compelled to keep thereon under the last reign, and to re-obtain at the
expense of the Regent all it had lost of its authority over the police,
of which it is the head. The lieutenant of police is answerable to this
body--even receives his orders from it, and its reprimands (in public
audiences, standing uncovered at the bar of the Parliament) from the
mouth of the Chief-President, or of him who presides, and who calls him
neither Master nor Monsieur, but nakedly by his name, although the
lieutenant of police might have claimed these titles, being then
Councillor of State.

The Parliament wished, then, to humiliate Argenson (whom it hated during
the time of the deceased King); to give a disagreeable lesson to the
Regent; to prepare worse treatment still for his lieutenant of police; to
make parade of its power, to terrify thus the public, and arrogate to
itself the right of limiting the authority of the Regent.

Argenson had often during the late reign, and sometimes since, made use
of an intelligent and clever fellow, just suited to him, and named
Pomereu, to make discoveries, arrest people, and occasionally keep them a
short time in his own house. The Parliament believed, and rightly, that
in arresting this man under other pretexts, it would find the thread of
many curious and secret tortuosities, which would aid its design, and
that it might plume itself upon protecting the public safety against the
tyranny of secret arrests and private imprisonments. To carry out its
aim it made use of the Chamber of justice, so as to appear as little as
possible in the matter. This Chamber hastened on so well the
proceedings, for fear of being stopped on the road, that the first hint
people had of them was on learning that Pomereu was, by decree of this
Chamber, in the prisons of the Conciergerie, which are those of the
Parliament. Argenson, who was informed of this imprisonment immediately
it took place, instantly went to the Regent, who that very moment sent a
'lettre de cachet', ordering Pomereu to be taken from prison by force if
the gaoler made the slightest difficulty in giving him up to the bearers
of the 'lettre de cachet'; but that gentleman did not dare to make any.
The execution was so prompt that this man was not an hour in prison, and
they who had sent him there had not time to seize upon a box of papers
which had been transported with him to the Conciergerie, and which was
very carefully carried away with him. A