Page:Narrative of a captivity and adventures in France and Flanders between the years 1803 and 1809.djvu/52

 benefit of any stipend for their maintenance.

In the autumn of 1803, the several depôts of these "detenus," and of officers on parole, were concentrated in Verdun; the command of which was entrusted to a man named Wirion, who, during the revolution, under the auspices of Bernadotte, rose rapidly to the rank of general of gendarmerie, but was celebrated only as an adroit police officer. No sooner had this man entered upon his new office, than he established a system of "espionage," in imitation of the police of the whole republic, and thereby frequently acquired the earliest intimation of things which we fancied unknown to many of our friends. It was computed that he had no less than fifty principal informers, on whom he could depend, and each of these, one or more subordinate reporters, besides the eighty gendarmes, who, (one marèchal de logis excepted) maybe added to that number; many of them also employed the "bourgeoiserie," and servants, to collect their gleanings.