As for the absurd story that the Boulangist funds come from America, the only foundation I can find for that seems to be the intimacy, which, I believe, is no longer as close as it was, between General Boulanger, M. de Rochefort, and a French nobleman of an ancient historic family, who has married a very wealthy American wife, and who has long been known to entertain the most extreme, not to say revolutionary, notions in politics. The honest Boulangists who really hope to see a good government established by putting out M. Carnot and putting in General Boulanger, swell the tide of his supporters, apparently, here as elsewhere in France, because they blindly hope for everything from him which their experience forbids them to hope for from the men actually in power. As one of his most cynical supporters long ago said in Paris, he is 'the grand common sewer of the disgust of France.' His popularity with the common soldiers is another element to be counted with in estimating the strength of this military French Mahdi. I have struck up a friendship here at Amiens with an excellent woman who presides over a shop--not one of the _patisseries_ so justly celebrated by Mr. Ruskin--and who is a very good type of the shrewd, sensible French '_petite bourgeoise_,' such a woman as, I dare say, Jacqueline Robins of St.-Omer was in her own time. She has a son in the army, who is likely soon to be a corporal. '_Dame_, Monsieur,' she said to me, 'if M. Boulanger is not the best General in France, why did they make him Minister of War? You do not know what he did for the soldiers! My son when he gets his stripes is to marry--she is a very nice girl, an only child, do you know? and her father, who is very solid, will put her in her own furniture--and more than that! and they will have their own establishment. They could not have that, you know, but for General Boulanger, who made the new rule about the wives of the sub-officers. And they used to shave the soldiers--imagine it!--just like prisoners, and such beds as they gave them--it was a horror! Well, all that he changed, and he made the soup fit to eat.' 'The other generals are not very fond of him, you say? _Parbleu!_ that is likely enough! It is like the _conseillers_ here in the city--one of them does well, the others always find something to say behind his back! And that affair on the frontier! You know, Monsieur, he had all the army in hand--ah, well in hand--a hundred thousand men ready to march; and those rascals of Germans they knew it, and they gave up our man. I am glad we had no war. No! I do not want a war, but, _dame_, one must have teeth, you know, and be ready to show them!' 'You want to see your War Minister made president, then?' I asked.