Fouché gained his point; but where all knew, all watched, and none trusted him, he needed all his _sang froid_, all his tact, to hold his position. But in his long career of conspiracy and change he had learnt the lesson of dissimulation and self-restraint. Yet he was still the focus and centre of intrigue, to whom everyone flocked--his old associates, once his friends and now his hardly concealed enemies; the men who had been his enemies and were now on the surface his friends. His antechamber showed the most mixed assemblage. "He went among them, from one to the other, speaking with the same ease as though he had the same thing to say to all. How often have I seen him creeping away from the window where he had been talking apart with some old comrade--Thibaudeau, for example, the ancient revolutionist--on the most friendly, confidential terms, to join us, a party of royalists, about an affair concerning the king. A little later Fouché inserted Thibaudeau's name in the list of the proscribed."[11] [Illustration: THIBAUDEAU. (_From a Contemporary Print._)] Fouché has been very differently judged by his contemporaries. Some thought him an acute and penetrating observer, with a profound insight into character; knowing his epoch, the men and matters appertaining to it, intimately and by heart. Others, like Bourrienne, despised and condemned him. "I know no man," says the latter, "who has passed through such an eventful period, who has taken part in so many convulsions, who so barely escaped disgrace and was yet loaded with honours." The keynote of his character, thought Bourrienne, was great levity and inconstancy of mind. Yet he carried out his schemes, planned with mathematical exactitude, with the utmost precision. He had an insinuating manner; could seem to speak freely when he was only drawing others on. A retentive memory and a great grasp of facts enabled him to hold his own with many masters, and turn most things to his own advantage. He did not long survive the Restoration, and died at Trieste in 1820, leaving behind him a very considerable fortune. [Illustration: A "CHARLIE'S" RATTLE, IN THE BLACK MUSEUM.] CHAPTER VI. EARLY POLICE (_continued_): ENGLAND. Early Police in England--Edward I.'s Act--Elizabeth's Act for Westminster--Acts of George II. and George III.--State of London towards the end of the Eighteenth Century--Gambling and Lottery Offices--Robberies on the River Thames--Receivers--Coiners--The Fieldings as Magistrates--The Horse Patrol--Bow Street and its Runners: Townsend, Vickery, and others--Blood Money--Tyburn Tickets--Negotiations with Thieves to recover stolen Property--Sayer--George Ruthven--Serjeant Ballantine on the Bow Street Runners compared with modern Detectives.