ecessity. Hitherto, he had
lived in style without ever being expected to entertain; and living
well, for no one ever looked for a return from him, or from his friend
Corentin. He was cynically witty, and he liked his profession; he was
a philosopher. And besides, a spy, whatever grade he may hold in the
machinery of the police, can no more return to a profession regarded as
honorable or liberal, than a prisoner from the hulks can. Once branded,
once matriculated, spies and convicts, like deacons, have assumed an
indelible character. There are beings on whom social conditions impose
an inevitable fate.

Peyrade, for his further woe, was very fond of a pretty little girl whom
he knew to be his own child by a celebrated actress to whom he had done
a signal service, and who, for three months, had been grateful to him.
Peyrade, who had sent for his child from Antwerp, now found himself
without employment in Paris and with no means beyond a pension of twelve
hundred francs a year allowed him by the Police Department as Lenoir's
old disciple. He took lodgings in the Rue des Moineaux on the fourth
floor, five little rooms, at a rent of two hundred and fifty francs.

If any man should be aware of the uses and sweets of friendship, is
it not the moral leper known to the world as a spy, to the mob as a
_mouchard_, to the department as an "agent"? Peyrade and Corentin were
such friends as Orestes and Pylades. Peyrade had trained Corentin as
Vien trained David; but the pupil soon surpassed his master. They had
carried out more than one undertaking together. Peyrade, happy at having
discerned Corentin's superior abilities, had started him in his career
by preparing a success for him. He obliged his disciple to make use of
a mistress who had scorned him as a bait to catch a man (see _The
Chouans_). And Corentin at that time was hardly five-and-twenty.

Corentin, who had been retained as one of the generals of whom the
Minister of Police is the High Constable, still held under the Duc de
Rovigo the high position he had filled under the Duke of Otranto. Now
at that time the general police and the criminal police were managed on
similar principles. When any important business was on hand, an account
was opened, as it were, for the three, four, five, really capable
agents. The Minister, on being warned of some plot, by whatever means,
would say to one of his colonels of the police force:

"How much will you want to achieve this or that