of a decent citizen by
that word "police," and gave a glimpse of the features of a detective
from the Rue de Jerusalem? And yet nothing was more natural. Perhaps the
following remarks from the hitherto unpublished records made by certain
observers will throw a light on the particular species to which Poiret
belonged in the great family of fools. There is a race of quill-drivers,
confined in the columns of the budget between the first degree of
latitude (a kind of administrative Greenland where the salaries begin at
twelve hundred francs) to the third degree, a more temperate zone, where
incomes grow from three to six thousand francs, a climate where
the _bonus_ flourishes like a half-hardy annual in spite of some
difficulties of culture. A characteristic trait that best reveals the
feeble narrow-mindedness of these inhabitants of petty officialdom is a
kind of involuntary, mechanical, and instinctive reverence for the Grand
Lama of every Ministry, known to the rank and file only by his signature
(an illegible scrawl) and by his title--"His Excellency Monseigneur
le Ministre," five words which produce as much effect as the _il Bondo
Cani_ of the _Calife de Bagdad_, five words which in the eyes of this
low order of intelligence represent a sacred power from which there is
no appeal. The Minister is administratively infallible for the clerks
in the employ of the Government, as the Pope is infallible for good
Catholics. Something of this peculiar radiance invests everything he
does or says, or that is said or done in his name; the robe of office
covers everything and legalizes everything done by his orders; does not
his very title--His Excellency--vouch for the purity of his intentions
and the righteousness of his will, and serve as a sort of passport and
introduction to ideas that otherwise would not be entertained for a
moment? Pronounce the words "His Excellency," and these poor folk will
forthwith proceed to do what they would not do for their own interests.
Passive obedience is as well known in a Government department as in
the army itself; and the administrative system silences consciences,
annihilates the individual, and ends (give it time enough) by fashioning
a man into a vise or a thumbscrew, and he becomes part of the machinery
of Government. Wherefore, M. Gondureau, who seemed to know something
of human nature, recognized Poiret at once as one of those dupes of
officialdom, and brought out for his benefit, at the