EARLY POLICE: FRANCE.
Origin of Police--Definitions--First Police in France--Charles
V.--Louis XIV.--The Lieutenant-General of Police--His Functions and
Powers--La Reynie--His Energetic Measures against Crime--As a
Censor of the Press--His Steps to check Gambling and Cheating at
Games of Chance--La Reynie's Successors: the d'Argensons, Hérault,
d'Ombréval, Berryer--The Famous de Sartines--Two Instances of his
Omniscience--Lenoir and Espionage--De Crosne, the last and most
feeble Lieutenant-General of Police--The Story of the Bookseller
Blaizot--Police under the Directory and the Empire--Fouché--His
Beginnings and First Chances--A Born Police Officer--His Rise and
Fall--General Savary--His Character--How he organised his Service
of Spies--His humiliating Failure in the Conspiracy of General
Malet--Fouché's return to Power--Some Views of his Character.
When men began to congregate in communities, laws for the good
government and protection of the whole number became a necessity, and
this led to the creation of police. The word itself is derived from
[Greek: polis] ("city"), a collection of people within a certain area: a
community working regularly together for mutual advantage and defence.
The work of defence was internal as well as external, for since the
world began there have been dissidents and outlaws, those who declined
to accept the standard of conduct deemed generally binding, and so set
law at defiance. Hence the organisation of some force taking its mandate
from the many to compel good conduct in the few; some special
institution whose functions are to watch over the common weal, and act
for the public both in preventing evil and preparing or securing good.
From this the police deduces its claim to such interference with every
citizen as is necessary to maintain order and ensure obedience to the
law. It is easy to see that by excessive development the police system
may become too paternal, and that under the great despotisms it may be
and often is a potent engine for the enslavement of a people.
[Illustration: CLOCK AT THE PALAIS DE JUSTICE, PARIS, PRESENTED BY
CHARLES V. IN 1370.]
These ideas, perfect enough in the abstract, are contained in the
definitions of police as found in dictionaries and the best authorities.
The Imperial Dictionary calls it "a judicial and executive system in a
national jurisprudence which is specially concerned with the quiet and
good order of society; the means instituted by a government or community
to maintain public order, liberty, property, and individual security."
Littré defines _police_ as "the ordered system established in any city
or state, which controls all that affects the comfort and safety of the
inhabitants." "Police," says a modern writer, "is that section of public
authority charged to protect persons and things against every attack,
every evil which can be prevented or lessened by human prudence." Again:
"To maintain public order, protect property and personal liberty, to
watch over public manners and the public health: such are the principal
functions of the police." Although we English people were slow to adopt
any police system on a large or uniform scale, the principle has ever
been accepted by our legists. Jeremy Bentham considered police necessary
as a measure of precaution, to prevent crimes and calamities as well as
to correct and cure them. Blackstone in his Commentaries says: "By
public police and economy I mean the due regulation and domestic order
of the kingdom, whereby the individuals of the State, like members of a
well-governed family, are bound to conform their general behaviour to
the rules of propriety, good neighbourhood, and good manners; to be
decent, industrious, and inoffensive in their respective stations."
[Illustration: THE BASTILLE.
(_From an old Print._)]
The French kings were probably the first, in modern times, to establish
a police system. As early as the fourteenth century Charles V., who was
ready to administer justice anywhere, in the open field or under the
first tree, invented a police "to increase the happiness and security of
his people." It was a fatal gift, soon to be developed into an engine
of horrible oppression. It came to be the symbol of despotism, the plain
outward evidence of the king's supreme will, the bars and fetters that
checked and restrained all liberty, depriving the people of the
commonest rights and privileges, forbidding them to work, eat, dress,
live, or move from place to place without leave. Louis XIV., on his
accession, systematised and enormously increased the functions and
powers of the police, and with an excellent object, that of giving
security to a city in which crime, disorder, and dirt flourished
unchecked. But in obtaining good government all freedom and independence
was crushed out of the people.
The lieutenant of police first appointed in 1667, and presently advanced
to the higher rank of lieutenant-general, was an all-powerful
functionary, who ruled Paris despotically henceforward to the great
break-up at the Revolution. He had summary jurisdiction over beggars,
vagabonds, and evil-doers of all kinds and classes; he was in return
responsible for the security and general good order of the city. Crimes,
great and small, were very prevalent, such as repeated acts of fraud and
embezzlement; for Fouquet had but just been convicted of the
malversation of public moneys on a gigantic scale. There were traitors
in even the highest ranks, and the Chevalier de Rohan about this period
was detected in a plot to sell several strong places on the Normandy
coast to the enemy. Very soon the civilised world was to be shocked
beyond measure by the wholesale poisonings of the Marchioness of
Brinvilliers, Voisin, and other miscreants. In the very heart of Paris
there was a deep gangrene, a sort of criminal Alsatia--the Cour des
Miracles--where depredators and desperadoes gathered unchecked, and
defied authority. The streets were made hideous by incessant
bloodthirsty brawls; quarrels were fought out then and there, for
everyone, with or without leave, carried a sword--even servants and
retainers of the great noblemen--and was prompt to use it. The
lieutenant-general was nearly absolute in regard to offences, both
political and general. In his office were kept long lists of suspected
persons and known evil-doers, with full details of their marks and
appearance, nationality and character. He could deal at once with all
persons taken in the act; if penalties beyond his power were required,
he passed them on to the superior courts. The prisoners of State in the
royal castles--the Bastille, Vincennes, and
[Illustration: RELICS OF THE BASTILLE AND OTHER FRENCH PRISONS.
(_In the possession of Madame Tussaud & Sons, Limited._)
1. Hand Crusher. 2. Thumb-screw. 3. Key of the Bastille. 4. Dungeon Door
from the Abbey Prison, Paris. 5. Handcuffs. 6. Wrist and Neck-irons.]
the rest--were in his charge; he interrogated them at will, and might
add to their number by arresting dangerous or suspected persons, in
pursuit of whom he could enter and search private houses or take any
steps, however arbitrary. For all these purposes he had a large armed
force at his disposal, cavalry and infantry, nearly a thousand men in
all, and besides there was the city watch, the _chevaliers de guet_, or
"archers," who were seventy-one in number.
LA REYNIE.
The first lieutenant-general of police in Paris was Gabriel Nicolas (who
assumed the name of la Reynie, from his estate), a young lawyer who had
been the _protégé_ of the Governor of Burgundy, and afterwards was taken
up by Colbert, Louis XIV.'s Minister. La Reynie is described by his
contemporaries as a man of great force of character, grave and silent
and self-reliant, who wielded his new authority with great judgment and
determination, and soon won the entire confidence of the autocratic
king. He lost no time in putting matters right. To clear out the Cour
des Miracles and expel all rogues was one of his first measures; his
second was to enforce the regulation forbidding servants to go armed.
Exemplary punishment overtook two footmen of a great house who had
beaten and wounded a student upon the Pont Neuf. They were apprehended,
convicted, and hanged, in spite of the strong protests of their masters.
La Reynie went farther, and revived the ancient regulation by which
servants could not come and go as they pleased, and none could be
engaged who did not possess papers _en règle_. The servants did not
submit kindly, and for some time evaded the new rule by carrying huge
sticks or canes, of which also they were eventually deprived.
The lieutenant-general of police was the censor of the Press, which was
more free-spoken than was pleasing to a despotic government, and often
published matter that was deemed libellous. The French were not yet
entirely cowed, and sometimes they dared to cry out against unjust
judges and thieving financiers; there were fierce factions in the
Church; Jesuit and Jansenist carried on a bitter polemical war; the
Protestants, unceasingly persecuted, made open complaint which brought
down on some of their exemplary clergy the penalty of the galleys. The
police had complete authority over printers and publishers, and could
deal sharply with all books, pamphlets, or papers containing libellous
statements or improper opinions. The most stringent steps were taken to
prevent the distribution of prohibited books. Philosophical works were
most disliked. Books when seized were dealt with as criminals and were
at once consigned to the Bastille. Twenty copies were set aside by the
governor, other twelve or fifteen were at the disposal of the higher
officials, the rest were handed over to the paper-makers to be torn up
and sold as waste paper or destroyed by fire in the presence of the
keeper of archives. Many of the books preserved in the Bastille and
found at the Revolution were proved to be insignificant and inoffensive,
and to have been condemned on the general charge of being libels either
on the queen and royal family or on the Ministers of State. Prohibited
books were not imprisoned until they had been tried and condemned; their
sentence was written on a ticket affixed to the sack containing them.
Condemned engravings were scratched and defaced in the presence of the
keeper of archives and the staff of the Bastille; and so wholesale was
the destruction of books that one paper-maker alone carried off 3,015
pounds weight of fragments. Seizures were often accompanied by the
arrest of printers and publishers, and an order to destroy the press and
distribute the bookseller's whole stock.
[Illustration: LOUIS XIV.
(_From an old Print._)]
Although la Reynie used every effort to check improper publications, he
was known as the patron and supporter of legitimate printing. Under his
auspices several notable editions issued from the press, and their
printers received handsome pensions from the State. He was a collector,
a bibliophile who gathered together many original texts; and he will
always deserve credit for having caused the chief manuscripts of the
great dramatist Molière to be carefully preserved.
Society was very corrupt in those days, honeycombed with vices,
especially gambling, which claimed the constant attention of a paternal
police. La Reynie was most active in his pursuit of gamblers. The rapid
fortunes made by dishonest means led to much reckless living, and
especially to an extraordinary development of play. Everyone gambled,
everywhere, in and out of doors, even in their carriages while
travelling to and fro. Louis XIV., as he got on in life, and more
youthful pleasures palled, played tremendously. His courtiers naturally
followed the example. It was not all fair play either; the temptation of
winning largely attracted numbers of "Greeks" to the gaming tables, and
cheating of all kinds was very common. The king gave frequent and
positive orders to check it. A special functionary who had jurisdiction
in the Court, the grand provost, was instructed to find some means of
preventing this constant cheating at play. At the same time la Reynie
sent Colbert a statement of the various kinds of fraud practised with
cards, dice, or _hoca_, a game played with thirty points and thirty
balls. The police lieutenant made various suggestions for checking these
malpractices; the card-makers were to be subjected to stringent
surveillance; it was useless to control the makers of dice, but they
were instructed to denounce all who ordered loaded dice. As to _hoca_,
it was, he said, far the most difficult and the most dangerous. The
Italians, who had originated the game, so despaired of checking cheating
in it that they had forbidden it in their own country. La Reynie's
anxiety was such that he begged the Minister to prohibit its
introduction at the Court, as the fashion would soon be followed in the
city. However, this application failed; the Court would not sacrifice
its amusements, and was soon devoted to _hoca_, with _lansquenet_,
_postique_, _trou-madame_, and other games of hazard.
The extent to which gambling was carried will be seen in the amounts
lost and won; it was easy, in _lansquenet_ or _hoca_, to win fifty or
sixty times in a quarter of an hour. Madame de Montespan, the king's
favourite, frequently lost a hundred thousand crowns at a sitting. One
Christmas Day she lost seven hundred thousand crowns. On another
occasion she laid a hundred and fifty thousand pistoles (£300,000) upon
three cards, and won. Another night, it is said, she won back five
millions which she had lost. Monsieur, the king's brother, also gambled
wildly. When campaigning he lost a hundred thousand francs to other
officers; once he was obliged to pledge the whole of his jewels to
liquidate his debts of honour.
Nevertheless the games of chance, if permitted at Court, were prohibited
elsewhere. The police continually harried the keepers of gambling hells;
those who offended were forced to shut up their establishments and
expelled from Paris. The king was disgusted at times, and reproved his
courtiers. He took one M. de Ventadour sharply to task for starting
_hoca_ in his house, and warned him that "this kind of thing must be
entirely ended." The exact opposite was the result: that and other games
gained steadily in popularity, and the number of players increased and
multiplied. The king promised la Reynie to put gambling down with a
strong hand, and called for a list of all hells and of those who kept
them. But the simple measure of beginning with the Court was not tried.
Had play been suppressed among the highest it would soon have gone out
of fashion; as it was, it flourished unchecked till the collapse of the
_ancien régime_.
HÉRAULT.
It would be tedious to trace the succession of lieutenants-general
between la Reynie and de Crosne, the last, who was in office at the
outbreak of the French Revolution. One or two were remarkable in their
way: the elder D'Argenson, who was universally detested and feared; who
cleared out the low haunts with such ruthless severity that he was known
to the thieves and criminals as Rhadamanthus, or the judge of the
infernal regions; his son, D'Argenson the younger, who is held
responsible for the law of passports which made it death to go abroad
without one; Hérault, who persecuted the Freemasons, and was so noted
for his bigotry and intolerance. Of him the following story is told. In
one of his walks abroad he took offence at the sign at a shop door which
represented a priest bargaining about goods at a counter, with this
title, "L'Abbé Coquet." Returning home, he despatched an emissary to
fetch the Abbé Coquet, but gave no explanation. The agent went out and
picked up a priest of the name and brought him to Hérault's house. They
told him the Abbé Coquet was below. "Mettez-le dans le grenier" was
Hérault's brief order. Next day the abbé, half-starved, grew furious at
his detention, and Hérault's servants reported that they could do
nothing with him. "Eh! Brulez-le et laissez-moi tranquille!" replied
the chief of police, whereupon an explanation followed, and the Abbé
Coquet was released.
D'OMBRÉVAL.
D'Ombréval, again, was a man of intolerant views. He especially
distinguished himself by his persistent persecution of the mad fanatics
called the _convulsionnaires_,[10] whom he ran down everywhere, pursuing
them into the most private places, respecting neither age nor sex, and
casting them wholesale into prison. Two of these victims were found in
the Conciergerie in 1775 who had been imprisoned for thirty-eight years.
The _convulsionnaires_ successfully defied the police in the matter of a
periodical print which they published secretly and distributed in the
very teeth of authority. This rare instance of baffled detection is
worth recording. The police were powerless to suppress the _Nouvelles
Ecclésiastiques_, as the paper was called. A whole army of active and
unscrupulous spies could not discover who wrote it or where it was
printed. Sometimes it appeared in the town, sometimes in the country. It
was printed, now in the suburbs, now among the piles of wood in the Gros
Caillou, now upon barges in the River Seine, now in private houses. A
thousand ingenious devices were practised to put it into circulation and
get it through the barriers. One of the cleverest was by utilising a
poodle dog which carried a false skin over its shaved body; between the
two the sheets were carefully concealed, and travelled safely into the
city. So bold were the authors of this print that on one occasion when
the police lieutenant was searching a house for a printing press several
copies of the paper still wet from the press were thrown into his
carriage.
BERRYER.
Berryer, a later lieutenant-general, owed his appointment to Madame de
Pompadour, whose creature he was, and his whole
[Illustration: DE SARTINE.
(_From the Engraving by Littret._)]
aim was to learn all that was said of her and against her, and then
avenge attack by summary arrests. At her instance he sent in a daily
statement of all the scandalous gossip current in the city, and he lent
his willing aid to the creation of the infamous _Cabinet Noir_, in which
the sanctity of all correspondence was violated and every letter read as
it passed through the post. A staff of clerks was always busy; they took
impressions of the seals with quicksilver, melted the wax over steam,
extracted the sheets, read them, and copied all parts that were thought
likely to interest the king and Madame de Pompadour. The treacherous
practice was well known in Paris, and so warmly condemned that it is
recorded in contemporary memoirs: "Dr. Quesnay furiously declared he
would sooner dine with the hangman than with the Intendant of Posts" who
countenanced such a base proceeding.
M. DE SARTINES.
Perhaps the most famous and most successful police Minister of his time
was M. de Sartines, whose detective triumphs were mainly due to his
extensive system and to the activity of his nearly ubiquitous agents.
Two good stories are preserved of de Sartines' omniscience.
One of them runs that a great officer of State wrote him from Vienna
begging that a noted Austrian robber who had taken refuge in Paris might
be arrested and handed over. De Sartines immediately replied that it was
quite a mistake, the man wanted was not in Paris, but actually in
Vienna; he gave his exact address, the hours at which he went in and out
of his house, and the disguises he usually assumed. The information was
absolutely correct, and led to the robber's arrest.
Again, one of de Sartines' friends, the president of the High Court at
Lyons, ventured to deride his processes, declaring that they were of no
avail, and that anyone, if so disposed, could elude the police. He
offered a wager, which de Sartines accepted, that he could come into
Paris and conceal himself there for several days without the knowledge
of the police. A month later this judge left Lyons secretly, travelled
to Paris day and night, and on arrival took up his quarters in a remote
part of the city. By noon that day he received a letter, delivered at
his address, from de Sartines, who invited him to dinner and claimed
payment of the wager.
A great _coup_ was made by this adroit officer, but the interest of the
affair attaches rather to the thieves than to the police. It was on the
occasion of the marriage of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette in 1770.
During the great fêtes in honour of the event an extraordinary tumult
arose in the Rue Royale, where it joins the modern Champs Élysées. A
gang of desperadoes had cunningly stretched cords across the street
under cover of the darkness, and the crowds moving out to the fêtes fell
over them in hundreds. The confusion soon grew general, and a frightful
catastrophe ensued. Men, women, and children, horses and carriages, were
mixed up in an inextricable tangle, and hundreds were trampled to death.
Some desperate men tried to hack out a passage with their swords,
children were passed from hand to hand over the heads of the
[Illustration: TUMULT CAUSED BY THIEVES AT THE MARRIAGE FESTIVITIES OF
MARIE ANTOINETTE.]
crowd, too often to fall and be swallowed up in the struggling gulf
below. No fewer than 2,470 people are said to have perished in this
horrible _mêlée_. It was, of course, a time of harvest for the thieves.
Apparently only one of the confraternity suffered from the crush, and on
him fifty watches were found and as many chains, gold and silver. Next
day de Sartines and his agents made wholesale arrests. Some three or
four hundred noted thieves were taken up and sent to the Conciergerie,
where they were strictly searched. Large quantities of valuables were
secured--watches, bracelets, rings, collars, purses, all kinds of
jewels. One robber alone had two thousand francs tied up in his
handkerchief.
De Sartines kept a few criminals on hand for the strange purpose of
amusing fashionable society. It became the custom to have thieves to
perform in drawing-rooms. De Sartines, when asked, would obligingly send
to any great mansion a party of adroit pickpockets, who went through all
their tricks before a distinguished audience, cutting watch-chains,
stealing purses, snuffboxes, and jewellery.
This famous chief of police was the first to use espionage on a large
scale, and to employ detectives who were old criminals. When reproached
with this questionable practice, de Sartines defended it by asking,
"Where should I find honest folk who would agree to do such work?" It
was necessary for him to protect these unworthy agents by official
safe-conducts, which were worded as follows:--
"IN THE KING'S NAME.
His Majesty, having private reasons for allowing ---- to conduct his
affairs without interruption, accords him safe conduct for six
months, and takes him under especial protection for that period.
His Majesty orders that he shall be exempt from arrests and
executions during that time; all officers and sergeants are
forbidden to take action against him, gaolers shall not receive him
for debt, under pain of dismissal. If notwithstanding this he
should be arrested he must be at once set free, provided always
that the safe-conduct does not save him from condemnations
pronounced on the King's behalf."
LENOIR.
Lenoir, who succeeded de Sartines, carried espionage still farther, and
employed a vast army of spies, paid and unpaid. Servants only got their
places on the condition that they kept the police informed of all that
went on in the houses where they served. The hawkers who paraded the
streets were in his pay. He had suborned members of the many existing
associations of thieves, and they enjoyed tolerance so long as they
denounced their accomplices. The gambling-houses were taken under police
protection; with the proviso that they paid over a percentage of profits
and reported all that occurred. People of good society who had got into
trouble were forgiven on condition that they watched their friends and
gave information of anything worth knowing. One fashionable agent was a
lady who entertained large parties and came secretly by a private
staircase to the police office with her budget of news. This woman was
only paid at the rate of £80 a year.
[Illustration: LENOIR.
(_From a Contemporary Print._)]
DE CROSNE.
Thiroux de Crosne was the last lieutenant-general of police, and the
revolutionary upheaval was no doubt assisted by his ineptitude, his
marked want of tact and intelligence. While the city was mined under his
feet with the coming volcanic disturbances he gave all his energies to
theatrical censorship, and kept his agents busy reporting how often this
or that phrase was applauded. He was ready to imprison anyone who dared
offend a great nobleman, and was very severe upon critics and
pamphleteers. The absurd misuse of the censorship was no doubt one of
the contributing causes of the Revolution. The police were so anxious to
save the king, Louis XVI., from the pollution of reading the many libels
published that they allowed no printed matter to come near him. In this
way he was prevented from gauging the tendency of the times, or the
trend of public opinion. At last, wishing to learn the exact truth of
the vague rumours that reached him, he ordered a bookseller, Blaizot, to
send him everything that appeared. He soon surprised his Ministers by
the knowledge he displayed, and they set to work to find how it reached
him. Blaizot was discovered and sent to the Bastille. When the king,
wondering why he got no more pamphlets, inquired, he learnt that
Blaizot had been imprisoned by his order!
The monarchical police was quickly swept away by the French Revolution.
It was condemned as an instrument of tyranny; having only existed,
according to the high-sounding phrases of the period, to "sow distrust,
encourage perfidy, and substitute intrigue for public spirit." The open
official police thus disappeared, but it was replaced by another far
more noxious; a vast political engine, recklessly handled by every
bloodthirsty wretch who wielded power in those disastrous times. The
French Republicans, from the Committee of Public Safety to the last
revolutionary club, were all policemen--spying, denouncing, feeding the
guillotine. Robespierre had his own private police, and after his fall
numerous reports were found among his papers showing how close and
active was the surveillance he maintained through his spies, not only in
Paris alone, but all over France.
[Illustration: BARRAS.
(_From the Engraving by Allais._)]
Under the Directory the office of a Minister of Police was revived, not
without stormy protest, and the newly organised police soon became a
power in the Republic as tyrannical and inquisitorial as that of Venice.
It had its work cut out for it. Paris, the whole country, was in a state
of anarchy, morals were at their lowest point, corruption and crime
everywhere rampant. The streets of the city, all the high roads, were
infested with bands of robbers with such wide ramifications that a
general guerilla warfare terrorised the provinces. We shall see more of
this on a later page, when describing the terrible bandits named
_Chauffeurs_, from their practice of torturing people by toasting their
feet before the fire until they gave up their hidden treasure.
FOUCHÉ.
Nine police Ministers quickly followed each other between 1796 and 1799,
men of no particular note; but at last Barras fixed
[Illustration: ATTACK UPON THE BASTILLE, DURING THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.]
upon Fouché as a person he imagined to be well qualified for the
important post. He thus gave a first opening to one whose name is almost
synonymous with policeman--the strong, adroit, unscrupulous manipulator
of the tremendous underground forces he created and controlled, the man
who for many years practically divided with Napoleon the empire of
France. The emperor had the ostensible supremacy, but his many absences
on foreign wars left much of the real power in his Minister's hands.
Fouché's aptitudes for police work must have been instinctive, for he
had no special training or experience when summoned to the post of
Police Minister. He had begun life as a professor, and was known as _le
Père Fouché_, a member of the Oratory, although he did not actually take
religious orders. Born in the seaport town of Nantes, he was at first
designed for his father's calling--the sea; but at school his favourite
study was theology and polemics, so that his masters strongly advised
that he should be made a priest. Something of the suppleness, the quiet,
passionless self-restraint, the patient, observant craftiness of the
ecclesiastic remained with him through life.
The Revolution found him in his native town, prefect of his college of
Nantes, married, leading an obscure and blameless life. He soon threw
himself into the seething current, and was sent to the National
Convention as representative for La Nièvre. It is needless to follow his
political career, in which, with that readiness to change his coat which
was second nature to him, he espoused many parties in turn, and long
failed to please any, least of all Robespierre, who called him "a vile,
despicable impostor." But the Directory was friendly to him, and
appointed him its minister, first at Milan, then in Holland, whence he
was recalled by Barras, whom he had obliged in various matters, to take
the Ministry of Police. He had always been in touch with popular
movements, knew men and things intimately, and, it was hoped, would
check the more turbulent spirits.
Fouché saw his chance when Bonaparte rose above the horizon. He was no
real Republican; all his instincts were towards despotism and arbitrary
personal government. It may well be believed that he contributed much to
the success of the 18th Brumaire; this born conspirator could best
handle all the secret threads that were needed to establish the new
power. He has said in his Memoirs that the revolution of Saint-Cloud
must have failed but for him, and he was willing enough to support it.
"I should have been an idiot not to prefer a future to nothing. My ideas
were fixed. I deemed Bonaparte alone fitted to carry out the changes
rendered imperatively necessary by our manners, our vices, our errors
and excesses, our misfortunes and unhappy differences." When the
Consulate was established, Fouché was one of the most important
personages in France. He had ample means at his disposal, and he did not
hesitate to use them freely to strengthen his position; he bought
assistance right and left, had his paid creatures everywhere, even at
Bonaparte's elbow, it was said, and had bribed Josephine and Bourrienne
to betray the inmost secrets of the palace. The strength and extent of
his system--created by necessity, perfected by sheer love of
intrigue--was soon realised by his master, who saw that Fouché united
the police and all its functions in his own person, and might easily
prove a menace to his newly acquired power.
[Illustration: FOUCHÉ.
(_From the Engraving by Couché._)]
So Fouché was suppressed, but only for a couple of years, during which
nearer dangers, conspiracies threatening the very life of Napoleon, led
the emperor to recall the astute, all-powerful Minister, who meanwhile
had maintained a private police of his own. Fouché had his faithful
agents abroad, and showed himself better served, better informed, than
the emperor himself. He proved this by giving Napoleon an early copy of
a circular by the exiled Bourbon king about to be issued in Paris, the
existence of which was unknown to the official police. When Fouché
returned to the Prefecture, it was to stay. For some eight years he was
indispensable. The emperor seemed to rely upon him entirely, passing
everything on to him. "Send it to Fouché; it is his business," was the
endorsement on innumerable papers of that time. The provincial _préfets_
looked only to Fouché; the Police Minister was the sole repository of
power, the one person to please; his orders were sought and accepted
with blind submission by all. He might have remained in office to the
end of the imperial _régime_ but that he became too active and meddled
with matters quite beyond his province; and his downfall was hastened by
a daring intrigue to bring about a secret compact with England and
secure peace.
SAVARY.
Fouché's successor was General Savary, one of Napoleon's most devoted
and uncompromising adherents, an indifferent soldier and a conceited,
self-sufficient man. He will always be stigmatised as the executioner of
the Duc d'Enghien, one ready to go any lengths in blind obedience to his
master's behests. His appointment as chief of the police caused
universal consternation; it was dreaded as the inauguration of an epoch
of brutal military discipline, the advent of the soldier-policeman,
whose iron hand would be heavy upon all. Wholesale arrests,
imprisonments, and exiles were anticipated. Savary himself, although
submissively accepting his new and strange duties, shrank from executing
them. He would gladly have declined the honour of becoming Police
Minister, but the emperor would not excuse him, and, taking him by the
hand, tried to stiffen his courage by much counsel. The advice he freely
gave is worth recording in part, as expressing the views of a monarch
who was himself the best police officer of his time.
"Ill-use no one," he told Savary as they strolled together through the
park of Saint-Cloud. "You are supposed to be a severe man, and it would
give a handle to my enemies if you were found harsh and reactionary.
Dismiss none of your present employees; if any displease you, keep them
at least six months, and then find them other situations. If you have to
adopt stern measures, be sure they are justified, and it will at least
be admitted that you are doing your duty.... Do not imitate your
predecessor, who allowed me to be blamed for sharp measures and took to
himself the credit of any acts of leniency. A good police officer is
quite without passion. Allow yourself to hate no one; listen to all, and
never commit yourself to an opinion until you have thought it well
over.... I removed Monsieur Fouché because I could no longer rely upon
him. When I no longer gave him orders, he acted on his own account and
left me to bear the responsibility. He was always trying to find out
what I meant to do, so as to forestall me, and, as I became more and
more reserved, he accepted as true what others told him, and so got
farther and farther astray."
[Illustration: SAVARY.
(_From the Engraving by Sixdeniers._)]
Savary, on assuming the reins of office, found himself in a serious
dilemma. He could hardly have anticipated that Fouché would make his
task easy for him, but the result was even worse than he had expected.
He had been weak enough to allow Fouché three weeks to clear out of the
Ministry, and his wily predecessor had made the best use of his time to
burn and destroy every paper of consequence that he possessed. When he
finally handed over his charge, he produced one meagre document
alone--an abusive memorandum, two years old, inveighing against the
exiled House of Bourbon. Every other paper had disappeared. He was no
less malicious with regard to the secret staff of the office. The only
persons he presented to the new chief were a few low-class spies whom he
had never largely trusted; and although Savary raised some of them to
higher functions he was still deprived of the assistance of the superior
agents upon whom Fouché had so greatly relied. Savary solved this
difficulty cleverly. He found in his office a registry of addresses for
the use of the messengers who delivered letters. This registry was kept
by his clerks, and, not wishing to let them into his design, he took the
registry one night into his private study and copied out the whole list
himself. He found many names he little expected; names which, as he has
said, he would have expected sooner to find in China than in this
catalogue. Many addresses had, however, no indication but a single
initial, and he guessed--no doubt rightly--that these probably related
to the most important agents of all.
Having thus gained the addresses, Savary proceeded to summon each person
to his presence by a letter written in the third person, and transmitted
by his office messengers. He never mentioned the hour of the interview,
but was careful never to send for two people on the same day. His secret
agents came as requested, generally towards evening, and before they
were ushered in Savary took the precaution to inquire from his groom of
the chambers whether they came often to see Monsieur Fouché. The servant
had almost invariably seen them before, and could give many interesting
particulars about them. Thus Savary knew how to receive them; to be warm
or cold in his welcome as he heard how they had been treated by his
predecessor. He dealt in much the same way with the persons known only
under an initial. He wrote also to them at their addresses, and sent the
letters by confidential clerks who were known personally to the
_concierges_ of the houses where the agents resided. The Parisian
_concierge_ was as much an inquisitive busybody in those days as now;
curious about his lodgers' correspondence, and knowing exactly to whom
he should deliver a letter with the initial address. It required only a
little adroitness to put a name to these hitherto unknown people when
they called in person at his office. It sometimes happened that more
than one person having the same initial resided in the same house. If
the _concierge_ made the mistake of handing two letters to one
individual, Savary, when he called, explained that his clerks had
inadvertently written to him twice. In every case the letter of summons
contained a request that the letter might be brought to the office as a
passport to introduction. Savary adopted another method of making the
acquaintance of the secret _personnel_. He ordered his cashier to inform
him whenever a secret agent called for his salary. At first, being
suspicious of the new _régime_, very few persons came, but the second
and third month self-interest prevailed; people turned up, merely to
inquire, as they said, and were invariably passed on to see the chief.
Savary took the visit as a matter of course, discussing business, and
often increasing voluntarily their rates of payment. By this means he
not only re-established his connection, but greatly extended it.
Savary's system of espionage was even more searching and comprehensive
than Fouché's, and before long earned him the sobriquet of the "Sheik of
Spies." He had a whole army at his disposal--the gossips and
_gobe-mouches_ of the clubs, the cabmen and street porters, the workmen
in the suburbs. When fashionable Paris migrated to their country houses
for the summer and early autumn, Savary followed them with his spies,
whom he found among their servants, letter-carriers, even their guests.
He also reversed the process, and actually employed masters to spy on
their servants, obliging every householder to transmit a report to the
police of every change in their establishments, and of the conduct of
the persons employed. He essayed also to make valets spy on those whom
they served, so that a man became less than ever a hero to his valet.
It followed, naturally, that Savary was the most hated of all the
tyrants who wielded the power of the police prefecture. He spared no
one; he bullied the priests; he increased the rigours of the wretched
prisoners of war at Bitche and Verdun; and exercised such an irritating,
vexatious, ill-natured surveillance over the whole town, over every
class--political, social, and criminal--that he was soon universally
hated. He was a stupid man, eaten up with vanity and self-importance;
extremely jealous of his authority, and ever on the look out to
vindicate it if he thought it assailed. Never perhaps did more inflated,
unjustifiable pride precede a more humiliating fall. Savary's
pretensions as a police officer were utterly shipwrecked by the
conspiracy of General Malet, a semi-madman, who succeeded in shaking
Napoleon's throne to its very foundations and making his military Police
Minister supremely ridiculous.
This General Malet was a born conspirator. He had done little as a
soldier, but had been concerned in several plots against Napoleon, for
the last of which he had been cast into the prison of La Force. During
his seclusion he worked out the details of a new conspiracy, based upon
the most daring and yet simplest design. He meant to take advantage of
the emperor's absence from Paris, and, announcing his death, declare a
Provisional Government, backed by the troops, of whom he would boldly
take command. It all fell out as he had planned, and, but for one
trifling accident, the plot would have been entirely successful. Paris
at the moment he rose was weakly governed. Cambacères represented the
emperor; Savary held the police, but, in spite of his espionage, knew
nothing of Malet, and little of the real state of Paris below the
surface; Pasquier, prefect of police, was an admirable administrator,
but not a man of action. The garrison of Paris was composed mainly of
raw levies, for all the best troops were away with Napoleon in Russia,
and the commandant of the place, General Hullin, was a sturdy
soldier--no more: a mere child outside the profession of arms.
[Illustration: MALET IN PRISON.
(_From the Drawing by A. Lacauchie._)]
Malet had influence with Fouché, through which, before that Minister's
disgrace, he had obtained his transfer from La Force to a "Maison de
Santé" in the Faubourg St. Antoine. In this half asylum, half place of
detention, the inmates were suffered to come and go on parole, to
associate freely with one another, and to receive any visitors they
pleased from outside. In this convenient retreat, which sheltered other
irreconcilable spirits, Malet soon matured his plot. His chief
confederate--the only one, indeed, he fully trusted--was a certain Abbé
Lafone, a man of great audacity and determination, who had already been
mixed up in Royalist plots against the empire. The two kept their own
counsel, alive to the danger of treachery and betrayal in taking others
into their full confidence; but Malet could command the services of two
generals, Guidal and Laborie, with whom he had been intimate at La
Force, but who never knew the whole aim and extent of the conspiracy.
About 8 p.m. on the 23rd of October, 1812, Malet and the Abbé left the
Faubourg St. Antoine, and Malet, now in full uniform, appeared at the
gates of the neighbouring barracks, where he announced the news,
received by special courier, of the emperor's death, produced a
resolution from the Senate proclaiming a Provisional Government, and
investing him with the supreme command of the troops. Under his orders,
officers were despatched with strong detachments to occupy the principal
parts of the city, the barriers, the quays, the Prefecture, the Place
Royal, and other open squares. Another party was sent to the prison of
La Force to extract Generals Laborie and Guidal, the first of whom, when
he joined Malet, was despatched to the prefecture and thence to the
Ministry of Police, to seize both the _préfet_ and Savary and carry them
off to gaol. Guidal was to support Laborie. Malet himself, with another
body of troops, proceeded to the Place Vendôme, the military
headquarters of Paris, and proposed to make the Commandant Hullin his
prisoner.
The arrest of the heads of the police was accomplished without the
slightest difficulty about 8 a.m. on the 24th of October, and they were
transported under escort to La Force. (Savary ever afterwards was
nicknamed the Duc de la Force.) Malet meanwhile had roused General
Hullin, to whom he presented his false credentials. As the general
passed into an adjoining room to examine them, Malet fired a pistol at
him and "dropped" him. Then the Adjutant-General Dorcet interposed, and,
seizing his papers, instantly detected the forgery. Malet was on the
point of shooting him also, when a staff-officer rushed up from behind,
and, backed by a handful of his guard, easily overpowered Malet. From
that moment the attempt collapsed. The Police Minister and the _préfet_
were released from prison; the conspirators were arrested. Yet for a few
hours Malet had been master of Paris.
Napoleon was furiously angry with everyone, and loaded the police in
particular with abuse. He did not, however, remove Savary from his
office, for he knew he could still trust him, and this was no time to
lose the services of a devoted friend. The insecurity of his whole
position had been clearly manifested. One man, a prisoner, had, by his
own inventive audacity, succeeded in suborning or imposing upon superior
officers and securing the assistance of large bodies of troops, in
forcing prison doors, arresting Ministers and high officials, and
seizing the reins of power. No one had stood against him; the powers
wielded by authority were null and void; chance alone, a mere accident,
had spoilt the enterprise.
FOUCHÉ AGAIN.
At the restoration of the Bourbons the police organisation was revised,
but still left in much the same hands--ex-Napoleonists, such as Beugnot
and Bourrienne, who were director-general and prefect respectively. The
latter distinguished himself by a fruitless attempt to arrest his old
enemy Fouché, who was living quietly in Paris, holding aloof from
affairs as he had done through the closing days of the Empire. Fouché
escaped from the police officers by climbing over his garden wall, and
then went into hiding. He was thus thrown back into the ranks of the
Imperialists, and, on the return from Elba, was at once nominated to his
old office of chief of police, where he made himself extremely useful to
Napoleon. But he played a double part, as usual; had friends in both
camps, and, after giving the emperor much valuable information as to the
movements of the Allies before Waterloo, went over to the victors after
the battle. Fouché was extraordinarily busy in shaping events at the
final downfall of Napoleon, and he was one of the first to approach
Wellington with suggestions as to the emperor's disposal. He seems to
have gained the Duke's goodwill, and Wellington urged Louis XVIII. to
appoint him afresh, as the person who could be best trusted to maintain
public order, to the directorship of the police. Fouché had many friends
in high places; he had also the knack of seeming to be indispensable. It
was a severe blow to the king that Fouché should be forced upon him.
When the order of appointment was placed before him for signature, he
glanced at it, and let it lie upon the table, and the pen slipped from
his hand; he long sat buried in sad thought before he could rouse
himself to open relations with the man who had been hitherto the
implacable foe of his family.
[Illustration: "MALET WAS ON THE POINT OF SHOOTING HIM ALSO" (p. 216).]
Fouché gained his point; but where all knew, all watched, and none
trusted him, he needed all his _sang froid_, all his tact, to hold his
position. But in his long career of conspiracy and change he had learnt
the lesson of dissimulation and self-restraint. Yet he was still the
focus and centre of intrigue, to whom everyone flocked--his old
associates, once his friends and now his hardly concealed enemies; the
men who had been his enemies and were now on the surface his friends.
His antechamber showed the most mixed assemblage. "He went among them,
from one to the other, speaking with the same ease as though he had the
same thing to say to all. How often have I seen him creeping away from
the window where he had been talking apart with some old
comrade--Thibaudeau, for example, the ancient revolutionist--on the most
friendly, confidential terms, to join us, a party of royalists, about an
affair concerning the king. A little later Fouché inserted Thibaudeau's
name in the list of the proscribed."[11]
[Illustration: THIBAUDEAU.
(_From a Contemporary Print._)]
Fouché has been very differently judged by his contemporaries. Some
thought him an acute and penetrating observer, with a profound insight
into character; knowing his epoch, the men and matters appertaining to
it, intimately and by heart. Others, like Bourrienne, despised and
condemned him. "I know no man," says the latter, "who has passed through
such an eventful period, who has taken part in so many convulsions, who
so barely escaped disgrace and was yet loaded with honours." The keynote
of his character, thought Bourrienne, was great levity and inconstancy
of mind. Yet he carried out his schemes, planned with mathematical
exactitude, with the utmost precision. He had an insinuating manner;
could seem to speak freely when he was only drawing others on. A
retentive memory and a great grasp of facts enabled him to hold his own
with many masters, and turn most things to his own advantage. He did not
long survive the Restoration, and died at Trieste in 1820, leaving
behind him a very considerable fortune.
[Illustration: A "CHARLIE'S" RATTLE, IN THE BLACK MUSEUM.]