IX
ATTENDANCE UPON THE MINISTER OF POLICE
The following morning my landlord informed me I must at once wait upon the Minister of Police, present my passport and have it ratified. He added that otherwise he might be called to account, as police emissaries called frequently and unexpectedly at every hotel to ascertain the names of the residents.
Accordingly I engaged a very good chariot at six guineas a week for my stay in Paris, and after paying my respect to our Minister, Mr. Jackson (the British Embassy is lodged in the Faubourg S. Germain), I hastened to the office of the notorious Fouché,[1] the Minister of Police, on the Quai Voltaire, opposite the Louvre, where I was admitted into an ante-chamber, crowded with ninety persons; their number I knew because on entering I received a billet marked 91 from a soldier. I had to wait two hours and a half for my audience.
During this long period I was able to make the following observations. I was never more surprised than at the want of courtesy shown to females in a country which has always boasted more of its gallantry than its virtue. Several well-dressed ladies received their billets long after mine, but when I offered them the precedence, the brute who attends the entrance pushed them back with disgusting insolence and violence. I remarked that I cheerfully resigned my right to the ladies; he replied with a savage sneer, “If you don’t choose to take your turn, pass to the bottom.” In this ante-chamber stood a motley group whose countenances evidently bespoke the sentiments of their hearts. The returned emigrants might easily be distinguished, supple and servile, and never suffering the lowest commissary of police, who wore a little gold or silver tinsel about his coat, to pass without offering him a profound reverence. And they were right, for the ancient aristocracy were lofty and self-conceited, but affable and courteous withal. The modern aristocracy of France, that is those men who have been transplanted from the dunghill to the exercise of public functions, are, in general, brutal in their manners to inferiors, cringing to their superiors and insolent to unofficial persons, they also show strong traits of a ferocity of character.
An unanswerable proof of this degeneracy may be found in the degraded condition of the fair sex, who are no longer treated with that decorous respect which heretofore characterised the French people. This is a nation of soldiers, not cavaliers—not a solitary blade would leap out of its scabbard to resent an insult to the finest woman in the Republic. The sword here is now used, not for the defence of the feeble, but as an instrument to acquire wealth and power.
The Republican soldier is fully as brave as was the soldier of the Royal army, but he is destitute of the honour and urbanity which distinguished the latter.
An army of soldiers, organised for conquest, propelled by avarice, and inured to victory, resemble more the hordes of an Attila or Ghengiz Khan, than the forces of a polished Empire. The Republican troops are now masters of the State, their defeats obliterated, and their victories confirmed by triumphing over the liberties of their fellow citizens.
The other personages who composed this assembly were waggoners, farmers, tradesmen, persons about to depart for the colonies, ladies, and common women. An army subaltern officer came in while we were waiting; without taking a billet he entered the bureau, every person hastily making way for him. I inquired of the doorkeeper the reason of his admittance before his turn, and he replied that no officer of the army was ever kept waiting.
We were drawn up in the ante-chamber in two opposite lines, like files of soldiers. A sentinel patrolled backwards and forwards with a drawn bayonet in his hand and maintained discipline. If any one happened to advance a little too forward, he or she received a far from gentle tap from the bayonet to compel them to keep their position.
When at length I was admitted into the bureau I was informed that in consequence of a recent regulation the business of examining passports and giving certificates was transferred to the office of the Prefect, on the Quai du Louvre, the other side of the river.
In the office of the Prefect I experienced no delay. The passport I had received from the Calais Municipality was taken from me and I received another in exchange. On its top was a figure of the Republic, garbed as Minerva, her right hand supported by the fasces and a hatchet. In her left she holds a spear, at her feet a game-cock, standing on one leg, denotes vigilance. On either side are the laughable words in this country: “Egalité, Liberté, Fraternité,” and below as follows, which I insert by way of contrast to passports of former times:
PREFECTURE DE POLICE.
We, Prefect of the Police of Paris, invite the Civil and Military Authorities to permit to pass freely in this Commune, Henry Redhead Yorke, English Gentleman, who declares he lodges in Paris, at the Hôtel Coq Heron, accompanied by his wife. The present pass is only to be in force two months, when it must be revised at the Prefecture, under penalty of being arrested, conformably to the law of the 4th Floreal, year three. Done at the Prefecture of Police, Paris, 23 Germinal, Year 10 of the Republic, one and indivisible.
(Signed) For the Prefect,
(Here followed an illegible signature.)
OFFICE OF PASSPORTS.
Note:—No passport will be delivered on this pass, and the bearer arrested if he be found elsewhere in France, save in the Department of the Seine.
For a longer residence than two months in Paris a petition must be made to the Prefect of Police, without delay.
Residence must not be changed without permission.
Then followed description of my appearance, age, person and signature. On changing my residence the Secretary wrote the day of the month, the street and number of the house upon my pass and returned it to me.
The want of a pass is attended by disagreeable circumstances. One such occurred to me a day or two after our arrival at Paris. Being desirous of saving a little distance on my way to the Pont Neuf, I was stopped by a sentinel and my pass demanded; but not having it about me, and notwithstanding my plea of being a foreigner, I was compelled to make a very considerable détour before I reached my destination.
In England no one would tolerate the introduction of such a system which would prove the destruction of commerce. There are merchants who travel from Bristol, Manchester, and Liverpool to London, merely to settle in the course of a few hours their great concerns and then to return. Conceive what an obstacle to their affairs would be a two hours’ attendance in the ante-chamber of a Minister of Police. Suspicion is the result of fear—the jealousy of a despotism doubtful of its existence—a system proper for the present government of France. But there is more charbonnerie than effective vigour in the boasted police of M. Fouché. If the French Government be seriously inclined to extend their commerce there must be a relaxation in this perplexing system of police, they must give free scope to industry, and not jealously inquire into the motives which may lead their fellow countrymen to visit the capital or pass from one district of France to another. If the present plan is continued the revenues will be less productive, and the support of an immense military, as well as the extensive pageantry of a pompous Government, will be provided for with difficulty and only by imposing severe taxes which depress and ruin the cause of agriculture.
I would not dare to affirm that these consequences are to be traced exclusively to police espionage; but when this latter is contemplated as a brand of a widely extended system of jealous government, it enters into a consideration and forms a constituent of a policy the French Republic will long have good reason to deplore.