Evening star., 1923-03-17
BY THE MARaUIsE DE FoNTENoY

For foreigners there is no more
important high police official in
France than the So-called chef de Ia
surete-that is to say. the head OF
the department of safety when
forms part and parcel of the minis
try of the interior-and that is why l
wish to call attention to Jean Marller,
who has just been appointed to the
post. In reality he is the directing
force of the secret police of the ma
tion and his operations, unlike those
of the prefect of police of Paris,
which are confined to the metropolis
extend over the entire country.
1t is he who has the supervision and
control of aliens. If any of the lat
ter incur his displeaSure or excite ms
suspicion he has full authority -
eXpel them from French territory on
his written order without any judi
cial process. Against his edicts OF
deportation there is no redress. save
through appeal to the prime MINIS
ter, which, as rule, remains un
answered. Sometimes these eNpuI-
sions are public and serve as saiu-
tary lesson. More often they are ol
a quiet nature and escape publlc ob-
servation. But the fact that this re
sponsibility is vested in the hands OF
the chef de la surete, and that the
man or woman ordered to be expelled
has no reparation of any kind com
ing to him from the courts OF law,
exercises a wholesome restraint upon
the activities of foreign Adventures
and adventuresses who seek theli
happy hunting ground in France.
1t is not necessary that they should
have criminal records or that they
should have violated any of the laws
of France. Royal princes-that Is
to say, members of foreign relgninG
| families, imperial grand dukes and
Austrian archdukes-have been po-
litely and unobtrusively asked to
leave the country and escorted to the
frontier by agents de la surete II
they have incurred the diSpleaSure ol
the French government by their mode
of life, by their political eXtravagances
or private eXcesses.
The perfectly authentic ltallaf
Prince of Formosa, scion of one OF
the oldest houses of the Sicilian arls-
tocracy, was quietly taken from one
! of the best known clubs of the
French metropolis, much frequentec
| nv foreigners-I mean the Travellers
on the Champs ElyseeS-Whlle seated
= at a card table and hurried straight
off to the railroad terminus, to be con
| yeyed under escort to the Italtar
, frontier, not because he had never
! been caught cheating, but merely FOL
the reason that he had no other avow
able means of support than care
playing.
ancient lineage, now married to al
American woman, and whose nam'
! has been much in public print, who
was asked by the chef de la suret'
| TO leave France because he had start
| ed a private card-playing and rou
| lette establishment in his apartment
! in one of the fashionable districts o
| Paris.
Foreign journalists who in thei
dispatches to their papers have as
sailed French statesmen in power
and who have earned their hostility
have been quietly forced to leave thu
country, q deaf ear being turned b.
the government to all appeals in thei
behalf made by their respective am
bassadors. Gambetta when at TIL
height of his power epdeavored t.
secure in this way the Expulsion o
, the late de Blowitz, the celebrated
representative for so many years o
| the London Times in France, in tn
| belief that he was a foreigner. Bu
when the edict of the chef de /;
surete was served upon de Blowit
| he drew attention to the fact tina
ialthough born in Bohemia he hat
been natura1ized in 1872 at Mar