TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
Footnote anchors are denoted by [number], and the footnotes have beenplaced at the end of the book after the Index.
The 3-star inverted asterism symbol is denoted by ***.
The cover image was created by the transcriber,by adding the title and author to the original cover; it is herebyplaced in the public domain.
Some minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book.
H. Le Caron
TWENTY-FIVE YEARS
IN
THE SECRET SERVICE
The Recollections of a Spy
BY
MAJOR HENRI LE CARON
With Portraits and Facsimiles
“No citizen has a right to consider himself as belonging to himself;but all ought to regard themselves as belonging to the State, inasmuchas each is a part of the State; and care for the part naturally looksto care for the whole.”
—Aristotle.
LONDON
WILLIAM HEINEMANN
1892
[All rights reserved]
It has seemed good in the sight of many peoplethat I should place on record, in some permanentand acceptable form, the story of my eventfullife. And so I am about to write a book. Thetask is a daring one—perhaps the most daring ofthe many strange and unlooked-for incidentswhich have marked my career of adventure. Iapproach it with no light heart, but rather with akeen appreciation of all its difficulties.
To cater, and cater successfully, for the readingpublic of this fin de siècle period is an undertakingwhich fairly taxes all the powers of resource andexperience of the most brilliant writers of ourtime. And I am in no sense a practised writer,much less a professional litterateur. I have spentmy life working at too high a pressure, and in tooexcited an atmosphere, to allow of my qualifyingin any way for the rôle of author.
Nor am I handicapped in this way alone. Iam, unfortunately for my purpose, deprived of the[iv]most important of collaborators a writer evercalled to his aid—the play of imagination. Forme there is no such thing as romance to be indulgedin here. The truth, the whole truth, andnothing but the truth is what I have set myselfto tell regarding all those matters with which Isha