One of the incidents which helped to enhance Boulanger's great popularity was what was known as the Schnäbele affair. This person was a French commissary who crossed the French frontier into Alsace-Lorraine to carry out some local business with a similar German official which concerned both countries. He was arrested by the German military authorities as not being in possession of a passport. This action may possibly have been technically justifiable, but certainly was a high-handed proceeding conducted in a high-handed way. At that time France was constantly feeling that she was in an inferior position to Germany, and her statesmen were slow to resent small injuries, knowing well that France was still in no position to make head against the great German military power, still less to avenge the crushing defeats of 1870-71. When, therefore, Boulanger took a firm stand in the matter and upheld in a very proper way the dignity of France, the whole country felt a sense of relief. France, then, was no longer a negligible quantity in Europe. M. de Bismarck could not always have his way, and Boulanger stood forth as the man who understood the real spirit of his countrymen. That was the sentiment which did much to strengthen the General against his opponents when he began to carry out a purely personal policy. He had inspired the whole nation with a sense of its own greatness. He was then the most popular man in the country. He stood out to the people at large as a patriotic figure with sound democratic sympathies and an eminent soldier who might lead to victory the armies of France.