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.
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.”
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.