Jules Grévy was elected president in his place, and Gambetta was made president of the House of Deputies. Subsequently he was chosen presiding minister in a cabinet composed wholly of his own creatures. His career in this high office was a brief one. The Chambers refused to support him in his arbitrary measures and he resigned in disgust. Soon after the self-appointed dictator, who had played so prominent a part in the war with Germany, died from a wound whose origin remained a mystery. The constitution was revised in 1884, the republic now declared permanent and final, and Grévy again elected president. General Boulanger, the minister of war in the new government, succeeded in making himself highly popular, many looking upon him as a coming Napoleon, by whose genius the republic would be overthrown. [=The Career of Boulanger=] In 1887 Grévy resigned, in consequence of a scandal in high circles, and was succeeded by Sadi Carnot, grandson of a famous general of the first republic. Under the new president two striking events took place. General Boulanger managed to lift himself into great prominence, and gain a powerful following in France. Carried away by self-esteem, he defied his superiors, and when tried and found guilty of the offence, was strong enough in France to overthrow the ministry, to gain re-election to the Chamber of Deputies, and to defeat a second ministry. But his reputation was declining. It received a serious blow by a duel he fought with a lawyer, in which the soldier was wounded and the lawyer escaped unhurt. The next cabinet was hostile to his intrigues, and he fled to Brussels to escape arrest. Tried by the Senate, sitting as a High Court of Justice, he was found guilty of plotting against the state and sentenced to imprisonment for life. His career soon after ended in suicide and his party disappeared. [=The Panama Canal Scandal=] The second event spoken of was the Panama Canal affair. De Lesseps, the maker of the Suez Canal, had undertaken to excavate a similar one across the Isthmus of Panama, but the work was managed with such wild extravagance that vast sums were spent and the poor investors widely ruined, while the canal remained a half-dug ditch. At a later date this affair became a great scandal, dishonest bargains in connection with it were abundantly unearthed, bribery was shown to have been common in high places, and France was shaken to its centre by the startling exposure. De Lesseps, fortunately for him, escaped by death, but others of the leaders in the enterprise were condemned and punished. [=Anarchy in France and Murder of the President=]