them before him, listens to their explanations and accusations, delivers to them a moral lecture, and effects a reconciliation. The search for a missing spouse--whether he or she be really wanted by the abandoned partner, or whether the latter cherish secret hopes that the search be fruitless, so that the divorce may be obtained--is one of the most frequent charges of this confidential police. Those parents who cruelly treat their children, those dissipated sons of families who will not listen to parental admonition, are summoned before the Commissaire and speedily brought to reason. _Le Service de Sûreté_ is enabled by its organization to assure protection to persons menaced. "For example, you receive a letter threatening trouble at the ceremony of your marriage, at the church or the Mairie; carry that letter to the Chef de la Sûreté, Quai des Orfèvres. He will place on the watch inspectors to whom he will give a description of the author of the threat. This service is completely gratuitous. It is not so for that which consists, we will say, in watching over the display of wedding-presents. If you want some inspectors to mount guard in your salon, so that you may not be robbed, you must pay them. They have, in fact, under these circumstances, to meet the expenses of dress which are not provided for in their budget." La Sûreté will also place at your disposal, for any legitimate purpose, retired inspectors who have served their twenty-five years, and who will shadow any one whom you have cause to suspect, for ten francs a day and expenses, who will guard banks, or villas, or travellers with valuable luggage, or assume the duties of a concierge. All these official services rendered to individuals must be with the consent of the Procureur de la République and the Préfet de Police, the Sûreté acting only under the orders of these two officials.