Description
His Visiting Card [General Boulanger], inscribed, declining to write for journals. In French. 3 x 4 inches, in good condition. Found among the correspondence received by Edward Arnold, the publlsher. Undated. General Georges Ernest Jean Marie Boulanger (1837-91) served in Italy, China, the Franco-Prussian War, and against the Commune. He commanded the army of occupation in Tunis (1884-85). He was Minister of War 1886-87, but was arrested for disobeying orders. Boulanger was called the ‘Man on Horseback’ because he often appeared mounted before the Paris crowds. His radical reforms, known as Boulangism and supported by leading Bonapartist and anti-German conspirators for their own ends, eventually rebounded on him. The government prosecuted Boulanger, who fled to Brussels and later shot himself.