Napoleon it was who once expressed the view that if not impossible, it was rare to find a Frenchman who could really put his heart into the business of spying, whether military or civil, and it was his custom, as far as possible, to employ in either capacity men of that cosmopolitan or unnational type of which we have spoken. The Emperor's view would hardly seem, however, to fit in with the preconceived notion entertained by most of us. Regaled as we have long been with the fantasies and fictions of modern French writers and their inspired master detectives, we find ourselves almost invariably crediting the French system of secret service with being, in respect of its excellence, an exemplar to all other kindred bodies. No satire, so far as we know, of the stolen-white-elephant type has ever yet been written with the object of pointing out the futility of its processes or the imbecility of its methods, and in any case, it is a matter of statistical record that the amount of undiscovered crime in France is twenty per cent. lower than that of any other country in the world. Here, it must be admitted, we seem to be confusing the business of the detector of crime with that of the secret-service agent; in most countries, nevertheless, the two departments work largely in conjunction, and it may be, in general, fairly presumed that a service which is likely to provide a good corps of detectives is also capable of producing an able body of spies. It would seem that in no age in French history was the system of organised spying so complete as during the ascendancy of Richelieu, when clerical influences, supported by a vast network of espionage, were everywhere overwhelming, and again during the times of Napoleon's military empire, a contrast in conditions which suggests the idea that governments which are based on autocratic or non-representative principles invariably require the help of intrinsically corrupt and vicious influences to enable them to maintain their existence. For all the lauded excellence of the imperial German organisation of spies, that of France may be said, when we take into consideration the lighter political and social machinery of a Republican country, to be hardly less comprehensive, as well as quite as effective in its results.

Paris is, of course, the centre of the French organisation. Here it works craftily and silently and though rarely coming into contact with the work of the President or his Cabinet, is permanently in touch with departmental officials in all the great public offices. It is declared on the authority of a now-retired divisional chief of the French secret service, Saint-Just, that even the Prefect of Police in Paris only rarely hears of the business details of his own department, though it is very doubtful if such a statement could be made about M. MÉline, whose omnivorous activities and private information during his tenure of that office are said on more than one occasion to have extricated the Republic from a difficult international impasse. As a rule the divisional chiefs of the system only invite the attention of the titular head of the service in the event of a cause cÉlÈbre in which great names are mentioned, or else in cases in which international complications, as in the Dreyfus drama, are to be feared. The French Secretary for Foreign Affairs can alone be said, in regard to the work and the results of the French spy system, to be in close touch with it; and in all certainty this was true about M. DelcassÉ in the perilous period of the Moroccan imbroglio of 1906. Other Ministers, all of whom, like the Prefect of Police himself, hold office by virtue of their being party men, know as a rule less about what is taking place in the underground of political movements than much humbler civil servants. The divisional chiefs without doubt are the real controllers of the police organisation; these men are practically irremovable and they are invariably so well acquainted with inside working of state affairs that no Government dares dismiss one of them without grave reason. Colonel Henry, whose momentous knowledge of the real motives which underlay the Dreyfus affair made his own removal by suicide or murder—who can tell which?—an insistent necessity, had acted as a go-between from a divisional chief to an important political personage in France and consequently learned, in the course of his dealings with them both, that formidable secret which eventually cost the Colonel his life.

The spy system of France is largely based nowadays, as in the time of FouchÉ, on the Dossier. In France any person who has had, or even who is likely to have, anything like a career which is of a public nature is duly taken cognisance of by the police, and all and everything in the way of private information or gossip or documentary evidence and the like is collated against all possible eventuality and upshot, the result being forthwith archived in the offices of the chief of police. The merest novice who enters in any capacity into the limelight of publicity, even artists, literary men, frail queans of the demi-monde, financiers, politicians, social fancy-men, jockeys, actors, clerics, opulent mistresses, editors—all these in point of personal "pedigree," to cull an expression from the American police vocabulary, are better known to the secret service than to their own parents. And so it happens, when a man attains to high political power and is courted by ministers, he invariably makes it his business to become as intimate as possible with the Chief of the Police, his object being to recover and destroy all incriminating documents concerning his past life. In former times, we have all read, kings were wont on occasion to ask useful retainers if they had anything to solicit in the way of favours. If a French President were nowadays to invite a rising or, better still, a risen politician who had served the party well, to make his particular request, it is certain that first, and before all things, the politician would ask to be put in possession of his dossier, since no man, great or small, cares that the world should know by what arts he taught himself to rise, as Pope puts it. It is an undoubted fact that the dossier is frequently asked for by arrivals at high political position, and the police, of course, make a pretence at surrendering it. But do not think for a moment that they actually surrender each and all of the documentary proofs and tit-bits of private intelligence which have come into their possession regarding the person most concerned. The great man is, of course, given a dossier of sorts. Yet a year or so later, when the politician has fallen from his high office, the "pedigree" is replaced in the police archives, often fatter and more succulent than ever. Since the days of FouchÉ, who was the inventor of the dossier secret, this has been a fixed official custom of the French Police and the cost of its maintenance is charged on the municipal rates. It is also certain that no constant visitor to Paris, no matter whence he comes or what his nationality, provided he possesses high political or social importance, or even notoriety, in his own country, all unconsciously goes through the ordeal of having his pedigree taken, as they say in New York. And again, since the art of police photography has become common, as often as not, and unknown to himself, the visitor has to submit to the official process of having his portrait taken, or being "mugged," as the American police so expressively describe it.

Years back, in the time of Napoleon the Third, there existed a system of spying throughout France, known as that of the "White Blouses," these being a ubiquitous band of agents provocateurs who were paid to incite the people to riots and so furnish the police with pretexts for incarcerating leading popular spirits who were likely, if allowed their freedom, to become dangerous to the stability of the Empire. The fall of that fabric in 1870 led to the partial break-up of this monstrous organisation, and many who were known to be its paid agents were very deservedly shot in the days of the Commune. After the establishment of the Republic the spy police was reorganised and a special brigade of secret-service agents was formed whose object was—and still is—to spy upon all those political sects at the head of which stand pretenders like the Duke of Orleans, or Prince Napoleon, or the late General Boulanger. At any grave political crisis in France these political sects display more than their usual energies, trusting more or less, as they do, in the star of their particular candidate, and at such times the corps of spies become correspondingly active. This especial body is said to have constituted far more than any other force to the permanent stability of the present Republican regime. Most of its special spies are recruited, it is known, among the newspaper reporters and writers of Paris and the larger towns of France, and for the reason that their business affords them better opportunities than are given to most men of coming in touch with people who are anxious to "move the public mind" in regard to pet principles, or in simpler words, who have an axe to grind. This service was the invention of the celebrated Prefect of Police Andrieux, who also organised a system of fractional divisions of his police which still exists, and which is also associated with the body that spies upon the movements of anarchist societies in France, Spain, England, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Belgium, Holland and the United States, with all the chief bureaux of which countries it continues to remain in permanent affiliation. Its magnificent work undoubtedly accounts for the chronic failure of the militant anarchists to do serious damage or outrage in anything like proportion to the fiery sentiments which they profess to entertain towards all reasoned systems of government, or even in proportion to their numbers.

The real chief of the French Secret Service is, as we have told, not the Prefect of Police, who is a politician and a party man. The traditions of a generation will it that the active headship of that service be taken over generally by the chief of what is officially known as the Third Division of the Police. Under this functionary's control are the head of the First Bureau in which the dossiers are kept, and the head of the Second Bureau which deals with the reports of political agents and which also directs the notorious Black Cabinet having charge of the opening of all private letters passing between suspected persons; when read these letters are photographed and archived. The Third Bureau has been made famous in recent times by the Panama, Dreyfus and Humbert scandals in which its large corps of handwriting experts and interpreters came on the scene. In the First Division the various bureaux are made up as follows: (A) Spies upon persons of note; thus Esterhazy during the Dreyfus case had seventeen members of this division following him in all places and at all hours. (B) The corps of men who are detailed to watch women frequently visited by prominent politicians, and who are, when it is found necessary, instructed to "engage the sentiments" of the ladies at their dwelling places, cash-expenses being allowed the spies in proportion to the cubicular tariff of any given lady who may be suspected of knowing anything. (C) The body of spies who are detailed to spy upon the actions and movements of notable foreigners. This body includes those spies who are available for hire by great bankers, the heads of large business houses, the chiefs of great newspapers, or any other private individuals of great wealth and position who for reasons of their own, wish to have their employees, their acquaintances, or their mistresses followed and their movements reported upon. Foreigners and others whose presence is not considered desirable in France are invariably tracked down by the spies of this department. (D) The service of spies whose qualifications enable them to look out for traits of insanity or eccentricity, especially in persons of wealth and "in the interests of public health and security," it is officially stated. There is then the Second Division, which is composed mainly of a bureau the agents of which are stationed at the different ports of France and who watch all suspicious characters landing in or leaving France, or who, as occasion requires, visit foreign ports in quest of criminal evidence; a subsidiary body of its spies are detailed to watch malefactors and politicians of the municipal order. Finally there is the "laboratory" to which the late M. Bertillon, the anthropometrician, has given celebrity as chief of its Identification department, in which criminals are measured or identified. In this department, should the police be very anxious to possess the "identification dossier" of any person who is suspected of criminal relations, the chiefs have the suspect arrested on some pretext or other. He is at once haled to the Identification bureau, where the officials go through the mock process of recording his measures. Subsequently it is discovered that, after all, he is not the person required, and he is released with much apology. The bureau authorities nevertheless retain his card and when, if ever, the suspect is caught in the act, he is sure to be confronted with his record in measurements even though he have never so many aliases.

As in Germany, so in France, that type of inferior spy who is known by the term mouchard is generally to be found among the municipal inspectors of lodging-houses, the supervisors of night-houses, those detectives whose business is the watching of the street-police, all of which individuals have opportunities for picking up clues to more or less important crime. There is also an inferior corps of mouchards who are known by the expressive term remueurs de casseroles—that is to say, persons whose business it is to stir up the social saucepan in any district in order to bring minor details to light. As may be supposed from their name, they move in the very lowest circles of the unchosen races of evil and are generally to be hired, for a franc or two the job, among waiters, money-lenders' touts, race-course "narks" and such gentry. Spies are also, it is well known, sent in the guise of convicted offenders among those already undergoing imprisonment, with the object of bringing to the knowledge of the police further details as to crimes already committed. Such a person is usually known among French professional criminals by the name "mouton." All these classes of spies may be said to come under the supervision of the chief of the Third Division, who also takes charge of that portion of the system which is detailed to watch the mining, the manufacturing and the wine districts for the purposes of reporting on anything in the way of "syndicalist" disaffection. The political corps d'espionnage in France numbers, it may be said, some 1000 paid agents of all grades of society, men and women. They are expected to earn their living among the class of people upon whom they report to the police, so that being in regular employment their movements shall not be open to suspicion. When the chief-of-division requires the service of a particular spy at an established point, the individual chosen is requested formally to present himself at district headquarters. Here he is informed by the presiding chief that some details have been gathered concerning his relations with a dishonest and punishable piece of business which had taken place perhaps ten years before in, perhaps, another neighbourhood, or even a different town. The visitor admits the fact, but pleads that the occurrence is really statute-barred. The police official declares himself ready to forget the matter provided his visitor will consent to work on his behalf among the people of his factory, or store, or municipality, as the case may be. There will be a little money in it—according to the man's standing, and all he is required to do is to forward once or twice weekly a letter detailing conversations, opinions expressed by others, various acts, trysts and so on of any or all of those with whom he works and consorts. The prospective spy does not know, nor will he ever know, what object the police have ultimately in view, or how important it is, or for what stakes they are playing. He is in reality on the outside rim of some gigantic movement the penetration of the inmost workings of which is being sought. Naturally he consents and enters the public service as an "agent of record."

In France, it is well established, each great newspaper has a spy who is in receipt of occasional tips from the proprietor. His duty is to watch editors, writers and reporters, their movements, the quality of the people they visit and how they spend their spare hours. These newspapers also employ their agents in other offices in order that items of special interest in the way of news shall not be omitted by their own papers. In the great banking-houses of Paris there are spies paid from inside to spy upon employees and spies paid from outside to spy on the especial details of the business, its investments, its intentions and plans, and even these men are spied upon in their turn to prevent their abusing their information on the Bourse. Politicians, senators—all these are watched by colleagues who draw salaries from the secret-service funds. Going back many years, it will be recalled that at a critical moment in his political career, General Boulanger fled from Paris because, as he explained to the reporters in Brussels, his enemies had decided upon his seizure and imprisonment. It was afterwards shown that the General's valet, one Georget, was a paid spy in the service of the police, and Boulanger had taken him to Brussels. Furthermore, the maid who waited upon Madame de Bonnemain, Boulanger's mistress, was the sweetheart of Georget, and she also was a paid police spy, the result being that the movements of both were perfectly well known to the secret-service agents, who could have arrested the General at any one of the twenty stations between Paris and Brussels. The police were fully aware, indeed, as Boulanger himself was, that, his cause being discredited, he no longer counted in politics or society.

The French War Office is now as well informed as any war office in Europe and the war of 1914 may be held to have disproved the opposite view. Into its secret intelligence bureau flows information from every part of Europe. The military attachÉ of the present day is responsible for much that is pigeon-holed in its offices—services of transportation, war material, armaments, railroads, mobilisation plans, finances—and there is little of moment in any other country upon which French emissaries cannot throw all necessary light in the way of special information. From the General Staff down every military official collects his quota. He is trained what to observe, what to ask about, what to look for and what to expect—plans of fortifications, new guns, or parts of guns and so forth. Accordingly it is not surprising to hear that France, which had neglected to watch, or who more probably despised the internal enemy in 1870, had by 1914 perfected a system of counter-espionage which totally neutralised that of Germany in all directions. Since 1895 the French Code has been increased by practically only one item of importance in regard to spies. The clause in question states that "all dealings with the enemy, by private French citizens, which shall have the effect of conveying knowledge that hostile armies can make use of in war shall entail penal servitude for life. In the case of officers or officials who are found to be transmitting information to the enemy the penalty shall be death."

Renan has declared that, to the honour of France, it has ever been found impossible to discover a traitor in her hour of trial. On the whole this statement may be taken as representing the truth, and in flagrant cases in which French citizens have been proved to have betrayed their country, it has almost invariably been proved that the offenders were of German origin.