The real chief of the French Secret Service is, as we have told, not the Prefect of Police, who is a politician and a party man. The traditions of a generation will it that the active headship of that service be taken over generally by the chief of what is officially known as the Third Division of the Police. Under this functionary's control are the head of the First Bureau in which the _dossiers_ are kept, and the head of the Second Bureau which deals with the reports of political agents and which also directs the notorious Black Cabinet having charge of the opening of all private letters passing between suspected persons; when read these letters are photographed and archived. The Third Bureau has been made famous in recent times by the Panama, Dreyfus and Humbert scandals in which its large corps of handwriting experts and interpreters came on the scene. In the First Division the various bureaux are made up as follows: (_A_) Spies upon persons of note; thus Esterhazy during the Dreyfus case had seventeen members of this division following him in all places and at all hours. (_B_) The corps of men who are detailed to watch women frequently visited by prominent politicians, and who are, when it is found necessary, instructed to "engage the sentiments" of the ladies at their dwelling places, cash-expenses being allowed the spies in proportion to the cubicular tariff of any given lady who may be suspected of knowing anything. (_C_) The body of spies who are detailed to spy upon the actions and movements of notable foreigners. This body includes those spies who are available for hire by great bankers, the heads of large business houses, the chiefs of great newspapers, or any other private individuals of great wealth and position who for reasons of their own, wish to have their employees, their acquaintances, or their mistresses followed and their movements reported upon. Foreigners and others whose presence is not considered desirable in France are invariably tracked down by the spies of this department. (_D_) The service of spies whose qualifications enable them to look out for traits of insanity or eccentricity, especially in persons of wealth and "in the interests of public health and security," it is officially stated. There is then the Second Division, which is composed mainly of a bureau the agents of which are stationed at the different ports of France and who watch all suspicious characters landing in or leaving France, or who, as occasion requires, visit foreign ports in quest of criminal evidence; a subsidiary body of its spies are detailed to watch malefactors and politicians of the municipal order. Finally there is the "laboratory" to which the late M. Bertillon, the anthropometrician, has given celebrity as chief of its Identification department, in which criminals are measured or identified. In this department, should the police be very anxious to possess the "identification dossier" of any person who is suspected of criminal relations, the chiefs have the suspect arrested on some pretext or other. He is at once haled to the Identification bureau, where the officials go through the mock process of recording his measures. Subsequently it is discovered that, after all, he is not the person required, and he is released with much apology. The bureau authorities nevertheless retain his card and when, if ever, the suspect is caught in the act, he is sure to be confronted with his record in measurements even though he have never so many aliases.