"Accordingly, immediately after the commencement of hostilities, rigorous search was made by the police in the houses of Germans and Austrians, in their clubs and in all places where they were likely to resort. In a few cases individuals were found who were in possession of a gun or pistol which they had not declared, and in one or two cases there were small collections of ancient firearms, and in such cases the offenders have been prosecuted and punished; but no store of effective arms—still less any bombs or instruments of destruction—have so far been discovered.
"From the beginning, any Germans or Austrians who were deemed by the police to be likely to be dangerous were apprehended, handed over to the military authorities, and detained as prisoners of war; and, as soon as the military authorities desired it, general action was taken to arrest and hand over to military custody Germans of military age, subject to exceptions which have properly been made on grounds of policy. About 9000 Germans and Austrians of military age have been so arrested, and are held as prisoners of war in detention camps, and among them are included those who are regarded by the police as likely in any possible event to take part in any outbreak of disorder or incendiarism."
IX
FRENCH SECRET SERVICE
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.