BOULANGER, GEORGE ERNEST JEAN MARIE (1837-1891), French general, was born at Rennes on April 29, 1837. He entered the army in 1856, and served in Algeria, Italy, Cochin-China and the Franco-German War, earning the repu tation of being a smart soldier. He was made a brigadier-general in 1880 on the recommendation of the duc d'Aumale, then com manding 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 duc d'Aumale from the army list as part of the republican campaign against the Orleanist and Bona partist princes. In 1882 he became director of infantry at the war office, and in 1884 he was appointed to command the army occupying Tunis, but was recalled owing to 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. Clemen ceau and the Radical party; and in January 1886, when M. Frey cinet was brought into power by the support of the Radical lead er, Boulanger became war minister.
By introducing genuine reforms for the benefit of officers and common soldiers alike, and by seeking popularity in the most pro nounced fashion, he came to be accepted by the mob as the man destined to give France her revenge for the disasters of 187o, and to be used simultaneously as a tool by all the anti-Republican in triguers. 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 proved. Boulanger fought a bloodless duel with the baron de Lareinty over this affair. On M. Freycinet's defeat in Dec. 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 "bray' 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 at tached themselves to the general, and even the Comte de Paris encouraged his followers to support him, to the dismay of those oia-iasnionea tcoyaeists wno resentea tsouianger s V1 the duc d'Aumale. He was deprived of his command in 1888 for twice coming to Paris without leave, and finally on the recom mendation of a council of inquiry composed of five generals his name was removed from the army list. He was almost at once elected to the Chamber for the Nord, on a programme for the revision of the Constitution. A popular hero survives many de ficiencies, and neither his failure as an orator nor the humiliation of a discomfiture in a duel with M. Floquet, then an elderly civilian, sufficed to check the enthusiasm of his following. Dur ing 1888 his personality was the dominating feature of French politics, and, when he resigned his seat as a protest against the reception given by the Chamber to his revisionist proposals, con stituencies vied with one another in selecting him as their repre sentative. At last, in January 1889, he was returned for Paris by an overwhelming majority. He had now become an open menace to the parliamentary Republic. Possibly he might at this moment have effected the coup d'etat which the intriguers had worked for, and might not improbably have made himself master of France; but the favourable opportunity passed. The govern ment, with A1. Constans as minister of the interior, had been quietly taking its measures for bringing a prosecution against him, and within two months a warrant was signed for his arrest. To the astonishment of his friends, on April 1 he fled from Paris before it could be executed, going first to Brussels and then to London. It was the end of the political danger, though Boulangist echoes con tinued for a little while to reverberate at the polls during 1889 and 189o. Boulanger himself, having been tried and condemned in absentia for treason, in Oct. 1889, went to live in Jersey. On Sept. 3o, 1891, he committed suicide in Brussels.