Edwards Henry Sutherland
Old and New Paris: Its History, Its People, and Its Places, v. 1
The restoration of the windows had been entrusted, after a public competition, to M. Henri Gérante, a French artist who, more than any other, has contributed to the resurrection of the seemingly lost art of painting on glass. But, unhappily, M. Gérante died before beginning his work, which, thereupon, was divided between M. Steintheil, for the drawing and painting, and M. Lusson for the material preparation. Their labours were crowned with the most complete success. Entering the Holy Chapel one is literally dazzled by the bright rich colours from the windows on all sides, blending together in the most harmonious manner.
Right and left of the nave the place is shown where Saint Louis and Blanche de Castille were accustomed to sit opposite one another to hear mass and other religious services. A corner, moreover, is pointed out, with an iron network before it, where, according to a doubtful tradition, the suspicious Louis XI. used to retire in order to hear mass without being seen; perhaps also to watch the faithful at their prayers. In many an old French church corners and passages may be met with, protected by a network or simply by rails, which served, it is said, to shut off lepers from the general congregation.
Closely associated with the Palais de Justice is the Tribunal of Commerce, which has its own code, its own judges and functionaries. Three centuries ago the necessity was recognised in France of leaving commercial and industrial cases to the decision of men competent, from their occupation, to deal with such matters. Paris owes its Tribunal of Commerce to King Charles IX.; but the code under which issues are now decided dates only from September, 1807 – from the First Empire, that is to say. The commercial judges are named for two years by the merchants and tradesmen domiciled in the department of the Seine. Formerly the Tribunal of Commerce, or Consular Tribunal, held its sittings at the back of the Church of Saint-Méry in the Hôtel des Consuls, the gate of which used to support a statue of Louis XIV., by Simon Guilain.
This mercantile court consists of five merchants, the first bearing the title of judge, and the four others that of consuls. The Tribunal of Commerce was removed from the old house in the Rue Saint-Méry in 1826, to be installed on the first storey of the newly constructed Bourse. Soon, however, the place assigned to it became inadequate for the constantly increasing number of cases brought before the court; and a special edifice was erected for the Tribunal of Commerce in the immediate vicinity of the Palais de Justice. This structure, quadrilateral in form, is bounded on the north by the Quai aux Fleurs, on the east by the Rue Aubé, on the south by the Rue de Lutèce, and on the west by the Boulevard du Palais. To build a new Palais de Justice it was necessary to destroy all that existed of the ancient Cité. One curious building, which, after undergoing every kind of modification, ultimately, in order to make room for the Court of Commerce, disappeared altogether, was the ancient Church of Saint Bartholomew. This sacred edifice during the early days of the Revolution, when churches had gone very much out of fashion, became the Théâtre Henri IV., to be afterwards called Palais Variété, Théâtre de la Cité, Cité Variété, and Théâtre Mozart. Here was represented, in 1795, “The Interior of the Revolutionary Committees,” the most cutting satire ever directed against the tyranny of the Jacobins; and, in another style, “The Perilous Forest, or the Brigands of Calabria,” a true type of the ancient melodrama. Suppressed in 1807, this theatre underwent a number of transformations, to serve at last as a dancing saloon, known to everyone and beloved by students under the title of The Prado.
The cupola of the Tribunal of Commerce is a reproduction, as to form, of the cupola of a little church which attracted the attention of Napoleon III. on the borders of the Lake of Garda while he was awaiting the result of the attack on the Solferino Tower. The Audience Chamber of the Tribunal is adorned with paintings by Robert Fleury, representing incidents in the commercial history of France from Charles IX. to Napoleon III.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE FIRE BRIGADE AND THE POLICE
The Sapeurs-pompiers– The Prefect of Police – The Garde Républicaine– The Spy System.
THE Tribunal of Commerce, standing north of the Rue de Lutèce, has for pendant on its south side (that is to say, between the Rue de Lutèce and the quay) the barrack of the Republican Guard and two houses adjoining it, one of which is the private residence of the Prefect of Police: where, moreover, he has his private office; while the second contains the station of the firemen of the town of Paris.
The Fire Brigade, or corps of Sapeurs-pompiers, is partly under the direction of the Prefect of Police, partly under that of the Minister of War, who takes charge of its organisation, its recruitment, and its internal administration. Much was said at the time of the terrible fire at the Opéra Comique in 1887 of the evils of this dual system; the chief of the corps, an officer appointed by the War Minister, being often an experienced soldier, but never before his appointment a skilled fireman. There is a reason, however, for placing the Sapeurs-pompiers under the orders of the Minister of War. During the campaign of 1870 and 1871 the Germans refused to recognise the military character of corps not holding their commission from this minister. Thus the National Guards, as a purely civic body, were not looked upon as soldiers, and were threatened with the penalties inflicted on persons taking up arms without authority from the central military power. In the next war against Germany the French propose to call out the whole of their available forces; and to be recognised as regular troops the Sapeurs-pompiers must have a military organisation and act under military chiefs formally appointed and responsible to a superior officer. All this, however, could surely be accomplished without rendering the corps unfit for the special duties assigned to it.
The Sapeurs-pompiers are organised in twelve companies, forming two battalions, and are distributed among the 150 barracks, stations, and watch-houses comprised in the twenty districts, or arrondissements, of Paris.
The Magistracy of the Prefect of Police was created under the Consulate of the 1st of July, 1800, when the Central Power took over the general police duties entrusted under the Monarchy to the Lieutenant-General of Police, and which had been transferred by the Revolution to the Commune of Paris. The Prefect is specially empowered to take, personally, every step necessary for the discovery and repression of crime and for the punishment of criminals. He is charged, moreover, under the authority of the Minister of the Interior, with all that relates to the administrative and economic government of the prisons and houses of detention and correction, not only in Paris, but throughout the department of the Seine, as well as in the communes of Saint-Cloud, Sèvres, Meudon, and Enghien, suburbs of Paris belonging to the department of Seine-et-Oise.
The Prefect of Police has beneath his orders all the police of the capital, or rather of the department to which the capital belongs. This service is divided into two special organisations: Municipal Police and Agents of Security. The “Security” force consists of three hundred agents with the title of inspector, commanded by five chief inspectors, ten brigadiers, and twenty sub-brigadiers. These agents are employed in arresting malefactors, and are viewed with intense hatred by the criminal class generally. The Municipal Police counts an effective of about 8,000 men, commanded by 38 peace officers, 25 chief inspectors, 100 brigadiers, and 700 sub-brigadiers. The entire expenditure of the Prefecture of the Police Service amounts to twenty-five million francs a year, of which eleven millions are put down for pay and the remainder for uniforms, office expenses, and all kinds of extras.
“If,” says a French writer who knows London as well as Paris, “our police is not always so clear-sighted and so clever as it might be, it is, at any rate, more tolerant than vexatious. Our ‘keepers of the peace’ do not impose on the Paris population all the respect that the English people feels for its policemen; nor have they the same rigid bearing or the same herculean aspect. But, on the other hand, they are without their brutality – quite incredible to anyone who has not lived in London. Nearly all have been in the army, and they preserve the familiar aspect of the French soldier; while of the rules laid down by the Prefecture, the one they least observe is that which forbids them to talk in the street with servant maids and cooks. But they are intelligent, ingenious, possessed of a certain tact, and brave to the point of self-sacrifice. They are at present more appreciated and more popular, with their tunic, their military cap, their high boots, and their little cloak, which give them the look of troops on a campaign, than were the Sergents de Ville whose swallow-tail coat and black cocked hat were so much feared by rioters under the reign of Louis Philippe.”
The Barracks of the Prefecture are occupied by the Garde Républicaine, which succeeds the Garde de Paris, the latter having itself succeeded the Garde Municipale, which was simply the Gendarmerie Royale of the Town of Paris, created under the Restoration. After the Revolution of 1848 the name of the Garde Municipale was changed, as after the Revolution of 1830 the title of Gendarmerie Royale was abolished. Notwithstanding alterations of name and certain slight modifications of uniform, the Republican Guard is a legion of gendarmerie like the different corps that preceded it. Commanded by a colonel, the Republican Guard is divided into two detachments or brigades, each under a lieutenant-colonel; the first consisting of three battalions of infantry, the second of three squadrons of cavalry. The whole force comprises 118 officers, with 2,800 men beneath their orders – 2,200 infantry, and 600 cavalry.
The Republican Guard, one of the finest corps that can be seen, belongs to the cadres of the regular army; and it served brilliantly in the war of 1870 and 1871. Its special duties, however, are to keep order in the City of Paris; though, in consideration of its mixed character, the pay assigned to it is furnished, half by the State, half by the Town of Paris. Among other merits it possesses an admirable band, in which may be found some of the finest orchestral players in a capital possessing an abundance of fine orchestras. The evidence of a Garde Républicaine, or gendarme, is accepted at the police courts as unimpeachable. The written statement drawn up by a gendarme may be denied by the accused, but it cannot be set aside.
“As a matter of fact,” says M. Auguste Vitu, in his work on “Paris,” “very few evil results are caused by this rule; for the gendarme is honest. But he may make a mistake. In London, the magistrate, having generally to deal only with policemen of his own district, knows them personally, can judge of their intelligence and disposition, and is able in certain cases to see whether they are obscuring or altering the truth. He exercises over them, in case of negligence or error, accidental or intentional, the right of reprimanding and of suspending them. In Paris the ‘judges of correction,’ before whom, at one time or another, every one of the ‘keepers of the peace’ or of the Republican Guards (altogether about 10,000 men) may appear, can only accept their evidence. It is doubtless sincere, but there is no way of testing it.”
Of the spy system in connection with police administration it is difficult to speak with accurate knowledge, for the simple reason that it is not until long afterwards that secret arrangements of this kind are divulged. But in principle the system described by Mercier more than a hundred years ago still exists.
“This,” writes that faithful chronicler, “may be termed the second part of Parisian grievances. Yet, like even the most poisonous reptile, these bloodhounds are of some service to the community: they form a mass of corruption which the police distil, as it were, with equal art and judgment, and, by mixing it with a few salutary ingredients, soften its baneful nature, and turn it to public advantage. The dregs that remain at the bottom of the still are the spies of whom I have just spoken; for these also belong to the police. The distilled matter itself consists of the thief-catchers, etc. They, like other spies, have persons to watch over them; each is foremost to impeach the other, and a base lucre is the bone of contention amongst those wretches, who are, of all evils, the most necessary. Such are the admirable regulations of the Paris police that a man, if suspected, is so closely watched that the most minute transaction in which he is concerned is treasured up till it is fit time to arrest him. The police does not confine its care to the capital only. Droves of its runners are sent to the principal towns and cities in this kingdom, where, by mixing with those whose character is suspicious, they insinuate themselves into their confidence, and by pretending to join in their mischievous schemes, get sufficient information to prevent their being carried into execution. The mere narrative of the following fact, which happened when M. de Sartine was at the head of this department, will give the reader an idea of the watchfulness of the police. A gentleman travelling from Bordeaux to Paris with only one servant in his company was stopped at the turnpike by the Custom House officer, who, having inquired his name, told him he must go directly to M. de Sartine. The traveller was both astonished and frightened at this peremptory command, which, however, it would have been imprudent to disobey. He went, and his fears soon subsided at the civil reception he met with; but his surprise was greatly increased when the magistrate, whom, to his knowledge, he had never seen before, calling him by his name, gave him an account of every transaction that had taken place previous to the gentleman’s departure from Bordeaux, and even minutely described the full contents of his portmanteau. ‘Now, sir,’ continued the Lieutenant de Police, ‘to show that I am well informed I have a trifle more to disclose to you. You are going to such and such an hotel, and a scheme is laid by your servant to murder you by ten o’clock.’ ‘Then, my lord, I must shift my quarters to defeat his wicked intention.’ ‘By no means, sir; you must not even take notice of what I have said. Retire to bed at your usual hour, and leave the rest to me.’ The gentleman followed the advice of the magistrate and went to the hotel. About an hour after he had lain down, when, no doubt, he was but little inclined to compose himself to rest, the servant, armed with a clasp-knife, entered the room on tip-toe, drew near the bed, and was about to fulfil his murderous intention. Then four men, rushing from behind the hangings, seized the wretch, who confessed all, and soon afterwards paid to the injured laws of humanity the forfeit of his life.”
Since the Revolution the number of spies employed in France has doubtless diminished. But they have existed in that country, as in others, from time immemorial. A French writer, dealing with this subject, traces the history of espionage to the remotest antiquity; the first spies being, according to his view, the brothers of Joseph, who were for that reason detained when they visited him in Egypt as Pharaoh’s minister. The Romans employed spies in their armies, and both Nero and Caligula had an immense number of secret agents. Alfred the Great was a spy of the chivalrous, self-sacrificing kind; for, risking his life on behalf of his own people he would assuredly, had he been recognised in the Danish camp, have been put to death. The spy system was first established in France on a large, widely organised scale by Richelieu, under whose orders the notorious Father Joseph became the director of a network of spies which included not only all the religious orders of France, but many persons belonging to the nobility and middle classes. This sort of conspiracy had, moreover, its correspondents abroad.
The Police, strongly organised under Louis XIV., included a numerous body of spies. But all that had before been known in the way of espionage was eclipsed in Louis XV.’s reign, when the too famous De Sartine, Lieutenant of Police, gave to his spy system a prodigious extension. Under the administration of De Sartine spies were employed to follow the Court; and the Minister of Foreign Affairs maintained a subdivision of spies to watch the doings of all foreigners arriving in Paris, and to ascertain, in particular, the object of their visit. This course of action is followed to the present day in Russia, not only secretly, but in the first instance openly. Thus the chief of a bureau connected with the Foreign Office questions the stranger in the politest manner as to his motive in coming to Russia, the friends, if any, that he has there, his occupation, and his pecuniary resources.
A report is attributed to the above-named Lieutenant of Police in which it is set forth that to watch thoroughly a family of twenty persons forty spies would be necessary. This, however, was an ideal calculation, for, in reality, the cost of the spy system under Louis XV., as set down in the official registers of the police, did not amount annually to more than 20,000 francs. The Government had, however, at its disposal much larger sums received for licences from the gambling houses, and as fines and ransoms from evil-doers of all kinds. Berryer, the successor of De Sartine – bearer of a name which, in the nineteenth century, was to be rendered honourable – conceived the idea, inspired, perhaps, by a familiar proverb, of employing as spies criminals of various kinds, principally thieves who had escaped from prison or from the pursuit of the police. These wretches, banded together in a secret army of observation, were only too zealous in the performance of the work assigned to them; for, on the slightest negligence or prevarication, they were sent back to the hulks or to gaol, where a hot reception awaited them from their former comrades in crime. Hackney-coachmen, innkeepers, and lodging-house keepers were also engaged as spies, not to speak of domestic servants, who, through secret agencies, were sometimes supplied to householders by the police themselves. Many a person was sent to the Bastille in virtue of a lettre de cachet issued on the representation of some valet before whom his master had uttered an imprudent word.
Mercier’s picture of the spy system in Paris a few years before the Revolution is, to judge from other contemporary accounts, in no way exaggerated. The Revolution did not think even of suppressing espionage, but it endeavoured to moralise this essentially immoral, if sometimes necessary, institution. In a report on this subject dated November 30, 1789, only a few months after the taking of the Bastille, the following significant passage occurs: – “We have been deprived of a sufficient number of observers, a sort of army operating under the orders of the old police, which made considerable use of it. If all the districts were well organised, if their committees were wisely chosen and not too numerous, we should apparently have no reason to regret the suppression of that odious institution which our oppressors employed so long against us.” The writer of the report was, in fact, recommending, without being apparently aware of it, a system of open denunciation necessitating previously that secret espionage which he found so hateful; for before denouncing it would be necessary to observe and watch. Nevertheless, the Police of the Revolution employed no regular spies, registered, organised, and paid, until 1793; though this did not prevent wholesale denunciation on the part of officious volunteers. Robespierre, however, maintained a spy system more or less on the ancient pattern; and when the Empire was established, Napoleon’s famous Prefect of Police, Fouché, made of espionage a perfect science. Fouché had at his service spies of all classes and kinds; and the ingenious Mme. de Bawr has, in one of her best tales, imagined the case of a poor curé, who, after the suppression of churches and religious services, calls upon Fouché, an old schoolfellow of his, to ask for some employment; when the crafty police minister assigns a certain salary to his simple-minded friend and tells him not to do any serious work for the present, but to go about Paris amusing himself in various cafés and places of entertainment, after which he can look in from time to time and say what has chiefly struck him in the persons he has seen and the conversations he has heard. At last the innocent curé finds that he has been doing the work of a spy. Fortunately, when he discovers to what a base purpose he has been turned, Napoleon has just restored public worship; whereupon, by way of amends, Fouché uses his influence with the Emperor to get the poor man re-appointed to his old parish.
Under the Restoration the spy system was maintained as under the Empire, but with additional intricacies. Fouché had been replaced by Vidocq, who, among other strange devices for getting at the thoughts of the public, obtained from the Government permission to establish a public bowling alley, which collected crowds of people, whose conversations were listened to and reported by agents employed for the purpose. The bowling alley brought in some 4,000 to 5,000 francs a year, which was spent on additional spies. The Prefect Delavau, with Vidocq as his lieutenant, went back to the system of Berryer under the ancient régime, taking into the State service escaped criminals, who for the slightest fault were sent back to gaol. An attempt was made by the same Delavau, in humble imitation of Berryer, to get into his service all the domestics of Paris; and in this way he renewed an old regulation by which each servant was to keep a book and bring it to the Prefecture of Police on entering or leaving a situation. To their credit, be it recorded, most of the servants abstained from obeying this discreditable order. Finding that his plan for watching private families through their servants did not answer, Delavau multiplied the number of agents charged with attending places of public entertainment.
“The Police,” writes M. Peuchet in his “Mémoires tirés des Archives de la Police,” “will never learn to respect an order so long as its superintendents are taken from the hulks and feel that they have their revenge to take on the society which has punished them.” The justice of this remark has since been recognised. The first care of Delavau’s successor, the honourable and much regretted M. de Belleyme, was to dismiss, and even to send back to their prisons, the army of cut-throat spies employed by the Prefect he replaced. At present, though his occupation stands no higher in public opinion than of old, the spy is not the outcast that he formerly was. Without being an honest man in the full sense of the word, he is not literally and legally a criminal. It is even asserted that the French spy of our own time is a man of some character; by which is probably meant that he has never been convicted of any offence, that he does not drink, that he has no depraved tastes, and that in a general way he can be depended upon. “Espionage,” says Montesquieu, “is never tolerable. Otherwise the trade would be exercised by honourable men. From the necessary infamy of the person must be inferred the infamy of the thing.” This, in effect, is just what the Minister d’Argenson said when he was reproached with engaging none but rogues and knaves as spies. “Find me,” he replied, “decent men to do such work!” The decent men have now, it appears, been found. So much the better.
As, however, there is said to be honour among thieves, so there is sometimes honesty among spies. Witness the case of the Abbé Lenglet-Dufresnoy, simultaneously employed by Louis XIV. to keep watch over Prince Eugène, and by Prince Eugène to report all that was done by Louis XIV., and who is said to have given the most exact information to both his employers.
