The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1899-08-27
Paul Deroulede.

Since BOULANGER hurried over the border
into Belgium no more curious or sinister
character has crossed the French stage
than PAUL DERoULEDE. At present he Is
in prison on a charge OF treason to the
Republic. He has been there before on
the same indictment and he will prob
ably be there again before his stormy
career Is closed. Each time he has
been acquitted not for lack Of sufficient
evidence, but because the average French
jury has an instructive Partially for
those melodramatic revolutionists OF whom
DERoULEDE is the type. The man whom
the Partisan shopkeepers refused to con-
denim for Selling Gen. RoGET's horse on the
day Of NJ. LoUBETs election and urging
the General in frantic rhetoric to march
on the Elysee," has not much to fear from
French justice.
In the eyes Of most Anglo-Saxons DERoU-
LEDE seems shallow and insignificant
enough and the Government somewhat at
fault in running the risk Of making a mar
tyr OF so fantastic parsonage. But that
Is not the French view at all. OF all people
they are the first to be gulled by some the
atrical medocrity and the last to be unde-
ceived. Foreigners saw through BoULAN-
GER and wrote him down as the mountebank
he finally turned out to be, while lie brdre
General was everywhere being acclaimed in
the streets OF Paris. 1t is so to some ex-
tent with DEROULEDE. Whether or no
he is really the adventurer, the charlatan,
the crafty and insidious monomaniac that
he appears to English and American no
tions, in Paris he is power On no other
do 4 ba ina,
throw OF the Republic rely for leadership
and inspiration 80 much as on PAUL De-
RoULEDE Here and in England he would
be laughed at and let good humoredly
alone. But in France he Is force OF
very significant magnitude, much more
30 than most foreigners, disguised by
his EXAMINATIONS against DREYFUs. are
willing to admit. One OF the shrewdest
judges OF French politics has named him
as the only real and dangerous pretender
to the derelict throne OF France.
There Is good deal In DERoULEDE's
career and personality to explain his in
lluence. de has as q genuine possession
the qualities that attract the crowd every
where, but with especial potency in France
During the Franco-Prussian war he Joined
one OF the dashing Zouave regiments, was
captured and imprisoned by the Germans,
escaped by stratagem that would not
have disgraced DARTAGNAN, and made his
way back to France in many DISCUSSES to
| offer his services to the Defense Rationale.
Thereafter he took part in over twenty bat
| ties. winning as he went along one OF the
brightest regulations OF the war by his
almost reckless courage. Possibly it would
have been just as well, both for himself and
his country, had he remained In the army
to complete the career thus begun.
In the first few years of peace DERoU LEpE
added to his fame by the composition Of
| some OF the most vivid and stirring war
| songs that French literature possesses,
| Drifting into politics, by way of law and
| letters, he made la revdnche the text for his
impetuous and engaging eloquence, preach
| ing 1t in season and out for over twenty
| years with an ardor that made and has kept
him ono OF the idols of young France. Now
he is in the front again. attacking the
present regime with inexhaustible in.
genuity and an effect which grows from
day to day. Immediately around him are
a dozen or so OF those semi-literary
fainednts-men like CoPPEE, BARREs and
JULES Neutrality-suspicious. whom no French
agitation Is complete. They are the
mere trappings OF his following BY sheer
energy and vehemence he has made
himself the rallyng point for the anti-revo-
lutionists who gathered round EsrERHAzY
and tho General Staff and then sought by
founding the Patrie FRANCHISE Ligue to up
| set the State in the interests Of Pretender.