Twenty-five years in the Secret Service: The recollections of a spy

by Henri Le Caron

My stay at St. Bartholomew’s was not a very long one. Horrified at the terrible death of a patient lying next to me, and fearful that, if I remained, something equally horrible might be my fate, I managed to obtain possession of my clothes and to leave the institution. Thoughts of home and mother decided my return to Colchester, and thither I immediately proceeded to make my way on foot. Again the fever attacked me, and once more I had to seek the friendly shelter of an hospital, this time taking refuge in the Colchester and East Essex Institution. Here I remained till I was permanently recovered, after which I entered the service of Mr. William Baber of the town. However, my efforts to lead a sober conventional life were all in vain. The wild longing for change came back in renewed strength, and in a little while I had left London altogether behind and journeyed to Paris viâ Havre.

II.

I am amused as I look back now upon the utter recklessness and daring of this proceeding of mine. I knew not a soul in France; of the language, not a word was familiar; and yet somehow the longing to get away from England and to try my luck on a new soil was irresistible. One place was as good as another to me, and Paris seemed rather more familiar than the other few centres of activity with the names of which I was then acquainted. And so to Paris I went. It was my good fortune to hit upon an hotel kept by an Englishwoman in the Faubourg St. Honoré, and here I tarried for a time while my little stock of money lasted. This was not by any means a long period, and soon I found myself reduced once more to a condition of penury, having in the interval gained little but an acquaintance with the principal thoroughfares and their shops, and a slight knowledge of the language, to which latter I was helped in no inconsiderable degree by a wonderfully retentive memory.

Things were at a very low ebb for me indeed, when help came from an entirely unexpected quarter. Happening one Sunday to pass by the English Church in the Rue d’Aguesseau, of which, by the way, the Rev. Dr. Forbes was at that time chaplain, I was attracted by the music of the service then proceeding, and entered the little unpretentious place of worship. Here I joined heartily in the service, with the order and details of which I was perfectly familiar, having already sung in the choir of my native town. My singing and generally strange appearance attracted the attention of a member of the church, with whom I formed an acquaintance. We left the church together—not however before I had promised my assistance in the choir—and at his request I breakfasted with my English friend at one of the crêmeries in the Faubourg. Now, as then, a respected citizen of Paris, I am happy to number this countryman among the truest and most steadfast of my friends.

We passed the day together, attending the remaining two services at the church, and in the hours we spent in each other’s company I told him my history and my needs. Warm-hearted and impulsive, he immediately suggested that I should vacate my room and share his lodging, even going the length of advancing me money to enable me to do so. Before a week had passed, he had capped his goodness by securing a situation for me; and I found myself at length comfortably installed in the house of Withers, à la Suissesse, 52 Faubourg St. Honoré. Through his influence also I became a paid member of the church choir, and in a very short time I was the recipient of the friendship and confidence of Dr. Forbes and his wife, from both of whom I received very many kindnesses. Thanks to them, I was very soon enabled to better my position, and to change to the house of Arthur & Co., where matters improved for me in every way. There then succeeded some of the happiest days of my life. Freed from care and anxiety, with all the necessaries of life at my control, and a fund of boyish spirits and perfect health, I was without a trouble or a dark hour, happy and contented in my daily task.

So the weeks and months came and went without discovering any change in my position, till an unlooked-for incident once more brought the wild mad thirst for change and excitement back to me, and sounded the death-knell of my quiet life. On the 9th April 1861, the shot was fired at Fort Sumpter which inaugurated the war of the Rebellion of the United States. That shot echoed all over the world, but in no place was the effect more keenly marked than in the American colony in Paris, which even in these early days was a very numerous one.

Arthur’s, the place of business of which I speak, was one of the most favoured of the American resorts, and here the excitement raged at fever heat, as little by little the news came over the sea. Those were not the days of the cable, flashing the news of success or defeat simultaneously with its occurrence, and picturing in vivid phrase and description every incident and climax of warfare, till almost the figures move before us, and our eyes and ears are deadened by the smoke and sound of shot. The tidings came in snatches, and the absence of completeness and detail only served to give the greater impetus to discussion and imagination.

There was no more excited student of the situation than myself; and very soon, of course, I was fired with the idea of playing a part in the scenes which I was following with such enthusiasm and zest. Friends and associates, many of them American, were leaving on every hand for the seat of war; and at last, throwing care and discretion to the winds, I took the plunge and embarked on the Great Eastern on her first voyage to New York.