"What made you certain in advance?"
"A rule known to astute politicians—2 and 2 make 4. It is not altered by Home Rule, or other matters."
I have often observed, with forty years of opportunity for doing so, that few persons know so little of conditions in Ireland, of Irish conditions in Parliament, of the "Irish movement", whatever that may be at any given time, as the Americans, and particularly the Irish in America. I have had my share of rebuke for mentioning this. An illustration will serve.
During the summer of 1890 I had a few weeks in the United States. One evening in Boston I happened to meet, as I was passing his office, a man whom I knew well, Jeffrey Roche, Editor ofThe Pilot, an Irish paper and the principal organ of Roman Catholicism in New England. Roche had been the assistant, and later became the successor, to the late John Boyle O'Reilly, and like him was a delightful and lovable fellow and the writer of charming verse. He hated England, of course, and as I did not, we had many tilts, in print and out of it, but we were always good friends.
"Hullo, Jeffrey," said I.
"Hullo, my enemy," said he, laughing as we shook hands.
"Why 'enemy'?" I asked. "Has poor old Ireland another grievance?"
"You wronged Parnell!"
"Sit down and tell me about it," said I.
And we went to dine at the nearest restaurant where the dear fellow explained that an article ofmine, sent from London and published in theBoston Heraldduring the previous February, had "scandalised all Irishmen" and "imperilled the chances of Home Rule."
"Dear, dear," said I, "that's a lot for one man to do! How did it happen?"
"Your article said that an action for divorce had been entered by a Captain O'Shea who named Parnell as corespondent."
"Well, what of it? Everybody knows it."
"I don't know it. We don't know it here. Nobody knows it."
"And you 're an editor, Jeffrey! Is that the way you keep the run of the news?"
"Such a case has never been tried."
"It has notyetbeen tried, you mean. Of course not; it has to take its turn. It will come on in the autumn."
"Who is O'Shea?"
I stared at Roche in amazement. And then I laughed.
"Jeffrey," said I, "you do it very well."
"Do what? No," said he, "it is n't acting. Who is he?"
I told him, and added that the question had been put differently by the Irish members of Parliament a long time ago. They asked at one time—"Why is he?" After a while they asked nothing.
"And your article said that the Irish party would turn against Parnell if the case were tried, and that the English Liberals would throw him over, and the Home Rule cause would go to pieces."
"Pardon me, Jeffrey, my article said that those would be some of the results if O'Shea won his case, not if the case were tried."
"Gladstone would n't turn against Parnell!"
"Jeffrey, if that's all you know about the Irish Question, take my advice and return to Ireland by the next ship and study it on the spot. Then go to Westminster and study it there. Learn what the Unionists think, what Liberals think, and what Mr. Gladstone, as leader of the Liberal Party, has to think, and—"
"It's another Piggott trick! Parnell's defence will show it all up."
"Suppose he should n't defend himself?"
"That's unfair!"
"Let me tell you a thing or two. Make a note of 'em, and see what happens within a year!"
In the course of the next two hours Roche heard more of the inside of Irish and English politics than I would have supposed could previously have escaped an editor's mind. It was clear that the comings and goings of Irish parliamentarians bent on propaganda and money-raising had not left behind much information that could guide a distant editor over a course abounding with obstacles. My experience with Roche that evening resembled all the experiences I have ever had in the United States when talking on the Irish question with persons who seemed really anxious for information. And the situation is much the same at this hour, differing only in kind, not in degree.
The events of November and December, 1890,proved to my doubting friend the truth of all I had told in print or out of it during the preceding months. But he was as much surprised at the end of the year as he had been when I talked with him in May. Roche died years ago; perhaps he knew by that time how matters stood. At all events, perhaps he knows now. The Irish in America were not in those days, and have not been since then much or far behind the scenes of a certain political stage. They have paid their money, and, like other audiences, have remained in front to watch, to listen, to applaud, or to hiss. If they have frequently applauded or derided in the wrong places, other audiences beholding other dramas have done no less.
The conditions in Ireland, and concerning Ireland, are not new to me. I have known them pretty well for forty years. If I were an Irishman I would think, no doubt, on most points political, with other fellow countrymen of my party. But what party would that be? I might answer, if you could tell me where I would have been born and of what religious faith. My sympathy with Ireland is deep; it would be so, if only for the matchless, the invincible stupidity with which she has been and is still governed. But her "injustices" and "woes" have long since been wiped out. That is one thing they do not know in America. But it is unnecessary to go beyond certain Nationalist speeches in the House of Commons to learn as much. John Redmond said a good deal on that point. But now there are no Nationalist speeches, no Nationalist members to speak of. The Nationalist Party is dead. TheIrish seats in the House of Commons are empty, voluntarily empty. Had Ireland done her share in the War, she would have had Home Rule before the Armistice. But she would not do her share, and she does not appear to desire Home Rule, and Great Britain did not try to force her. In America the meaning of this is not quite understood. While Great Britain was sending millions of men to the front, while her manhood was everywhere conscripted, while her fathers and sons were fighting the malignant German, while she was depriving herself of money, food, clothing, economising in the very necessaries of life, not merely in order to provide for her armies, but to aid her allies, Ireland did nothing. Ireland's food was not rationed; she had plenty and to spare; plenty to eat, plenty to drink, plenty to wear; petrol and motor cars were not forbidden her, they were forbidden to Britain; the luxuries which Britain denied herself were abundant in Ireland; she was, in fact, the most favoured country in Europe. She was never so prosperous as throughout the war.
But not a hand would she lift to defend her soil against the Germans. Thousands of Irishmen were at the front; they fought splendidly, but it was not in accordance with the will of Ireland that they fought. It was because they willed it themselves. Ireland was exempted from conscription. Englishmen and Scotsmen, Welshmen and Cornishmen, all the men and all the women from Land's End to John O'Groat's have long memories for things like that. And so have many Americans.
It is useless, I suppose, to say that Parnell's course had he lived to and through the war time, still leading Irish politics, would have been this, or would have been that. He did not have to face such conditions; they were not forward in his time, but they were always at the back of the minds of some British statesmen, and he knew it. He knew that the dominant reason which stood between Ireland and Independence was the need of Great Britain to guard herself against attacks and invasions from the Continent. France was thought to be the potential enemy then, as she had been supposedly since the days of Napoleon I. Well, we know what Germany did. England could no more allow the island on her western flank to become an independent power than the United States could permit any of her forty-eight States to break away from the family roof. Are arguments for separation based on racial and religious differences more valid in the case of Ireland than they are in the case of the United States? What are the racial differences between Ireland and Great Britain compared with the racial differences in the United States, differences which arose through conquest and purchase, not alone through immigration? The Indians, the Mexicans, the Spaniards, the French, the Negroes? And then the welter of immigrations on top of these? And is the argument for majority rule, based, as it is usually, upon the majority in Ireland, more valid? Ireland is, and has been for centuries, an integral part, a vital part of the political organism known since 1801 as "the United Kingdom", andof that organism the Irish population, in Ireland, is but a small minority of the whole! In an age of democracy shall a minority rule? In the United States we know something about secession; we have clear and firm opinions on it now. Why should we expect Britain to permit the secession of Ireland? And if the Ulster problem presents such "vast difficulties", what becomes of the famous panacea—Self-Determination? Won't the panacea work in Ulster's case?
These points were just as clear in Parnell's day as they are this morning. The Home Rule cause was one thing; the Separatist, Independence case was quite distinctly another thing. Parnell knew that he could never satisfy Ireland if Independence were what she wanted. The hot-heads in her politics were seeking that and not Home Rule. Home Rule was almost won by Parnell; after him it was thrown away by bitter dissensions within his party. Thirty years more were required to bring the factions to a point where they could pull together. Then the inevitable dissensions broke out anew. The power that had been John Redmond's slipped away, and Redmond's party went to pieces as Parnell's had done. It is folly to put the blame on the Nationalists alone, or on the Ulstermen alone. The conditions do not mix. They are antagonistic.
And, though the ideals of Ulster are not the ideals of the rest of Ireland, must Ulster be punished for her ideals? Ulster asks the privilege of being loyal to Britain. Must she then be punished for herloyalty and punished by Britain? That is a question which Americans who are so frequently called upon to interfere in the Irish question never ask themselves, because it is never presented to them. But if they were to ask it concerning any State in the American Union in its relation to the Government at Washington, there is no doubt what their answer would be.
What of the rest of Ireland? At present the Sinn Feiners have the floor. They proclaim openly what the Nationalists, or most of them, are said to have concealed; their object,—Independence. But they know that if Ireland should become an Independent Power, she must meet her obligations of financial maintenance. She could not meet them without drawing upon, or absorbing the revenues of Ulster. And she might not be able to meet them then. Are these matters, and matters such as these, to be settled, or even helped by pious resolutions passed in Madison Square Garden, or Faneuil Hall, or the Congress at Washington?
It might be thought that the ingenuity of man, to say nothing of his justice, could find a way out of this age-long dilemma. It can be seen that the dilemma is not quite so simple as at a distance it has been commonly supposed. And it can be said that difficult as the problem is, it has become none the less difficult through the conflict of views and policies of Sinn Feiners, clericals, Home Rulers, Ulstermen, the Asquith government, or the Lloyd-George government, politicians in America, or rhetoricians anywhere.
I find that thirty years ago I wrote in an American newspaper: "Parnell puzzles the British mind, because measures proposed in behalf of Ireland are rejected whether they come from Mr. Gladstone or from Mr. Balfour. It has not yet dawned upon the British mind that Parnell means that Parliament wastes its time over land bills and other remedial legislation; that the Irish mean to settle the land question, and all other Irish questions, without English assistance. What he wants is Home Rule and not land acts. What he wants beyond Home Rule he does not say, and no one is in his confidence."
It was all very well, but he could not prevent the Briton from bringing gifts, nor could he avoid him. The world has moved a long way since Parnell died and has brought changes of which he did not dream. But there, stripped of detail, was his object. If the ultimate object were not set forth, it was because he wanted Ireland to get Home Rule first. The difficulties of the step beyond that he knew well and appreciated thoroughly. Perhaps it was because he knew the British view so well, and could understand it so well because he was half-English and half-American, that his point of view was not limited by Irish experiences and aspirations. It may be that he did not expect Independence in his time, perhaps not really at any time. But whether he did or not, he said in the House of Commons, in April, 1890, "We have not based our claims to nationhood on the sufferings of our country." Well, if they were based on othergrounds, it is likely that he saw insurmountable obstacles in their way.
I am far from agreeing with the conventional assertion that Parnell wrecked his party and postponed Home Rule by a generation. Such assertions are made easily, and they are easily accepted by the crowd. They ignore many other factors, even factors that I have suggested here. And they ignore the necessity which all politicians were under, or supposed themselves to be under, of claiming a virtue, though some had it not. I think of some politicians who were professionally horrified over the O'Shea case, although their own lives would not have borne the examination of a divorce court, and who had not in their lives the mitigating circumstance that Parnell had,—an absorbing love. And I think of the politicians who were professionally "surprised" but who had had a long preparation for what was coming. All the forces of hypocrisy and cant were let loose at that time, all the forces of envy, hatred, malice, and uncharitableness; and they did not rest until Parnell was crushed and dead. The spectacle was enough to make one nauseated forever with politics—and some other things.
Mrs. Parnell's book on her husband, published in 1916, throws a clear light upon that chapter in Parnell's life. I see no reason to doubt its statements and conclusions; I see many reasons for accepting them. They confirm the impressions that many of us had thirty years ago, and relate facts that some of us more than surmised at thattime, and before it. It is scarcely possible for them to deal with the hypocrisy and jealousy, revengefulness and cant that broke a man's life and a nation's cause. These were not in Ireland alone. Britain and America had their share.
Was Parnell a great man? I am inclined to think that he just missed greatness. If he had won, there would be no doubt, I suppose. That he was the man for his time there can be no denying. It is idle, I suppose, to speculate whether he would have been the man for the time after Home Rule had been gained, for then the duties would have been vastly different. And yet they would have called for qualities not common among Irishmen, among political Irishmen in Ireland, I mean,—the qualities that made him eminent and successful as a leader. He was not eloquent, but eloquence is not essential to greatness. He did not inspire affection, devotion. To this it may be answered that the people of his country loved him. So they did. But a great many politicians who were his followers did not. Some of them entertained for him emotions quite opposite to love. Of course he inspired respect; more than that, he instilled fear into the hearts of his parliamentary army. They feared him then. But if his aloofness, his detachment from the usual, even the unusual, affairs of society and human interest, was one of his most remarkable characteristics, it was in his favour rather than against him, it contributed to "the mystery" in which his personality was shrouded, a mystery cultivated less by himself than by legend.An eminent politician whose life is isolated must be "mysterious" to the crowd.
He did not care for the play, for music, for pictures, or for literature, excepting when literature bore upon the work in hand. He did not care for society, for sport, for games of any kind. And so he was a mystery to more countries than one. He was easily bored; the ordinary life of politics bored him, his followers bored him; it often bored him to make a speech. His power was in his set purpose, his concentration upon it, his absolute disinterestedness. Save in one instance, he ground no axe and was not the cause of axe-grinding by others.
Although he was not an orator, he could and did put a case plainly, strongly, indeed with very great strength. He was cool when it paid to be cool, vigorous when vigour was required; he was seldom impassioned. When he was angriest he was least stirred. Internally he might rage, as when under general attack, when the assailants were, in a double sense, offensive, but outwardly he would be calm and pale. You would know when he felt the fiercest stress, not by his voice nor by his actions, but by his pallor. It was only in the last months of his life that he gave his temper free rein, let himself go, fiercely lashed his opponents, hitherto his partisans. There was something of revenge in this, of resentful wrath long pent up. Who shall say it was not justified, or that it was unnatural?
What he would have been as an administrator we have no means of knowing. What he wouldhave been as the leader of an Irish parliament we may at least imagine. He had always been in Opposition. What he would have been in power we may guess but never know. But his lot would not have been enviable. It was never enviable. His death, in 1891, was a happy release.
WhowasBoulanger?
At the Cheshire Cheese, a year before the war, a young Fleet Streeter asked the question. He had heard some of us spinning yarns. But the name of Boulanger meant nothing to him. The world was created in the year he came to Fleet Street, say in 1908.
There are times when I feel it necessary to apologise for writing of the days of antiquity. There will certainly be some one to exclaim, when he sees the heading of this chapter, "Why drag Boulanger intoLondon Days?"
One answer would be: Because I knew Boulanger in London.
"Was he ever here? How strange we should have forgotten it!"
Not in the least strange. Boulanger was forgotten soon after he arrived. He arrived at the Hotel Bristol, behind Burlington House, and was cheered by a few waiters and chambermaids. It was a murky afternoon in the summer of '89,—dark, damp, and dreary. I saw him alight from his carriage. Some of the papers next day told of "the enthusiasticgreeting" he had received. Thus history is made. A few waiters, a porter or two, half a dozen chambermaids, and, of course, a manager. These were the enthusiasts.
It was a little disappointing to those who love "scenes", or have to describe them. Nothing happened. Of course, it was not disappointing to realise that one was a prophet. I had prophesied a scene like this, months before, when quite another kind of scene was being played in Paris, when Boulanger had the ball at his feet, or the game in his hands, if you prefer a choice of metaphors. He did n't play. There was merely an escape of gas from the balloon. The gas was not inflammable.
"Le brav' Général" they called him. Up to the twenty-eighth of January, 1889, he was the hope of France. He was to be Head of the Army, Prime Minister, or President, or King, or Emperor, or Dictator, whatever he chose. He was to save France. She needed saving. Politically, she was in the dismallest bog. She needed a MAN, thought she had found him in Boulanger, and on the twenty-seventh of January, Paris was to elect him to Parliament. Paris would give him a backing so enormous that he would "seize the reins of power." There would be acoup d'état. That was what the papers said. There was quite a commotion, naturally.
Obviously I must go to Paris before the twenty-seventh; I must see thecoup d'étatwhose approach was thundering from all the presses of Europe. There would be articles by the yard. In thosetimes, newspaper reproductions of photographs were even less satisfactory than they are now. I looked about for an artist who could go with me and illustrate my articles. He must know something about the trick of drawing for newspaper reproduction, he must be a quick worker, for there was no time to be lost, and he must not be too well known because the chances were that a well-known artist would n't be able to cast his work aside at a day's notice, and bolt with me for Paris. I sent my assistant to find the right man.
He returned to me with a dejected look. "I 've found only one man who can go," said he.
"One is enough," said I.
"Yes, but—will he do? I 've only these two specimens of his work to show you." And he laid two small drawings before me.
"Capital!" said I.
"He has been in Paris, studied art there. And he lives in Chelsea."
"Terms all right?" I asked.
"Yes."
"Then I 'll see him to-morrow. By the way, what is his name?
"L. Raven-Hill."
And so it came about that the young man—he was a very young man then, under twenty-two—who was to win fame as one of the principal cartoonists for Punch, went to Paris with me and illustrated the Boulanger election. He illustrated for me other subjects in and about Paris. And when I went to Ireland, to do a series of articles a littlelater, he was the illustrator. And he drew London subjects for me. In fact, he was for about six months my chosen illustrator. Then somebody in authority on the other side of the Atlantic wanted the preference given to certain other artists. Authority, of course, had to be obeyed, since it was paymaster. And in this case it had in its eye one or two young men who had come abroad, and who had influence enough to pull strings at headquarters. They were cousins to the owner's aunts, or something like that. Their work was too careless, grotesque, and altogether weak. After allowing them sufficient opportunity to demonstrate this, even to the satisfaction of their proprietary relatives, they were released from service. And ever afterwards I insisted upon choosing my own illustrators. But meantime I had lost Raven-Hill, and some foreign mission calling me afield, there was no opportunity for renewing the connection. When I returned to London, Raven-Hill had found his feet, as I knew he would. The other day we compared our recollections of that time. They did not differ.
His work was admirable, even in those early days. It lent distinction to the text. I daresay that may have been the only distinction the text had. Raven-Hill entered into the spirit of the thing, and would go to any inconvenience to get what I wanted. And in the Boulanger campaign, that meant a good deal of inconvenience. We travelled by night trains because they were cheapest. If they were cheapest, they were also slowest. But all was grist that came to our mill.
Paris we reached two days before the election. We looked for excitement but found none. It is not every day that Paris elects a "Saviour of France." It was preparing to elect one, and it was certain that he was to save France. There was a frenzy of bill-posting, but that was all. All the electioneering was done by post and posters. Not a speech was made. Posters covered everything, inches deep. Paris was smothered by them. Boulanger posters were covered with Jacques posters. Jacques was the candidate opposing "Le brav' Général." Jacques was a nobody with money. Only a nobody with money could have afforded to stand against "Le brav' Général." Before he offered himself for the sacrifice, nobody had ever heard of Jacques. After election day nobody heard of him again. He had his little explosion of glory, and then happy obscurity. But his account for bill-posting and printing must have been heavy. So must have been Boulanger's.
Statuary was covered with bills, and so were cabs. A Boulangist would plaster a bill over the nose of a bronze lion. A Jacquesist would follow and cover the Boulangist bill. The lion in the Place de la Republique was hideous with bills from his snout to the tip of his tail, a great-coat of paper. Above the lion a stone shaft was inscribed:
ALA GLOIREDE LARÉPUBLIQUEFRANÇAISE
The Glory of the French Republic seemed great enough to bear with equanimity the burden of Boulangist printing. The men who were posting Boulangist bills carried ladders. The Jacques men had no ladders. And so the Boulangists had the best of it. Wherever there was a smooth surface, and in numerous places where there was not, bills went up. They were manifestoes, proclamations, election cries. Nobody made a speech. The printer did all. Arches, façades, trees, cabs, even the Opera House itself, theatres, shops, were splashed with coloured bills, Boulanger over Jacques and Jacques over Boulanger. And only small boys took notice.
The papers said that large reserves of police were held in readiness; they said the military had been strengthened. One of them said that detachments of cavalry had been shod with rubber so they might come noiselessly upon rioters and smite them unawares. An editor applauded the ingenious device. He forgot that King Lear, long before, had thought it
"... a delicate stratagemTo shoe a troop of horse with felt."
The London papers were even more excited than the French. In fact, it had been the alarmist reports of Paris correspondents and news bureaux that had incited me to the journey. I looked for the exciting scenes these gentlemen had witnessed and foretold. There was nothing visible to justify their fears. Where were the marching crowds that were singing "The Marseillaise"? They had not marched, theyhad not assembled, they had not sung a note. It is not easy to describe an invisible demonstration.
We went wherever a demonstration was possible or probable; we covered Paris by cab, by bus, on foot. Excepting for the posters, Paris carried itself as usual.
"Go to the Fourth Arrondissement if you would see the fun," said a friendly councillor who knew the ropes. We went, but "the fun" did not come. We found three hundred persons at themairie, half of them registering, and the other half looking on. They were as solemn as if they had been paying taxes. The next day, Sunday, the voting took place. There were 568,697 voters on the registries of Paris. Of these 32,837 did not vote at all, and 27,118 voted neither for Boulanger nor for Jacques. Boulanger won, hands down.
At eleven o'clock on the Sunday morning we were at Boulanger's house, expecting that the world would be there. The world was not there, nor was anybody but ourselves. The Rue Dumont d'Urville (Boulanger lived at Number 11) looked deserted. It was off theChamps Élysées, near theArc de Triomphe. A thousand persons a day had, for weeks, been calling on "Le brav' Général." In the preceding fortnight the number had doubled. "To-day the General receives no one," said the boy in buttons who was sweeping out the hall. So much the better; if he receives no one to-day, the more chance of seeing him. Besides, Raven-Hill wanted to draw Boulanger from the life. It would be a fine thing to have drawn the "Saviour of France" on theday when he saved France; perhaps while he was in the very act of saving her.
"It is impossible," repeated the boy in buttons, "the General does not receive to-day."
But the General was a political candidate, and the boy in buttons was a Jew. Palm oil passed from one of us to the buttoned youth. Raven-Hill sketched him. Jointly we begged for his autograph. He wrote it underneath his portrait—"Joseph."
"Joseph," said I, "you are famous from this hour. Your portrait will appear in an American newspaper." Joseph grinned. He yielded. He disappeared with our cards. Returning presently, he said that the General would receive us, and he directed us up the stairs. On a landing above stood "Le brav' Général." He bowed, he shook hands in the English fashion, he did not embrace us in the French; he smiled, he bade us enter his study. Monsieur l'artiste might sketch where he liked. And R-H. sat in a corner, which commanded the large room, and began to draw without losing a minute.
Would M. le Général talk with me a little while the artist drew?
M. le Général begged a thousand pardons, but he was too much occupied; moreover he was never interviewed. Would we smoke? We would. He passed cigarettes.
"But, M. le Général, the election?"
"C'est une chose faite!"
That was all he would say. And then it was only eleven in the morning. But he declared that thething was done. And this with a calmly complacent air. I admired his "nerve", as we would say in America. But that was all he would say:
"C'est une chose faite!"
He repeated it. And I took it that France was saved. And so she was, but not in the way he had expected; and not by him.
Raven-Hill, whose French was at any rate in better working order than mine, tried questioning, but "Le brav' Général," with great courtesy, begged a thousand pardons and deprecated "interviewing."
I begged ten thousand pardons, and R-H. resumed his sketching. "Le brav' Général" handed me a small bundle of printed matter,—pamphlets, proclamations, manifestoes, announcements. I would find it all there, he said. I looked them over, thanking him, and saying that I had previously read them, which was the case.
"Ah," said he, "c'est une chose faite."
As a matter of fact, I was quite content. I was getting what I wanted, the drawings. I did not want political platitudes, and before election day I had formed the opinion that political platitudes were the General's stock-in-trade. He had not a single political idea. What he always said was what his backers wanted him to say.
He was "the man-on-horseback", and that was enough. France had been looking a long time for the man-on-horseback. He would ride in and conquer the internal foes of France; they were numerous enough and to spare. He would unite the country, bring it stability, cleanse the Augeanstables, win back Alsace-Lorraine, humble the Germans who had humiliated them, who had menaced them ever since 1870-1871. He would be a MAN, this man-on-horseback. And Boulanger had been riding a white horse these three years. Sometimes he rode a black horse.
At one end of the room, behind the chair where he sat at his writing table, was a large painting, a very large one, of General Boulanger on his horse.
The room in which we sat was large, too. It had been a studio and was now a study. A great fireplace occupied one end of it, and the General on horseback occupied the other end. The general himself sat below the portrait, at his writing table, while Raven-Hill drew and I smoked. He could not have better suited the artist's purpose. He was not quite like the photographs, engravings, paintings, "reproductions" of him that one had seen, and that filled France. His hair was not clear black, and brushed nattily; it was streaked with grey, and worn shoe-brush fashion. His beard was tawny, touched with grey. His face was a stronger one, his head a better one, than the conventional portraits prepared you for. He was between fifty-one and fifty-two at that time. A handsome man, but disappointing. He did n't impress one as being a man of authority, of decisions. What his mouth was like, and what his chin, I do not know. His beard concealed them. But I did not get from him the impression of strength. And yet he was the most popular man in France. And that day the eyes not only of France, but of Europe, were watching him.
His face was deeply lined; his eyes were grey; he was in fatigue dress. May I whisper in your ear? I do not believe that he was pressed with work; I believe that he was posing for us.
He was a vain creature. His vanity had been much indulged during the three years or more preceding. He was an ordinary man of showy gifts, an efficient general in a small way. He had been a favourite of fortune, and usually in trouble with his superior officers. He always came out of the trouble "at the top of the heap", as they say. Freycinet made him Minister of War in '86. The Ministry of War advertised him up and down the land. It may be said to have begun his popularity. He looked well after the lot of the private soldier. As the private soldier came from every home in France, Boulanger had advocates who carried his name and praises to every fireside. He understood that sort of thing. His star was rising fast. He glittered before the eyes of all men. He was an heroic figure at reviews, a much sought figure in drawing-rooms; the clericals were zealous in his favour, purses were at his disposal. He was the popular hero, without having done anything heroic. Powerful partisans played, even paid for his favour. His principal backer was the Duchesse D'Uzes. There was an abundance of money.
Well, when the artist had got what he wanted, had drawn the room and Boulanger, we took our leave and went forth for the melancholy Jacques and election scenes, sayingau revoirto Joseph at the door. Joseph said—I think he had beeninstructed to say it—and he said it with an air of one who whispered confidences:
"The General will dine this evening at the Café Durand."
The Café Durand, of course, was opposite the Madeleine. We stopped there on our way about town. We lunched there, and made friends with the head waiter, Edmond, a portly personage of manner and renown. Edmond was enlisted, as Joseph had been. And he signed his portrait with a flourish quite royal—Edmond Ulray.
Could R-H. see the private room in which General Boulanger and his friends would dine that evening?
But certainly. And Monsieur could draw it if he chose.
Of course, that was what he chose to do. And when the evening came, it was quite a simple matter for Edmond to arrange that R-H., without being seen, should draw "Le brav' Général", and Comte Dillon, and Paul de Cassagnac, Henri Rochefort, and Paul Deroulade, at the table, in the front room, up one flight, on the corner overlooking the Madeleine.
Here was the centre of interest that night,—that room in the Café Durand. Would "Le brav' Général" press the button there, spring hiscoup d'état, show himself to the crowd, and proceed triumphantly from there to the Élysées? That was what the crowd expected. That was what it wanted. I was outside with the crowd. R-H. was inside, sketching. It was marvellous how quickly he worked.
The crowd knew that Boulanger was in the CaféDurand; they knew that Jacques was in a café on the opposite side of the way; they knew which was the winner. And the thoroughfares were packed with people. They wanted to march, they wanted to sing, they wanted to cheer. But nobody started them. There was no demonstration. Neither side wished a demonstration to go the wrong way. Both sides knew that the government had determined to put down riots, revolutions, and disorders. But why did n't somebodystart something? Jacques, being defeated, did not show himself. Boulanger was victorious, but he did not show himself. The crowd moved back and forth, packed within the boulevards. But nothing happened. No hero appeared at a window; nobody made a speech; not a curtain was drawn aside; not a flag fluttered. By midnight the crowd had gone home to bed.
And that is why I prophesied that night Boulanger's utter collapse and his probable flight for safety. Little wisdom was required to make the prophecy. A man who has the ball at his foot and doesn't kick it is not the "saviour" of a nation. Boulanger had lost his chance. The next day he was no longer the most popular of Frenchmen.
He "saved France" by his failure.
A little later he fled to Belgium. A little later still he turned up in London, as I have said. But he did not stay long at the Hotel Bristol. He took a furnished house, Number 51 Portland Place, brought his horses from Paris, and gave out that he would ride in the Park at the fashionable hour. But he did not ride. And as he did not keep his wordin so small a matter, London lost what small interest it had in him when he did ride, or when he received. One day "a grand Boulangist demonstration" was announced to take place at the Alexandra Palace. Proceedings, more or less elaborate, were advertised, and they were to end with a "banquet" at five shillings a head. Covers were to be laid for twenty-six hundred persons. Only six hundred persons appeared. Boulanger was to be "the lion of the season." I don't know who thought so besides himself. He issued an address "To the People; My Sole Judge", meaning the people of Paris. The address was nine columns long!
It fell to my lot to interview him on two or three occasions. I did not wish to do so, but there were requests from headquarters. Each time he sang the old songs. The interview that you had with him one week would do for another, with the change of a few words. He really liked to talk. He pretended that he disliked being interviewed on political subjects, but that was mere mock-modesty. He spoke English well enough. In fact, he had been a schoolboy at Brighton, and he had represented France at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876. He was merely "layin' low" that day in Paris, like Brer Fox, only he was not Brer Fox, his one desire being not to have anything said or done on the twenty-seventh of January that would give the Government an excuse for a raid on his designs. I think he was rather a pitiable object. Few others thought so before the twenty-eighth of January, 1889. He was merely a mechanism for the issue ofpromissory notes. It was about two years after his arrival in London that he committed suicide on the continent.
How well he illustrated Lincoln's saying about "fooling the people"! But he did not fool himself. He was the tool of more designing persons.
"C'est une chose faite."
Aberdeen University,85
Acting, art of,187,188,191
Admiralty, the,11
Agassiz, Mrs.,128
Alaska(steamer),6
Albert Hall,16
Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, anecdote of,227-228; on Tennyson Memorial committee,128
Aldworth, summer home of Tennyson,125,126
Aldwych,11
Alhambra (music hall),16
Alma-Tadema, Sir Laurens,45,52
Alsatia(Anchor Line steamer),1; description of,3-4
"Altavona" (by Blackie),87
Amiens,24; cathedral of,20
Anecdotes of Aldrich,227-228; of Drummond,181-182; of Gladstone,232-233; of Tennyson,121,122-123,129-130,134,136; of Whistler,157-160,162,163,164,166-167
Antiquary(magazine),133
Architecture of London,10-13
Arizona(Guion Line steamer),6,39
Arnold, Sir Edwin, quoted,124
Artistic sensibilities, author's comment on,237-238
Atelier Gleyre, Paris,45