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Is a democratic – or at least liberal – state allowed to spy its own citizens ? In France, this topical question appeared for the first time during the Restoration and the July Monarchy, political systems that officially wanted to break with the practices of the political police invented by Fouché. The strained relations between an effective surveillance and the rights of the citizens can be observed by reading the parliamentary debates that took place each year from 1818 to 1848 about the police secret founds. This article deals with the origins of that annual parliamentary debate and shows how, after two or three decades of political struggles, the use of spies has finally been considered as absolutely justified.

The sparse studies on intelligence services are inclined to privilege either the activities of the military organizations during crises, or to only analyse the institutions. This trend leads, for the French side, to forget that the intelligence service have been in fact built during the XIXth century on a major police-oriented background and bring the historians to neglect the necessary in-depth study of the relationship between army and police information and intelligence networks. A study focused on these relationships would modify the prospect of the field and would allow to consider the research on intelligence from a global point of view, that is to say organization (or non-organization) by the State of its information and intelligence services. By confronting the activities of both structures, the historical analysis of their respective and mutual roles should integrate the legal and statutory contexts – which do not demarcate precisely their proper field of interventions –, leads also to a detailed study of both professional corps, i.e. intelligence officers and specialized police ones. The aim of this paper is to emphasize the necessity of confronting the history of the institutions, of professional corps and of individuals so to build a global image of the subject in its full historical dimension.

At the basis of the ethic reflexion of the medieval thinkers about friendship et social relation is the aristotelian assertion : friendship is a goodwill which must be mutually recognized. It needs visibility and doesn?t suffer to stay hidden. Friendship is also to be claimed by visible signs, sort of gestual grammar which is significant at the visual level of the society. However, no doubt that there is no adequation between friendly behaviour and friendly intention in the social system of appearances of the medieval society. Moreover, true friendship can never be prooved, that why Walter Burley suggests to root the social relation in the truth and even in charity and faith, when Buridan suggests to root it more horizontally in the altruism.

In 1568, as negociations were taking place to form the Holy League, King Philip II of Spain ordered the construction of a royal galley for his young brother don John of Austria he had just named captain general. During the following year, the Sevillian humanist Juan de Mal Lara elaborated the iconographic program to decorate the inner and outer parts of the galley's stern. These decorations, among which were images of Jason's quest for the golden fleece, referred to the Hapsburg's messianic discourse. The paintings and statues placed on the stern of the boat were meant to legitimate Philip II's hegemonic ambition. Nevertheless, the program representing a spiritual battle, was mainly intended to guide don John of Austria on the path to victorious christian virtues. Only such virtues could insure a final victory over the unfaithful Turks.