France in the Nineteenth Century Part 43

Meantime his domestic relations must have caused him poignant anxiety.

His wife was his cousin,--a lady of the _haute bourgeoisie_ in a provincial town. She appears to have felt herself unequal to what might be required of her as the wife of the national hero. She entertained apprehensions that her fate might be that of the Empress Josephine. When her husband became War Minister, she declined to preside over his receptions, and withdrew herself from his official residence, taking with her her two daughters, Helene and Marcelle.

Thus deserted, Boulanger became open to scandals and reports, some true, and some false, such as would inevitably be circulated in France concerning such a man's relations with women. It is quite certain, however, that at the height of his popularity he became infatuated with the divorced wife of a Baron de Bonnemains,--a lady well connected, and up to the time when Boulanger became her lover, of unstained reputation. She was also rich, having a fortune of 1,500,000 francs. She was not very beautiful, but was tender, gracious, and womanly. M. de Bonnemains had not made her a good husband, and her friends rejoiced when the law gave her a divorce.

General Boulanger and his wife seem to have agreed to sever their marriage tie under the new French divorce law, which requires both parties to be examined by a judge, who is to try if possible to reconcile them; but at the last moment Madame Boulanger refused, upon religious grounds, her a.s.sent to a divorce, and the marriage of the general with Madame de Bonnemains became thenceforward impossible.

The story is not a pleasant one, but it is necessary to relate it, because of its results.

Madame de Bonnemains, whose const.i.tution was consumptive, drooped and sickened in Jersey. She removed in the spring of 1891 to Brussels to try one of the new schemes for the cure of pulmonary trouble.

The remedy seems to have hastened her death, which took place in July. General Boulanger never recovered from her loss. His friends and his funds had failed him, and the death of this woman, whom he had pa.s.sionately loved, completely overwhelmed him. He spoke constantly of suicide, and in spite of precautions taken by his friends, he carried his purpose into effect upon her grave in the cemetery of Brussels, October 2, 1891.

Whatever General Boulanger's faults may have been in relation to other women, he was devoted to his mother. The latter, who was eighty-six years old at the time of his death, resided in Paris, and when he was in the city he never suffered a day to pa.s.s without visiting her. A lock of her white hair was on his breast when he was dressed for burial.