Chapter XXIV: Conclusion: Bibliography 309 (7)

Hermann Turr was a subaltern in a regiment of the Prussian Hussars who, owing to perversity of character and disposition, was removed by the Kaiser's orders from the Army List about ten years ago. At the suggestion of the then head of the Prussian Secret Service, who urged the man's bad character as a point in favour of his being employed as a spy, Turr was given employment by the secret police in Berlin, his first duty being the watching of other spies in the same department—an employment, it may be said, which is only given to a man whose social and financial condition is in the desperate stage. It was in respect of what we will call the "Sans Souci" correspondence—it was really nameless—that Turr came into prominence, not only in Germany, but in every country in the world. The "Sans Souci" correspondence was published, without name or title, in Germany and contained accusations of the most serious kind laid to the account of the Hohenzollern family as well as to that of the highest official and court personages of Berlin. The present Emperor, suspecting a member of his entourage whom he had been forced to exile, called in the services of Turr, promising him a large sum for proofs as to the identity of the author of the letters. These appeared in 1905 in pamphlet form and were immediately suppressed, severe penalties being threatened, as in the equally notorious "Hotzé" letters of a previous generation, to all who should be proved to have sold them. Turr proved his zeal within a month of receiving his commission by giving alleged proofs that the letters had been written at the instigation of a well-known French politician whose Germanophobia is only exceeded by his remarkable talents in diplomacy. It is certain that about this time, 1906, Germany was on the verge of declaring war against France, and it was only when full proofs were forthcoming that Turr's "evidence" was based mainly on forgeries, that Franco-German diplomacy weathered the storm which threatened its relations. Turr, it is understood, was imprisoned, but secured his release on a personal appeal to the Emperor, promising to reveal the real authorship of the forgeries in question. In accordance with his story, the forged evidence had really been handed to him in Paris by persons acting in the interests of the Berlin war-party which was already anxious for a trial of strength with France and which chose this means as likely to precipitate events, Turr being really the dupe of their agents who were acting in conjunction with the Berlin Secret Police in order to force the Emperor's hand. Another man who also served the bureau over which Steinhauer now presides was Windell, who once tended the French General de Boisdeffre as valet in Paris and was taken by that officer all through France on his tours of inspection of the military districts and fortresses, Windell, an educated man and a trained engineer, supplying Berlin with plans and memoranda of all and everything which might serve the interests of the General Staff.

In a large measure also to Steinhauer must be attributed the rigorous methods which govern the production of the modern first-class German spy. A full possession of those personal gifts which characterise the man of the world is insisted upon by the authorities at "Number Seventy, Berlin," as the headquarters in Kœnigergratzerstrasse in that capital are invariably known to employees. A candidate for service is not only expected to "look the part," as they say, he is also expected to be able to act it. He is therefore required to be a man who has had the advantage of good home training of a really superior class, one who possesses social breeding besides decent scholarship, a combination which is less common in Germany than in either France or England. Apart, however, from the mere matter of scholarship and address, the rule holds here as in every other business of life, that it is after all character which really counts. A man is looked for, indeed, very much similar, as to his mental capacities, to the really high-class newspaper correspondent of our own day—one who is at home in all capitals, who can talk intelligently and intelligibly on current topics and has a good repertoire of languages at his tongue's disposal, who is unquestionably master of his own language and who can associate with men placed above his own condition without displaying the servility of the flunkey, or the assurance of the man whose loudness is invariably the measure of his own uncertainty of his social worth and standing. As far as Prussia produces men of presentability, the Berlin bureau has always succeeded in enlisting excellent agents for its purposes, and, in any case, we have seen that it generally looks for them among decadent members of the territorial families, or among officers who have made false steps in the course of their careers, but who are still sufficiently attached to life to be content to serve under the double flag of the _corps d'espionnage_, despised by all who pretend to imposing standards of honour, yet certain of a good living if they perform their duties. The number and scope of the studies to which they have to devote themselves, once they are entered on the books of the bureau, will surprise men who recall the years they spent in lecture-rooms studying for army or higher civil-service examinations. Indeed, it is only a well-educated man possessed of really an advanced kind of knowledge who is competent to engage in the curriculum which goes to form the German spy of our own time. The average Sandhurst or Woolwich cadet on "passing out" would only just about hold his own with the men who "coach" in Espionage for the examination set by Dr Steinhauer and his board of professors.

Once accepted as a member of the Secret Service of the higher grade, the agent is entered on the pay-sheet at a fixed salary commencing at £200 a year, with an added ten shillings a day for personal expenses whether on active service or not. For each "job"—neatly executed, to be sure—he is promised a bonus with an increase of personal out-of-pocket allowance up to £2 daily. He is notified, however, that 33 per cent. of all moneys coming to him will be kept back and banked for him at 5 per cent., the object of this measure being to assure the Service a hold upon its agents in case they should be inclined to leave without giving due notice. The salaries are paid monthly in advance. Personal instructions are given verbally to each accepted agent, on his initiation: he must report daily when not on active service at Number Seventy; should he be on active service, he must telegraph a certain number to indicate that he is alive and accessible; he must observe absolute silence in respect of his missions, nor converse even with high officials under whom he is not acting; he shall carry no memoranda and no documents, but must trust to memory; he is to avoid fellow-agents, is forbidden to drink, or associate with women; he must never sign his name, but always his number; he is provided with a separate cipher which he must always use for cabling and telegraphing. It is only at this point, however, that the real "grind" begins for your German Secret Service agent, who, whatever may be his moral shortcomings, is certainly worthy of all respect when considered in regard to his mentality.

His studies of a technical character may be said to be confined to Topography, Trigonometry, Naval Construction, Military Fortification and Drawing. His tutors are invariably taken from the ablest experts in their subjects. Supposing a Secret Service be sent to Antwerp to study the forts and report upon them, he must be in a position to give correct estimates of heights, angles, distances, ground-lay; he must, therefore, be a surveyor the accuracy of whose intuitions must to a large extent cover the work of the theodolite or the transit-compass. In the case of the spy, for instance, who reported to Berlin upon the Forth Bridge, the work had to be performed without arousing the attention or the suspicions of officials; the man in question effected his measurements by pacing, by observing angles and by subsequent triangulation, the result being highly creditable to his training, for he judged the required measurements to within yards and feet in distances and heights, respectively. It may be objected that this was wasted time, since these facts are available to anyone. The General Staff at Berlin was taking no chances, however. Its object in sending its man to examine the Forth Bridge was solely to find out how many men could be so disposed, in the vicinity of the structure, as to blow it up at a given signal, what was the geological nature of the foundation-shafts, how much dynamite would be required to destroy the bridge. And Berlin wanted to _know_.

So too with regard to all matters military and naval, as we shall presently show. There is, indeed, no time for leisure and no laggards are allowed to remain very long upon the roster of the General Staff's Secret Service College. Anything more complete or thorough, it would be hard to imagine, and but for the sinister aims and objects of the whole curriculum, it would be difficult to picture anything more admirable or workmanlike in its organic perfection. The work entitled _Secrets of the German War Office_ written by Mr Graves has, as most people are by this time aware, been disavowed by the Berlin authorities as being the work of what Americans call "a good guesser." This, it must be seen, was the only course open to the German Staff, and their disclaimers in no way discount the value of their ex-agent's story when he touches upon purely departmental and organic details connected with the Steinhauer bureau. He tells us himself that he served for twelve years in the German Secret Service which has three distinct branches—that of the Army, that of the Navy and the Personal Corps. The General Staff of Berlin controls the Secret Service departments dealing with both military and naval affairs, while the Personal department is directed from the Foreign Office and is really under the direct eye and touch of the German Emperor himself. The military and naval sections deal with the procuring of hidden and secret information in regard to armaments, plans, new inventions and codes. The Personal Corps concerns itself with diplomatic affairs, details as to cabinet discussions, royal and princely scandals and includes among its agents men and women who are conducting inquiries on behalf of the Emperor himself. Among its members are to be found princes, dukes, counts and barons, lawyers, clergymen, doctors, actors and actresses, _mondaines_ and _demi-mondaines_, journalists, authors, money-lenders, jockeys, trainers, waiters and porters. Mr Graves dismisses the waiters and the porters as being nonentities who are never given commissions except those of the most non-committal kind, and in any case are never entrusted with the reasons underlying the little jobs which they perform at a few shillings each time. After a successful series of missions, men in the higher departments receive salaries from the bureau varying between £600 and £2000 yearly, which sums are invariably supplemented by generous bonuses—£1500 is not uncommon—as a reward for good work in particularly perilous enterprises. The remuneration is, however, mean when compared with the dangers undergone, and since no official countenance is ever given (nor, indeed, expected) on the part of an agent's employers, once a spy falls into the hands of the enemy, the game is far from being worth the worry and strain it entails. Moreover, a time comes in the case of the very successful agent when he has learned so much about the "policies" of his highly placed patrons that his existence becomes a source of anxiety to them, and his removal is often effected by means which recall the time of the Borgias or the days of the _oubliette_.

XV

GERMAN SECRET SERVICE—_concluded_

We have emphasised the German Spy System to the extent of devoting five chapters to an exposition of its methods and the principles underlying its origin, development and application. Our object has been mainly to show not only to what extent a nation may become demoralised by allowing a system of espionage to assume the proportions of a constitutional principle, but more especially to indicate how ineffective its operations must ultimately prove when opposed, not necessarily by counter-espionage, but by the ordinary legal safeguards which foreign governments can at all times put into force to neutralise such operations. At the outbreak of the War, for instance, the British authorities were able, by the simple process of internment and registration, to destroy in these islands the bulk of effective German influences on which Berlin had long relied for the consummation of its insane dream of "making Britain a German province." Again, the comparative ease with which eleventh-hour systems of counter-espionage have proved themselves capable of defeating the elaborate and far-flung organisations of fifty years of German master-spies must have the result of teaching Germany that a military establishment which puts its first trust in its external spy systems as providing the royal road to warlike successes, really admits its own lack of military genius. Indeed, it is impossible to read the story of Stieber's exploits and not realise that Stieber, rather than von Moltke, won those strategic successes of 1866 and 1870 which laid the foundations of the modern German Empire. And just as Bismarck has had no successor in the business of German diplomacy, so is it certain that Stieber's mantle has fallen upon no modern exponent of German espionage capable of adding to the original system. We have heard much of the triumphs of the Berlin Secret Service; the results of the War must disclose its total failure, though we may even now confidently predict that the blunders of its present directors have not been less glaring than those of Berlin diplomats. Like everything systematised in Germany, its organisation of espionage was systematised to the point at which independent and original action became impossible, so that when faced with conditions which Stieber had not known and provided for, it at once revealed its impotence and ineptitude, as well as the incapacity of its organisers for attaining practical results.

We propose in this present chapter, which concludes our account of Germany's system, to show how complete is the training of agents for the work of military and naval espionage. The German military spy, it must be premised, is rarely an officer on the active or retired list, but almost always a civilian who has, of course, had military training. Turr and Windell had both been military officers who had practically been cashiered, while Lody had been a minor officer in the German merchant service. The German military agent must know all units of foreign armies at sight and must also be able to memorise the code words by which such units are indicated in the Berlin bureau. In respect of code words, indeed, his memory must, in all military matters, be of a Napoleonic capacity, and when corresponding with his head office as to the work of any particular pattern of gun on which he is instructed to report, it will go badly with him if he fails to quote his code accurately. Since, by the regulations, he is not permitted to carry documents, his task is obviously not an easy one. And so, again, with classes of explosives and types of shell. Furthermore, he must be so intimate with the science of fortification as to be competent to produce a map of any required fortified place, its maximum content and capacity for resistance. No Woolwich cadet of two years' standing is expected to know half as much as your German military spy, while his periodical examinations are conducted on a scale which would be sufficient to make studious officers of the Staff College doubtful as to their ability to "floor" the papers. Any error transmitted in the way of information as to guns, man-capacity of fortresses, new ideas in strategy and tactics, ballistics, plans and military maps, are dealt with in Berlin on the American plan—that is to say, the offender is never given a chance to offend twice. Nor is the art of generalisation, so common in journalism, ever permitted to pass muster at Number Seventy. Particularisation is insisted upon, for Berlin wants facts first, last, always and everywhere. To ensure complete accuracy, the General Staff will employ, if necessary, a dozen spies on the same mission; they operate unknown to each other, their reports are compared and discrepancies mean the sending out of supplementary agents on the same mission, until by a process of exhaustion, and perhaps after several years of observation, the mathematical truth is finally arrived at. In the meantime, perhaps, the structure of any given fortress has been radically or partly altered; still the process goes on, for Berlin's General Staff never sleeps, is eternally vigilant and alert and possesses the only financial stocking in the Empire which knows no end. All this is in accordance with a rule laid down by the Bismarck-Stieber combination—namely, that the German Intelligence Staff shall know as much about any country in Europe as that country's own Intelligence Department could possibly know. In Austria in 1866 and in France in 1870, events proved that it knew far more. In whatever other way a high-class German secret-service man may fail to please the critics, there can be no question as to the degree of sheer intellectual ability required to enable him to reach his position—and retain it.

In regard to Naval espionage, the course of study and the mental discipline exacted are, if anything, more severe. Fundamentally, of course, the system differs but little from that just dealt with, just as the winning of a battle involves the employment of strategy and tactics which are not fundamentally different from those employed in the taking of a fortress, as Napoleon said. The majority of accepted secret-service agents on entering upon their studies in Berlin, Kiel or Wilhelmshafen, rarely know enough about naval matters to be able to distinguish a torpedo from a torpedo-boat destroyer. After a course with the instructors the agent not only distinguishes easily between the large variety of types of torpedoes, submarines, mines, he can also tell by the peculiar whistle it makes whether a torpedo when being discharged is a Whitehead or a Brennan, as the case may be. Then his work in naval dockyards and on coastal defences has practically no limit. Naval construction he must be as fully versed in as the best informed of naval commanders. All sorts of naval war-craft are set before him for the purposes of study, and the candidate for advancement is required, before he passes out with a certificate, to be able to tell at a glance, and from their silhouettes, all known war-craft in existence, big and little. After months of study, a quick learner will be able to say at once the type of any given war-vessel shown him and what its nationality. Add to this a perfectly accurate acquaintance with flag-signals and codes, the different ranking officers of _all_ the navies of the world, the personnel of warships of the heavier classes, the various uniforms, the ability to talk about any or all parts of a gun, a torpedo, a tube, a mine, whether assembled or unassembled, and it will be freely admitted that the German naval spy must be a ready man in the fullest sense of Bacon's term. And yet on another page we have said that German espionage is a doomed failure. We still maintain it, and for the reason that the foregoing studies only result, after all is said, in naval theory. As a maker of theories, your German of all kinds and conditions, is the first man in the world; it is when he comes to their practical application that he fails so badly and disappoints his admirers so painfully. The end of German naval espionage is of course the invasion and conquest of Britain, and until German armies defeat us and our Allies on land and her Navy has beaten us at sea, we may feel justified in holding that both her military and naval systems of espionage are respectively not worth the rentals paid for their dingy offices in Berlin. There is a hoary old tale told about an Englishman, a Frenchman, a German and a certain wonderful crocodile which once made its appearance in Orinico waters and made the nations talk about him. The Englishman decided to start at once for Brazil and hunt the creature out; the Frenchman decided on general principles to carve him out in stone, just as he imagined the new animal to be; but the German went to a zoological museum, _thought out_ the new crocodile from a set of palæozoic bones, and wrote a theory about him. Your German theorist is still far from having passed away and hardly yet realises that there is a large difference between learning the secrets of our naval forces and defeating them at sea. We recognise that German espionage is a danger—a fact which need not, however, blind us to the certainty that Germany has no more Bismarcks or Stiebers to build up new organisations with which to face the conditions of a new world. Germany has certainly no minister in office to-day who could prophesy so far ahead the course of events as Bismarck prophesied them to an Austrian lady, the Countess Hohenthal, in 1866. We recall the anecdote:

"Tell me, Count," said the Austrian to the famous Chancellor at a dinner-party in Berlin. "I have two homes in Europe, one in Bohemia, the other at Knautheim, near Leipsic. My countrymen are all talking about the possibility of Prussia invading us in the near future, and you might set my mind at rest if you would advise me where to remain for the rest of the year—in Bohemia, or in Saxony?"

"Countess," replied the Chancellor, "if I were you, I should remain in Saxony. It is not on a military route." The lady's Bohemian Castle was not, as it happened, very far from—Sadowa.

As to the financial aspects of the German Spy System, it is a matter of public record that the Reichstag makes a yearly appropriation of about £1,000,000 sterling for the purposes and objects of the Imperial Secret Service. It is obvious, however, that the total expenditure must be far in excess of this sum, since, to use a memorable phrase, "every dirty little lieutenant" who has taken a holiday within the past ten years and has consented to spend his time in England, has done so at the expense of the Secret Service of Berlin. In these cases the young officers are "invited" to inspect the counties through which they travel, and in order to facilitate their movements, they are each supplied with sectional maps which are more perfect in every particular than the cyclists' hand-books with which we are so familiar in these days. There is no lane, bridle-path, road, farmhouse, pot-house, or farrier's which is not clearly marked in these sectional maps. The prospective tourist—who is most frequently a minor departmental official—is handed one or more of them on the understanding that if he can improve upon their topographical value in the smallest particulars, he will benefit to the extent of a hundred marks or so. The result is that official Berlin knows England north, south, east and west, far better than any Englishman knows Berlin, and one may depend upon it that if an army corps were to land anywhere in Britain, its commanders would know the road to London, as well as local facilities and capacities for feeding 40,000 men, far better than the majority of Irishmen know the way to Tipperary or even the civic standing of that much-sung city. The gathering of such minute information involves a costly process. One million sterling yearly must be inadequate to cover the expenditure of 500 registered and salaried officials, with "details" numbering at least 500 more of a more or less fixed status, and twice that number of annual tourist candidates looking for German bank-notes.

Before concluding our examination of the German Spy System, we may hear what an American war-correspondent has to say in regard to the precautions which the General Staff takes in order to preclude the operations of spies inside the German lines. The following incident was communicated to _The New York Times_ by its special correspondent on 1st December 1914:—

"GERMAN GREAT HEADQUARTERS IN FRANCE, Dec. 1.—There is a certain monotony about the scientific murder of the firing line—a routine repetition of artillery duels, alarums, and excursions which can be and are being vividly described by 'war correspondents' from the safe vantage ground of comfortable cafés miles away. The real human interest end of this ultra-modern war is to be gleaned from rambling around the operating zone in a thoroughly irresponsible American manner, trusting in Providence and the red American eagle sealed on your emergency passport and a letter from Charles Lesimple, the genial Consul at Cologne, to keep you from being shot.

"For instance, you get some interesting first-hand knowledge as to how spies can 'get away with it' in spite of the perfect German military system of controls and passes. There is no 'spy hysteria' in Germany but none the less the German authorities know perfectly well that there are swarms of spies in their midst and are hunting them down with quiet, typically Teutonic thoroughness. But the very perfection of the German military machine is its weak spot, and on this, my second visit to the German Great Headquarters, I was able to give the astonished authorities a personal demonstration as to how any smooth-tongued stranger could turn up at even this 'holy of holies.' The nocturnal trail led in a military train from Luxemberg over Longwy to Longuyon.

"From here I started out on a foot tour, and entered the Grosses Hauptquartier (Great Headquarters) unchallenged, by the back door. Journalistically it was disappointing at first, for it was Sunday morning and apparently Prussian militarism keeps the Sabbath holy. There was no one interviewing the Kaiser, for he had gone 'way down East' and with him his war minister, Gen. von Kalkenhayn. The courteous commandant, Col. von Hahnke, was not on the job. Even the brilliant chief of the press division, Major Nikolai, was out of town when I called on the Great General Staff. But there were compensations, for at a turn of the road I saw a more impressive sight than even the motoring Kaiser—a mile of German cavalry coming down the straight chausse, gray horsemen as far as the eye could see and more constantly coming over the brow of the distant hill, with batteries of field artillery sandwiched between.

"On the next day I again dropped in on the great General Staff and found it not only at home, but very much interested on discovering that I had no pass to come or go or be there at that time. The war-time mind of Prussian militarism is keen and right to the point. It saw not the chance of getting publicity in America, but the certainty that other more dangerous spies could come through the same way. By all the rules of the war game, Prussian militarism would have been thoroughly justified in treating me as a common spy in possession of vital military secrets, but it courteously contented itself in insisting on plucking out the heart of the journalistic mystery. All attempts at evasion and humour were vain—here was the ruthless reality of war. It was the mailed Prussian Eagle against the bluff American bird of the same species, and the unequal contest was soon ended when Major Nikolai, Chief of Division III. of the great General Staff, stood up very straight and dignified and said:

"'I am a German officer. What German violated his duty? I ask you as a man of honour how was it possible for you to come here?'

"The answer was quite simple: 'The German military machine was so perfect that it covered every contingency except the most obvious and guarded every road except the easiest way. All you have to do is to take a passenger train to Luxemberg, and hang around the platform until the next military train pulls out for Belgium or France, hop aboard, and keep on going. In case of doubt utter the magic phrase, "I am an American," and flash the open sesame, the red seal of the United States of America—to which bearded Landsturm guards pay the tribute of regarding it as equally authoritative as the purple Prussian eagle stamped on a military pass.'

"Followed a two-hour dialogue in the private office of the chief of the Kaiser's secret field police, as a result of which future historians will find in the Kaiser's secret archives the following unique document, couched in Berlin legal terminology and signed and subscribed to by the _Times_ correspondent:

"'Secret Field Police, Great Headquarters, Dec. 1, 1914.

"'There appears the American war correspondent and at the particular request of the authorities, explains:

"'On Saturday, Nov. 30, I arrived at Trier on a second-class ticket at about 10.30 P.M. There I bought a third-class ticket and boarded a train leaving Luxemberg at about 12.15 A.M. I did not go into the railroad station, but trusting to my paper, boarded a military train leaving at 12.45 A.M., going over Longwy to Longuyon, where I arrived at 3.30 A.M., Sunday. There an official whose name I do not know took me to a troop train and made a place for me in the brake box. I left the train at X and went on foot to H (the Great Headquarters), where I reported myself to the Chief of Police.

"'I recommend that a sharper control be exercised on the station platform at Luxemberg as it is a simple matter to avoid the only control which is at the ticket gate, by simply not going out and therefore not having to come in.'"

XVI

DIPLOMATIC, SOCIAL, CHURCH SPIES

The so-called mystery of the notorious Chevalier d'Eon has long since been proved to have been no mystery at all. The question of his sex was, during his whole life, a matter of fierce dispute and much speculation in many countries. At his death in London, in the year 1810, an English doctor, Courthorpe by name, gave full attestation to the fact that the deceased Chevalier was neither a female nor an hermaphrodite, but a complete man. D'Eon, it is hardly to be disputed, must rank among the great diplomatic spies whom the world has produced and even in his own age, when the mystery attaching to his person made him an object of extraordinary social interest, all men were willing to bear testimony to his courage, physical energy, industry, audacity and wit. In all probability no one was ever made the confidant of his reasons for adopting female dress, but in every likelihood there was nothing more romantic in his peculiarity than the mania for being conspicuous and attracting attention, unless indeed, as has been suggested, he chose to wear woman's dress for the reason that it was more comfortable than that of man and had the advantage of making him appear taller than he really was. About the Chevalier it is known for a certainty that one Douglas, a Scottish diplomatic agent, when proceeding to Russia in 1755, on a mission to the Empress Elizabeth, in the interests of Louis XV., took the clever youth with him—at the suggestion of d'Eon himself—dressed him as a female and introduced him to the Court of Russia, where his knowledge of languages soon obtained for him a post as reader to the Empress, over whom for a short season he obtained an ascendancy which enabled him to turn her sympathies towards an alliance with France. Louis XV., as we remember, had never possessed any real political or diplomatic power within his own realm, and in order to offset his official impotence, thought out his famous private organisation of court and political intrigue-mongers, which eventually became known as "The King's Secret." Douglas was among the men employed in this body, the Prince de Conti, Duc de Broglie and many other nobles, both French and foreign, also assisting the King in the conduct of a conspiracy the real object of which is not very apparent, if it was not for the pure love of the mystery and intrigue surrounding the whole business.

_After a painting by Angelica Kauffmann_]

Practical results were, however, achieved in the case of d'Eon. According to the Duc de Broglie, Douglas had proved himself an unacceptable person at the Russian Court and it was only through the employment of the services of the youthful Chevalier, then about eight and twenty years old, that he was enabled to attain his mission's object. Far from resenting the trick, when d'Eon, on asking to be released from his position in order to return to France, at the same time revealing the real nature of his sex, the Empress Elizabeth was delighted at the manœuvre and made her reader a handsome present on his departure. He was described about this time as highly educated and capable of writing with distinction on literary subjects; very much devoted to the study of law and philosophy, but, one is somewhat uneasy to hear, as indifferent to female beauty as was Frederick the Great. It is in 1759 that he is to be found working for Louis as a spy upon the official French envoys. In that year the Duc de Choiseul was sent to Russia with the object of inducing the Empress Elizabeth to mediate for peace in the Seven Years' War. The Chevalier was at the same time deputed to go to Russia, where his earlier exploits had given him favourable notice, and bring about the failure of Choiseul's mission. Accordingly d'Eon became possessed of an important French secret which Louis was not disposed to have revealed to his contemporaries; he was given at the successful issue of his mission, a sum equal to £1200 yearly of our money and was sent to the army of the Upper Rhine as aide-de-camp to Marshal de Broglie, where the King hoped a bullet might remove him. The Chevalier appears, however, to have exhibited prowess as a soldier, and in 1762 we find him secretary to the French Embassy in London, where he was instrumental in rifling the portfolio of an important English Foreign Office attaché by resorting to the somewhat vulgar expedient of giving the diplomat too much to drink, the inference being that the wine was drugged. His success must have been important, for in 1763 he was resident Minister in London. In this capacity he began to organise a scheme on behalf of Louis for the invasion of England, and as Horace Walpole states, the importance both of his rôle and position began to prove too great for his usually cool intelligence. As a result of a few sharp repartees to French visitors of rank whom he suspected of spying upon him, as in truth they were, the Chevalier soon found himself reduced to the rank of Secretary, the King, indeed, ordering his man to return to France, but not to present himself at Court. In what followed the intelligent observer begins to discern glimpses of that so-called "artistic temperament" with which we have become so familiar in these later days. D'Eon declared that Louis, far from wishing for his removal in an official capacity, had instructed him to resume female attire and keep up the game of espionage in England. The late Mr Andrew Lang declares his belief in the probability that Louis, realising that the little Chevalier's possession of so many important secrets made him a dangerous enemy, actually wrote the letter in question, fully aware how far the "artistic temperament" was likely to carry the disappointed minister. D'Eon indeed threatened to reveal so much to English statesmen that Louis deemed it better to compound with a pension equal to several thousands yearly and permission to correspond with himself. Up till the death of the King in 1774 the Chevalier indulged his old taste for espionage in the intrigues which sought to restore the Stuarts to the English throne. The new Government, probably with the prescience of unrest to come which should require the financial aid of England, sought to buy the Chevalier off, offering him a large sum in return for the documents regarding the projected invasion of England, an alleged condition of the contract being the extraordinary clause that d'Eon should return to France and continue during the rest of his life to wear woman's clothes. It was hoped by this means to deceive the public with the story that d'Eon was a lunatic woman if he ever should give way to his well-known petulance. At all events the Chevalier returned to France where, to the disgust of the connoisseurs, the lady showed signs too evident of the use of the razor, was as muscular as an athlete, wore high heels, but spoke like a musketeer, had her hair cut to the scalp and used to do the hall-room staircase at the unladylike rate of four steps to the jump. D'Eon soon lost his popularity in Paris and even his public offer "to become a nun" failed to tickle the quidnuncs. He returned to London, where he died, a faded old dowager-looking scarecrow with a very red nose, in 1810.

And, of course, there was another very clever diplomatic spy who flourished in the same age, a member of the famous de Launay family, who was known all over Europe as the Comte d'Antraigues. He was a singular example of the man who was determined at all costs to play a part in the tortuous diplomacies of his time and, paradoxically speaking, it must be said that although his life proved a failure he achieved an historical success which has endured. We confess to a liking for a phrase which his biographer Pingaud has written in his regard: "His life is interesting like that of all men who have kept up the fight, have always been beaten, but have never admitted their defeat." A man whom Napoleon condescended to notice must have been not only interesting but important. The Emperor characterised him as a "blackguard" and "a walking impertinence"—the French word _insolent_ meaning here perhaps our term an officious busybody, which the Count undoubtedly was. Louis XVIII. called him "the fine flower of sharpers"; for Spain he was a "charlatan"; Austria christened him "a downright rascal," and Russia characterised him as one of the vilest men in the universe. Nevertheless, Napoleon tried once to buy his services, the Bourbon _emigrés_ paid him to keep their cause before the eyes of reactionary Europe, while Austria, Russia and the Court of Naples always listened to his advice and suggestions. We have shown in another chapter that Antraigues was mentioned as the person who had procured first-hand information of the secret clauses of the Treaty of Tilsit, and it is certain that French and Russian writers for the greater part declare the Count to have been the betrayer of both France and Russia. There can be no question that he became known to Canning, the Foreign Minister of the day, as a man whose "inside information," to use the American phrase, made him a magnificent ally; but it is also certain that by the year 1807 Antraigues had become discredited both in Russian and French diplomatic circles and, in any case, was hardly in a position to exercise much personal or practical influence in so momentous a conference as that which took place upon the historic Raft. The accepted English view is that the secret clauses came to the knowledge of Canning through an oversight on the part of Alexander who had allowed the Russian Minister in London to learn more than was expedient.

There is no better exemplar among all the exponents of espionage in its higher phases than the Comte d'Antraigues in so far as he provides us with positive proof that there comes a point at which a spy, already too dangerous by reason of his private knowledge, must be placed beyond all possibility of indiscretions. The Count was murdered in 1812 by an Italian valet who was afterwards declared by enemies of d'Antraigues to have been in the employ of the foreign secret service, a somewhat easy _ex-post-facto_ explanation on the part of individuals who had long wished the Count on the safer side of Styx. The fact that his wife was murdered at the same time lends, however, some colour to the statement that the murder had been "fixed" as they say in the vernacular of the Black Hand. She had been in her time a famous opera singer who had tried to found a political _salon_ on the basis of the private information which her husband possessed, and altogether seems to have been one of those terrible but inept females who wander through the world for the unrest of souls, not only knowing, but knowing that they know. We make no apology for insisting that the fact that d'Antraigues was of Gascon birth is a point in favour of our idea that megalomania is in a large measure the motive-power which turns men and women to the business of espionage. The native of Gascony is by every tradition, both home and foreign, said to represent Pretence made flesh.

It is very certain that the number of secrets which pass out of the cabinets of diplomacy into the possession of non-diplomatic persons must be infinitesimal, and it is also certain that the Machiavellian waiters on whose long ears depend the fate of thrones; or the inspired courtesans who wheedle men like Bismarck out of information the divulging of which is sufficient to shake the hemispheres; or the journalistic sleuth who divines a cabinet débâcle from the way the Foreign Secretary gives an expression of opinion to the War Minister about the fineness of the night as both leave Downing Street; or the mysterious Ambassador to Everywhere who visits Constantinople and "draws up a treaty" which he submits to an uncle of the Sultan's head doorkeeper as a _modus vivendi_ for the Balkans—all of them are the fictitious creations of very "yellow" writers. These beings really count for less in the processes of diplomacy than the proverbial row of pins, and only the most credulous of souls can accept such a story as that which professes to show how so important a personage as a Russian Ambassador was once taken off his guard to the extent of giving away a secret the publication of which to the world led to an estrangement between France and his own country, the medium of his lapse being a Polish Countess with a form like Juno Victrix, eyes as big as billiard-balls, the soul of one of those awful Ouida heroines who felt it in her to "dominate the world with the man I love," and the manners and attitudes of a vaudeville high-kicker. Important information which has ever "transpired" from an embassy or a ministry for foreign affairs has done so in ninety-nine cases out of one hundred by sheer accident; in the unique case has it been given by agents from within and then most certainly not to a courtesan, but to a practical man of business by an equally practical man of business, money being in each case the first consideration. The diplomatic espionage of reality is quite a different matter from that of fiction and in all probability Napoleon was its best exponent, with his _cabinet noir_ for the supervision of suspect letters; his couriers who were always on the road, ostensibly carrying dispatches, but in reality in quest of special information; his sisters who through their ladies of honour spied upon each other's movements; and his secretaries who controlled the organisation of private spies who spied upon the spies set by Talleyrand and his department.

Prussia, as everywhere else, leads the way in internal diplomatic espionage and there is not a court of kingly or princely rank in the German Confederation which can boast that its most intimate actions, scandals, expressions of opinion and intentions are safe from the scrutiny of the authorities at Potsdam. Indeed, it is safe to say that Potsdam has long had its especial agents watching and reporting in every Court of Europe, and the comparatively recent "Posen" case shows to what length the vile system of Prussian espionage is prepared to go in order that Potsdam shall be kept informed. Some years ago the Berlin authorities were anxious to know what was the real state of feeling towards Germany in Prussian Poland, and accordingly a well-known Prussian Guardsman was sent to Posen with instructions to seduce the somewhat flighty and "modern" daughter of a Polish notable who was said to stand high in the Polish liberation movement. It was not quite certain, however; but as Berlin saw the approach of the war of 1914, it was necessary to know soon how the exact situation lay. The young Guardsman effected all that was required of him, also discovered how matters stood in regard to the Polish movement and then returned to Berlin. This fact was one of the many which came to light in the course of the Harden trial of 1907, when it was clearly proved that the Emperor William had his own private _corps d'espionnage_, even as Napoleon and Louis XV. had had theirs. This body attended to diplomatic as well as social matters, and in her Memoirs the Princess Louise of Saxony shows that no society is too exalted nor any too low for the operations of its sleuths who, as in Stieber's hey-day, have driven men from public life to satisfy the private hates of persons only too willing to purchase their services.

Social espionage is too well known the world over, to call for very much attention. It is one big trade in information of one kind or another, in return for which the giver expects to receive special consideration, or achieve some end. The anonymous letter fiend who transmits real or pretended information about another person to a third party, the lady's maid who is in the service of other women besides her mistress, the private secretary to a politician, or banker, or commercial man, who accepts "presents" from his master's rival, the tattling flunkey, the money-lender's tout, the race-course and training-stable "lumberer," the copper's "nark," the parish gossip who "tells things" to the Vicar, the little 'tweeny maid "wot's got eyes in her 'ead" and all these—there is no nation on earth, nor any little hamlet that does not know them, and it would be idle to speculate as to whether they are less known in England or America than in any other country. It is sufficient to know that they exist and that they carry on a trade in special information either for money or its equivalent. In Paris they are more numerous than in London, while in Berlin, at the great houses in the official quarter, it is a certainty that nearly all the men and women employees are paid to spy upon their employers by outside influences of various kinds—official, military, social, commercial and clerical, and when the people of Berlin are not spying on those above or below their own classes, they fall back upon spying among themselves, as a writer named von der Goltz remarked more than fifty years ago.

The famous Tausch bureau of private espionage, of which we heard so much during the Harden trial in 1907, and which was founded by Baron Tausch for the purposes of spying, just as a private individual in Britain, or America, or France, might found a news agency—this bureau had its analogy once in London on a minor scale, and was conducted, very privately to be sure, by a deceased peer bearing a title of ancient degree which is now owned by a youth whose relationship to "Old Inquisition" (as he was once called by a society paper) must necessarily have been very remote. Nevertheless, and for fear of hurting anyone's susceptibilities, we propose to speak of the defunct noble as Lord Pinkerton. It was not necessary to be in Society to recognise this peer whose business was as well known to London residents as his face—aquiline as to the nose and eye, somewhat furtive in his movements, generally silent, but always observant and mysterious. He flourished in the late mid-Victorian days when nearly every man and woman in important Society was able to show as many quarterings of nobility as are required for membership among the Knights of Malta, or as formerly were essential to every candidate for inclusion in White's Club. Accordingly, he was an elderly man in the eighties and early nineties when golden keys began to open the doors of the most sacrosanct circles. One does not require to be very old to remember the great social transition that took place between, say, 1887 and 1902, when the first-fruits of the Education Act of 1870, together with the results of Colonial enterprise had combined to create a new class of social climber, which altogether upset previously existing conditions and, indeed, finally ended by flooding them out. In former generations wealth had, of course, always found a way in; but it was wealth with some added virtue and by no means that which expressed itself in mere display and extravagance such as arrived in the mid-eighties with adventurers of all types and kinds in the hunt for social distinctions and honours. By the nature of things, the exclusive peer found he was fighting elemental forces, and as a consequence he was far from proving the regenerator of Society that he hoped to be. It is certain, however, that his private correspondents kept him well informed, for it was well known that by 1890 he had been successful in hunting down many individuals, mostly foreigners, whose claim to social recognition had not only not even the merit of being backed by great wealth or good birth, but whose early careers had been stained by crimes of the darkest kind and who had made their appearance in London society under assumed titles and names which were either fictitious, or to the ownership of which they had no claim whatever. Some of these men had made their early debut by successful operations on that dead-leveller the Turf, had been elected to fashionable racing-clubs and had passed by an easy transition into important social cliques which were patronised by the first leaders of English society. Nor was there any doubt about it that the detective-peer had the courage of his chosen mission, for once in possession of facts sufficient to provide him with a sure case, it was his practice to call immediately upon the social masquerader offering him the choice of either retiring from Society quietly and unobtrusively, or else of running the gauntlet of a campaign of ostracism which should effectually force his disappearance both from the Turf and English Society. The victim invariably made a brave show of indignation and outraged innocence, only, however, to submit when unequivocal evidence of his past was presented to him in full.