on the suspected criminal, the judge is informed. These
records, an analysis of his antecedents, are merely side-lights, and
unknown beyond the walls of the Palais de Justice. No legal use can be
made of them; Justice is informed by them, and takes advantage of them;
but that is all. These documents form, as it were, the inner lining
of the tissue of crimes, their first cause, which is hardly ever made
public. No jury would accept it; and the whole country would rise up
in wrath if excerpts from those documents came out in the trial at the
Assizes. In fact, it is the truth which is doomed to remain in the well,
as it is everywhere and at all times. There is not a magistrate who,
after twelve years' experience in Paris, is not fully aware that the
Assize Court and the police authorities keep the secret of half these
squalid atrocities, or who does not admit that half the crimes that are
committed are never punished by the law.

If the public could know how reserved the _employes_ of the police
are--who do not forget--they would reverence these honest men as much as
they do Cheverus. The police is supposed to be astute, Machiavellian; it
is, in fact most benign. But it hears every passion in its paroxysms, it
listens to every kind of treachery, and keeps notes of all. The police
is terrible on one side only. What it does for justice it does no less
for political interests; but in these it is as ruthless and as one-sided
as the fires of the Inquisition.

"Put this aside," said the lawyer, replacing the notes in their cover;
"this is a secret between the police and the law. The judge will
estimate its value, but Monsieur and Madame Camusot must know nothing of
it."

"As if I needed telling that!" said his wife.

"Lucien is guilty," he went on; "but of what?"

"A man who is the favorite of the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, of the
Comtesse de Serizy, and loved by Clotilde de Grandlieu, is not guilty,"
said Amelie. "The other _must_ be answerable for everything."

"But Lucien is his accomplice," cried Camusot.

"Take my advice," said Amelie. "Restore this priest to the diplomatic
career he so greatly adorns, exculpate this little wretch, and find some
other criminal----"

"How you run on!" said the magistrate with a smile. "Women go to the
point, plunging through the law as birds fly through the air, and find
nothing to stop them."

"But," said Amelie, "whether he is a diplomate or a convict, the Abbe
Carlos will find s