BOULANGER by James Harding. 251 pages. Scribners. $8.95.
He is remembered as the original of that perennial threat to shaky governments, "the man on horseback." Adoring crowds threw themselves on the tracks at the Gare de Lyon to keep him from leaving Paris. Three hundred songs were written about him, and copies by the thousands were hawked in the streets. Fast-selling lines of dishes, pens and bric-a-brac carried his portrait to the consuming public. On Bastille Day 1886, when he rode down the Champs-Elysées on his great black horse, all France lay at his feet. Indeed, on three occasions General Georges Ernest...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
