Steinhauer in Stieber's Chair—His Work at Headquarters—Scare Policies—Elme Caro quoted—The Zeppelin Programme—Hermann Turr's Revelations—Windell the "valet"—"Number Seventy, Berlin"—The Personal Qualifications of German Agents—No Pretenders need apply—Salaries of Secret Agents—A Hard Curriculum—Berlin's Tireless Quest of Intelligence—Mr Graves and his Experience—Generous Pay for Good Work—Game not worth the Candle
Impotence of German Espionage—Berlin's Sleuths and Diplomats equally bad—Training Secret-Service Men—Insistence on Facts—Naval Agents and their Knowledge—The Fatuity of German Ambitions—Practice _versus_ Theory—A Bismarck Touch—"Dirty Little Lieutenants"—An American War Correspondent in the Field
No Sex Mystery about D'Eon—The Chevalier's Great Courage—His Trip to Russia in Woman's Dress—Empress rewards him—Spies for Louis XV.—Proves an Apt Soldier—Minister in London—Is removed and recalled—Receives Fat Pension—His Return to France—Resumes Female Attire—Disappoints the Curious—Death in 1810—Comte d'Antraigues—Napoleon's Opinion of—His Real Importance—Murdered in London—Diplomatic Secrets rarely divulged—Popular Misconceptions of Diplomatic Spies—Napoleon's _Cabinet Noir_—Prussian Spies at every Court—The "Posen" Case—Social Spies ubiquitous—The Lower Types—The Tausch Bureau—London's Peer Spy—A Self-constituted Social Cerberus—His Courage in Action—Rise and Fall of the "Prince"—Sainfoin's Derby—The Meyerling Tragedy—Church Espionage—The Spanish Inquisition—Its Terrors and Tortures—Congregational and School Spies
Few Spies in America—Political Spies active—Charles I. and his Spies—Louis XVI. and De Kalb—Washington and his Spies—James Rivington's Work—Secession Dreams in 1812—The Mexican and Civil Wars—Southern Female Spies—Their Cleverness and Exploits—Belle Boyd and her Corps—The Whisky Ring Spies—Custom House Spies—American Newspaper Spies
The Long Arm of British Diplomacy—Its fateful World Rôle—Spying on Bonaparte—Romance of a Captain's Wife—Madame Fourès and Bonaparte—Getting rid of a Husband—John H. Barnett, British Agent—Bonaparte's Unscrupulousness—The Harem of Elfi Bey—Thrashing an Unfaithful Wife—Self-sacrifice of Fourès—Napoleon's Narrow Escape
The worldly philosophy of the current age bears the name of Pragmatism, the principles of which, so far as they are susceptible of being weighed, constitute a more or less modified view of the doctrine that the end justifies the means, a teaching which has become familiar to us through the pages of Nietzsche and Stendhal, and which is based mainly on the idea that might is the proper measure of right. Taking it, then, that pragmatical notions of this sort have become almost an implicit condition of individual progress, it would seem to serve little purpose seriously to go into the question of the wrongfulness or the rightfulness of spying as a factor in the struggle for complete self-expression—itself the real aim of all ordered and prearranged lives. It is sufficient for us to reflect that the successful spy flourishes to-day, as he has flourished since the beginnings of recorded time, and as in all probability he will continue to flourish till the day of doom. Indeed, it is not an unreasonable presumption that in the very earliest ages of the world, espionage must have been an entirely necessary condition of the struggle for existence among the infra-men who then peopled the caves of the earth and who succeeded in successfully surviving only by virtue of predatory acts and excursions in which the spoils and the plunder went to the strongest, who had also made themselves the best-informed as to sources of supply. Bible history, too, has told us about the Spy. The story of Joshua, the leader of Israel's hosts and the excellent organisation of informers which he controlled, remain like other tales of common human interest in the Scriptures among those that linger always in the minds of the least Biblical of students. Babylon, we are told, was overrun with informers of all kinds, Memphis and Thebes in their turn became what Alexandria proved to be in the time of Tiberius, and what the great capitals of our own day have become—namely, recruiting centres for criminal adventurers of all types, nationalities and classes, and consequently happy hunting-grounds for all in rapid quest of the agents of intrigue, iniquity and maleficence. Those, too, who have read the classical writers will remember that great leaders like Alexander, Mithridates, Scipio, Hannibal, Pompey and Cæsar, laid the foundations of successful campaigns and political achievement upon information previously supplied them by commissioned spies.