The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1804-05-29 00:00:00

THE SECRET FRENCH POLICP.

The present beret French Police is founded upon
the plan of the Secret Gcrrnan'Prihunals, durieg the
',sr:llth, thirteenth, and founeenth centuries, with
Me only exception. mat. jt secretly inspeas or
abnoltioas oT. suspeited persons; whilst the
secret tribunals ateretlys condemned, and secretly
s.:aciated every penassuincurring their displeasure.
I rye Foment French system, all forms are laid
1.,,je; in the other, the forms were more terrible
than death itself. Under thu present system, per-
seas disappear from society, to be shut up in dun-
irons, to be transported, Or to be shot, without often
inowing the cause, equally unknown by their jailor
:rod by their execw loners. It is, and remains, the
secret of Goveininern. Formerly the accused were
summoned, tried, Acquitted, or condemned; had
time to prepare themselves for defence, or by flight
to escape, if possible, their persecutors. Under the
present system, all flight is impossible; escape avails
ruthing, because the agents of our secret police are
every where, in England as in Russia, in America
as in Africa, in Turkey as in the East Indies; they
all possess the description f.igenh.mert) of the per-
tot persecuted ; they are informed of his habits,
places of resort, and have a fde .i..a/e of his hand-
icing. Unknown to each other, these agents aa
in unison by their reports as by their adions. The
Duke of Enghien, Moreau, Picliegru, George, and
others, were watched by hundreds of agents for
years, of whom not two knew each other. Louis
XVIII. at Warsaw, and the Bourbons at London,
are yet surrounded by numerous agents unknown:
and in:lBl6k to them, as to each other. The trans-
adions of the Cabinets of St. Petersburgh, of.
Vienna, and of Berlin, are as well known to our
Government, as those of Madrid, Florence, Naples,
St. Cloud, the Ilague, or of Bern. These agents
sit in the Divan at Constantinople, as in the Con-
greu of the Americans ; and though their senti-
ments are often opposite, their services meet in the
sane central point. Not a Sovereign, not a Minis-
ter, not a Statesman, not a Counsellor, not a War-
rior, not a Banker, not a Merchant, not an Author
of any reputation, who is not watched by the ',ni-
mble agents of cur secret police, who employ the
talents of preachers, as well as those of aiflots, to
serve them ; they take the advantage of the popula-
rity of an orator in the senate, as well as of the fashion-
able imbecility of a ballad-singer in the street ; they
influence the decisions of privy councils in palaces,
as well as the toasts of fa Lions at a public tavern.
Their attivig is seen in the budget of finances for
state, as welt as a subscription for a pie rue or chari-
tante institution. They indirealy decide the mar-
riage of princes, as well as the divorces of subjects.
The political, as well as the amorous intriguer wear
often their livery. The law promulgated, the air
ring, the bargain concluded, the treaty signed, the
war declared, the peace proclaimed, are more
than often their doings. They employ at the
same time, and for the same purpose, tht devotion of
the Chris:ran and the infidelity of the Deist i the
bigotry of the superstitions, and the blasphemy of
the atheist ; the intolerance of the fanatic, and the
indifference of the philosopher. They pen-trate
and plot equally in the pagoda of the Hindoos, in
the temples of the Chinese, in the mosques at Con-
stattinonle. in the church of St. Peter at Rome, and
in the grand synagogue at Amsterdam. The.
Hord Exchange in London and the fish-market at
Paris ; the diamond mines at Brazil and the marile
quarries in 1-aponia ; the gallerns at Cadiz and the
tower-mill at Naples. are equally visited and ir-
epeaed by them. It is more difficuk to say where
they Are not than wherethey ate ; what transac.ions
escape tiler notice than those they influence.
Some of the arnt; of our secret police are paid,
others are volunteers; but they all comsat under
the same banners ; they all fight for the same cause,
and they are all registered at the same office, in the
sante register. Though the volunteers are more
numerous than the regulars, the expense of our Go-
vernment for this teslibdioa amounts yearly to eighty
millsor.s of bran; a large sum, if it was not remem-
bered, at the same time, that tributary kings and
nations pay us yearly more than three times that
sum ; and that we owe mostly to the agents of our
secret police the power we have to command such
an enormous external tribute.

Foreigners, as well as Frenchmen, have done
Touche :he honour of considering him the parent
of our secret police ; but they are all mistaken.
Its plan was proposed to our cabinet under the mo-
narchy, but laid aside as imprafticalile. Talleyrand
was the person who correctedand improved this plan;
and ouresecret police may therefore justly be called
his na.'siral child. Though our Grand Judge is a
minister c 4 police, Talleyrand presides in the office
of the secret police, direas all its operations, re-
wards, promotes. disgraces, or punishes, its agents.
In this place be is the Fast Consul. Regnier,
Real, Fouche, and Hanterive, are his counsellors,
and Desmarais is his secretary. Each of these
counsellors has his department in Europe as well
as in Africa, in Asia as well as in America; he
knows nothing more than what concerns his own
department ; the whole (k tome ensemik) is known to
Talleyrand aloae : even the female agents of his se-
cret police are under his sole and immediate con-
troul ; and the report of Madame Stael, and of
Madame Geniis, dsreaing their operations, is with.
out foundation. Passions, more than money, are
his means ; be always employs and addresses the
farmer ; the latter is only used as an auxiliary to
silence reason or conscience, if they should murmur.
(Les Newman a la Mow. Germinal. 44 12. No. Ill.)