Death
After his flight, support for him dwindled, and the Boulangists were defeated in the general elections of July 1889 (after the government forbade Boulanger from running). Boulanger himself went to live in Jersey before returning to the Ixelles Cemetery in Brussels in September 1891 to commit suicide by a bullet to the head on the grave of his mistress, Madame de Bonnemains (née Marguerite Crouzet) who had died in his arms the preceding July. He was interred in the same grave.
Several incidents followed Boulanger's death, including an armed attack carried out by a boulangiste against the Republican politician Jules Ferry, in December of the same year. Although largely discredited, the trend started by Boulanger was still visible inside the far right (the anti-Dreyfusards) during France's next major scandal, the Dreyfus Affair. Israeli historian Zeev Sternhell cites boulangisme as a major influence on Fascism, alongside Anarcho-syndicalism and the Cercle Proudhon.
Read more about this topic: Georges Ernest Boulanger
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