Mackey – Encyclopedia Of Freemasonry Vol. 1

3 1 2 SECRET SOCIETIESat religious reform, yet their catechism was modelled on thatof the Freemasons .730. Police, Secret.-Whilst revolutionaries and disaffectedsubjects formed secret associations for the overthrow of theirrulers, the latter had recourse to counter-associations, or theSecret Police . In France it was very active in the early partof the last century, but chiefly as the pander to the debaucheriesof the Court . For political purposes women of loosemorals were employed by preference. Thus a famous procuress,whose boudoirs were haunted by diplomatists, aMadam Fillon, discovered and frustrated the conspiracy ofCellamare, the Spanish ambassador in 1718 at the court ofthe Regent (Philippe d'Orl6ans, who governed France duringthe minority of Louis XV .), which was directed against thereigning family, in favour of the Duke of Maine . The ambassadorwas obliged to leave France . From the chroniquescandaleuse of those times it is evident that the police werealways closely connected with the ladies of easy virtue, whomthey employed as their agents . Towards the end of theeighteenth century the police were secretly employed in preventingthe propagation of philosophical works, called badbooks . The Revolution abolished this secret police as immoraland illegal ; but it was, as a political engine, re-establishedunder the Directory, to which the expelled royalfamily opposed a counter-police, which, however, was discoveredin the month of May i 8oo. Napoleon, to protecthimself against the various conspiracies hatched against him,relied greatly on the secret police he had established ; butthere is no doubt that the mad proceedings of Savary, Dukeof Rovigo, Napoleon's last chief of police, hastened the downfallof the Empire. Under Louis Philippe again the secret policehad plenty of work to do, in consequence of the many secretsocieties, whose machinations we have already described (597) .In Prussia also the secret police was very active from184 .8 to the Franco-Prussian war, during which its chiefduty was to protect the King of Prussia, his allied princes,and Bismarck against the attempts at assassination whichwere then so rife . How the secret police had plenty ofoccupation in Russia, where it was known as the "ThirdDivision," we have seen in the account of the Nihilists .In this country a secret police has never been tolerated ;it is opposed to the sentiment of the people, who alwaysconnect it with agents provocateurs.We have seen (693) that a kind of secret police existsin New Pomerania and Western Africa .