ABSTRACT
The Sürete de l ’Etat (State Intelligence Service) was an inheritance from the time of the French and the Dutch occupation (1794-1830). A provisional Government proclaimed the foundation of Belgium on 26 September 1830. A National Congress was installed on 4 October and it had to draw up a Constitution, which was voted on 7 February 1831. On 15 October 1830 the provisional Government nominated five AdministrateursGeneraux and one of them became the General Administrator of the Sürete Publique. A Governmental Decree of 16 October allowed him extensive power over general police, prisons and borstals, passports, mail censorship, public transport, except for mail delivery, as well as controlling theatres and insanitary factories.1 A Royal Decree of 9 January 1832 ‘reduced’ his competence to ‘the surveillance of the execution of the laws and the provisions on the general police’. This permitted him to have access to all the authorities and to requisition of all the other police services for the execution of his mission, and also to control in a very arbitrary way the foreigners staying in Belgium. In fact his power was rather enlarged and remained very discretionary.
