Some account of the police arrangements in two or three other capitals, and also in India, may now be given by way of contrast and comparison. The police of Paris has already been dealt with in its early beginnings, and under the First Empire. After the Bourbon Restoration, and during the days of the revived monarchy, the least valuable feature of the French police had the chief prominence. Every effort was made, by means of the police, to check opposition to the reigning power, and suppress political independence. But it was at this period that the detection of crime was undertaken for the first time as a distinct branch of police business, and it will be seen in a later chapter how Vidocq did great things, although often by dishonest agents and unworthy means. In the Second Empire the secret police over-rode everything; Napoleon III. had been a conspirator in his time, and he had an army of private spies in addition to the police of the Château, and these spies watched the regular police at a cost of some fourteen millions of francs. At the fall of the Second Empire there were half a dozen different secret police services in Paris. There was the Emperor's, already mentioned; the Empress had hers; M. Rouher, the Prime Minister, and M. Piétri, the Prefect, each had a private force, so had other great officials. Most of these agents were unknown to each other as such, and so extensive was the system of espionage that one-half of Paris was at that time said to be employed in watching the other half. This system produced the _dossiers_, the small portfolios or covers, one of which appertained to each individual, high or low, [Illustration: A "GARDIEN DE LA PAIX."]