POLICE POLIS. 



b'07 



ness had occasioned innumerable outrages, and 

 d'Argenson, called by his contemporaries Rhada- 

 manthus, hunted out crime in its deepest recesses, 

 and brought it to light, whatever was the rank of 

 the offender. Sartines, director of the police of 

 Paris, with the same power, but not the same rank, 

 conducted the secret police from 1762 to 1774, and 

 extended it very much; he was equally active with 

 D'Argenson, but not so honest. He had agents in 

 all the countries of Europe. Many stories are told 

 of his skill in detecting crime, while others exist of 

 a less creditable character, such as his sending a 

 pheasant dressed with diamonds to his mistress ; 

 and when another refused to take a costly brilliant 

 ring, he had the stone pounded to dust, and strewed 

 the powder on the ink of a note addressed to her. 

 Louis XVI. took the charge of the police from him, 

 and made him minister of the marine, 'in which 

 office his total inexperience made him ridiculous. 

 (Mad. de Stael, Considerations stir la Revolution 

 Franc, i- chap. 8.) Lenoire followed (1774 1784,) 

 an honest man, who improved many departments of 

 the police in Paris. The empress Maria Theresa 

 requested him to write a work for her on the sub- 

 ject of police regulations, and the Detail sur 

 guelgues Etablissemens de la J'illfi de Paris, de- 

 mandepar S. M. I. la Reine de Hongrie (Paris, 1780,) 

 was the result. He died poor in 1807. Le Crosna 

 followed him. He was unimportant. Never was 

 the- department of the police in the hands of a more 

 active and sagacious politician than Fouche; never 

 was a secret police so thoroughly organized, over, 

 we might almost say, all Europe ; and when the 

 charge of the public police was taken from him, he 

 had a police of his own to watch the movements of 

 Savary, as Napoleon had had his contrepolice against 

 Fouche, in which the emperor, however, was always 

 inferior to the minister. The most glaring instance 

 of the abuse to which the secret police is always 

 liable, is the death of the duke d'Enghien, who 

 perished in consequence of the reports of the secret 

 police. Perhaps, however, there are cases in which 

 its employment is justifiable. When a fundamental 

 change has taken place in the government of a 

 country (like the late one in France), and a numer- 

 ous party exists, not constituting what is called, in 

 free governments, an opposition, but actually striv- 

 ing to overthrow the established order ; as, for in- 

 stance, the Carlists, who exist at present in France, 

 under such circumstances, a secret police may, 

 perhaps, be admissible, as poisons are prescribed in 

 some dreadful diseases, producing bad effects un- 

 doubtedly, but preventing worse. Such a depart- 

 ment should never be intrusted but to a man of 

 unquestionable honour and integrity. After the 

 war of 1815, Prussia declared that the secret police 

 (a necessary evil in times such as had just termi- 

 nated) was abolished for the future. Whether it 

 actually was abolished for a moment, we do not 

 know ; but we know that it existed not long after, 

 and flourishes at present in that country, as in ail 

 other important governments on the European con- 

 tinent. One duty of the secret police always is to 

 open suspected letters ; and this was done even 

 under Louis XIV. 



The more absolute a government is, and the more 

 it strives to be the sole moving and regulating 

 principle of the society, to the destruction of indi- 

 vidual freedom, the more will the police be deve- 

 loped ; whilst, on the other hand, the freer a coun- 

 try is, and the more it follows the principle, that 

 every thing which can be possibly left to take care 

 of itself, should be so left, the more strictly is the 

 police confined to mere matters of municipal regula- 

 tion. The scientific spirit of the Germans, con- 



nected with the character of their governments-, has 

 given rise, in that country, to the police sciences, so 

 called, which are systematically developed, and 

 thoroughly cultivated. It is true, that, from the 

 arbitrary nature of the governments, this branch of 

 administration is extended to many subjects which, 

 in freer states, would be left to general law or indi- 

 vidual discretion ; but, as it is obviously much 

 easier to perfect some branches of the police in 

 absolute governments than in free countries, parti- 

 cularly the medical police, valuable hints may be 

 derived from the German system. In no country 

 has the medical police been so much developed 

 (frequently, it is true, to the annoyance of the 

 people) as in Prussia, because no country ever com- 

 bined more scientific men witii an absolute govern- 

 ment. Without, then, taking the Prussian medical 

 police as a model in every particular, it has many 

 points which it would be wise in other nations to 

 imitate. In free countries, the place of a secret 

 police is, in a great measure, supplied by public 

 opinion and the liberty of the press ; and it is curi- 

 ous to observe how the most secret transactions, or 

 correspondence, will by degrees come to light ; in 

 fact, in some free countries, a politician needs to be 

 quite as much on his guard against making state- 

 ments in writing, as in absolute governments, since 

 the danger of their reaching the press is as great as 

 that of their detection by a secret police. 



The first police regulations are met with in Egypt. 

 The Mosaic code, partly founded on the Egyptian, 

 contains many rules of this sort. The police of the 

 Greeks was excellent. With them, as with their 

 imitators the Romans, the police formed a separate 

 branch of the administration. The capitularies of 

 the Prankish kings contain the next police regula- 

 tions. In 1548 and 1577, the German empire be- 

 came subject to such regulations. Some account 

 of the police of London is contained in the article 

 London. See Politics. 



POLICINELLO. See Punchinello. 

 POLICY OF INSURANCE. See Insurance. 

 POLIGNAC, MELCHIOR DE, abbe, and subse- 

 quently cardinal, a French diplomatist, was descend- 

 ed from a distinguished family of Languedoc, and 

 born in 1661. In 1689, he rendered himself con- 

 spicuous by his address in the negotiations with 

 pope Alexander VIII., relative to the articles adopt- 

 ed by the French clergy in 1682. In 1693, the 

 abbe de Polignac was named ambassador extraor- 

 dinary to Poland, for the purpose of detaching John 

 Sobieski from the league with Austria, and drawing 

 him over to an alliance with France. On the death 

 of Sobieski (1696), he was employed in endeavour- 

 ing to effect the election of the prince of Conti ta 

 the Polish throne. His intrigues, though seconded 

 by large bribes, were, however, unsuccessful. On 

 his return to France, in 1698, he was banished the 

 court on account of the failure of this mission. In 

 1710, he was sent to take part in the negotiations 

 at Gertruydenberg, and, in 1712, was appointed 

 plenipotentiary to the congress of Utrecht, and was 

 afterwards minister to the court of Rome. As a 

 writer, Polignac is known by his didactic poem, in 

 eight books, against the Epicurean system, entitled 

 Anti- Lucretius, seu de Deo et Natura (Paris, 1747), 

 which has been translated into English, French and 

 German. He died in 1741. See the Histoire du 

 Cardinal de Polignac. 



POLIS ; a Greek word (<rx/y) for city, which 

 appears in many geographical names, as Nicopolis. 

 In Russia, it is pol, as Stavropol (city of the cross.) 

 In some names, it has become pie, as in Constan- 

 tinople ; and, in some French names ble, as Gre- 

 noble, from Gratianopolis. 



