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That the French should enshrine his memory in phrases to which their literary skill gives a world-wide vogue is natural, seeing that he ended their days of isolation and saved them from the consequences of Boulangism; but it still has to be proved that, apart from the Schnaebele affair, Germany ever sought a quarrel with France during the reign of Alexander III.; and it may finally appear that the Triple Alliance was the genuinely conservative league which saved Europe from the designs of the restless Republic and the exacting egotism of Alexander III.
He became as brave as he had been timorous, and with all due energy he proceeded to carry out his instructions. Boulangism was crushed and held up to public opprobrium and ridicule; and but for the culpable weakness and connivance of M. Felix Faure and his favourite Prime Minister, M. Meline, it would never have revived in its varied forms of anti-Semitism, anti-Dreyfusism, etc.
The only year that we gave ourselves any trouble was during the Boulanger craze. W. went about a great deal and I often went with him. The weather was beautiful and we rode all over the country. We were astounded at the progress "Boulangism" had made in our quiet villages.
In spite of every attempt to render popular education unsectarian throughout France, how long it will be ere the same mental training is accorded both sexes ere, to use Gambetta's noble words, 'our girls and boys are made one by the understanding before they are made one by the heart'! Is it any wonder that Boulangism, miracle-seeking, or any other mental aberration, gets the upper hand in France, so long as young girls are reared by convent-bred women, and their brothers and lovers-to-be in the school of Littre, Herbert Spencer, and Darwin?
Those who in recent years have studied the popular movement known under the name of Boulangism have been able to see with what ease the religious instincts of crowds are ready to revive. There was not a country inn that did not possess the hero's portrait. He was credited with the power of remedying all injustices and all evils, and thousands of men would have given their lives for him.
For once the authorities took the initiative; and when the new Premier, Tirard, took action against him for treason, he fled to Brussels on the appropriate date of the 1st of April. Thenceforth, the Royalist-Bonapartist-Radical hybrid, known as Boulangism, ceased to scare the world; and its challenging snorts died away in sounds which were finally recognised as convulsive brayings.
The triumph of Boulangism would be the signal for horrible anarchy at home and war abroad, provoked by the madmen who had climbed into power. Monarchy, in the person of the Comte de Paris, is losing rather than gaining ground here. If France should ever return to a dynasty, it would be more likely to be the Bonapartes.
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