CHAPTER XLVI. A GLANCE AT THE ‘PREFECTURE DE POLICE’
Poor Mahon’s melancholy story made a deep impression upon me, and I returned to Paris execrating the whole race of spies and mouchards, and despising, with a most hearty contempt, a Government compelled to use such agencies for its existence. It seemed to me so utterly impossible to escape the snares of a system so artfully interwoven, and so vain to rely on innocence as a protection, that I felt a kind of reckless hardihood as to whatever might betide me, and rode into the cour of the Préfecture with a bold indifference as to my fate that I have often wondered at since.
The horse on which I was mounted was immediately recognised as I entered; and the obsequious salutations that met me showed that I was regarded as one of the trusty followers of the Minister; and in this capacity was I ushered into a large waiting-room, where a considerable number of persons were assembled, whose air and appearance, now that necessity for disguise was over, unmistakably pronounced them to be spies of the police. Some, indeed, were occupied in taking off their false whiskers and moustaches; others were removing shades from their eyes; and one was carefully opening what had been the hump on his back in search of a paper he was anxious to discover.
I had very little difficulty in ascertaining that these were all the very lowest order of mouchards, whose sphere of duty rarely led beyond the Faubourgs or the Batignolles, and indeed soon saw that my own appearance amongst them led to no little surprise and astonishment.
‘You are looking for Nicquard, monsieur?’ said one, ‘but he has not come yet.’
‘No; monsieur wants to see Boule-de-Fer,’ said another.
‘Here’s José can fetch him,’ cried a third.
‘He ‘ll have to carry him, then,’ growled out another, ‘for I saw him in the Morgue this morning!’ ‘What! dead?’ exclaimed several together.
‘As dead as four stabs in the heart and lungs can make a man! He must have been meddling where he had no business, for there was a piece of a lace ruffle found in his fingers.’
‘Ah, voilà!, cried another, ‘that comes of mixing in high society.’