a _concierge_, who knows the hour at which each inmate enters and goes
out; who calls on him; how many letters he receives; by their
post-marks, where they come from; what parcels are left for him; what
they appear to contain, &c. &c. &c. Again, at the corner of every
principal street, there is located, wearing the badge of the police, a
commissionaire, acquainted with all that outwardly goes on within the
radius of his Argus-eyed observations. From these people, from the
drivers of fiacres, from the sellers of vegetables, from fruiterers,
and lastly, from the masters of wine-shops, who either from people
sober, tipsy, or drunk, are in the habit of hearing an infinity of
garrulous details, the police are enabled to track the conduct of
almost any one, and, if necessary, to follow up their suspicions by
their own agents in disguises which, practically speaking, render them
invisible.' Sir Francis mentions that he was considered of sufficient
importance to be under surveillance. '"You are," said very gravely to
me a gentleman in Paris of high station, on whom I had had occasion to
call, "a person of some consideration. Your object here is not
understood, and you are therefore under the surveillance of the
police." I asked him what that meant. "Wherever you go," he replied,
"you are followed by an agent of police. When one is tired, he hands
you over to another. Whatever you do, is known to them; and at this
moment there is one waiting in the street until you leave me."'

We need say no more. The people who, under all phases of
government--despotism, constitutional monarchy, and universal-suffrage
republic--coolly tolerate, nay, they admire and vindicate, this
atrocious system of personal restraint and espionage, are totally
unfit for the enjoyment of civil liberty. In conclusion, we can hardly
recommend the book before us, further than to say, that its gossip,
though often prosy to the verge of twaddle, is also sometimes droll