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Harding is brisk, knowing, and often very funny in presenting what he obviously savors most, the menagerie of political grotesques surrounding Boulanger and the matchless rhetorical savagery of Third Republic France. What he never explains is the charm the man possessed, the almost mesmeric hold he exerted over comrades-in-arms, friends, mistresses, and masses of Frenchmen. One comes to accept Boulanger not as an ambitious schemer but as what the French call un brave type. Yet some warm element is missing from Harding's portrait as well as from a series of photographs showing off the general's broad forehead, flowing mustache and neat beard. Boulanger stares back at us as enigmatically as a western gunslinger in a faded antique portrait. It is hard to believe that radiant charisma ever clung to this numb and meaty visage.