Castles in the Air

My name is Ratichon - Hector Ratichon, at your service, and I make so bold as to say that not even my worst enemy would think of minimizing the value of my services to the State. For twenty years now have I placed my powers at the disposal of my country: I have served the Republic, and was confidential agent to Citizen Robespierre; I have served the Empire, and was secret factotum to our great Napoleon; I have served King Louis - with a brief interval of one hundred days - for the past two years, and I can only repeat that no one, in the whole of France, has been so useful or so zealous in tracking criminals, nosing out conspiracies, or denouncing traitors as I have been. And yet you see me a poor man to this day: there has been a persistently malignant Fate which has worked against me all these years, and would - but for a happy circumstance of which I hope anon to tell you - have left me just as I was, in the matter of fortune, when I first came to Paris and set up in business as a volunteer police agent at No, 96 Rue Daunou.