Do you wonder I am a pessimist?'

'But if this is the way in which they look at things, why do they
clamour for Boulanger?'

'They don't clamour for Boulanger. That is to say the peasants, the
rural people. It is in the towns--here in Calais, for example, at
Boulogne, at Amiens--that they clamour for Boulanger. In the towns they
read all manner of trash and listen to all manner of lies. You can get
up a legend in the French towns for anybody or anything as easily to-day
as in the middle ages--perhaps more easily. Look at this legend of
Boulanger. It is a real legend to-day. You may be sure of that, and that
is the real danger of it. The people who are fighting against it to-day
are the people who made it. They wanted, they could not get on without,
a great man. Ferry went to pieces, as you know, in 1885. Tonkin and the
dead Courbet killed him. So they invented Boulanger. They made him War
Minister. They put him on his black horse. They let him drive out the
princes. Look at those five men seated there in front of that cafe. They
are doubtless decent well-to-do shopkeepers, master mechanics--no matter
what--I will wager you that of these five men, three believe Boulanger
to be the first soldier of France, and that two of them believe the
Government has driven him into exile to prevent the Germans from
declaring war! That is enough to make them Boulangists.'

'Then they want war with Germany?'

'Yes, in this part of France I think they do. But the legend is just as
effective where they do not want war with Germany. Last year I was in
the country of Grevy, not far from Mont-sous-Vaudrey. There the peasants
dread nothing so much as another war. They want peace there at any
price. Well, then, a very shrewd old farmer told me he wanted to see
Boulanger made Chief of the State. Why? Why because, as he said,
Boulanger is the first general in Europe, and the Germans know it, and
they go in fear of him; so that if Boulanger is made Chief of the State,
they will think twice before they attack us! What do you say to that?'

'Is it not extraordinary,' I replied, 'that this legend, as you truly
call it, should have been created so easily about a general who has no
battle to show for it; not even a Montenotte, much less an Arcola or a
Lodi?'

'What legend had Bonaparte when Barras put him at the head of the home
army, and Petiet sent him to Italy? He did not command at Toulon, and
his one victory had been to blow the marshalled