"Ever since the present Prefet has held the reins of this department
--so useful and so vilified--he has made it a rule that family matters
are never to be interfered in. He is right in principle and in
morality; but in practice he is wrong. In the forty-five years that I
have served in the police, it did, from 1799 till 1815, great services
in family concerns. Since 1820 a constitutional government and the
press have completely altered the conditions of existence. So my
advice, indeed, was not to intervene in such a case, and the Prefet
did me the honor to agree with my remarks. The Head of the detective
branch has orders, in my presence, to take no steps; so if you have
had any one sent to you by him, he will be reprimanded. It might cost
him his place. 'The Police will do this or that,' is easily said; the
Police, the Police! But, my dear sir, the Marshal and the Ministerial
Council do not know what the Police is. The Police alone knows the
Police; but as for ours, only Fouche, Monsieur Lenoir, and Monsieur de
Sartines have had any notion of it.--Everything is changed now; we are
reduced and disarmed! I have seen many private disasters develop,
which I could have checked with five grains of despotic power.
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