It is commonly said that we may accustom ourselves to anything, but to me this remark is subject to an exception; for, in spite of the necessity to which I was reduced of employing spies, I never could surmount the disgust I felt at them, especially when I saw men destined to fill a respectable rank in society degrade themselves to that infamous profession.  It is impossible to conceive the artifices to which these men resort to gain the confidence of those whom they wish to betray.  Of this the following example just now occurs to my mind.

One of those wretches who are employed in certain circumstances, and by all parties, came to offer his services to me.  His name was Butler, and he had been sent from England to the Continent as a spy upon the French Government.  He immediately came to me, complaining of pretended enemies and unjust treatment.  He told me he had the greatest wish to serve the Emperor, and that he would make any sacrifice to prove his fidelity.  The real motive of his change of party was, as it is with all such men, merely the hope of a higher reward.  Most extraordinary were the schemes he adopted to prevent his old employers from suspecting that he was serving new ones.  To me he continually repeated how happy he was to be revenged on his enemies in London.  He asked me to allow him to go to Paris to be examined by the Minister of Police.  The better to keep up the deception he requested that on his arrival in Paris he might be confined in the Temple, and that there might be inserted in the French journals an announcement in the following terms: 

   “John Butler, commonly called Count Butler, has just been arrested
   and sent to Paris under a good escort by the French Minister at
   Hamburg.”

At the expiration of a few weeks Butler, having received his instruction’s, set out for London, but by way of precaution he said it would be well to publish in the journals another announcement; which was as follows: 

“John Butler, who has been arrested in Hamburg as an English agent, and conveyed to Paris, is ordered to quit France and the territories occupied by the French armies and their allies, and not to appear there again until the general peace.”

In England Butler enjoyed the honours of French prosecution.  He was regarded as a victim who deserved all the confidence of the enemies of France.  He furnished Fouche with a considerable amount of information, and he was fortunate enough to escape being hanged.

Notwithstanding the pretended necessity of employing secret agents, Bonaparte was unwilling that, even under that pretext, too many communications should be established between France and England:  Fouche, nevertheless, actively directed the evolutions of his secret army.  Ever ready to seize on anything that could give importance to the police and encourage the suspicions of the Emperor, Fouche wrote to me that the government had received certain—­information that many Frenchmen traveling for commercial houses in France were at Manchester purchasing articles of English manufacture.  This was true; but how was it to be prevented?  These traveling clerks passed through Holland, where they easily procured a passage to England.