The whole system is elastic; a clever husband will
easily discern how it must be bent, stretched or retrenched. By the
aid of the police a man can guide his wife to her fortieth year pure
from any fault.
We will divide this treatise on Police into five captions:
1. OF MOUSE-TRAPS.
2. OF CORRESPONDENCE.
3. OF SPIES.
4. THE INDEX.
5. OF THE BUDGET.
1. OF MOUSE-TRAPS.
In spite of the grave crisis which the husband has reached, we do not
suppose that the lover has completely acquired the freedom of the city
in the marital establishment. Many husbands often suspect that their
wives have a lover, and yet they do not know upon which of the five or
six chosen ones of whom we have spoken their suspicions ought to fall.
This hesitation doubtless springs from some moral infirmity, to whose
assistance the professor must come.
Fouche had in Paris three or four houses resorted to by people of the
highest distinction; the mistresses of these dwellings were devoted to
him. This devotion cost a great deal of money to the state. The
minister used to call these gatherings, of which nobody at the time
had any suspicion, his _mouse-traps_. More than one arrest was made at
the end of the ball at which the most brilliant people of Paris had
been made accomplices of this oratorian.
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