the little trimming of imitation
lace in theirs. The Depot de Villers-Cotterets, which occupies the
buildings and dependencies of the celebrated chateau built by Francois
I, on an admirable site, was at first a prison, devoted to vagabonds and
beggars of all ages and conditions; since 1889 it has been a _Maison de
Retraite_, an asylum to which are admitted only the aged and infirm
indigent whose past has been without reproach. The number of these
peaceable inmates is about a thousand men and half as many women.

[Illustration: HOPITAL DE LA SALPETRIERE, ORIGINALLY AN ARSENAL BUILT BY
LOUIS XIII, AND NOW AN ASYLUM FOR AGED AND INSANE WOMEN. THE STATUE IS
THAT OF DOCTOR PINEL, AN EMINENT BENEFACTOR OF THE INSANE.]

All this imposing judicial edifice of Depots, prisons, magistrates, and
high courts of justice is, of course, fed and maintained by the much
humbler, almost unknown, and much more troubled service of searching out
the criminal and laying hands upon him when found. Without the aid of
the "simple police," _serjents de ville_, gendarmes, _brigadiers_, and
_agents de la surete_, there could be no ermined judges and no _maitres
des hautes-oeuvres_. The general methods employed in this obscure but
indispensable preliminary work are much like those made use of elsewhere
in civilized countries, but there are many details, not generally
published, which are interesting, and we are indebted to a spirited
newspaper article, by M. Guy Tomel, for some information concerning the
ways and means of the French police in these matters. He begins by
putting in a plea for these very useful employes of justice: "Have you
ever thought of the very material difficulties which the agents de la
surete have to encounter in arresting malefactors? These modest
defenders of society risk their lives daily that you may sleep in peace,
Madame, and earn less at this perilous trade than your coachman or your
_valet de chambre_. For their moral recompense, they have the prospect
of being treated as '_mouchards_' [police spies], not by the thieves and
the assassins, who call them the '_flics_,' but by the respectable
tax-payers who are indebted to them for the minimum of security which we
possess.

"If, by chance, some of the chiefs of this force, as Houillier, Jaume,
and Rossignol, succeed, by dint of acts of bravery, in causing their
names to be known to the general public, the private soldiers of this
army of real salvation live and die in t