ed by the general practice and conduct of its
inhabitants, to believe every third person a spy. Any matter of moment,
any thing bordering upon confidential communication, was alone to be
trusted _entre quatre yeux_. The servants in every family, it was well
known, were universally in the pay of government. They could not be
hired till they produced their licenses, and these licenses, to serve as
domestics, they all procured from the office of the police. From that
office their wages were as certain, and probably (if the information
they conveyed was of importance), more regularly paid than those they
received from their masters. Even, therefore, in the most secret
retirement of your own family, you could never speak with perfect
freedom. Mr B----, the gentleman above mentioned, informed me, that
before he dared to mention, even to his wife or family, any subject
connected with the affairs of the day, or when they wished to speak
freely and unrestrainedly upon any point whatever, every corner of the
room was first examined, the chinks of the doors, and the walls of the
adjoining apartments underwent a similar scrutiny; and even then they
did not dare to introduce any subject which was nearly connected with
the political government of the country.

A lawyer, who lived upon the same floor with this gentleman, was
astonished, one morning, by the entry of the police officers into his
room at four in the morning, without the slightest previous warning.
They pulled him out of bed--hurried him away to the police office, kept
him in strict custody for several days, seized all his papers; and
having at last discovered that their suspicions were ill-founded, and
that he had been secured upon erroneous information, he was brought back
to his lodgings by the same hands, and in the same summary manner in
which he had been removed; and he is to this day ignorant of the cause
of his detention, or the nature of the offence of which he had been
suspected.

Amongst the few English who, along with Mr B. were detained in Paris, it
was naturally to be expected, that the precautions taken to deceive the
police, and to prevent the suspicion of any secret intercourse, were
still more severe and rigorous than were used by the native French. As
the subjects of this country, they naturally became the objects of
continual suspicion, and were more strictly watched than any other
persons. They contrived, however, to procure, although at distant
int