ON THE SECRECY OF LETTERS, IN FRANCE.

[In printing this very curious article, we think it right to say, that, although we can, of course, have no personal knowledge of the facts which it sets forth, yet we have received it from the hand of a French correspondent, whose character is, with us, sufficient guarantee for their authenticity. We do not go along with all the opinions expressed in it; but we have thought it right to print it without any further alteration than that of a very close translation.]

THE institution of the post rests upon two essential bases: these are, on the one side a religious fidelity, on the other a perfect security ;and these two bases themselves rest on a common foundation, the absolute inviolability of the secrecy of the letters. It is only in ages of corruption and of barbarism, or under immoral and tyrannical governments, that the violation of letters has ever become raised into a system. A courier, bearing despatches for Philip, fell into the hands of the Athenian general-he sent them to the king of Macedon without having broken the seal. Pompey, in the midst of civil discords, respected the confidences of friendship, and burned all the letters which might have compromised those who had written them, or those to whom they were addressed.

The governors of France, and of most of the other states of the continent, have not followed such noble examples. Under the pretext of public safety, the citizens have been deprived of all right of property in their letters-the productions of the heart, and the medium of the closest confidence. This last refuge of liberty has been frequently, and with impunity, violated by the very persons whom individuals had chosen to insure and protect their rights; and we have seen governments decide that the most secret communications of the soul-the most casual and careless emanations of the mind-the emotions of an anger frequently ill-founded-errors, which are often corrected in the next moment-that all these doubtful and uncertain communications, thus intercepted, and of which they could not have possessed themselves without a crime, might be metamorphorsed into depositions against third persons, and serve as a ground for condemnations to death, in which the citizen, the friend, the son, the brother, thus became the accusers and the judges one of the other, totally without their knowledge!

During the last session, the Chamber of Deputies has re-echoed with numberless and heavy accusations against the administration of the Post-office. A great number of spoliations and fraudulent suppressions, and multiplied thefts committed by the persons in office, had carried dread into private families, and consternation into commerce. A thousand voices were raised on the Exchange, in the Chambers, in the journals, to demand redress for these most guilty depredations. An advocate of the Cour Royale of Paris demanded the accusation of the Director-General of the Post-office. It was shewn that there would be neither security for families, nor safety for commerce if the secrecy of letters were violated-and as the government made no answer to

these complaints, the journals saw no other mode of arresting the progress of the evil than to bring into open day these doings of baseness, turpitude, mystery, and darkness, of which the administration of the Post-office was guilty.

It was discovered that Louis XIV. was the first who had esta blished secret offices (bureaux clandestines), where the infamous art of opening letters without breaking the seal, and of replacing the mutilated impression, was carried to a high degree of perfection.

"On leve les cachets qu'on ne l'apperçoit pas,"

says Molière in his Amphytrion,-a proof of what we have just stated that, in his time, the art of softening sealing-wax and wafers was known. This guilty manœuvre has been employed, alternately, in the cause of gallantry, and in that of politics. We may easily suppose that Mesdames de Pompadour and Dubarry sought, under the seal of a letter, very different secrets from the Cardinals Richelieu and Dubois*. Louis XV. was curious only of scandalous anecdotes. It is said that the Baron d'Ogny, Intendant-General of the Post, used, every morning, to make him a report of all the intrigues of gallantry collected in the secret department of the Post-office. M. Etienne, in his notice of Madame de Tencin, relates that Cardinal Fabroni kept up a correspondence with some ecclesiastics at Paris, and sent his letters through the French embassy, as being the safest mode. Cardinal de Tencin, instead of forwarding them according to their address, sent them to Dubois. In a letter dated the 20th of January, 1722, he expresses himself thus:-"We have not been able to open these letters, because I have not the secret of removing the seals: it might be well for you to have the goodness to send it me. When your Eminence shall have made such use of these letters as you may think fit, you will have the goodness to send them, without loss of time, to Madame de Tencin, to whom I have given instructions to forward them according to their address."

The majority of the great unsealers of letters were cardinals. At the period of the exile of the parliaments at the beginning of Louis XVI.'s reign, the unsealing of letters had become so public in France, that the merchants of Rouen no longer fastened their letters with any. thing but a pin.

We do not wish, in this place, either to defend the excesses of the French republic, or to make the apology of the days of terror,-but in that time of anarchy, of which the crimes have always been much exaggerated, and the fine actions hidden, the secrecy of letters was respected. And, at a moment when it was known that the Post-office held in its hands the details of a conspiracy, the object of which was to deliver up the port of Brest to the enemies of France, it was determined to allow the vessel of the state to perish rather than a principleand no seal was broken; the seal of the citizens was declared inviolable. It was on this occasion that Chapelier, a member of the Constituent Assembly, spoke the following remarkable words-" that the violation of the secrecy of letters was a crime--and that in no case could the public safety exact such a sacrifice on the part of virtue."

This is a very strange coupling of names-and moreover, Richelieu, by this statement, had passed away long before this disgraceful art was brought into use.-ED.

Under the empire, Napoleon insisted upon seeing and knowing everything; and the secret office, which had been suppressed for twelve years, was re-established. Under him, however, letters were opened only at Paris,-since the restoration of the Bourbons they have been opened indifferently in the post-offices of the capital and of the principal towns of the departments.

The means employed to obtain these communications, the choice of the individuals to whom this commission is intrusted, and the mystery with which they surround themselves, have made the administration of the Post-office, as it were, a chapel-of-ease to the police, and one of its most perfidious auxiliaries. The men who accept functions so dishonouring, can be only degraded beings, without shame, without honour, and consequently without probity-capable, not only of appropriating any valuables the letters may contain-as has lately happened at Rouen, at Paris, and at Lyons-but, to give themselves importance, or to serve the political or religious factions which protect them,— of forging correspondence to deceive the government, and to compromise the persons whom those factions have an interest in ruining.

Under the old régime, the places of unsealers of letters were hereditary in two or three families, like the dignities of the Bar. The children, destined by privilege of birth to this infamous profession, received, at the public expense, a special education. They were sent to foreign courts, under the surveillance of the diplomatic and consular agents, to study thoroughly the languages and dialects of all countries. They were practised to read all kinds of writing, and to decipher the mysterious characters used in secret correspondence. Discretion was the only moral virtue recommended to them. Well paid, well lodged, well fed, these functionaries enjoyed besides the advantage of being able to pass in the world as respectable people. Under the ministry of de Villéle, these wretched betrayers of the secrets of families were, according to circumstances, of the number of ten, twenty, or thirty. Under the old régime, the unsealing a letter was a capital offence. A clerk of the Post-office, of the name of Le Prince, was hanged at Paris in 1741, for having read two letters written from Caen. This bad man was, perhaps, employed to do this; but the lieutenant of police, who was the supreme judge in such matters, did not enter into the state-reasons-or perhaps the wretched man may have been sacrificed by the very people who excited him to the crime. By the existing law, the unsealing a letter by an agent of the administration of the Post-office, is punished by a fine of from sixteen to three hundred francs-and by interdiction from any public function or employment for five years at the least, and ten years at the most. But as a proof that the government itself authorises the violation of letters, is the fact that there are no, or exceedingly few, instances of such condemnations having been pronounced by the tribunals.

It is in secret holes and cellars that the unsealers of letters, like the coiners of false money, carry on their dark labours. The entrance to these places, now called cabinet noir, now cabinet de l'Empereur, and now again cabinet du roi, is situated in the Rue Coq Heron, behind the General Post-office. From the court there is a small door, which leads to the laboratory, and of this each person employed has a key.

There is a communication with the closet of the Director-General, who presides over this work, and is the Roland of this cavern. It is thery that are the offices of the different persons, charged with finding the kee to the different cyphers used in the correspondence, and the workshop of the engravers, engaged in taking upon lead the impress, whether of arms or otherwise, upon the seals which close the letters. The letters are then carried into a sort of laboratory, in which furnaces to melt the wax, and vessels of boiling water, to soften the wafers, are gathered together in great numbers. The matériel of this workshop of fraud is very considerable. Under the old régime, the cabinet noir cost, annually, three hundred thousand francs; and, under the late ministry, the police received every year, from the secret funds, a sum of fifty thousand francs, for the same purpose. It is said that, at the beginning of the revolution, the Count d'Ogny, who had succeeded his father in the administration of the post, fearing an insurrection, had destroyed utensils, used in the cabinet noir, to the value of three hundred thousand francs.

The French post does not confine itself to abusing thus scandalously the confidence of the public. It seeks even to possess itself of the letters which their writers have thought fit to withdraw from its insatiable curiosity. The author of this article, on arriving at Paris, had taken from him several letters, of which he was the bearer to his friends; and, in despite of the principle, that the secrecy of letters is inviolable, those which were seized by the police were opened, read, and afterwards sent, unsealed, to their address. Some years ago, a deputy, M. Girardin, in setting forth to the Chamber the abominations of the Post-office, cited a fact not less convincing than the foregoing. The triumvirate, de Villele, Peyronnet, and Corbiere, seemed to attach extreme importance to becoming acquainted with a certain correspondence, which they believed to be very regularly sustained; and, in order to effect this, they caused the courier who had charge of the mail to be stopped two leagues beyond Orleans. All the letters were examined the carriage was minutely searched, and the courier taken into a room in an inn. There he was first questioned; and, after they had compelled him to appear in the costume of truth, he persisted in his denial. It was impossible to convict him of falsehood, and yet he - did not the less lose his place. We seldom forgive those we have unjustly suspected. This courier served on the road to Bourdeaux, and therefore carried the letters to Libourne, a town where the Duc de Cazes then lived, who had just overturned the anti-constitutional faction.

At the period of the discussion which arose from the numberless petitions presented to the Chamber of Deputies, on the subject of the thefts and frauds committed by the administration of the Post-office, the new ministry did not deny the previous existence of the cabinet noir; but they asserted, that since the fall of Messrs. de Villele and Co. it had ceased to exist. We are very well inclined to believe the truth of this ministerial declaration. But to re-assure the

Thus, it would seem, that a false seal being quickly constructed, the wax, after having been sufficiently melted to suffer the letter to be opened, is replaced and added to; and the impress being given to it, detection is necessarily impossible.-ED.

public confidence, and to avenge the cause of morals, outraged by the thefts and treacheries of the Post-office, it needs other acts, other guarantees, than a few words in a parliamentary speech. The security of families, the safety of commerce, will be assured only when the two French Chambers shall have energetically expressed, as free men ought to do, their indignation against the violation of the secrecy of letters; when they shall have demanded the impeachment of the Director-general, who orders and sanctions such a breach of the public faith; and when they shall have obtained from the ministry a severe law for the suppression of such abuses-for the fine of the sixteen francs, and the exclusion from office, awarded by Art. 187 of the Penal Code, are no punishment in proportion with the crime committed by. these seal-breaking spies.

"Is it for a people who pretends to be free," said the eloquent Mirabeau, at the tribune of the Constituent Assembly, "to borrow the maxims and the practices of tyranny? Can it become them to wound morality? Let those vulgar politicians, who place before justice the nar→ row combinations which they have dared to call political utility-let those politicians tell us, at least, what interest can give a colour to this violation of the national probity? What shall we learn by the shameful examination of letters? Base and filthy intrigues-scandalous anecdotes-despicable frivolities! Does any one believe that plots and plottings circulate by the common post? Is it believed even that political news of any importance pass through this channel? What great embassy-what person charged with a delicate negotiation-does not correspond directly, and know how to escape from the spy-system of the Post-office? It is then without any utility that we violate the secrets of families, the intercourse of the absent, the confidences of friendship, the trust between man and man.”

These generous thoughts, these energetic words, prove that the public interest does not demand the violation of correspondence; that the safety of the state is in no degree conjoined with the abuse of the secrecy of letters; that it is useless, shameful, criminal for a government to be guilty of such manœuvres, and to have recourse to means of which Robespierre, with all his crimes, did not dare to make use. Indeed, in 1793, the Revolutionary Tribunal refused to ground a condemnation upon a fact, which had become known only by the violation of the secrecy of a letter; that is to say, by a crime. And the government of a legitimate king, of a king who takes the title of Most Christian, still continued to do, within the last half-year, that of which, in the reign of terror, the most furious demagogues had been ashamed.