The Freycinet, Goblet, and Rouvier Cabinets, which fill the rest of Grévy's Presidency, were largely engrossed with a new danger in the person of General Boulanger. He first appeared in a prominent position as Minister of War in the Freycinet Cabinet. A young, brilliant, and popular though unprincipled officer, he soon devoted himself to demagogy and put himself at the head of the jingoes who called Ferry the slave of Bismarck. The expeditions of Tunis and Tonkin had, moreover, thrown a glamour over the flag and the army. Boulanger began at once to play politics and catered to the advanced parties, who adopted him as their own. He backed up the spectacular expulsion of the princes, which, as an answer to the monarchical progress, drove from France the heads of formerly reigning families and their direct heirs in line of primogeniture, and carried out their radiation from the army. The populace cheered the gallant general on his black horse, and when Bismarck complained that he was a menace to the peace of Europe Boulanger's fortune seemed made. At a certain moment France and Germany were on the brink of war in the so-called Schnaebele affair.[13] So, when Boulanger was left out of the Rouvier Cabinet combination in May, 1887, as dangerous, he played more than ever to the gallery as the persecuted saviour of France and, on being sent to take command of an army corps in the provinces at Clermont-Ferrand, he was escorted to the train by thousands of enthusiastic manifestants. Meanwhile, President Grévy was nearing a disaster. In October, 1887, General Caffarel, an important member of the General Staff, was arrested for participating in the sale of decorations. When Boulanger declared that the arrest of Caffarel was an indirect assault on himself, originally responsible for Caffarel's appointment to the General Staff, the affair got greater notoriety. The scandal assumed national proportions when it was found to involve the President's own son-in-law Daniel Wilson, well known to be a shady and tricky politician, who had the octogenarian President under his thumb. The matter reached the scale of a Cabinet crisis, since it was by an overthrow of the Ministry that the President could best be reached. Unfortunately, Grévy could not see that the most dignified thing for him to do was to resign, even though he was in no way involved in Wilson's misdemeanors. For days he tried to persuade prominent men to form a Cabinet; he tried to argue his right and duty to remain. But finally the Chamber and Senate brought actual pressure upon him by voting to adjourn to specific hours in the expectation of a presidential communication. He bowed to the inevitable and retired from the Presidency with the reputation of a discredited old miser, instead of the great statesman he had appeared on beginning his term of office. FOOTNOTES: