The minister of police was accordingly forced to realise that Stieber had for several years been engaged in the double game of working for the secret service as an agent and at the same time of spying upon them at the instance of the King. A few days later he was appointed by his royal patron chief of the Prussian secret service with a salary of £1200 per annum. In his new capacity, as the confidential man of the sovereign and the head of a system which operated almost as much against the official police as against revolutionary bodies, the spy had not only to organise the nucleus of that army corps of espionage which by 1912 was said to number 45,000 active agents, but had also to fight strong and influential enemies who saw with dismay the promotion of this unknown intruder. In order to effect the complete independence of his own body from all others which exercised kindred functions, Stieber suggested the entire modernisation and specialisation of his service with proper subsidies and adequate appropriations from parliament, the department to enjoy autonomy under its presiding chief. He undertook himself to organise an "internal" and an "external" service, and here it may be said that the Russian dual system of espionage has been based entirely on Stieber's ideas and, in so far, differs not at all from the secret service of Prussia, except possibly in that the almost entire absence of ideas of personal liberty renders illegal acts and outrages far more frequent in Russia than in Germany. It was Stieber also who inaugurated the well-established system of court-spying which is known to exist at all the German capitals; he was responsible for the corps of spies within government offices who spy upon departmental bureaux, while a highly efficient body of clerks who were employed in banking and commercial houses and all institutions which possessed large internal and foreign relations were also paid in proportion to tit-bits of information which they were able to place at the disposal of his cabinet. To the King—clearly a worthy descendant of Frederick II.—Stieber, by virtue of his office, had free access and presented a daily report in person in which all and everything of any import concerning the public and private life of men and women was made known to the sovereign. On one occasion the King jokingly reproved his spy, saying: "You give me all the information I require regarding the private lives of my courtiers; but what about my brothers? They are certainly not angels." "Your Majesty had not authorised me to spy upon the Princes," replied Stieber, "but in the meantime I had prepared myself against the possibilities of your Majesty doing so. Here are three sealed documents containing all there is to be known about their Royal Highnesses since I have had the honour of serving."