ent monarch was a few months afterwards
assassinated by revolutionists, the project was naturally abandoned, and
the Corps of Gendarmes, while remaining nominally under the Minister of
the Interior, was practically reinstated in its former position. Now, as
then, it serves as a kind of supplement to the ordinary police, and
is generally employed for matters in which secrecy is required.
Unfortunately it is not bound by those legal restrictions which protect
the public against the arbitrary will of the ordinary authorities.
In addition to its regular duties it has a vaguely defined roving
commission to watch and arrest all persons who seem to it in any way
dangerous or suspectes, and it may keep such in confinement for an
indefinite time, or remove them to some distant and inhospitable part
of the Empire, without making them undergo a regular trial. It is,
in short, the ordinary instrument for punishing political dreamers,
suppressing secret societies, counteracting political agitations, and in
general executing the extra-legal orders of the Government.

My relations with this anomalous branch of the administration were
somewhat peculiar. After my experience with the Vice-Governor of
Novgorod I determined to place myself above suspicion, and accordingly
applied to the "Chef des Gendarmes" for some kind of official document
which would prove to all officials with whom I might come in contact
that I had no illicit designs. My request was granted, and I was
furnished with the necessary documents; but I soon found that in
seeking to avoid Scylla I had fallen into Charybdis. In calming official
suspicions, I inadvertently aroused suspicions of another kind. The
documents proving that I enjoyed the protection of the Government made
many people suspect that I was an emissary of the gendarmerie, and
greatly impeded me in my efforts to collect information from private
sources. As the private were for me more important than the official
sources of information, I refrained from asking for a renewal of the
protection, and wandered about the country as an ordinary unprotected
traveller. For some time I had no cause to regret this decision. I knew
that I was pretty closely watched, and that my letters were occasionally
opened in the post-office, but I was subjected to no further
inconvenience. At last, when I had nearly forgotten all about Scylla
and Charybdis, I one night unexpectedly ran upon the former, and, to my
astonishment, fou