--as, indeed, appears to have been the
fate of all the ministries under the administration of M. Grevy.
No policy, no reforms, could be carried out under such frequent
changes. The popular cry was that the popular favorite must retain
his portfolio as War Minister in the new Cabinet; and this occasioned
considerable difficulty. The general had begun to be feared as a
possible dictator. His popularity was immense; but what his place
might be in politics no one could precisely tell. That he was the
idol of the nation was certain; but was he a Radical of the Belleville
type, or a forthcoming Napoleon Bonaparte,--an Imperialist on his
own account, or a Jacobin?

The fall of the second Ministry in which he served put him out
of office, and the War Minister who succeeded him proceeded to
bid for popularity by fresh reforms, which the Radical Deputies
thought might be acceptable to the people. Those who deal with
the French peasant should never lose sight of the fact that the
peace and prosperity of himself and of his household stand foremost
in his eyes. The Frenchman, as we depict him in imagination or in
fiction, is as far as possible from the French peasant. If ideas
contrary to his selfish interests ever make their way into his
mind, they are due to the leaven of old French soldiers scattered
through the villages. So when the new Minister of War proposed, and
the Chamber of Deputies passed, an ordinance that made it illegal
to buy a substitute, and required every Frenchman, from eighteen to
twenty-one years of age, to serve in the army, the peasant found
small consolation for the loss of his sons' services in the thought
that the son of a duke must serve as well as the son of a laborer.
Boulanger had introduced no such measure. "Vive le General Boulanger!"

Another measure, passed about the same time, brought great trouble
into families. It was a law making education compulsory, and was
loaded with vexatious and arbitrary regulations. Every child privately
educated had to pass, semi-annually, a strict examination before
certain village authorities. This gave rise in families to all
sorts of tribulations. France is not exactly a land of liberty;
personal liberty is sacrificed to efforts to enforce equality.

General Boulanger after his loss of office was given the command
of the Thirteenth Army Corps, and was sent into a sort of exile
at its headquarters at Clermont-Ferrand. At the railroad-station
in Paris a great cro