded by personal passions, mad hatreds, and the sense of their unpopularity." When properly summoned before the Magistrates, he will appear ; but till then, he " will await in this land of liberty the time when the general elections have made the Republic habitable, honest, and free." It is con- ceded that the Government did intend to arrest him before his prosecution. The only dispute is whether they expected the Senate to find him guilty of treason, or to remit him to a court-martial on a charge of having tampered with the discipline of the soldiers. It is quite possible that General Boulanger has been guilty of this offence, which is one of the highest known to the French military laws, and if evidence were forthcoming, his sentence would have been death.
