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Paris As It Was and As It Is

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To these actors succeeded full-grown performers, who have since
continued to play interludes of almost every description. Indeed,
this theatre is the receptacle of all the nonsense imaginable;
nothing is too absurd or too low for its stage. Here are collected
all the trivial expressions to be met with in this great city,
whether made use of in the markets, gaming-houses, taverns, or
dancing-rooms.

CAROLINE and BRUNET, or BRUNET and CAROLINE. They are like two
planets, round which move a great number of satellites, some more
imperceptible than others. If to these we add TIERCELIN, an actor of
the grotesque species, little more is to be said. Were it not for
BRUNET, who makes the most of his comic humour, in playing all sorts
of low characters, and sometimes in a manner truly original, and
Mademoiselle CAROLINE, whose clear, flexible, and sonorous voice
insures the success of several little operas, the _Théâtre
Montansier_ would not be able to maintain its ground, notwithstanding
the advantages of its centrical situation, and the attractions of its
lobby, where the impures of the environs exhibit themselves to no
small advantage, and literally carry all before them.

We now come to the theatres on the _Boulevard_, at the head of which
is to be placed

L'AMBIGU COMIQUE.

This little theatre is situated on the _Boulevard du Temple_, and, of
all those of the third order, has most constantly enjoyed the favour
of the public. Previously to the revolution, AUDINOT drew hither
crowded houses by the representation of comic operas and bad _drames_
of a gigantic nature, called here _pantomimes dialoguées_. The
effects of decoration and show were carried farther at this little
theatre than at any other. Ghosts, hobgoblins, and devils were, in
the sequel, introduced. All Paris ran to see them, till the women
were terrified, and the men disgusted.

CORSE, the present manager, has of late added considerably to the
attraction of the _Ambigu Comique_, by not only restoring it to what
it was in the most brilliant days of AUDINOT, but by collecting all
the best actors and dancers of the _Boulevard_, and improving on the
plan adopted by his predecessor. He has neglected nothing necessary
for the advantageous execution of the new pieces which he has
produced. The most attractive of these are _Victor_, _le Pélerin
blanc_, _L'Homme à trois visages_, _Le Jugement de Salomon_, &c.

The best performers at this theatre are CORSE, the manager, TAUTIN,
and Mademoiselle LEVESQUE.

* * * * *

In regard to all the other minor theatres, the enumeration of which I
have detailed to you in a preceding letter,[2] I shall briefly,
observe that the curiosity of a stranger may be satisfied in paying
each of them a single visit. Some of these _petits spectacles_ are
open one day, shut the next, and soon after reopened with
performances of a different species. Therefore, to attempt a
description of their attractions would probably be superfluous; and,
indeed, the style of the pieces produced is varied according to the
ideas of the speculators, the taste of the managers, or the abilities
of the performers, who, if not "the best actors in the world," are
ready to play either "tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral,
pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem
unlimited."

[Footnote 1: The Theatre of the _Porte St. Martin_ not having been
open, when this letter was written, it is not here noticed. It may be
considered as of the second rank. Its representations include almost
every line of acting; but those for which the greatest expense is
incurred are melo-drames and pieces connected with pantomime and
parade. The house is the same in which the grand French opera was
performed before the revolution.]

[Footnote 2: See Vol. i. Letter XXI.]



LETTER LXXI.

_Paris, February 22, 1802._

The variety of matter which crowds itself on the mind of a man who
attempts to describe this immense capital, forms such a chaos, that
you will, I trust, give me credit for the assertion, when I assure
you that it is not from neglect or inattention I sometimes take more
time than may appear strictly necessary to comply with your wishes.
Considering how deeply it involves the peace and comfort of
strangers, as well as inhabitants, I am not at all surprised at the
anxiety which you express to acquire some knowledge of the

POLICE OF PARIS.

In the present existing circumstances, it might be imprudent, if not
dangerous, to discuss, freely openly, so delicate a question. I shall
take a middle course. Silence would imply fear; while boldness of
expression might give offence; and though I certainly am not afraid
to mention the subject, yet to offend, is by no means my wish or
intention. In this country, the Post-Office has often been the
channel through which the opinion of individuals has been collected.
What has been, may again occur; and in such critical times, who
knows, but the government may conceive itself justified in not
considering as absolutely sacred the letters intrusted to that mode
of conveyance? Under these considerations, I shall beg leave to refer
you to a work which has gone through the hands of every inquisitive
reader; that is the _Tableau de Paris_, published in 1788: but, on
recollection, as this letter will, probably, find you in the country,
where you may not have an immediate opportunity of gratifying your
curiosity, and as the book is become scarce, I shall select from it
for your satisfaction a few extracts concerning the Police.

This establishment is necessary and useful for maintaining order and
tranquillity in a city like Paris, where the very extremes of luxury
and wretchedness are continually in collision. I mean _useful_, when
no abuse is made of its power; and it is to be hoped that the present
government of France is too wise and too just to convert an
institution of public utility into an instrument of private
oppression.

Since the machinery of the police was first put in order by M.
D'ARGENSON, in 1697, its wheels and springs have been continually
multiplied by the thirteen ministers who succeeded him in that
department. The last of these was the celebrated M. LENOIR.

The present Minister of the Police, M. FOUCHÉ, has, it seems,
adopted, in a great measure, the means put in practice before the
revolution. His administration, according to general report, bears
most resemblance to that of M. LENOIR: he is said, however, to have
improved on that vigilant magistrate: but he surpasses him, I am
told, more in augmentation of expenses and agents, than in real
changes.[1]

In selecting from the before-mentioned work the following _widely
scattered_ passages, and assembling them as a _piece of Mosaic_, it
has been my endeavour to enable you to form an impartial judgment of
the police of Paris, by exhibiting it with all its perfections and
imperfections. Borrowing the language of MERCIER, I shall trace the
institution through all its ramifications, and, in pointing out its
effects, I shall "nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice."

If we take it for granted, that the police of Paris is now exercised
on the same plan as that pursued towards the close of the old
_régime_, this sketch will be the more interesting, as its
resemblance to the original will exempt me from adding a single
stroke from my own pencil.

"D'ARGENSON was severe," says MERCIER, "perhaps because he felt, in
first setting the machine in motion, a resistance which his
successors have less experienced. For a long time it was imagined
that a Minister of Police ought to be harsh; he ought to be firm
only. Several of these magistrates have laid on too heavy a hand,
because they were not acquainted with the people of Paris; a people
of quick feeling, but not ferocious[2], whose motions are to be
divined, and consequently easy to be led. Whoever should be void of
pity in that post, would be a monster."

MERCIER then gives the fragment by FONTENELLE, on the police of Paris
and on M. D'ARGENSON, of which I shall select only what may be
necessary for elucidating the main subject.

"The inhabitants of a well-governed city," says FONTENELLE, "enjoy
the good order which is there established, without considering what
trouble it costs those who establish or preserve it, much in the same
manner as all mankind enjoy the regularity of the motions of
celestial bodies, without having any knowledge of them, and even the
more the good order of a police resembles by its uniformity that of
the celestial bodies, the more is it imperceptible, and,
consequently, the more it is unknown, the greater is its perfection.
But he who would wish to know it and fathom it, would be terrified.
To keep up perpetually in a city, like Paris, an immense consumption,
some sources of which may always be dried up by a variety of
accidents; to repress the tyranny of shop-keepers in regard to the
public, and at the same time animate their commerce; to prevent the
mutual usurpations of the one over the other, often difficult to
discriminate; to distinguish in a vast crowd all those who may easily
conceal there a hurtful industry; to purge society of them, or
tolerate them only as far as they can be useful to it by employments
which no others but themselves would undertake, or discharge so well;
to keep necessary abuses within the precise limits of necessity which
they are always ready to over-leap; to envelop them in the obscurity
to which they ought to be condemned, and not even draw them from it
by chastisement too notorious; to be ignorant of what it is better to
be ignorant of than to punish, and to punish but seldom and usefully;
to penetrate by subterraneous avenues into the bosom of families, and
keep for them the secrets which they have not confided, as long as it
is not necessary to make use of them; to be present every where
without being seen; in short, to move or stop at pleasure an immense
multitude, and be the soul ever-acting, and almost unknown, of this
great body: these are, in general, the functions of the chief
magistrate of the police. It should seem that one man alone could not
be equal to them, either on account of the quantity of things of
which he must be informed, or of that of the views which he must
follow, or of the application which he must exert, or of the variety
of conduct which he most observe, and of the characters which he must
assume: but the public voice will answer whether M. D'ARGENSON has
been equal to them.

"Under him, cleanliness, tranquillity, plenty, and safety were
brought to the highest degree of perfection in this city. And,
indeed, the late king (Lewis XIV) relied entirely on his care
respecting Paris. He could have given an account of a person unknown
who should have stolen into it in the dark; this person, whatever
ingenuity he exerted in concealing himself, was always under his eye;
and if, at last, any one escaped him, at least what produced almost
the same effect, no one would have dared to think himself
well-concealed.

"Surrounded and overwhelmed in his audiences by a crowd of people
chiefly of the lower class, little informed themselves of what
brought them, warmly agitated by interests very trifling, and
frequently very ill understood, accustomed to supply the place of
discourse by senseless clamour, he neither betrayed the inattention
nor the disdain which such persons or such subjects might have
occasioned."

"FONTENELLE has not," continues MERCIER, "spoken of the severity of
M. D'ARGENSON, of his inclination to punish, which was rather a sign
of weakness than of strength. Alas! human laws, imperfect and rude,
cannot dive to the bottom of the human heart, and there discover the
causes of the delinquencies which they have to punish! They judge
only from the surface: they would acquit, perhaps, those whom they
condemn; they would strike him whom they suffer to escape. But they
cannot, I confess, do otherwise. Nevertheless, they ought to neglect
nothing that serves to disclose the heart of man. They ought to
estimate the strength of natural and indestructible passions, not in
their effects, but in their principles; to pay attention to the age,
the sex, the time, the day; these are nice rules, which could not be
found in the brain of the legislator, but which ought to be met with
in that of a Minister of the Police."

"There are also epidemical errors in which the multitude of those who
go astray, seems to lessen the fault; in which a sort of
circumspection is necessary, in order that punishment may not be in
opposition to public interest, because punishment would then appear
absurd or barbarous, and indignation might recoil on the law, as well
as on the magistrate."

"What a life has a Minister of Police! He has not a moment that he
can call his own; he is every day obliged to punish; he is afraid to
give way to indulgence, because he does not know that he may not one
day have to reproach himself with it. He is under the necessity of
being severe, and of acting contrary to the inclination of his heart;
not a crime is committed but he receives the shameful or cruel
account: he hears of nothing but vicious men and vices; every instant
he is told: 'there's a murder! a suicide! a rape!' Not an accident
happens but he must prescribe the remedy, and hastily; he has but a
moment to deliberate and act, and he must be equally fearful to abuse
the power intrusted to him, and not to use it opportunely. Popular
rumours, flighty conversations, theatrical factions, false alarms,
every thing concerns him.

"Is he gone to rest? A fire rouses him from his bed. He must be
answerable for every thing; he must trace the robber, and the lurking
assassin who has committed a crime; for the magistrate appears
blameable, if he has not found means to deliver him up quickly to
justice. The time that his agents have employed in this capture will
be calculated, and his honour requires that the interval between the
crime and the imprisonment should be the shortest possible. What
dreadful duties! What a laborious life! And yet this place is
coveted!

"On some occasions, it is necessary for the Minister of Police to
demean himself like a true _Greek_, as was the case in the following
instance:

"A person, being on the point of making a journey, had in his
possession a sum of twenty thousand livres which embarrassed him; he
had only one servant, whom he mistrusted, and the sum was tempting.
He accordingly requested a friend to be so obliging as to take care
of it for him till his return.

"A fortnight after, the friend denied the circumstance. As there was
no proof, the civil law could not pronounce in this affair. Recourse
was had to the Minister of Police, who pondered a moment, and sent
for the receiver, making the accuser retire into an adjoining room:

"The friend arrives, and maintains that he has not received the
twenty thousand livres. 'Well,' said the magistrate, 'I believe you;
and as you are innocent you run no, risk in writing to your wife the
note that I am going to dictate. Write.

"'"My dear wife, all is discovered. I shall be punished if I do not
restore you know what. Bring the sum: your coming quickly to my
relief is the only way for me to get out of trouble and obtain my
pardon."

"'This note,' added the magistrate, 'will fully justify you. Your
wife can bring nothing since you have received nothing, and your
accuser will be foiled.'

"The note was dispatched; the wife, terrified, ran with the twenty
thousand livres.

"Thus the Minister of Police can daily make up for the imperfection
and tardiness of our civil laws; but he ought to use this rare and
splendid privilege with extreme circumspection.

"The chief magistrate of the police is become a minister of
importance; he has a secret and prodigious influence; he knows so
many things, that he can do much mischief or much good, because he
has in hand a multitude of threads which he can entangle or
disentangle at his pleasure; he strikes or he saves; he spreads
darkness or light: his authority is as delicate as it is extensive.

"The Minister of Police exercises a despotic sway over the
_mouchards_ who are found disobedient, or who make false reports: as
for these fellows, they are of a class so vile and so base, that the
authority to which they have sold themselves, has necessarily an
absolute right over their persons.

"This is not the case with those who are apprehended in the name of
the police; they may have committed trifling faults: they may have
enemies in that crowd of _exempts_, spies, and satellites, who are
believed on their word. The eye of the magistrate may be incessantly
deceived, and the punishment of these crimes ought to be submitted to
a more deliberate investigation; but the house of correction ingulfs
a vast number of men who there become still more perverted, and who,
on coming out, are still more wicked than when they went in. Being
degraded in their own eyes, they afterwards plunge themselves
headlong into all sorts of irregularities.

"These different imprisonments are sometimes rendered necessary by
imperious circumstances; yet it were always to be wished that the
detention of a citizen should not depend on a single magistrate, but
that there should be a sort of tribunal to examine when this great
act of authority, withdrawn from the eye of the law, ceases to be
illegal.

"A few real advantages compensate for these irregular forms, and
there are, in fact, an infinite number of irregularities which the
slow and grave process of our tribunals can neither take cognizance
of, nor put a stop to, nor foresee, nor punish. The audacious or
subtle delinquent would triumph in the winding labyrinth of our civil
laws. The laws of the police, more direct, watch him, press him, and
surround him mose closely. The abuse, is contiguous to the benefit, I
admit; but a great many private acts of violence, base and shameful
crimes, are repressed by this vigilant and active force which ought,
nevertheless, to publish its code and submit it to the inspection of
enlightened citizens."

"Could the Minister of Police communicate to the philosopher all he
knows, all he learns, all he sees, and likewise impart to him certain
secret things, of which he alone is well-informed, there would be
nothing so curious and so instructive under the pen of the
philosopher; for he would astonish all his brethren. But this
magistrate is like the great penitentiary; he hears every thing,
relates nothing, and is not astonished at certain delinquencies in
the same degree as another man. By dint of seeing the tricks of
roguery, the crimes of vice, secret treachery, and all the filth of
human actions, he has necessarily a little difficulty in giving
credit to the integrity and virtue of honest people. He is in a
perpetual state of mistrust; and, in the main, he ought to possess
such a character; for, he ought to think nothing impossible, after
the extraordinary lessons which he receives from men and from things.
In a word, his place commands a continual, and scrutinizing
suspicion."

* * * * *

_February 22, in continuation._

"Even should not the Parisian have the levity with which he is
reproached, reason would justify him in its adoption. He walks
surrounded by spies. No sooner do two citizens whisper to each other,
than up comes a third, who prowls about in order to listen to what
they are saying. The spies of the police are a regiment of
inquisitive fellows; with this difference, that each individual
belonging to this regiment has a distinct dress, which he changes
frequently every day; and nothing so quick or so astonishing, as
these sorts of metamorphoses.

"The same spy who figures as a private gentleman in the morning, in
the evening represents a priest: at one time, he is a peaceable limb
of the law; at another, a swaggering bully. The next day, with a
gold-headed cane in his hand, he will assume the deportment of a
monied man buried in calculations; the most singular disguises are
quite familiar to him. In the course of the twenty-four hours, he is
an officer of distinction and a journeyman hair-dresser, a shorn
apostle and a scullion. He visits the dress-ball and the lowest sink
of vice. At one time with a diamond ring on his finger, at another
with the most filthy wig on his head, he almost changes his
countenance as he does his apparel; and more than one of these
_mouchards_ would teach the French _Roscius_ the art of _decomposing_
himself; he is all eyes, all ears, all legs; for he trots, I know not
how, over the pavement of every quarter of the town. Squatted
sometimes in the corner of a coffee-room, you would take him for a
dull, stupid, tiresome fellow, snoring till supper is ready: he has
seen and heard all that has passed. At another time, he is an orator,
and been the first to make a bold speech; he courts you to open your
mind; he interprets even your silence, and whether you speak to him
or not, he knows what you think of this or that proceeding.

"Such is the universal instrument employed in Paris for diving into
secrets; and this is what determines the actions of persons in power
more willingly than any thing that could be imagined in reasoning or
politics.

"The employment of spies has destroyed the ties of confidence and
friendship. None but frivolous questions are agitated, and the
government dictates, as it were, to citizens the subject on which
they shall speak in the evening in coffee-houses, as well as in
private circles.

"The people have absolutely lost every idea of civil or political
administration; and if any thing could excite laughter in the midst
of an ignorance so deplorable, it would be the conversation of such a
silly fellow who constantly imagines that Paris must give the law and
the _ton_ to all Europe, and thence to all the world.

"The men belonging to the police are a mass of corruption which the
Minister of that department divides into two parts: of the one, he
makes spies or _mouchards_; of the other, satellites, _exempts_, that
is, officers, whom he afterwards lets loose against pickpockets,
swindlers, thieves, &c., much in the same manner as a huntsman sets
hounds on wolves and foxes.

"The spies have other spies at their heels, who watch over them, and
see that they do their duty. They all accuse each other reciprocally,
and worry one another for the vilest gain."

I cannot here avoid interrupting my copious but laboriously-gathered
selection from MERCIER, to relate an anecdote which shews in what a
detestable light _mouchards_ are considered in Paris.

A man who appeared to be in tolerably good circumstances, fell in
love, and married a girl whom the death of her parents and
accumulated distress had driven to a life of dissipation. At the end
of a few months, she learnt that her husband was a spy of the police.
"Probably," said, she to him, "you did not take up this trade till
after you had reflected that in following that of a thief or a
murderer, you would have risked your life." On saying this, she ran
out of the house, and precipitated herself from the _Pont Royal_ into
the Seine, where she was drowned.--But to resume the observations of
MERCIER.

"It is from these odious dregs," continues our author, "that public
order arises.

"When the _mouchards_ of the police have acted contrary to their
instructions, they are confined in the house of correction; but they
are separated from the other prisoners, because they would be torn to
pieces by those whom they have caused to be imprisoned, and who would
recognize them. They inspire less pity on account of the vile trade
which they follow. One sees with surprise, and with still more pain,
that these fellows are very young. Spies, informers at sixteen!--O!
what a shocking life does this announce!" exclaims MERCIER. "No;
nothing ever distressed me more than to see boys act such a part....
And those who form them into squads, who drill them, who corrupt such
inexperienced youth!"

Such is the admirable order which reigns in Paris, that a man
suspected or described is watched so closely, that his smallest steps
are known, till the very moment when it is expedient to apprehend
him.

"The description taken of the man is a real portrait, which it is
impossible to mistake; and the art of thus describing the person by
words, is carried to so great a nicety, that the best writer, after
much reflection on the matter, could add nothing to it, nor make use
of other expressions.

"The Theseuses of the police are on foot every night to purge the
city of robbers, and it might be said that the lions, bears, and
tigers are chained by political order.

"There are also the court-spies, the town-spies, the bed-spies, the
street-spies, the spies of impures, and the spies of wits: they are
all called by the name of _mouchards_, the family name of the first
spy employed by the court of France.

"Men of fashion at this day follow the trade of _mouchards_; most of
them style themselves _Monsieur le Baron_, _Monsieur le Comte_,
_Monsieur le Marquis_. There was a time, under Lewis XV, when spies
were so numerous, that it was impossible for friends, who assembled
together, to open their heart to each other concerning matters which
deeply affected their interest. The ministerial inquisition had
posted its sentinels at the door of every room, and listeners in
every closet. Ingenuous confidences, made from friends to friends,
and intended to die in the very bosom where they had been deposited,
were punished as dangerous conspiracies.

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