London Days: A Book of Reminiscences

What he would have been as an administrator we have no means of knowing. What he would have 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.

CHAPTER XVII

"LE BRAV' GÉNÉRAL"

Who was Boulanger?

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 into London 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 enthusiastic greeting" 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 a coup 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 the coup d'état whose approach was thundering from all the presses of Europe. There would be articles by the yard. In those times, 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 little later, 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, they had 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 the mairie, 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 the Champs Élysées, near the Arc 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 the day 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 the thing 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 Augean stables, 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, saying au revoir to Joseph at the door. Joseph said—I think he had been instructed 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 his coup 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 Café Durand; 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 somebody start 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 word in 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 of promissory 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."