mmendation of the duc d'Aumale,
then commanding the VII. army corps, and Boulanger's expressions of
gratitude and devotion on this occasion were remembered against him
afterwards when, as war minister in M. Freycinet's cabinet, he erased
the name of the due d'Aumale from the army list, as part of the
republican campaign against the Orleanist and Bonapartist princes. In
1882 his appointment as director of infantry at the war office enabled
him to make himself conspicuous as a military reformer; and in 1884 he
was appointed to command the army occupying Tunis, but was recalled
owing to his differences of opinion with M. Cambon, the political
resident. He returned to Paris, and began to take part in politics under
the aegis of M. Clemenceau and the Radical party; and in January 1886,
when M. Freycinet was brought into power by the support of the Radical
leader, Boulanger was given the post of war minister.

By introducing genuine reforms for the benefit of officers and common
soldiers alike, and by laying himself out for popularity in the most
pronounced fashion--notably by his fire-eating attitude towards Germany
in April 1887 in connexion with the Schnaebele frontier
incident--Boulanger came to be accepted by the mob as the man destined
to give France her revenge for the disasters of 1870, and to be used
simultaneously as a tool by all the anti-Republican intriguers. His
action with regard to the royal princes has already been referred to,
but it should be added that Boulanger was taunted in the Senate with his
ingratitude to the duc d'Aumale, and denied that he had ever used the
words alleged. His letters containing them were, however, published, and
the charge was proved. Boulanger fought a bloodless duel with the baron
de Lareinty over this affair, but it had no effect at the moment in
dimming his popularity, and on M. Freycinet's defeat in December 1886 he
was retained by M. Goblet at the war office. M. Clemenceau, however, had
by this time abandoned his patronage of Boulanger, who was becoming so
inconveniently prominent that, in May 1887, M. Goblet was not sorry to
get rid of him by resigning. The mob clamoured for their "brav'
general," but M. Rouvier, who next formed a cabinet, declined to take
him as a colleague, and Boulanger was sent to Clermont-Ferrand to
command an army corps. A Boulangist "movement" was now in full swing.
The Bonapartists had attached themselves to the general, and even the
comte de Paris e