Every morning I placed all the papers which the First Consul had to read on his table, and among the first was Junot's report. The First Consul entered and read it; on coming to the passage concerning me he began to smile.
"Have you read this bulletin?"—"Yes, General."—"What an ass that Junot is! It is a long time since I have known that."—"How he allows himself to be entrapped! Is he still here?"—"I believe so. I have just seen him, and made observations to him, all in good part, but he would hear nothing."—"Tell him to come here." When Junot appeared Bonaparte began—"Imbecile that you are! how could you send me such reports as these? Do you not read them? How shall I be sure that you will not compromise other persons equally unjustly? I want positive facts, not inventions. It is some time since your agent displeased me; dismiss him directly." Junot wanted to justify himself, but Bonaparte cut him short—"Enough!—It is settled!"
I related what had passed to Fouché, who told me that, wishing to amuse himself at Junot's expense, whose police agents only picked up what they heard related in coffeehouses, gaming-houses, and the Bourse, he had given currency to this absurd story, which Junot had credited and reported, as he did many other foolish tales. Fouché often caught the police of the Palace in the snares he laid for them, and thus increased his own credit.
This circumstance, and others of the same nature, induced the First Consul to attach less importance than at first he had to his secret police, which seldom reported anything but false and silly stories. That wretched police! During the time I was with him it embittered his life, and often exasperated him against his wife, his relations, and friends.
—[Bourrienne, it must be remembered, was a sufferer from the
vigilance of this police.]—
Rapp, who was as frank as he was brave, tells us in his Memoirs (p. 233) that when Napoleon, during his retreat from Moscow, while before Smolenski, heard of the attempt of Mallet, he could not get over the adventure of the Police Minister, Savary, and the Prefect of Police, Pasquier. "Napoleon," says Rapp, "was not surprised that these wretches (he means the agents of the police) who crowd the salons and the taverns, who insinuate themselves everywhere and obstruct everything, should not have found out the plot, but he could not understand the weakness of the Duc de Rovigo. The very police which professed to divine everything had let themselves be taken by surprise." The police possessed no foresight or faculty of prevention. Every silly thing that transpired was reported either from malice or stupidity. What was heard was misunderstood or distorted in the recital, so that the only result of the plan was mischief and confusion.
The police as a political engine is a dangerous thing. It foments and encourages more false conspiracies than it discovers or defeats real ones. Napoleon has related "that M. de la Rochefoucauld formed at Paris a conspiracy in favour of the King, then at Mittau, the first act of which was to be the death of the Chief of the Government. The plot being discovered, a trusty person belonging to the police was ordered to join it and become one of the most active agents. He brought letters of recommendation from an old gentleman in Lorraine who had held a distinguished rank in the army of Condé." After this, what more can be wanted? A hundred examples could not better show the vileness of such a system. Napoleon, when fallen, himself thus disclosed the scandalous means employed by his Government.
Napoleon on one occasion, in the Isle of Elba, said to an officer who was conversing with him about France, "You believe, then, that the police agents foresee everything and know everything? They invent more than they discover. Mine, I believe, was better than that they have got now, and yet it was often only by mere chance, the imprudence of the parties implicated, or the treachery of some of them, that something was discovered after a week or fortnight's exertion." Napoleon, in directing this officer to transmit letters to him under the cover of a commercial correspondence, to quiet his apprehensions that the correspondence might be discovered, said, "Do you think, then, that all letters are opened at the post office? They would never be able to do so. I have often endeavoured to discover what the correspondence was that passed under mercantile forms, but I never succeeded. The post office, like the police, catches only fools."
Since I am on the subject of political police, that leprosy of modern society, perhaps I may be allowed to overstep the order of time, and advert to its state even in the present day.
The Minister of Police, to give his prince a favourable idea of his activity, contrives great conspiracies, which he is pretty sure to discover in time, because he is their originator. The inferior agents, to find favour in the eyes of the Minister, contrive small plots. It would be difficult to mention a conspiracy which has been discovered, except when the police agents took part in it, or were its promoters. It is difficult to conceive how those agents can feed a little intrigue, the result at first, perhaps, of some petty ill-humour and discontent which, thanks to their skill, soon becomes a great affair. How many conspiracies have escaped the boasted activity and vigilance of the police when none of its agents were parties. I may instance Babeuf's conspiracy, the attempt at the camp at Grenelle, the 18th Brumaire, the infernal machine, Mallet, the 20th of March, the affair of Grenoble, and many others.