TRUE TALES OF SECRET SERVICE

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 249, 20 October 1928, Page 6 (Supplement)

TRUE TALES OF SECRET SERVICE

|Es=. (By DONALD CAMPBELL)™:^

[No. 12.]

THE ENGLISH SPY.

About the year 1740, His Most Christian Majesty's Lieutenant General of Police was very much exercised concerning the presence of an English agent whose activities were great and whose "inside" information divulged most of the intrigues of the French Court to the British Government.

It is true-that tbe presence of the Jacobites in Paris might have excused the investigations of this Englishman, but the English had many spies among the adherents of the Stewarts apart from the mysterious espion *ngia.i« (English spy). Although peace existed between His Most Christian Majesty of France and His Britannic Majesty of England, war was always in the offing, for Louis XV. of France was a very jealous monarch and wished to dominate Europe, hoping the cries of the long-suffering French peasantry and working classes with the trumpets of victory in foreign fields.

In the reports of the secret police of France there are pages devoted to this elusive Englishman. Young aristocrats from London who came to Paris on the start of that Continental tour on which every young gentleman of the period was sent, were closely watched and amiable guides and sponsors presented themselves to the tutors of these young men so as to be able to better Inform the Lieutenant General of Police of the Kingdom of Prance. /'

There was no tragic longing and shooting of foreign agents in those days, unless they were very low people indeed. There might be a period of incarceration in a military fortress, more or less as a guest of the governor* and then the fonign officer would bis escorted to the frontier Or the nearest seaport with a polite request not to call again. Sometimes an agent was too dangerous and than he would be put qui. of. the way. by assassination, but this would only happen in isolated cases and was deemed a nuisance, especially as . the assassins had to;be paid /pretty handsomely from the funds of the secret police, who grudged the money. We can imagine the English spy, dressed in silk with lace,ruffles of the finest cambric 'and gilt-handled small sword, preening himself at .thq court of thsßoyal Louis, exchanging bafcter with the fair ladies ever present at the French court and irony with the courtiers, slipPmg a perfumed note into one fair hand and bending courteously over the equally fair hand of some other beauty who was fashionable and,, therefore, useful to know. In . another guisehe would receive broken-down captains, unfrocked priests, undesirable fortune-tellers and acquisitive ladies' maids who had information to sell at n price or who were prepared to run discreet errands. Bribe and Flattery.

In higher circles he would bribe in a different manner. One lady might fancy * string of pearls, another had a dressmaker's bill of which she did not wish her husband to know and the courteous gentleman would flick out his ruffles and bow as he expressed, hia delight in being able to satisfy these little, and perfectly human needs. A suggested question, a delicate hint and a short answer would be the end of ths affair, and. then a trusted" courier would ride hard out of -Paris, knowing that the best horses on ,the post-route would be reserved for him as he sped on his way to England with confidential dispatches. Our Englishman may have, probably did, got the ear of the Knag's favourite for Louis XV. was a übiquitous lover in his younger days. By Judicious flattery, by exotic presents, he would obtain reports of the inner gossip of the King's advisers. He would hear that an envoy had arrived secretly from Spain, that lady so-and-so of the English court was taking money .from a foreign ambassador, that young Charles Edward, the hope of the Stuarts, was in consultation with a high personage in Bome, that an officer had arrived back frOm New France with a report about the treasure to be found m that land of snow, that the military adviser to an Indian nabob had: returned to his beloved Paris' with a V detailed account of the intrigues of the. Far East.' Some of this information would go to His Britannic Majesty's ambassador, a most gentleman whose sources of information were considerable; others went direct to London. Sometimes'the courier wonld. disappear. He may have been suspected by the French, or he may have been murdered by common road-pads, but there were no complaints- Xtr was all part of the great game. Countering Grey Fox.

Against the "English Spy" there worked a Scottish gentleman in. the French service, known as the Chevalier Douglas, who came and went on various missions abroad and who was the most useful man in the French foreign service. One of his jobs was to counteract the influence of "Gray Fox," which was the French code name for the chief of English service in Russia. Bribery was common and was as much accepted as it is in China to-day. Years Before the advent of the "English Spy" to the French capital, the great Duke of Marlborough, who had once served as colonel ia » French line regiment,' before became England's greatest general, aid not disdain to accept money from ircnu stent sources. Apart from the secret police and the large spy. service Whieh. embraced people of all classes, the French informatioVserW V*i •gents known as officers du Boy,» mostly scions of the minor nobility, poverty-stricken gentn T *«rtrin«moWol

Tilt English spy obtained much fab formation from the Jewish banker* sjhl money*lenders, so much thmt the lieuten-ant-general of police issued an order that these flaaoeien were to give a detailed report to hi* police of all their transactions. Whether they obeyed this order f» doubtful, howerer, for they bore grati tfKto t« England, whereas they were only iaknUd In France until the Revolution mm* about. Years later, in the terrible £#f the Revolutionary Terror, anfliwr English agent troubled the worked for ysareiaTariouaditfHe helpedemigrss to escape t-i Md kept up eewuiunlcationa wttk those Rojrejfi*Jt*who still remained

The Wolf was a tall muscular who walked quietly and swiftly. Dark of complexion and grey of eye, he became a positive bogey to the Republican secret police. His disguises were many. Sometimes he would be an Italian journeyman, sometimes a Jacobin patriot with red cap, ragged trousers, wooden shoes and clay pipe, all complete. On other occasions, he would be a respectable merchant from Lyons or some other provincial town, whose eloquence would bring thunders of applause from the audiences he would harangue in the cafe*. He organised an efficient courier system, which enabled him to communicate with the coast without delay and faster t*"»n official messengers could travel. He very rarely reported back to England in person. •

As the Revolution progressed, he began a campaign, casting doubts on the paper money issued instead'of coin and against the Goddess of Reason, that eccentric idea of Robespierre the Incorruptible. On one occasion he was resting at a wayside um where he had dined well in his gui3e of a merchant and dozed in the open air where his table had been set in the French manner. When he woke up he began humming a popular London ballad and even sang some of the words softly. It so happened that an envoy of the Republic who was scouring the district for Royalist refugees and possible foreign spies, heard The Wolf. Now, this man had worked in London, where he tod taken refuge in pre-Revolutloa aays for some crime committed against the laws of the King of France, who was reigning then. He knew Bnoiiai. well, and spoke to The Wolf inthat language. That gentleman did 1 not stop to argue. He simply hit the Republican as hard as he could, jumped on horseback and rode away, • throwing money to the innkeeper as he went. At the nearest town which he enwiS * he wais asked |>jr soldiers who were scouring all the houses and cafes whether he had seen a mil-dressed, well-mounted on the road.

WM immediately -^ e ti ® ver 7 official ha had smitten. But : the Republican oommiswj dtd not recognise in this cringing, dirty, brow-beaten peasant the spruce merchant of .Lvons who sang Enriiah eonge. Thaj/oif was money for his eloquent description of tko-BMrchant, who, so ha said, he had seen riding on the road to the town, bnt who had taken a by-path when approaching it. This was confirmed by the discovery of the hone. A determined effort was made to conscript the Peasant for the Republican Army, and ha only escaped in the aide of time. Ha then became a Parisian working man for a short period, to change into the guise of a staid lawyer. >_f? this role and under the name of Citizen Reville he made a great impression, nor was he suspected by the arguseyed spies of the revolutionaries, who merely reported on him usual way as a possibly ambitions man who might wish to became a political personality. -/ *

; ; Other Fish to Fry. Among the particular group he frequented, which had its headquarters in one particular cafe, he was ever welcome. In fact, he was listened to with great respect, and no less a person tne famous (or notorious) St. Just, a wonderfully handsome man, as bloodthirsty as a tiger, suggested that Reville should enter the official political world as a member of the ruling body, but the lawyer from Tours protested. Tam not worthy of such an honour," he said. As a matter of fact, the English had the Republican ParliamentWolf had other fish to fry. -» . s P' erre himself, hearing of the lawyer's growing popularity among the Jacobins, .set a trap for him, but The Wolfs astuteness saved him, and the information that came all too egsily to Mm was not repeated or communicated to anyone by letter. Although "Reville" was plentifully supplied with money from secret servim funds, he had to be very careful how he used it, for coined money was scarce |n Paris, the Government notes or assignats" were worth next to nothing, and anyone who was seen spending was at once under suspicion, so The Wolf. lived in a small lodging, ate the most simple, food, and drank vinegary wine, saying that he preferred spending money in the Service of the State to assuaging his material appetites. He did not say which State, however. '

One night, when be was disguised m a workman, he was nearly discovered through a drunken sergeant palling oil Us wig. The Wolf smashed the one and only lamp with a stool, and; disappeared like a flash; to reappear next day as Citizen Seville the lawyer, and to tell the story in a very exaggerated farm, warning all true patriots to beware of spies and traitors. He then Journeyed to the coast, and after many adventures had to board a British battleship cruising off Brittany, where he had been helping the organisers of the fresh revolt against the republic. He was disguised as a Breton peasant, and was so dirty and disreputable that he was nearly thrown overboard by an indignant corporal of marines when he approached a smart English naval officer in navy blue, white and gold. That gentleman was further astonished when the addressed him in perfect Engft!fi and requested that the dispatches he was now handing over should be sent to England at once by a smaller vessel; as they were destined for Mr. Pitt, and contained valuable and secret information.

The Wolf then became an old country priest, not too celebrated for sobriety. As he afterwards wrote himself in a memoir which is still preserved in his family: . -- T .'"lt was a fortunate thing that I had head and stomach for liquor* My [father was a hearty old gentleman, who rode to hounds tin a Tate age, and would WW have me a milksop. _*T»ut he himself woud have been hard the bad liquor with 1 was deluged by villainous and v- P«tpota. That my Latin was Ti»,« in their eyes. S of ™y youth into a shield fo?i«» °M<wt d ' f Urne f «»« ! ? «nd. Oh that He liv£s fies?t£ family estates. and lived theW,»\rf ! well-to-do Enrfisb gentleman hia undoubted anoe of his lands and tho his ten* its.