and brief biographies were scattered by his friends throughout the
Provinces. His very name, Boulanger--Baker--helped his popularity.
A corn-law passed in France was obnoxious to the country, as tending
to make bread more dear; "Boulanger is to bring us cheap bread!
Long live our Boulanger!" became the popular cry.

But all this enthusiasm seems to have been founded only on expectation.
General Boulanger had done nothing that might reasonably have attracted
national gratitude and adoration. Yet there was a strong feeling
throughout France that Boulanger would save the country from what
was called the Parliamentary _regime_. France had become weary of
the squabbles of the seven parties in the Chamber, of the rapid
changes of ministry, of the perpetual coalitions, lasting just long
enough to overthrow some chief unpopular with two factions strong
enough by combination to get rid of him. The Chamber, it was said,
though unruly and disorganized, had usurped all the functions of
government, and a republic without an executive officer who can
maintain himself at its head, has never been known to stand. In
France fashion is everything, and in France, in 1888, it was the
fashion to speak ill of parliamentary government.

"Why am I a Boulangist?" cried a young and ardent writer of the
party.[1] "Why are my friends Boulangists? Because the general
is the only man in France capable of carrying out the expulsion
of mere talkers from the Chamber of Deputies,--men who deafen the
public ear, and are good for nothing. Gentlemen, a few hundreds
of you, ever since 1870, have carried on the government. All of
you are lawyers or literary men, none of you are statesmen."

[Footnote 1: Le Figaro.]

At the height of the popularity of the general his career was very
near being cut short by a political duel. In France, as we have seen
in the history of the Duchesse de Berri, it is not an unheard-of
thing to get rid of a political adversary by a challenge. After
Boulanger had insulted the Duc d'Aumale while he was Minister of
War, a challenge passed between himself and an Orleanist, M. le Baron
de Lareinty. Boulanger stood to receive the fire of his adversary,
but did not fire in return. He was subsequently anxious to fight
Jules Ferry; but Jules Ferry declined any meeting of the kind.
After he entered the Chamber, his great enemy, Floquet, who was then
in the Cabinet, called him in the course of debate "A Saint-Arnaud
of the _cafes chantan