Between 1817 and 1822, Corentin, Contenson, Peyrade, and their myrmidons, were often required to keep watch over the Minister of Police himself.  This perhaps explains why the Minister declined to employ Peyrade and Contenson, on whom Corentin contrived to cast the Minister’s suspicions, in order to be able to make use of his friend when his reinstatement was evidently out of the question.  The Ministry put their faith in Corentin; they enjoined him to keep an eye on Peyrade, which amused Louis XVIII.  Corentin and Peyrade were then masters of the position.  Contenson, long attached to Peyrade, was still at his service.  He had joined the force of the commercial police (the Gardes du Commerce) by his friend’s orders.  And, in fact, as a result of the sort of zeal that is inspired by a profession we love, these two chiefs liked to place their best men in those posts where information was most likely to flow in.

And, indeed, Contenson’s vices and dissipated habits, which had dragged him lower than his two friends, consumed so much money, that he needed a great deal of business.

Contenson, without committing any indiscretion, had told Louchard that he knew the only man who was capable of doing what the Baron de Nucingen required.  Peyrade was, in fact, the only police-agent who could act on behalf of a private individual with impunity.  At the death of Louis XVIII., Peyrade had not only ceased to be of consequence, but had lost the profits of his position as spy-in-ordinary to His Majesty.  Believing himself to be indispensable, he had lived fast.  Women, high feeding, and the club, the Cercle des Etrangers, had prevented this man from saving, and, like all men cut out for debauchery, he enjoyed an iron constitution.  But between 1826 and 1829, when he was nearly seventy-four years of age, he had stuck half-way, to use his own expression.  Year by year he saw his comforts dwindling.  He followed the police department to its grave, and saw with regret that Charles X.’s government was departing from its good old traditions.  Every session saw the estimates pared down which were necessary to keep up the police, out of hatred for that method of government and a firm determination to reform that institution.

“It is as if they thought they could cook in white gloves,” said Peyrade to Corentin.

In 1822 this couple foresaw 1830.  They knew how bitterly Louis XVIII. hated his successor, which accounts for his recklessness with regard to the younger branch, and without which his reign would be an unanswerable riddle.

As Peyrade grew older, his love for his natural daughter had increased.  For her sake he had adopted his citizen guise, for he intended that his Lydie should marry respectably.  So for the last three years he had been especially anxious to find a corner, either at the Prefecture of Police, or in the general Police Office—­some ostensible and recognized post.  He had ended by inventing a place, of which the necessity,