synarchy movement of empire book ii - Pierre Beaudry's Galactic ...

the government began to drop quite sharply, however, the Paris population
was manipulated, one more time, into acclaiming him as the hero of the day,
and he became the idol of public opinion. When the Cabinet refused the war
preparation, Boulanger demanded that the President dissolve the Chamber of
Deputies, and call for a revision of the Constitution of the Third Republic.
Boulanger was being groomed to become the head of an authoritarian
regime. Although he was from the Left, suddenly, all of the forces from the
Right turned to support him. The {beast-man on horseback} was back.
Out of fear for the very existence of the Third Republic, the moderate
"Republicans" dropped Boulanger from the Goblet Cabinet, and assigned
him to some obscure military command, out in Auvergne. Friends in the
government got Boulanger to be retired from the Army so that he could run
as deputy. In March of 1888, the {beast-man on horseback} created his
own {Boulangist Party} and won a seat in the Chamber. {Boulangism}
became an extremely threatening movement and established itself as the first
fascist party of France.
Historian William Shirer did not fail to see in "{Boulangism}" the
precursor of Vichy's Marshal Petain. Shirer wrote: "{Almost despite himself
- for he was a man of shallow mind who lacked any real political
conviction - Boulanger became the leader of the discontented, on both Left
and Right, and the champion of revision and reform. On June 4, 1888,
Boulanger, now deputy, mounted the tribune of the Chamber to read a
manifesto calling for the revision of the Constitution. In words similar to
those used a half century later by Marshal Petain and General Weygand,
he said: 'France has suffered for several years from material and moral
ills which cannot be prolonged without damage to all.' Parliament, he
added, had become merely a scene of fruitless debates that got the country
nowhere.
Clemenceau, until recently his political backer and mentor,
answered him: 'These debates, which you deplore, honor us all. They show
above all our ardor in defending the ideas we believe just. These debates
have their inconveniences, but silence has even more. Yes, glory to the
lands where men speak out! Shame to those where men keep silent!…It is
the Republic itself which you dare bring down!'
"The Premier, Charles Floquet, was more biting:
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