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.