LORD BURGHLEY, 1580, March 2, S. Cott, GENERAL, 1595, Sept. 7, C, Cott. Mss., Galba D. xi., fol. 136.-1597, Feb., C, Cott. Mss., Vespasian F. v., fol. 393.-BIDOSSAN, 1595, November 9, C, Birch Mss., additional 4114, p. 95.-EARL OF ESSEX, 1595, December 4, C, Birch, Mss., 4114, p. 170; December 28, C, Birch Mss, 4114, p. 207.-DUKE DE BOUILLON, 1596, September 7, C, Cott. Mss., Caligula E. ix., fol. 358; November 18, C, Cott. Mss., Caligula E. x., fol. 150. ISAAC CASAUBON, 1599, January, S, Burney Mss., vol. 367, fol. 129; 1600, August, S, Burney Mss., vol. 367, fol. 130. -THE ELECTOR PALATINE, 1603, July 7, C, Cott. Mss., Caligula E. x., fol. 408. -MYROM, 1603, September 1, C, Cott. Mss., Caligula E. x., fol. 294. - DE FLERS, no date, A, Harleian Mss., 4449, fol. 25, 26.-BUZENVAL, 1587, July 20 and August 3, S, the latter in cipher, Lansdowne Mss., vol. 53, art. 26.* Lansdowne Mss., vol. 148, fol. 88.-1602, July | Caligula E. x., fol. 408; August 26, C, Birch 2, S, Lansdowne Mss., vol. 169, fol. 151. Mss., additional, 4115, p. 143. THE STATES Mss., Galba E. vi., fol. 4.-1582, July 23, S. Lansdowne Mss., vol. 35, art. 58.-1583, December, A, Lansdowne Mss., vol. 38, art. 59. 1584, April, A, Lansdowne Mss., vol. 42, art. 24.-1585 November 8, A, Cott. Mss., Galba E. vi., fol. 283.-1586, January 23, S, Cott. Mss., Galba E. vi., fol. 296; February 27, S, Cott. Mss., Galba E. vi., fol. 286.-1597, December 14, S, Lansdowne Mss., vol. 53, art. 31.-1588, January 15, S, Lansdowne Mss., vol. 59, art. 3; August, A, Lansdowne Mss., vol. 57, art. 32.1589, May 10, S, Lansdowne Mss., vol. 60, fol. 62; May 14, S, Lansdowne Mss., vol. 60, fol. 63; August 13, S, Cott. Mss., Caligula E. vii., fol. 313, slightly injured by fire; September 27, A, Lansdowne Mss., vol. 60, fol. 69; October 20, S, Lansdowne Mss, vol. 60, fol. 70; November 30, S, Lansdowne Mss., vol. 60, fol. 72. -1591, March 4, S, Cott. Mss., Caligula E. vii., fol. 365, slightly injured by fire; June 19, C, Cott. Mss., Caligula E. Caligula viii., fol. 75.-1593, March 29, S, Lansdowne Mss, vol. 76, art. 65. -1594, April 7, S, Cott. Mss, Caligula E. ix., fol. 234, slightly injured by fire. -1596, January 22, S, Cott. Mss., Caligula E. ix., fol. 234. ART. IV.-1. Mémoires de Monsieur Gisquet, ancien Préfet de Police, écrits par lui-même. EARL OF SUSSEX, 1530, April 13, S, Cott. 2. Mémoires tirés des Archives de la Po Mss., Titus B. vii., fol. 319; no date, S, Cott. lice. Par J. PEUCHET. Mss., Titus B. vii., fol. 407.-SIR F. WAL- THERE is nothing extraordinary in the fact in process of time, not alone in character, 1586, August 28, A, Harleian Mss., vol. 1582, but in object also; for it is an occurrence fol. 114. THE PARLIAMENT AT PARIS, that is daily taking place before our eyes. 1535, October 11, C, Lansdowne Mss. vol. 45, Corruption creeps into these as into man's other works, and the instances are very rare of any institution, like freemasonry, only undergoing an alteration for the extension of the sphere of its beneficence, and the assumption of purer and higher purposes than it had in view at its first foundation. We will not, art. 17. TO THE SORBONNE, 1585, October 10, C, Lansdowne Mss., vol. 45, art. 17. DU PLESSIS, 1586, September 23, A, Cott. Mss., Nero B. vii., fol. 380.-BACON, 1586, September 23, A, Cott. Mss., Nero B. vii. fol. 383.-EARL OF LEICESTER, 1586, no month, A, Cott. Mss., Caligula E. vii., fol. 293, 1. 293, slightly injured by fire. SIR H. STAFFORD, 1590, therefore, venture to call the fact extraordiMay 6, S. Cott. Mss., Caligula E. vii., fol. 279, nary, that in various countries the institution slightly injured by fire; 1591, March 4, S, Cott. of police, the first great object of which was Mss., Caligula E. vii., fol. 255, slightly injured the protection of the honest and industrious March 14, C, Cott. Mss., Galba D. vii., fol. 86 by the active vigilance of the law, should b.-SIR H. UNTON, 1591, August 15, S, Cott. have deviated before the end of the last cenMss., Caligula E. viii, fol. 10.-1592, March tury into a means of oppression and tyranny. 28, S, Cott, Mss., Caligula E. viii. fol. 533. It is however really extraordinary, that in by fire. DUKE DE LONGUEVILLE, 1590, BARTON, 1592, September 30, copy in Eng lish, Cott. Mss., Caligula E. xii., f fol. 354, slightly injured by fire. DE BEAUVOIR, 1593, May 16, C, the original was written in cipher, Cott. Mss., Caligula E. ix., fol. 128, slightly injured by fire.--JOSEPH SCALIGER, 1593, April 20, C, Burney Mss., vol. 371, fol. 132. JAMES VI. OF SCOTLAND, 1594, September, C, Cott. Mss., Caligula E. ix., fol. 272; November 7, C, Cott. Mss., Caligula E ix., fol. 274.-JAMES I. OF ENGLAND, 1603. June 2, S, Harleian Mss., vol. 1760, fol. 26.-1605, March 6, S, Cott. Mss., Caligula E. xi., fol. 218, slightly injured by fire; March, C, Cott. Mss., Caligula, E. xi., fol. 281; September 27, C, Cott. Mss.. Caligula In our catalogue of the manuscript letters of Henri IV., which are contained in the British Museum, we accidentally omitted to mention a collection of seventy-four, all in his own handwriting, addressed to his chancellor, M. de Bellyevre. Additional MSS. 5473. They were discovered in the archives of the Bastille. The Abbé Rive printed a short dissertation on them, in which he says, "Le sujet de nôtre (recueil) qui n'a jamais été ni imprimé, ni vu des savants, roule sur plusieures matières intéressantes-les abus dans les finances, les monnayes, &c., les dettes de l'Etat, et les moyens de les éteindre, tant dans les pays étrangers qu'envers ses sujets: quelques unes concernent le commerce des cendres et l'échange en Hollande, E. xi., fol. 255, slightly injured by fire. -AN- des toiles contre les laines d'Espagne, l'exportaTONIO PERES, 1595, April 30, C, Cott. Mss., Ition des soyeries, &c." any land, as was the case with France, the A somewhat comprehensive definition we depravation of the whole system of police may well pronounce it, and one capable of should be so great as to leave, after the great containing anything which the most oppresearthquake of the first revolution had shaken sive power might wish to place amongst the the whole fabric to the ground, but a mass of functions of the police; but we must hear false views, wrong principles, and dangerous our author still further, when we shall find attributions, out of which it was impossible the attributions claimed more definite, but not to pick one sound and solid stone wherewith to form the basis of a new edifice. That it was so, may soon be shown; and yet out of the rubbish of what went before, together with materials still more rotten and unsafe, thrown up by that earthquake, France has persisted in framing her new system of police, as the memoirs of M. Gisquet most clearly demonstrate. In no European tongue that we know of has a really scientific essay upon police been produced-no, not even in English, though the mind of the reader may very likely revert to two or three clever works upon the subject; and though it must be admitted that we have treated it more scientifically than most other nations. We at least have never forgotten the great end and object of police, and have aimed at it throughout simply and directly, though probably we might have arrived at it more surely if the fundamental principles of the science had been more definitely stated. In other countries, however, almost without exception, the end has either been absolutely mistaken, or combined with so many other objects totally foreign to it, as to leave the real purpose of the institution but a very small place. These fundamental less extensive and dangerous. "Amongst all civilized nations the laws have forbidden murder, arson, robbery, and almost all the acts treated as crimes or offences by our codes. A magistracy charged with the punishment of culprits has been found necessary, therefore, in every regular society; but the laws have not been able to embrace in their arrangements a crowd of cases, and of incidents which, though certainly of a less serious character, are none the less prejudicial to the well-being of the governed. On this account at all periods, in all countries, and whatever has been the form of government, the laws have wisely confided to an authority analogous to our municipal power the task of supplying, as the good father of a family, the defect legislation."*-Ibid. But we must beg leave to deny both the premises and the inference. Without wishing to pronounce a fulsome panegyric upon our native land, we may be permitted to say that in this happy country-the only country perhaps in the world where civil liberty is rightly understood there is no authority, there is no need of any authority destined to supply "le silence de la législation," because there is scarcely a conceivable case upon which the law is silent. We may boldly take upon us to say that there is no public functiona errors have been followed by errors of detail, ry whatsoever, from the secretary for the home both in execution and design: the theory department-who comprises in his attribu has been vicious, and the practice not less SO. Our excellent friends, the Germans, who systematize everything, have made it a study, but have wandered wide of scientific principles, and for the very best of all possible reasons: because, properly considered, police is the institution of a free people, for the purpose of practically affording to all men the promised protection of the law. The object to be aimed at is general security: the danger to be eschewed is encroachment upon rational liberty. But let us see what is M. Gisquet's view of the general question: we shall have to notice some of his opinions in regard to details here after. "The mission of the police," he says, "is to protect persons and property, to watch over the security of all, and consequently to sweep away injurious causes,* to ensure the execution of the laws, and to prescribe every measure of order required by the public interest."-Mémoires de Gisquet, vol. i. p. 3. • "Faire disparaître les causes nuisibles." tions all those that ought justly to be intrusted to a préfet de police-to A, No. 42, now walking down the Strand, who is entitled to act either against the law, beyond the law, or without the law. If he does, he is punishable by the law. The very supposition that in any state there is a power which is charged "de suppléer, en bon père de famille, au silence de la législation," implies that certain men are authorized to make laws for certain cases independent of the great legislative body; an anomaly incompatible with the first principles of civil liberty. Such a doctrine might be very well under a form of government where any one man could venture to "L'Etat c'est moi!" but cannot be tolerated where there is a pretence of freedom. A very great and serious doubt may arise whether an elected legislative body have a constitutional right to depute any other body of men to frame and carry into effect laws, or regulations tantamount to laws affecting the say * " Le soin de suppléer, en bon père de famille, au silence de la législation." whole community, in order to meet any cir-scarcely one officer in the whole countless cumstances whatsoever, without each of those multitude of the Athenian magistrates who laws or regulations being submitted actually had not some of the functions of Bow-street to the consideration of the legislature. But attributed to him. The Archon or Eponyinto that branch of the subject we are not mous himself often enacted the part of Mr. called to enter: suffice it that no such authority is even tacitly intrusted to the police in this country, and that in all its branches, acts, and functions, it is merely the servant and agent of the law. Hall, when he fines a gentleman five shillings for being drunk. The Basileus examined into cases of murder, and committed the prisoner for trial at the assizes of the Areopagus; and the Thesmothetæ were the whole court of aldermen. The Astynomi What, then, it may be asked, is no discretionary power intrusted to magistrates? took charge of the police of the streets, and Certainly none in judging of crimes or mis- kept a wary eye upon fiddlers and balladdemeanours of any kind. The law defines singers, and the Toxoti were a regular conclearly every offence: the magistrate either stabulary force under the Lexiarchi or police absolves or convicts, or if he has not jurisdic- sergeants. But we will not dwell on this part of the subject: the police system of France will never derive any elucidation from that of Athens, and that of Athens will never derive any from Monsieur Gisquet. The only man, perhaps, who would have tion from the nature of the charge, he sends the accused for trial to a superior tribunal. His only discretionary power is in regard to the amount of punishment in certain cases of conviction, and even to that the law affixes an exact limit, beyond which he cannot travel. given a grand and fine view of Athenian law, Even against the power ver of conviction for is now gone for ever; and we regret to say, minor offences, without trial by a jury, and the power of committal for the judgment of a higher court, the law has taken such precautions, and provided so many safeguards, that it is scarcely possible the private passions that the unrivalled picture of Athens, her arts, her commerce, and her institutions, which his hand did draw, is closed by a prohibition against its ever being published. Great, indeed, is the loss to the world, but greater or follies of a magistrate should produce any still that the same prohibition was affixed by act of flagrant injustice. But enough of this, we trust, if there really be such a "silence de la législation" in France as to justify the authority which is claimed for the police, that silence will soon be broken by a clear definition of offences, and just discrimination of punishments, so as to take away the necessity or the pretext for an irresponsible power most dangerous to the civil liberties of any people where it exists. Of the necessary functions of the police of the incomparable Lord Stowel to his other papers also; and that arguments, illustrations, and decisions, many of which would enlighten and convince the most obstinate upon subjects even now in dispute and obscurity, are thus hidden for ever. For ever is indeed, we trust, too stern a word; and we cannot but suggest to the noble personage who has those invaluable papers in charge, that, without violating the injunction of the deceased, they might be given to the trustees a great state, we shall have to say a few of the British Museum as a source of refer words hereafter. At present we will follow M. Gisquet, who, in affecting not to do a bit of erudition,'* as his expression may be very closely translated into the vulgar tongue, brings Athens and its Archons on the stage ence upon many important occasions, with the same prohibition against publication under which they are at present held. Since the time when we were permitted, during several nights of high intellectual enjoyment, in a note. It is true his erudition is some- to examine those records of a wonderful what meagre, for he satisfies himself with mind, no less than three disputes, involving saying, that 'the Archontes at Athens joined questions of vast importance to England, have to their more extended powers the functions occurred, in settling which, opinions that we of municipal magistrates.' He might have saw in those papers would have been invalugone further, and said that from the very na- able. Will the executors of Lord Stowel ture of the Athenian commonwealth, the es ssuffer the country thus to be deprived of tablishment of a good police was one of the great benefit ? a chief objects of jurisprudence in that country. To return to M. Gisquet, however, with It was, in fact, a necessity of the condition many apologies for this excursion, we will of the Athenian people; and so intimately not follow our author through his sketch were the details of police blended with the of the police history of France from Clovis whole system of government, that we find to Louis Seize. It is, indeed, nothing more • Faire de Pérudition." than a thin catalogue of acts and magistrates; ¡but we must not make this a matter of reproach to M. Gisquet, as it was his own me- M. Gisquet was appointed prefect of pomoirs he sat down to write, and not that more lice on the 26th of Deceniber, 1831, after interesting work, "A General View of the having occupied for some time a post in the Rise and Progress of French Police." We office of which he now became the headmay have to show by a few anecdotes of first, as secretary general, and then as préfet other times, what was the state of the police par intérim. amongst our Gallic neighbours before the Having dwelt with some natural complaRevolution; but at present we will go into cency upon the circumstances attending his some of the details of late years, in which the appointment, he goes on in a pellucid manner admitted facts read a pellucid commentary to give a general view of the state of the pubupon M. Gisquet's history of the functions of lic mind at that extraordinary and difficult the municipal power. It will not be neces- epoch at which he was called on to direct sary to say much of the ex prefect himself; the great engine of the French police, and for, though his book is written in defence of we cannot help pointing out that a spirit of his own conduct, it is the system which it order and methodical arrangement was the displays that really merits attention. Per-grand characteristic of this gentleman's adhaps Monsieur Gisquet may have been some-ministration; which spirit finds its way into what hardly treated, and he assures us that his "Mémoires," and renders the whole dehe has; but the public is not very strong in tails peculiarly clear and definite. On his its sympathies, and it is less likely to weep view of the five classes in which he ranges over the injuries which the ex-prefect of po- the population of Paris, and on the political lice displays, than to laugh at the picture éminemment Français which he draws of himself. We cannot refrain from giving this portrait, which is as follows: "I believe myself to be frank, sincere, disinterested; that I take pleasure in doing good, and often even beyond the limits of my means; that my tastes retain all the simplicity of the habits of a middle station; that my disposition, though susceptible and choleric, is incapable of disguise; that none is more faithful in his affections than I am; that I love to deny myself parties in which its various parts distributed themselves, we shall not dwell at this moment; for the functions of the French police are clearly divided into two great branches, political and civil, and it is with the latter that we wish principally to deal; though we may be obliged to touch upon the excuses that are offered for extending the sphere of police interference to objects and purposes far beyond its just and natural limits. It is as a civil and not a political agent that we would desire to regard M. Gisquet, for my family and friends; that, far from seek- but we are well aware that we shall find it ing high station and honours, I only feel happy very difficult to separate the two characters; in an humble and obscure situation, preferring a and he himself says, "It is almost superfluous peaceful life and the sweets of friendship to the attractions of power. I will add, that my heart is exempt from bitterness; that I have never known hate, nor preserved long, even legitimate rancour against those who have injured me." Gisquet Mémoires, chap. v. to explain that my mission was essentially political." (Chap. xiv.) In the first place, however, we must pause to give an abridgment of his account of the prefecture of police as organized under him in the end of December, 1831; for we find that when he was placed at its head a purification was found necessary, on account of a number of incompetent persons, for whom private interest had obtained places in that establishment. "Thus," he says, "the halt and the old were charged with services which required vigour and agility; the short-sighted were employed in inspections, where it was necessary to see clear; and agents hard of hearing, where the business was to listen." (Chap. xvi.) Verily, if all men were like M. Gisquet, there would be no need of prefects of police; but that many are the very reverse of this fair portrait, is proved by every page of his "Mémoires." After speaking of himself as above cited, and having poured forth a good deal of anger upon journals and journalists, M. Gisquet proceeds to narrate some of the events of his early years, and then passes in brief review the acts of the Bourbon dynasty after its restoration. Some of his observations upon the policy of the princes who preceded the famous revolution of 1830, are sensible, though none of them profound; and we must leave all this portion of his work, as well as his notice of the revolution of agents of the night-rounds, all, in short, deJuly, in order to arrive at the period when signated in this country by the term of police our author appears upon the stage in all the force, as well as the inspectors of hotels and dignity of his official functions. furnished lodgings, and the secret agents or After he had reformed these abuses, the number of officers attached to the prefecture of police,-without comprising the whole immense force of town-sergeants, inspectors, shade of Molière! spies,-without comprising any of these, the general, tous les travaux bureaucratique number of officers, clerks, &c., amounted to ayant un intérêt gouvernemental et qui ne no less than eleven hundred and forty! sont pas dans la spécialité des bureaux." Oh, What an awful picture does this give of that state of society which can require so many Monsieur Gisquet then proceeds to state a men to devote their whole powers, merely to great change that he made in the arrangement direct the engine by which it is kept in or- of affairs on entering upon his functions. der. But when we take this staff of eleven Before his time all the papers, reports, &c., hundred and forty, with all the brigades of except those addressed immediately to the town-sergeants, inspectors, agents of the night- bureau of the prefect, were at once disrounds, and spies, together with the military tributed amongst the other officers in the patroles, (which M. Gisquet also mentions,) prefecture to which they naturally belonged; we cannot but ask ourselves, Is all this ne- the subordinate agents dealt with the vacessary? Are the people of Paris so turbu- rious cases brought to their notice as they lent and so lawless as to require all this tre- thought fit, unless in matters of such difmendous force to repress and correct them, ficulty that they found it necessary to submit or is the fault in the system ? them to their superior, and many minor abuses We will now, however, look a little more took place, besides the capital one of the preclosely into the prefecture of police and ex- fect being kept in ignorance of much that was amine some of the details, where, though we taking place under the sanction of his name. may find a good deal to excite surprise, and Monsieur Gisquet was the first who required a good deal more to call for reprobation, we that all the correspondence and reports should shall perceive also several provisions from pass through his own office, so as to ensure a which England might take a lesson, and a general knowledge of all the information that spirit of order and regularity which is by no the police acquired each day, and of the parmeans incompatible with the spirit of civil ticular affairs that occupied each of the suborliberty that reigns in all the institutions of dinate offices in the prefecture. this country. The office of the secretary-general of po At the head of the establishment is, of lice contained twenty-nine clerks, and its la course, the préfet de police himself, in whose peculiar cabinet or office are nineteen clerks. The business especially transacted in this office comprises, according to M. Gisquet, the following heads: the average to more than two thousand per bours were principally directed to the regulation of the great establishment itself, and the choice, promotion, and dismissal of the officers employed; but besides these, the examination of the statutes of anonymous societies, the direction of the municipal guard, and of the large body of government firemen, the superintendence of all public spectacles and ceremonies, theatres, gaming-houses, public The opening, analyzation, registry, and distribution to the various inferior offices to which they have references, of all despatches, letters, and documents, the number of which amounts upon criers, bill-stickers, with everything relating diem-The correspondence of the prefect with to religion (that is to say, of course, as far as ministers and public officers on political affairs the police was concerned), to the "administraThe formation and classification of the dockets tion" of stamps, to the sale of gunpowder, and relating to politics-The making a digest of to the pursuit of deserters, were all assigned the report sent in by the secret agents-The to the office of the secretary-general. The next two offices are called the first and second divisions; the one carried on by a hundred and three officers of different ranks, preparation of a biographical reperto repertory of all persons who have figured in political affairs(This report did not exist before my administration, and at the time of my retirement it already comprised more than twelve thousand names) the other by fifty-two. We cannot pause to de The correspondence and administrative measures concerning foreign refugees." - Gisquet, chap. xvi. The next sentence we must put down in Monsieur Gisquet's own words; for though we have tried to give a bald and literal translation of the passages quoted, no English words could do justice to the modern French of the following, in which he sums up the other labours of his own particular office. "Et en • The word is depouillement, for which I cannot find an equivalent. tail all the various objects to which these two offices directed their attention. Suffice that they were in general of a municipal character, and came more legitimately under the operation of the police than many other mat ters intrusted to that of France. We must notice, however, a few of these objects, which either are free from all supervision in England, come under the superintendence of other powers, or have special officers appointed for their regulation. Amongst those cited by Monsieur Gisquet, as peculiarly under the charge of the first and second divisions, are |