Of all modern spies, Karl Schulmeister, Napoleon's chief secret-service agent, appears to have possessed mental and temperamental qualities of so high an order as to justify one's belief that in the business of _haute politique_ he might have played a prominent rôle, had his destiny lain that way. As it was, he played in the Napoleonic drama a part which, although practically unknown even to well-informed students of history, may be said to have contributed an important quota not only to the Corsican's achievement of his lofty position in the world, but also in some measure to its retention. And although Napoleon made his chief spy a rich man and allowed him to hold in his time many positions of consideration if not of honour, such as the organisation of the _corps d'espions_ and the headship of the imperial secret police, it is a matter of definite record that he consistently and to the end refused to bestow on Schulmeister any decoration of honour. In what degree and to what extent the work of the spy was less dignified or honourable than that of Fouché, the high-placed minister of police, is not easily apparent and it seems hard to find any real justification for Napoleon's refusal to Schulmeister of a pectoral certificate of worth when we reflect on the personal and public character of the heavily bedizened Duc d'Otranto who, apart from his long career of duplicity and intrigue, was eventually to prove the agent of the Emperor's final undoing and betrayal. In view of our expressed opinion that megalomania largely underlies the psychology of the spy, it is interesting to note that Schulmeister also laid claim to the honour of lofty birth. His grandfather, he told the world of his time, had been a Hungarian refugee noble of the family of Biersky, who settled in Baden, about 1730, where he adopted the profession of schoolmaster, taking at the same time a name descriptive of his occupation—hence Schulmeister.