And, of course, there was another very clever diplomatic spy who flourished in the same age, a member of the famous de Launay family, who was known all over Europe as the Comte d'Antraigues. He was a singular example of the man who was determined at all costs to play a part in the tortuous diplomacies of his time and, paradoxically speaking, it must be said that although his life proved a failure he achieved an historical success which has endured. We confess to a liking for a phrase which his biographer Pingaud has written in his regard: "His life is interesting like that of all men who have kept up the fight, have always been beaten, but have never admitted their defeat." A man whom Napoleon condescended to notice must have been not only interesting but important. The Emperor characterised him as a "blackguard" and "a walking impertinence"—the French word insolent meaning here perhaps our term an officious busybody, which the Count undoubtedly was. Louis XVIII. called him "the fine flower of sharpers"; for Spain he was a "charlatan"; Austria christened him "a downright rascal," and Russia characterised him as one of the vilest men in the universe. Nevertheless, Napoleon tried once to buy his services, the Bourbon emigrés paid him to keep their cause before the eyes of reactionary Europe, while Austria, Russia and the Court of Naples always listened to his advice and suggestions. We have shown in another chapter that Antraigues was mentioned as the person who had procured first-hand information of the secret clauses of the Treaty of Tilsit, and it is certain that French and Russian writers for the greater part declare the Count to have been the betrayer of both France and Russia. There can be no question that he became known to Canning, the Foreign Minister of the day, as a man whose "inside information," to use the American phrase, made him a magnificent ally; but it is also certain that by the year 1807 Antraigues had become discredited both in Russian and French diplomatic circles and, in any case, was hardly in a position to exercise much personal or practical influence in so momentous a conference as that which took place upon the historic Raft. The accepted English view is that the secret clauses came to the knowledge of Canning through an oversight on the part of Alexander who had allowed the Russian Minister in London to learn more than was expedient.
There is no better exemplar among all the exponents of espionage in its higher phases than the Comte d'Antraigues in so far as he provides us with positive proof that there comes a point at which a spy, already too dangerous by reason of his private knowledge, must be placed beyond all possibility of indiscretions. The Count was murdered in 1812 by an Italian valet who was afterwards declared by enemies of d'Antraigues to have been in the employ of the foreign secret service, a somewhat easy ex-post-facto explanation on the part of individuals who had long wished the Count on the safer side of Styx. The fact that his wife was murdered at the same time lends, however, some colour to the statement that the murder had been "fixed" as they say in the vernacular of the Black Hand. She had been in her time a famous opera singer who had tried to found a political salon on the basis of the private information which her husband possessed, and altogether seems to have been one of those terrible but inept females who wander through the world for the unrest of souls, not only knowing, but knowing that they know. We make no apology for insisting that the fact that d'Antraigues was of Gascon birth is a point in favour of our idea that megalomania is in a large measure the motive-power which turns men and women to the business of espionage. The native of Gascony is by every tradition, both home and foreign, said to represent Pretence made flesh.
It is very certain that the number of secrets which pass out of the cabinets of diplomacy into the possession of non-diplomatic persons must be infinitesimal, and it is also certain that the Machiavellian waiters on whose long ears depend the fate of thrones; or the inspired courtesans who wheedle men like Bismarck out of information the divulging of which is sufficient to shake the hemispheres; or the journalistic sleuth who divines a cabinet débâcle from the way the Foreign Secretary gives an expression of opinion to the War Minister about the fineness of the night as both leave Downing Street; or the mysterious Ambassador to Everywhere who visits Constantinople and "draws up a treaty" which he submits to an uncle of the Sultan's head doorkeeper as a modus vivendi for the Balkans—all of them are the fictitious creations of very "yellow" writers. These beings really count for less in the processes of diplomacy than the proverbial row of pins, and only the most credulous of souls can accept such a story as that which professes to show how so important a personage as a Russian Ambassador was once taken off his guard to the extent of giving away a secret the publication of which to the world led to an estrangement between France and his own country, the medium of his lapse being a Polish Countess with a form like Juno Victrix, eyes as big as billiard-balls, the soul of one of those awful Ouida heroines who felt it in her to "dominate the world with the man I love," and the manners and attitudes of a vaudeville high-kicker. Important information which has ever "transpired" from an embassy or a ministry for foreign affairs has done so in ninety-nine cases out of one hundred by sheer accident; in the unique case has it been given by agents from within and then most certainly not to a courtesan, but to a practical man of business by an equally practical man of business, money being in each case the first consideration. The diplomatic espionage of reality is quite a different matter from that of fiction and in all probability Napoleon was its best exponent, with his cabinet noir for the supervision of suspect letters; his couriers who were always on the road, ostensibly carrying dispatches, but in reality in quest of special information; his sisters who through their ladies of honour spied upon each other's movements; and his secretaries who controlled the organisation of private spies who spied upon the spies set by Talleyrand and his department.
Prussia, as everywhere else, leads the way in internal diplomatic espionage and there is not a court of kingly or princely rank in the German Confederation which can boast that its most intimate actions, scandals, expressions of opinion and intentions are safe from the scrutiny of the authorities at Potsdam. Indeed, it is safe to say that Potsdam has long had its especial agents watching and reporting in every Court of Europe, and the comparatively recent "Posen" case shows to what length the vile system of Prussian espionage is prepared to go in order that Potsdam shall be kept informed. Some years ago the Berlin authorities were anxious to know what was the real state of feeling towards Germany in Prussian Poland, and accordingly a well-known Prussian Guardsman was sent to Posen with instructions to seduce the somewhat flighty and "modern" daughter of a Polish notable who was said to stand high in the Polish liberation movement. It was not quite certain, however; but as Berlin saw the approach of the war of 1914, it was necessary to know soon how the exact situation lay. The young Guardsman effected all that was required of him, also discovered how matters stood in regard to the Polish movement and then returned to Berlin. This fact was one of the many which came to light in the course of the Harden trial of 1907, when it was clearly proved that the Emperor William had his own private corps d'espionnage, even as Napoleon and Louis XV. had had theirs. This body attended to diplomatic as well as social matters, and in her Memoirs the Princess Louise of Saxony shows that no society is too exalted nor any too low for the operations of its sleuths who, as in Stieber's hey-day, have driven men from public life to satisfy the private hates of persons only too willing to purchase their services.
Social espionage is too well known the world over, to call for very much attention. It is one big trade in information of one kind or another, in return for which the giver expects to receive special consideration, or achieve some end. The anonymous letter fiend who transmits real or pretended information about another person to a third party, the lady's maid who is in the service of other women besides her mistress, the private secretary to a politician, or banker, or commercial man, who accepts "presents" from his master's rival, the tattling flunkey, the money-lender's tout, the race-course and training-stable "lumberer," the copper's "nark," the parish gossip who "tells things" to the Vicar, the little 'tweeny maid "wot's got eyes in her 'ead" and all these—there is no nation on earth, nor any little hamlet that does not know them, and it would be idle to speculate as to whether they are less known in England or America than in any other country. It is sufficient to know that they exist and that they carry on a trade in special information either for money or its equivalent. In Paris they are more numerous than in London, while in Berlin, at the great houses in the official quarter, it is a certainty that nearly all the men and women employees are paid to spy upon their employers by outside influences of various kinds—official, military, social, commercial and clerical, and when the people of Berlin are not spying on those above or below their own classes, they fall back upon spying among themselves, as a writer named von der Goltz remarked more than fifty years ago.
The famous Tausch bureau of private espionage, of which we heard so much during the Harden trial in 1907, and which was founded by Baron Tausch for the purposes of spying, just as a private individual in Britain, or America, or France, might found a news agency—this bureau had its analogy once in London on a minor scale, and was conducted, very privately to be sure, by a deceased peer bearing a title of ancient degree which is now owned by a youth whose relationship to "Old Inquisition" (as he was once called by a society paper) must necessarily have been very remote. Nevertheless, and for fear of hurting anyone's susceptibilities, we propose to speak of the defunct noble as Lord Pinkerton. It was not necessary to be in Society to recognise this peer whose business was as well known to London residents as his face—aquiline as to the nose and eye, somewhat furtive in his movements, generally silent, but always observant and mysterious. He flourished in the late mid-Victorian days when nearly every man and woman in important Society was able to show as many quarterings of nobility as are required for membership among the Knights of Malta, or as formerly were essential to every candidate for inclusion in White's Club. Accordingly, he was an elderly man in the eighties and early nineties when golden keys began to open the doors of the most sacrosanct circles. One does not require to be very old to remember the great social transition that took place between, say, 1887 and 1902, when the first-fruits of the Education Act of 1870, together with the results of Colonial enterprise had combined to create a new class of social climber, which altogether upset previously existing conditions and, indeed, finally ended by flooding them out. In former generations wealth had, of course, always found a way in; but it was wealth with some added virtue and by no means that which expressed itself in mere display and extravagance such as arrived in the mid-eighties with adventurers of all types and kinds in the hunt for social distinctions and honours. By the nature of things, the exclusive peer found he was fighting elemental forces, and as a consequence he was far from proving the regenerator of Society that he hoped to be. It is certain, however, that his private correspondents kept him well informed, for it was well known that by 1890 he had been successful in hunting down many individuals, mostly foreigners, whose claim to social recognition had not only not even the merit of being backed by great wealth or good birth, but whose early careers had been stained by crimes of the darkest kind and who had made their appearance in London society under assumed titles and names which were either fictitious, or to the ownership of which they had no claim whatever. Some of these men had made their early debut by successful operations on that dead-leveller the Turf, had been elected to fashionable racing-clubs and had passed by an easy transition into important social cliques which were patronised by the first leaders of English society. Nor was there any doubt about it that the detective-peer had the courage of his chosen mission, for once in possession of facts sufficient to provide him with a sure case, it was his practice to call immediately upon the social masquerader offering him the choice of either retiring from Society quietly and unobtrusively, or else of running the gauntlet of a campaign of ostracism which should effectually force his disappearance both from the Turf and English Society. The victim invariably made a brave show of indignation and outraged innocence, only, however, to submit when unequivocal evidence of his past was presented to him in full.
Pinkerton was instrumental in removing from both Turf and Society a foreigner of Teutonic origin who was known in his meteoric career as "the Prince." He had, it was found out after his demise, begun life as a waiter in Vienna, and possessing a famous gift of tongues as well as an unusual talent for self-education, passed successively to Berlin, Paris and London; here as a private secretary he entered the employment of a wealthy Englishman of profuse and eccentric habits. It was related of our "Prince," as middle-aged racing-men can tell to-day, that he obtained his first start in life by backing the Derby winner Sainfoin in 1890. To effect this coup he had extracted from his employer's private desk eight bank-notes each of the value of £1000. Arriving somewhat late at Epsom, he handed the whole amount over to the bookmaker so well known in those days as "Chippie" Norton, who laid the market odds—at least 5 to 1 against. Sainfoin won the race, beating both Le Nord and Surefoot and "the Prince" requested Norton, as a favour, to let him have his bank-notes back, the balance, some £32,000, to be paid in the ordinary way. On the same evening the lucky winner replaced the notes, and on the following Monday received his bookmaker's cheque, told his employer the story of his good fortune, receiving from his patron introductions which gave him at once a social footing among racing men. The man's personality was admittedly a fascinating one and he quickly made his way among some of the best-known coteries in London. It may be remembered of him that, being Austrian, not long from Vienna, he professed as an eye-witness to have the true story of the tragedy of Meyerling which closed the lives of the Archduke Rudolf and Marie Vetsera. In a day when all London had the "correct version," with its attendant mysteries and political intrigues, the story of our "Prince" differed from others by reason of its simplicity. The Archduke (he used to tell), when deeply flown with wine, insulted the Baroness in presence of other guests. The lady left the room, returned with a revolver and shot her lover dead, turning the weapon on herself in a frenzy of remorse.
The adventurer's season of prosperity was not long and by the end of 1890 he had lost the bigger portion of what the late Mr Dick Dunn used to call his "Sanfoinery." He recovered, however, over the Lincoln which was won by a horse called Lord George and also followed Colonel North's famous luck with much advantage to himself. At the close of 1891 it was rumoured that "the Prince" was about to marry into a family whose standing was high in Scotland. It was about this time, however, that Pinkerton began to make inquiries and the result was in every way detrimental to the "Prince's" plans for domestication. He was soon on the run and in 1893 was found trying to beat the Pari Mutuel at Longchamps, when the exclusion of bookmakers from the enclosures put a term to his turf activities. This man was by no means the most important of Lord Pinkerton's victims, for the vigilant peer's system of espionage was influential enough to close the doors of society to men whose wealth and influence in Africa was second only to that of Rhodes himself, but who failed to come up to our peer's ideas of what was morally fitting for the great London world of those days. Pinkerton's self-appointed rôle was not looked upon at all times with favour by the more liberal-minded members of what Thackeray calls the Best English People and, indeed, when one considers the origin of some of the so-called noble families of England, Ireland and Scotland, we think the social purist carried his apostolate just a little too far. Suicide was, in at least one case, the end of a victim whose social ostracism Pinkerton had brought about, and when several of his victims conspired to bring about a situation that publicly showed up the noble regenerator in a character which was at the very least embarrassing, and as a result of which much mud continued to adhere after the disposal of the case in a magistrate's court, very few people were found to sympathise with the only social spy whom our peerage has probably ever produced.
We have elsewhere touched upon ecclesiastical espionage which, we may presume, is not confined to any particular Church. Its operations in certain bodies may be said from earliest times to have assumed the importance of an institutional principle. In view of our expression of opinion that espionage is a necessary condition of any essentially autocratic polity, we are only consistent in supposing that any Church which requires from its adherents a total submission of the Will to its arbitrary authority can only maintain its semblance of doctrinal and disciplinary freedom by the most guileful arts and methods; and it is not necessary to enunciate the doctrine of Private Judgment to show that intellectual or political liberty can flourish only where its principles fully prevail. It is easy, but altogether supererogatory, for the once great religious congregations to disclaim—now that they are shorn of the secular and political influence which was undoubtedly theirs in the darker ages—all possession of secret systems by which they once so effectively kept men's minds under their sway. It is only necessary to read the story of the Inquisition in Venice, in Spain, in Portugal, to learn how these Church-ruled communities fared under the iron tutelage of their congregational overlords. There is to be found, indeed, a strong analogy between the demoralised soul of modern spy-ridden Prussia and that of Spain in the days of the Inquisition, when, under the pretence of winning men to salvation, crimes were committed in the name of the Cross beside which the short but horrific annals of modern Hunnism stand spectral and anæmic in their comparative bloodlessness. Napoleon was, as usual, correct in his view that men who sought the refuge of the cloister were of a kind who neither wanted the world, nor were wanted by the world; it was unfortunate, however, that the wish and will to segregate oneself from secular activities, far from killing those characteristics of intrigue which we associate with the business of worldly life, had the effect merely of emphasising them in the chosen narrower sphere and, by a natural reaction, of turning their currents to baser uses and abuses than would have been possible in the larger freedom of the world. We speak, of course, of the Dark Ages.