Secret service
Subtitle: British agents in France, 1792-1815
By: Elizabeth Sparrow.
Publisher: Boydell Press
Published: 1999
Place of publication: Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK; Rochester, NY, USA
Language: eng
Number of pages: 459
Subjects: Napoleonic Wars, 1800-1815 -- Secret service.; Secret service -- Great Britain.; France -- Foreign relations -- 1789-1815.; France -- Foreign relations -- Great Britain.; Great Britain -- Foreign relations -- France.; France -- History -- Revolution, 1789-1799 -- Secret service.
Description: "Espionage is taken for granted today as the unacceptable but unavoidable veiled activity of modern statecraft. But how and why did it all begin? Elizabeth Sparrow's 'secret history' takes as its starting point the period immediately following the French revolution: a turbulent time, both on the Continent and in Britain, as the established order came under threat of imminent social upheaval.".

"To this point can be traced the true story of the Scarlet Pimpernel, and the origins of a British secret service (ultimately the MI5 and MI6 of the twentieth century), as Pitt's administration, advised by Louis XVI's ex-ministers, reacted to the threat of a French-style revolution in Britain by instituting police surveillance to counteract immigration and sedition.

A foreign secret service followed, to infiltrate the French revolutionary government's actions; at the same time, British-paid police in Paris helped potential victims to escape."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 417-423) and index.