It was in 1885 when he was made minister of war by M. Freycinet that General Boulanger began to attract public attention in France. He seemed to grow in importance with every month, and the noteworthy thing was that set-backs which would have ruined other men made him talked about the more, showing that he fulfilled or satisfied in some degree a deep-seated feeling in the mass of his compatriots. In 1888 there was a senatorial election in the Nord, where he had been elected a Deputy a couple of months before; yet his influence in the senatorial election was negligible-'an extinct volcano,' he was called-and sensible people pointed out that he had never given any indication of ability. He seemed to be finished, yet I heard him discussed on all sides in Paris.
The Deputy Laguerre was his strongest supporter in the Chamber, and Madame Laguerre-Marguerite Durand that was-had been a friend of mine years before when she was an actress in the Theatre Francais. I was always proud of having seen her ability from the beginning. I forget now what play she was acting in, but I remember afterwards she insisted on my telling her how she had acted. At that time I used to go to the Francais every night. I shocked her by saying, 'You'll never be a great actress; you are too intelligent.'
'What do you mean?' she cried. 'Surely intelligence is needed in every art?'
'Leave art out of the question,' I retorted. 'Acting is hardly worthy to be called an art; it is not intelligence that gives fame and popularity to the orator or actor: it's feeling, passion.'
'Do you think Sarah Bernhardt has more passion, more feeling than I have?' she asked disdainfully.
'Indeed I don't,' I replied, 'but she has much less intelligence and she has really an extraordinary organ, her voice. You are supremely occupied with thoughts, ideas, the future of humanity; Sarah cares for none of these things.
They handicap you as an actress; you should be a journalist or a propagandist.'
'I daresay you're right,' she said thoughtfully. Everyone knows how a few years later Marguerite Durand established the first woman's paper in Paris, and though she employed only girls and women on it, yet brought it to success. She married Laguerre but was never a thoroughgoing partisan of Boulanger, as he was. It was in '88 or '89, I think, that there was a great review of troops on the Champs de Mars, and General Boulanger led the column and was acclaimed by the crowd, who went mad in praise of le brav' General. He was indeed a brave figure on a horse: he had a good head and handsome face with brown beard and long floating moustache; he was broad, too, and strong, and sat his horse like a centaur. In an hour all Paris seemed to be in the streets:
I never saw such enthusiasm; the populace became delirious and a song in favour of the hero sprang from a myriad throats. I then realized how chauvinist the French public is!
Speaking to Madame Laguerre about it, the thought came into my head that the generation after the war of '70 was coming to manhood and aching for revenge, which perhaps explained Boulanger's colossal, astonishing popularity. She would not have it, but said she'd watch and let me know.
From another person, too, I heard about Boulanger.
I had known Rochefort and his paper the Intransigent for some time. He was really an extraordinary personage. I shall never forget his story of how he founded La Lanterne. He had got into trouble with Napoleon the Third whom, after Victor Hugo, he used to call 'Napoleon le petit,' and at length he fled to Brussels. There he resolved to bring out a paper to cast light into the dark places and so called it La Lanterne. 'But when the first copy was brought to me,' he said, 'I put it down in utter dejection. There were good things in it, but one thing was lacking: there was no powder in the tail of the rocket, nothing to drive it up and make every one buy it and talk. I sat the whole day beating my brain, trying to excogitate some word that would give it wings. Finally the printer's boy came to the door and I got up in despair: I thought of the state of France, with millions subject to that poor charlatan, and at once the word came. I wrote as the first paragraph: 'France counts thirty-five millions of subjects, not counting the subjects of discontent.'
But it was as a lover and critic of art that I really esteemed Henri Rochefort. I had bought my first Barye from him and from him I heard of the miserable poverty of the great sculptor. 'Barye,' he said, 'was so hard up that he often came to me with the model of a tigress or lion in his pocket and asked outright for help. Sometimes I could not buy his models; I was ashamed to offer so little for such masterpieces. I've bought his things as cheap as fifty francs a piece because I could not spare any more at the time, and now they're worth thousands and will be priceless. He was le Michelangelo des jauves, the Michelangelo of the Cat tribe'-a fine appreciation!
It was Rochefort who took me to see Boulanger in his house in the street Dumont d'Urville, near the Etoile. I was surprised to find Boulanger as short as I was; his torso was fine, but his legs were very short; he looked his best on horseback. With Rochefort he was silent: indeed, I was astounded to see how the clever and witty journalist assumed the lead and kept it. Rochefort was not a man to be content with a second place in any society; he was all nerves and audacity. A thin, slight figure about five feet nine or ten with silver hair bristling up like a brush from his high forehead and his brown eyes flaming, he literally stood over Boulanger and talked without a pause, laughing every now and then at his own phrases. Boulanger made an impression on me of kindliness and perhaps courage, but certainly not of command or dominant will. He was good-looking and of easy, pleasant manners, but not a great man in any sense of the word. When we went away and I spoke of Boulanger's silence, Rochefort said wittily, 'The flag does not need to be articulate.'
One later story of Rochefort should find its place here just to round off his portrait and explain the great place he held in Paris and the enormous influence he wielded. It was the beginning of the winter after Marchand was forced to retreat from Fashoda. France was in a fever: nine Frenchmen out of ten were bitterly incensed with the English. Rochefort wrote a leading article in which he asked Queen Victoria not to visit Nice that winter, as had been her custom in those latter years. He began very politely: 'France was more than hospitable, more than courteous to women,' he said, 'and especially to persons of distinguished virtue and position. For these reasons the baser sort of French journalist will assert that you, Madame, are a welcome visitor, but it won't be true; after Fashoda it'll be a lie. We don't want to be reminded of that intolerable humiliation, and especially not by the appearance of cette vieille caleche qui s'obstine a s'appeler Victoria' (that old stage-coach that persists in calling itself a Victoria). The word went all over France in an hour and had its effect, though masses of the better class of Frenchmen deplored the gratuitous insult to a harmless old lady.
Rochefort made no secret of his desire to overthrow the Republic in favour of a military despotism, and I believe it was he who told me that the Duchesse d'Uzes was supplying the Boulangists with funds. At any rate, I got to know it either from him or from Laguerre: one thing was sure; money was forthcoming to any extent.
I shall always be glad that I was in Paris at the end of January, 1889, and was invited by Rochefort to the famous dinner at the Cafe Durand, given in honour of Boulanger's triumph in the election of Paris. The voting was on the 27th of January and the excitement in Paris was incredible. The whole city and every monument in it was placarded with electoral appeals; now and then you read Jacques, but everywhere Boulanger. The posters alone must have cost a fortune: Paris was white with them. The popular newspapers, too, were filled with stories of the hero, everywhere his personality and his achievements; what might not be hoped from him! He was to be president or dictator, head of France, surely, and her army; the saviour of the people!
What did all this excitement mean? Even Marguerite Laguerre admitted to me that the thought of la revanche was in every French heart, and Boulanger was the selected hero of a new coup d'etat. She thought he would be elected and Laguerre put his majority at 25,000; but when the news came in that with half a million votes cast he had a majority of 100,000 (it was afterwards found to be 81,000), Paris went crazy. Even in the Hotel Meurice, where I was staying, there was an air of suppressed excitement. The manager came to see me while I was dressing. 'Will there be a revolution?' he wanted to know.
When I went out I found the streets crowded and finally took a cab and went round by the Grands Boulevards, as the rue Royale was crammed with people.
Never was there such a dinner: it took place in the big room on the first floor.
Everyone will remember that Durand's then was on the corner of the rue Royale, opposite the great Church of the Madeleine. I had been a customer at Durand's for some tune; the owner and the waiters knew me and I was ushered upstairs. Already some thirty or forty persons were seated at table.
At the end nearest the door le brav' General; near him on his right, I think, Comte Dillon, who as soon as he saw me called out and pointed to the empty chair beside him.
All round the table were journalists and deputies; I had hardly time to congratulate Boulanger when another visitor was being presented to him. I had only just shaken hands with Rochefort when he was dragged off to a conference at the other end of the room. When he returned, he was laughing.
'Think of it,' he said. 'That unfortunate Jacques, our opponent, is dining in the restaurant opposite.'
