De Sartines kept a few criminals on hand for the strange purpose of amusing fashionable society. It became the custom to have thieves to perform in drawing-rooms. De Sartines, when asked, would obligingly send to any great mansion a party of adroit pickpockets, who went through all their tricks before a distinguished audience, cutting watch-chains, stealing purses, snuffboxes, and jewellery. This famous chief of police was the first to use espionage on a large scale, and to employ detectives who were old criminals. When reproached with this questionable practice, de Sartines defended it by asking, "Where should I find honest folk who would agree to do such work?" It was necessary for him to protect these unworthy agents by official safe-conducts, which were worded as follows:-- "IN THE KING'S NAME. His Majesty, having private reasons for allowing ---- to conduct his affairs without interruption, accords him safe conduct for six months, and takes him under especial protection for that period. His Majesty orders that he shall be exempt from arrests and executions during that time; all officers and sergeants are forbidden to take action against him, gaolers shall not receive him for debt, under pain of dismissal. If notwithstanding this he should be arrested he must be at once set free, provided always that the safe-conduct does not save him from condemnations pronounced on the King's behalf." LENOIR. Lenoir, who succeeded de Sartines, carried espionage still farther, and employed a vast army of spies, paid and unpaid. Servants only got their places on the condition that they kept the police informed of all that went on in the houses where they served. The hawkers who paraded the streets were in his pay. He had suborned members of the many existing associations of thieves, and they enjoyed tolerance so long as they denounced their accomplices. The gambling-houses were taken under police protection; with the proviso that they paid over a percentage of profits and reported all that occurred. People of good society who had got into trouble were forgiven on condition that they watched their friends and gave information of anything worth knowing. One fashionable agent was a lady who entertained large parties and came secretly by a private staircase to the police office with her budget of news. This woman was only paid at the rate of £80 a year. [Illustration: LENOIR. (_From a Contemporary Print._)] DE CROSNE.