Thenceforth Boulanger gradually became a personage round whom every kind of social and reactionary influence and intrigues of every sort were concentrated. To capture the imposing figure on the black horse, to fill him with grandiose ideas of the splendid part he could play, if only he would look at the real greatness and glory of his country through glasses less tinted with red than those of his Radical associates, to inspire him with conceptions of national unity and sanctified religious patriotism which should bring France, the France of the grand old days, once more into being, with himself as its noble leader--this was the work which the fine ladies of the Boulevard St. Germain, hand in hand with the Catholic Church, its priests and the cultivated reactionaries generally, set themselves to accomplish. From this time onwards the _mot d'ordre_ to back Boulanger went round the _salons_. Legitimists, Orleanists and Buonapartists were, on this matter, temporarily at one. Each section hoped at the proper moment to use the possible dictator for the attainment of its own ends. Thus Boulanger was diverted from the Radical camp and weaned from Radical ideas even during his period as War Minister in M. Freycinet's Cabinet. So subtle is the influence of "society" and ecclesiastical surroundings upon some natures, so powerful the effect of refined and charming conversation and genial flattery delicately conveyed, that men of far stronger character than Boulanger have now and then succumbed to it. Only devotion to principle or ruthless personal ambition can hold its own against such a combination of insidious forces dexterously employed--and women of the world and Jesuits are both very dexterous--when once the individual to be artistically trepanned permits himself to be experimented upon. Boulanger, though not devoid of cleverness, was at bottom that dangerous description of designing good fellow who all the time means well; and he fell a victim to the delightful women and clever adventurers around him. He himself was probably not aware that he had passed over to the enemy until the irresistible logic of events and his changed relations with his old friends proved to him how far he had gone.