ass; and the answer brought back
to him was, "He is a little of them all." The general, after his
interview in London with the Comte de Paris, took up his residence
in the island of Jersey. He cannot but have felt that his popularity
had failed him, and that his enchanter's wand was broken. From time
to time he made spasmodic efforts to bring himself again to the
notice of the public. He offered repeatedly to return to France
and stand his trial for conspiracy, provided that the trial might
be conducted before a regular court of justice, and not before
an especial committee appointed by the Chambers.

Meantime his domestic relations must have caused him poignant anxiety.
His wife was his cousin,--a lady of the _haute bourgeoisie_ in a
provincial town. She appears to have felt herself unequal to what
might be required of her as the wife of the national hero. She
entertained apprehensions that her fate might be that of the Empress
Josephine. When her husband became War Minister, she declined to
preside over his receptions, and withdrew herself from his official
residence, taking with her her two daughters, Helene and Marcelle.
Thus deserted, Boulanger became open to scandals and reports, some
true, and some false, such as would inevitably be circulated in
France concerning such a man's relations with women. It is quite
certain, however, that at the height of his popularity he became
infatuated with the divorced wife of a Baron de Bonnemains,--a
lady well connected, and up to the time when Boulanger became her
lover, of unstained reputation. She was also rich, having a fortune
of 1,500,000 francs. She was not very beautiful, but was tender,
gracious, and womanly. M. de Bonnemains had not made her a good
husband, and her friends rejoiced when the law gave her a divorce.
General Boulanger and his wife seem to have agreed to sever their
marriage tie under the new French divorce law, which requires both
parties to be examined by a judge, who is to try if possible to
reconcile them; but at the last moment Madame Boulanger refused,
upon religious grounds, her assent to a divorce, and the marriage
of the general with Madame de Bonnemains became thenceforward
impossible.

The story is not a pleasant one, but it is necessary to relate it,
because of its results.

Madame de Bonnemains, whose constitution was consumptive, drooped
and sickened in Jersey. She removed in the spring of 1891 to Brussels
to try one of the new schemes