Paris as It Was and as It Is Part 65

MERCIER then gives the fragment by FONTENELLE, on the police of Paris and on M. D'ARGENSON, of which I shall select only what may be necessary for elucidating the main subject.

"The inhabitants of a well-governed city," says FONTENELLE, "enjoy the good order which is there established, without considering what trouble it costs those who establish or preserve it, much in the same manner as all mankind enjoy the regularity of the motions of celestial bodies, without having any knowledge of them, and even the more the good order of a police resembles by its uniformity that of the celestial bodies, the more is it imperceptible, and, consequently, the more it is unknown, the greater is its perfection.

But he who would wish to know it and fathom it, would be terrified.

To keep up perpetually in a city, like Paris, an immense consumption, some sources of which may always be dried up by a variety of accidents; to repress the tyranny of shop-keepers in regard to the public, and at the same time animate their commerce; to prevent the mutual usurpations of the one over the other, often difficult to discriminate; to distinguish in a vast crowd all those who may easily conceal there a hurtful industry; to purge society of them, or tolerate them only as far as they can be useful to it by employments which no others but themselves would undertake, or discharge so well; to keep necessary abuses within the precise limits of necessity which they are always ready to over-leap; to envelop them in the obscurity to which they ought to be condemned, and not even draw them from it by chastis.e.m.e.nt too notorious; to be ignorant of what it is better to be ignorant of than to punish, and to punish but seldom and usefully; to penetrate by subterraneous avenues into the bosom of families, and keep for them the secrets which they have not confided, as long as it is not necessary to make use of them; to be present every where without being seen; in short, to move or stop at pleasure an immense mult.i.tude, and be the soul ever-acting, and almost unknown, of this great body: these are, in general, the functions of the chief magistrate of the police. It should seem that one man alone could not be equal to them, either on account of the quant.i.ty of things of which he must be informed, or of that of the views which he must follow, or of the application which he must exert, or of the variety of conduct which he most observe, and of the characters which he must a.s.sume: but the public voice will answer whether M. D'ARGENSON has been equal to them.

"Under him, cleanliness, tranquillity, plenty, and safety were brought to the highest degree of perfection in this city. And, indeed, the late king (Lewis XIV) relied entirely on his care respecting Paris. He could have given an account of a person unknown who should have stolen into it in the dark; this person, whatever ingenuity he exerted in concealing himself, was always under his eye; and if, at last, any one escaped him, at least what produced almost the same effect, no one would have dared to think himself well-concealed.

"Surrounded and overwhelmed in his audiences by a crowd of people chiefly of the lower cla.s.s, little informed themselves of what brought them, warmly agitated by interests very trifling, and frequently very ill understood, accustomed to supply the place of discourse by senseless clamour, he neither betrayed the inattention nor the disdain which such persons or such subjects might have occasioned."

"FONTENELLE has not," continues MERCIER, "spoken of the severity of M. D'ARGENSON, of his inclination to punish, which was rather a sign of weakness than of strength. Alas! human laws, imperfect and rude, cannot dive to the bottom of the human heart, and there discover the causes of the delinquencies which they have to punish! They judge only from the surface: they would acquit, perhaps, those whom they condemn; they would strike him whom they suffer to escape. But they cannot, I confess, do otherwise. Nevertheless, they ought to neglect nothing that serves to disclose the heart of man. They ought to estimate the strength of natural and indestructible pa.s.sions, not in their effects, but in their principles; to pay attention to the age, the s.e.x, the time, the day; these are nice rules, which could not be found in the brain of the legislator, but which ought to be met with in that of a Minister of the Police."

"There are also epidemical errors in which the mult.i.tude of those who go astray, seems to lessen the fault; in which a sort of circ.u.mspection is necessary, in order that punishment may not be in opposition to public interest, because punishment would then appear absurd or barbarous, and indignation might recoil on the law, as well as on the magistrate."

"What a life has a Minister of Police! He has not a moment that he can call his own; he is every day obliged to punish; he is afraid to give way to indulgence, because he does not know that he may not one day have to reproach himself with it. He is under the necessity of being severe, and of acting contrary to the inclination of his heart; not a crime is committed but he receives the shameful or cruel account: he hears of nothing but vicious men and vices; every instant he is told: 'there's a murder! a suicide! a rape!' Not an accident happens but he must prescribe the remedy, and hastily; he has but a moment to deliberate and act, and he must be equally fearful to abuse the power intrusted to him, and not to use it opportunely. Popular rumours, flighty conversations, theatrical factions, false alarms, every thing concerns him.

"Is he gone to rest? A fire rouses him from his bed. He must be answerable for every thing; he must trace the robber, and the lurking a.s.sa.s.sin who has committed a crime; for the magistrate appears blameable, if he has not found means to deliver him up quickly to justice. The time that his agents have employed in this capture will be calculated, and his honour requires that the interval between the crime and the imprisonment should be the shortest possible. What dreadful duties! What a laborious life! And yet this place is coveted!

"On some occasions, it is necessary for the Minister of Police to demean himself like a true _Greek_, as was the case in the following instance:

"A person, being on the point of making a journey, had in his possession a sum of twenty thousand livres which embarra.s.sed him; he had only one servant, whom he mistrusted, and the sum was tempting.

He accordingly requested a friend to be so obliging as to take care of it for him till his return.

"A fortnight after, the friend denied the circ.u.mstance. As there was no proof, the civil law could not p.r.o.nounce in this affair. Recourse was had to the Minister of Police, who pondered a moment, and sent for the receiver, making the accuser retire into an adjoining room:

"The friend arrives, and maintains that he has not received the twenty thousand livres. 'Well,' said the magistrate, 'I believe you; and as you are innocent you run no, risk in writing to your wife the note that I am going to dictate. Write.

"'"My dear wife, all is discovered. I shall be punished if I do not restore you know what. Bring the sum: your coming quickly to my relief is the only way for me to get out of trouble and obtain my pardon."

"'This note,' added the magistrate, 'will fully justify you. Your wife can bring nothing since you have received nothing, and your accuser will be foiled.'

"The note was dispatched; the wife, terrified, ran with the twenty thousand livres.

"Thus the Minister of Police can daily make up for the imperfection and tardiness of our civil laws; but he ought to use this rare and splendid privilege with extreme circ.u.mspection.

"The chief magistrate of the police is become a minister of importance; he has a secret and prodigious influence; he knows so many things, that he can do much mischief or much good, because he has in hand a mult.i.tude of threads which he can entangle or disentangle at his pleasure; he strikes or he saves; he spreads darkness or light: his authority is as delicate as it is extensive.

"The Minister of Police exercises a despotic sway over the _mouchards_ who are found disobedient, or who make false reports: as for these fellows, they are of a cla.s.s so vile and so base, that the authority to which they have sold themselves, has necessarily an absolute right over their persons.

"This is not the case with those who are apprehended in the name of the police; they may have committed trifling faults: they may have enemies in that crowd of _exempts_, spies, and satellites, who are believed on their word. The eye of the magistrate may be incessantly deceived, and the punishment of these crimes ought to be submitted to a more deliberate investigation; but the house of correction ingulfs a vast number of men who there become still more perverted, and who, on coming out, are still more wicked than when they went in. Being degraded in their own eyes, they afterwards plunge themselves headlong into all sorts of irregularities.

"These different imprisonments are sometimes rendered necessary by imperious circ.u.mstances; yet it were always to be wished that the detention of a citizen should not depend on a single magistrate, but that there should be a sort of tribunal to examine when this great act of authority, withdrawn from the eye of the law, ceases to be illegal.

"A few real advantages compensate for these irregular forms, and there are, in fact, an infinite number of irregularities which the slow and grave process of our tribunals can neither take cognizance of, nor put a stop to, nor foresee, nor punish. The audacious or subtle delinquent would triumph in the winding labyrinth of our civil laws. The laws of the police, more direct, watch him, press him, and surround him mose closely. The abuse, is contiguous to the benefit, I admit; but a great many private acts of violence, base and shameful crimes, are repressed by this vigilant and active force which ought, nevertheless, to publish its code and submit it to the inspection of enlightened citizens."

"Could the Minister of Police communicate to the philosopher all he knows, all he learns, all he sees, and likewise impart to him certain secret things, of which he alone is well-informed, there would be nothing so curious and so instructive under the pen of the philosopher; for he would astonish all his brethren. But this magistrate is like the great penitentiary; he hears every thing, relates nothing, and is not astonished at certain delinquencies in the same degree as another man. By dint of seeing the tricks of roguery, the crimes of vice, secret treachery, and all the filth of human actions, he has necessarily a little difficulty in giving credit to the integrity and virtue of honest people. He is in a perpetual state of mistrust; and, in the main, he ought to possess such a character; for, he ought to think nothing impossible, after the extraordinary lessons which he receives from men and from things.

In a word, his place commands a continual, and scrutinizing suspicion."

_February 22, in continuation._

"Even should not the Parisian have the levity with which he is reproached, reason would justify him in its adoption. He walks surrounded by spies. No sooner do two citizens whisper to each other, than up comes a third, who prowls about in order to listen to what they are saying. The spies of the police are a regiment of inquisitive fellows; with this difference, that each individual belonging to this regiment has a distinct dress, which he changes frequently every day; and nothing so quick or so astonishing, as these sorts of metamorphoses.

"The same spy who figures as a private gentleman in the morning, in the evening represents a priest: at one time, he is a peaceable limb of the law; at another, a swaggering bully. The next day, with a gold-headed cane in his hand, he will a.s.sume the deportment of a monied man buried in calculations; the most singular disguises are quite familiar to him. In the course of the twenty-four hours, he is an officer of distinction and a journeyman hair-dresser, a shorn apostle and a scullion. He visits the dress-ball and the lowest sink of vice. At one time with a diamond ring on his finger, at another with the most filthy wig on his head, he almost changes his countenance as he does his apparel; and more than one of these _mouchards_ would teach the French _Roscius_ the art of _decomposing_ himself; he is all eyes, all ears, all legs; for he trots, I know not how, over the pavement of every quarter of the town. Squatted sometimes in the corner of a coffee-room, you would take him for a dull, stupid, tiresome fellow, snoring till supper is ready: he has seen and heard all that has pa.s.sed. At another time, he is an orator, and been the first to make a bold speech; he courts you to open your mind; he interprets even your silence, and whether you speak to him or not, he knows what you think of this or that proceeding.

"Such is the universal instrument employed in Paris for diving into secrets; and this is what determines the actions of persons in power more willingly than any thing that could be imagined in reasoning or politics.

"The employment of spies has destroyed the ties of confidence and friendship. None but frivolous questions are agitated, and the government dictates, as it were, to citizens the subject on which they shall speak in the evening in coffee-houses, as well as in private circles.

"The people have absolutely lost every idea of civil or political administration; and if any thing could excite laughter in the midst of an ignorance so deplorable, it would be the conversation of such a silly fellow who constantly imagines that Paris must give the law and the _ton_ to all Europe, and thence to all the world.

"The men belonging to the police are a ma.s.s of corruption which the Minister of that department divides into two parts: of the one, he makes spies or _mouchards_; of the other, satellites, _exempts_, that is, officers, whom he afterwards lets loose against pickpockets, swindlers, thieves, &c., much in the same manner as a huntsman sets hounds on wolves and foxes.

"The spies have other spies at their heels, who watch over them, and see that they do their duty. They all accuse each other reciprocally, and worry one another for the vilest gain."

I cannot here avoid interrupting my copious but laboriously-gathered selection from MERCIER, to relate an anecdote which shews in what a detestable light _mouchards_ are considered in Paris.

A man who appeared to be in tolerably good circ.u.mstances, fell in love, and married a girl whom the death of her parents and acc.u.mulated distress had driven to a life of dissipation. At the end of a few months, she learnt that her husband was a spy of the police.

"Probably," said, she to him, "you did not take up this trade till after you had reflected that in following that of a thief or a murderer, you would have risked your life." On saying this, she ran out of the house, and precipitated herself from the _Pont Royal_ into the Seine, where she was drowned.--But to resume the observations of MERCIER.

"It is from these odious dregs," continues our author, "that public order arises.

"When the _mouchards_ of the police have acted contrary to their instructions, they are confined in the house of correction; but they are separated from the other prisoners, because they would be torn to pieces by those whom they have caused to be imprisoned, and who would recognize them. They inspire less pity on account of the vile trade which they follow. One sees with surprise, and with still more pain, that these fellows are very young. Spies, informers at sixteen!--O!

what a shocking life does this announce!" exclaims MERCIER. "No; nothing ever distressed me more than to see boys act such a part....

And those who form them into squads, who drill them, who corrupt such inexperienced youth!"

Such is the admirable order which reigns in Paris, that a man suspected or described is watched so closely, that his smallest steps are known, till the very moment when it is expedient to apprehend him.

"The description taken of the man is a real portrait, which it is impossible to mistake; and the art of thus describing the person by words, is carried to so great a nicety, that the best writer, after much reflection on the matter, could add nothing to it, nor make use of other expressions.

"The Theseuses of the police are on foot every night to purge the city of robbers, and it might be said that the lions, bears, and tigers are chained by political order.

"There are also the court-spies, the town-spies, the bed-spies, the street-spies, the spies of impures, and the spies of wits: they are all called by the name of _mouchards_, the family name of the first spy employed by the court of France.

"Men of fashion at this day follow the trade of _mouchards_; most of them style themselves _Monsieur le Baron_, _Monsieur le Comte_, _Monsieur le Marquis_. There was a time, under Lewis XV, when spies were so numerous, that it was impossible for friends, who a.s.sembled together, to open their heart to each other concerning matters which deeply affected their interest. The ministerial inquisition had posted its sentinels at the door of every room, and listeners in every closet. Ingenuous confidences, made from friends to friends, and intended to die in the very bosom where they had been deposited, were punished as dangerous conspiracies.

"These odious researches poisoned social life, deprived men of pleasures the most innocent, and transformed citizens into enemies who trembled to unbosom themselves to each other.

"One fourth of the servants in Paris serve as spies; and the secrets of families, which are thought the most concealed, come to the knowledge of those interested in being acquainted with them.

"Independently of the spies of the police, ministers have spies belonging to themselves, and keep them in pay: these are the most dangerous of all, because they are less suspected than others, and it is more difficult to know them. By these means, ministers know what is said of them; yet, of this they avail themselves but little. They are more intent to ruin their enemies, and thwart their adversaries, than to derive a prudent advantage from the free and ingenuous hints given them by the mult.i.tude.

"It is entertaining enough to consider that, in proper time and place, spies are watching him who, at his pleasure, sets spies to watch other citizens. Thus, the links which connect mankind in political order are really incomprehensible. He who does not admire the manner in which society exists, and is supported by the simultaneous reaction of its members, and who sees not the serpent's _tail_ entering its _mouth_, is not born for reflection.

"But the secrets of courts are not revealed through spies; they get wind by means of certain people who are not in the least mistrusted; in like manner the best built ships leak through an imperceptible c.h.i.n.k, which cannot be discovered.

"What is interesting in courts, and particularly so in ours," says MERCIER, "is that there is a degree of obscurity spread over all its proceedings. We wish to penetrate what is concealed, we endeavour to know till we learn; thus it is that the most ingenious machine preserves its highest value only till we have seen the springs which set it in motion.

"After having considered the different parts which form the police of the capital, we still perceive all the radii reaching from the centre to the circ.u.mference. How many ramifications issue from the same stem! How far the branches extend! What an impulse does not Paris give to other neighbouring cities!