The Invention of the Passport:

Surveillance, Citizenship and the State

John C. Torpey
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THE INVENTION OF THE PASSPORT

This book presents the first detailed history of the modern passport and
why it became so important for controlling movement in the modern
world. It explores the history of passport laws, the parliamentary debates
about those laws, and the social responses to their implementation.
The author argues that modern nation-states and the international
state system have “monopolized the ‘legitimate means of movement,’”
rendering persons dependent on states’ authority to move about – espe-
cially, though not exclusively, across international boundaries. This new
edition reviews other scholarship, much of which was stimulated by the
first edition, addressing the place of identification documents in con-
temporary life. It also updates the story of passport regulations from the
publication of the first edition, which appeared just before the terrorist
attacks of 9/11, to the present day.

JOHN C. TORPEY is Presidential Professor of Sociology and History and

the director of the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies at
the Graduate Center, City University of New York. Before coming to
the Graduate Center, he was an associate professor of sociology at the
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. Previously he was
an assistant professor and the chair of the International Studies Faculty
Board at the University of California, Irvine. He has held fellowships
from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the German
Marshall Fund, the European University Institute (Florence), and the
Center for European Studies at Harvard. His other publications include
Intellectuals, Socialism and Dissent: The East German Opposition and Its
Legacy (1995), Documenting Individual Identity (2001, coedited with Jane
Caplan), Making Whole What Has Been Smashed: On Reparations Politics
(2006), Transformations of Warfare in the Modern World (2016, coedited
with David Jacobson), and The Three Axial Ages: Moral, Material, Mental
(2017), as well as numerous articles in such journals as Theory and
Society, Journal of Modern History, Sociological Theory, and Genèses:
Sciences sociales et histoire. In 2016–2017, he was president of the
Eastern Sociological Society.
CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN LAW AND SOCIETY

Founded in 1997, Cambridge Studies in Law and Society is a hub for

leading scholarship in socio-legal studies. Located at the intersection of
law, the humanities, and the social sciences, it publishes empirically
innovative and theoretically sophisticated work on law’s manifestations
in everyday life: from discourses to practices, and from institutions to
cultures. The series editors have long-standing expertise in the inter-
disciplinary study of law, and welcome contributions that place legal
phenomena in national, comparative, or international perspective.
Series authors come from a range of disciplines, including anthropology,
history, law, literature, political science, and sociology.

Series Editors
Mark Fathi Massoud, University of California, Santa Cruz
Jens Meierhenrich, London School of Economics and Political Science
Rachel E. Stern, University of California, Berkeley

A list of books in the series can be found at the back of this book.
THE INVENTION OF THE
PASSPORT
Surveillance, Citizenship and the State
Second Edition

John C. Torpey
Graduate Center, City University of New York
University Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8BS, United Kingdom
One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, NY 10006, USA
477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia
314–321, 3rd Floor, Plot 3, Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre,
New Delhi – 110025, India
79 Anson Road, #06–04/06, Singapore 079906

Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge.

It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of
education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence.

www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781108473903
DOI: 10.1017/9781108664271
© John C. Torpey 2000, 2018
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2000
Second Edition 2018
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, Elcograf S.p.A.
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Torpey, John, 1959– author.
Title: The invention of the passport : surveillance, citizenship and the state /
John C. Torpey, Graduate Center, City University of New York.
Description: Second edition. | New York, NY ; Cambridge, United Kingdom :
Cambridge University Press, 2018. | Series: Cambridge studies in law and society | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018017263 | ISBN 9781108473903 (hardback) | ISBN
9781108462945 (paperback)
Subjects: LCSH: Passports – United States. | Freedom of movement – United States. |
Passports – Europe, Western. | Freedom of movement – Europe, Western.
Classification: LCC K3273 .T67 2018 | DDC 323.6/70973–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018017263
ISBN 978-1-108-47390-3 Hardback
ISBN 978-1-108-46294-5 Paperback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of
URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication
and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain,
accurate or appropriate.
For Zoe and Zora
in the hope that they get wherever they want to go
The vagabond is by definition a suspect.
Daniel Nordman
CONTENTS

Preface to the Second Edition page xi

Acknowledgments xvi

Introduction 1
1 Coming and Going: On the State Monopolization of the
Legitimate “Means of Movement” 5
Monopolizing the Legitimate “Means of Movement” 8
Modern States: “Penetrating” or “Embracing” ? 12
Getting a Grip: Institutionalizing the Nation-State 17
The Prevalence of Passport Controls in Absolutist Europe 22

2 “Argus of the Patrie”: The Passport Question in the French

Revolution 26
The Passport Problem at the End of the Old Regime 26
The Flight of the King and the Revolutionary Renewal of Passport Controls 31
The Constitution of 1791 and the Elimination of Passport Controls 36
The Debate Over Passport Controls of Early 1792 40
A Detailed Examination of the New Passport Law 44
Passports and Freedom of Movement Under the Convention 54
Passport Concerns of the Directory 63

3 Sweeping Out Augeas’s Stable: The Nineteenth-Century

Trend toward Freedom of Movement 70
From the Emancipation of the Peasantry to the End of the Napoleonic Era 71
Prussian Backwardness? A Comparative Look at the Situation in
the United Kingdom 81
Freedom of Movement and Citizenship in Early Nineteenth-Century Germany 87
Toward the Relaxation of Passport Controls in the German Lands 91
The Decriminalization of Travel in the North German Confederation 99
Broader Significance of the 1867 Law 108

4 Toward the “Crustacean Type of Nation”: The Proliferation

of Identification Documents from the Late Nineteenth
Century to the First World War 114
Passport Controls and State Development in the United States 115

ix
CONTENTS

Paper Walls: Passports and Chinese Exclusion 118

The “Nationalization” of Immigration Restriction in the
United States 124
Sovereignty and Dependence: the Italian Passport Law of 1901 126
The Spread of Identification Documents for Foreigners in France 130
The Resurrection of Passport Controls in Late Nineteenth-Century
Germany 133
The First World War and the “Temporary” Reimposition of Passport
Controls 136
“Temporary” Passport Controls Become Permanent 142
The United States and the End of the Laissez-faire Era in Migration 144

5 From National to Post-National? Passports and Constraints

on Movement from the Interwar to the Postwar Era 151
The Emergence of the International Refugee Regime in the
Early Interwar Period 153
Passports, Identity papers, and the Nazi Persecution of the Jews 162
Loosening Up: Passport Controls and Regional Integration in
Postwar Europe 177

6 “Everything Changed That Day”: Passport Regulations after

the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001 195
Canada 206
The United Kingdom 209
France 211
Germany 215
Conclusion 216

Conclusion: A Typology of “Papers” 218

International Passports 220
Internal Passports 226
Identity Cards 227

References 230
Index 247

x
 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

The idea of examining the history of passports originally suggested itself, in the
early 1990s, as a way to think about changes then taking place on the inter-
national scene as a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union and of Yugoslavia.
In that context, the question arose once again of the “nationality” of people
whose state had dissolved around them or who were set adrift as a consequence
of war and conflict. There were echoes of the processes that followed World
War I, about which Hannah Arendt wrote in an effort to make sense of the
status of those abandoned by history after the collapse of the European land
empires. “What” were these people, nationally speaking? To what state were
they connected, what did they owe that state, and what did that state have to
do for them? It occurred to me as I thought about these issues that they
reflected an older, epochal change in human affairs. This shift I called the
“monopolization of the legitimate ‘means of movement’” by states and their
imposition of mechanisms aiming to tie persons to political orders and to
constrain or facilitate movement, as they saw fit at various times and places.
The passport – that little paper booklet with the power to open interna-
tional doors – seemed the perfect vehicle through which to explore some of the
most important features of modern nation-states. Although I had little knowl-
edge of the literature on migration when I started out, I became willy-nilly
a contributor to the discussions about migration that were gathering pace at
that time. Ultimately, I was a lapsed Marxist and now dyed-in-the-wool
Weberian trying to make sense of the meaning of modern states and their
preoccupation with nationality in both the objective and subjective senses.
The inclusion of the term “surveillance” in the subtitle was somewhat off-
handed, a paean to the often puzzling ascendancy of Foucault in the American
academy during and after my years in graduate school (1985–1992).
Yet the book proved to be part of a burgeoning literature on identification
practices and their spread during the modern (and postmodern) period. This
outcome was a product in part of my collaboration with Jane Caplan on
a companion volume, Documenting Individual Identity: The Development of
State Practices in the Modern World (2001), that appeared a year after
The Invention of the Passport. The volume with Jane Caplan examined identi-
fication practices, documentary controls on movement, and the like across
a range of settings around the world and across historical time. Approximately

xi

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 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

a decade later, a follow-on to Documenting Individual Identity sought to further

expand the reach of these studies in historical and geographic terms as well as
to survey the research that had been conducted in this area during the
intervening period (About, Brown, and Lonergan 2013).
The study of passports and of personal identification more generally has
developed significantly since the original publication of The Invention of the
Passport in 2000. The book’s emphasis on documents as the means with which
states seek to “monopolize the legitimate ‘means of movement’” has been
found fruitful by a number of other scholars, such as political scientist Mark
B. Salter and media historian Craig Robertson. Salter found it a valuable way
of approaching the state’s role in regulating international movement (2003,
2008), whereas Robertson was more interested in the ways in which passports
were used to verify and certify identity (2010). Salter flatteringly described the
book as a “landmark survey on the passport in Europe,” but noted that “the
colonial scene complicates” the distinction I made between “national” and
“international space” (Salter 2003: 55–56). Having learned more about
empires in the meantime, I am inclined to agree that I failed to take coloni-
alism properly into account in thinking about the ways in which states have
regulated movement in the modern world (Barkey 2008; Burbank and Cooper
2010). This is not the place to try to rectify that lacuna. But a major contribu-
tion to doing so has recently appeared from the pen of Jaeeun Kim, who has
written brilliantly about the role of passports and other documents in “trans-
border membership politics in twentieth-century Korea.” Kim’s book explores
in tremendous depth the ways in which documents were used to regulate the
movements of and impute nationality to the Koreans of China, Japan, and the
peninsula itself in the shifting contexts of Japanese imperialism, Chinese
revolution, and the building of nation-states in the divided Koreas after
World War II (Kim 2016). Examination of the passport seems to have proven
a productive way to think about how states have extended their capacity to
govern movements that had previously been ungoverned.
At the same time, the insights of the book have been expanded upon by
those who focus on other aspects of passports and other kinds of identification.
First, some, such as Breckinridge and Szreter (2012) and Caplan and Higgs
(2013), have stressed the extent to which identification documents such as
passports may be useful to their bearers, not simply a technique through which
states may impose control. These scholars note that access to public services
and social benefits may depend crucially on people’s ability to verify their
identity to the relevant authorities. Obviously, if a person wants to travel
abroad, a passport is typically a valuable thing to have even if it is not
necessarily required in all cases. Internally, ID cards may be necessary for
gaining access to public goods; the paradigm case at present is the Indian
Aadhaar card, which is intended to provide verified identification to millions

xii

.001
 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

of Indians so that they can receive welfare benefits from the state
(Government of India 2016).
Next, scholars of identification practices have stressed the ways in which
identification is increasingly a commercial matter, not just one for states.
David Lyon, probably the most distinguished analyst of modern surveillance
techniques, has made this point in a number of his writings (Lyon 1994).
Although it may be true that states could not function without the ability to
identify citizens and to distinguish them from noncitizens, businesses similarly
would not be able to operate if they could not identify customers for purposes of
the payment and delivery of goods and services. The fact that such identifica-
tion is increasingly conducted via computer makes it that much more inescap-
able; anything and everything we do online can now be used against us, so to
speak. The need for cash, which is something like the monetary equivalent of
a passport, declines accordingly – unless, of course, one has reasons to operate
in the shadows. It is difficult to escape the bright light of identification online.
A third aspect of recent scholarship on passports and other identification
documents involves the stress on how these documents distinguish among
identities in a difference-generating manner. That is, possession of the “right”
passport may help speed movement for properly preapproved passengers,
whereas those who have not undergone the prescreening of their identification
documents must wend their way through long, slow lines awaiting processing
at airports and other restricted zones. As David Lyon has stressed, the exigen-
cies of contemporary life are such that mobility must both be smoothed in the
interest of the circulation of goods and persons and filtered to constrain the
movement of unwanted elements (2008). Similarly, Ayelet Shachar (2009:
810) has observed that “we increasingly witness a border that is . . . at once
more open and more closed than in the past.”1 And, as we shall see, the
“border” is a variable quantity not always found at the line one sees on a map.
In addition, there are many who as a practical matter never have a chance to
cross the border in any case, as their passports are inadequate to get them across
without a visa that, in turn, may be prohibitively expensive in money, time, or
other costs. As outlined in the newly drafted Chapter 6, the post-9/11 period
has been marked by heightened security concerns that have put the filtering
process under extraordinary scrutiny; no one wants to be responsible for having
let the next would-be shoe bomber onto an airliner. Yet programs to speed the
movements of those previously approved for expedited movement have
expanded noticeably, as indicated by the emergence in the United States of
such programs as Global Entry, NEXUS, and TSA Pre-Check. While the

1
Shachar’s nuanced view of changes in border control is a valuable alternative to the “static”
versus “disappearing” views of borders that she criticizes. Yet she seems to regard as recent many
phenomena associated with what Aristide Zolberg long ago called “remote control” when
describing efforts to keep potential intruders at bay before they ever embarked on a journey to
the destination country.

xiii

.001
 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

passport certainly is still used to constrain the movements of those whose data
are reviewed at a point of entry, more and more people are taking advantage of
opportunities to circumvent the long lines and whisk through checkpoints on
the basis of prior official acceptance that they are who they say they are and
have been found to be unobjectionable.
It was entirely fortuitous that The Invention of the Passport first appeared not
long before September 11, 2001. Needless to say, however, that date marks
a watershed in governments’ efforts to secure their borders and forestall further
terrorist attacks. This new edition includes a completely new chapter examin-
ing developments in documentary controls of international movement since
those attacks. I have also taken the opportunity to make a number of relatively
minor corrections and emendations to the original text. I hope this new
edition brings up to date the fascinating story of how passports have been
used to govern the modern world of international mobility.
I would like to take this opportunity to comment on one reviewer’s reactions
to the book. Although he was generally enthusiastic about it, distinguished
scholar James C. Scott argued in a review in the Journal of Modern History that
I overstated the efficacy of documentary controls on movement: “While it is
true . . . that there is now a hegemonic regime of passports indicative of a ‘hard-
shelled’ state,” Scott wrote, “surely what is at least as remarkable is how porous
and ineffective it is. . . . Every border, every jurisdiction with different laws,
tariffs, price structures, and opportunities is not so much a barrier as an
opportunity.” These objections reflect Scott’s long and illuminating preoccu-
pation with the “weapons of the weak” and their “arts of resistance.” But they
seem at odds with the scorching diatribe against the emergence of states that
can be found in his more recent Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest
States (2017). There, Scott decries the development of states that depended on
economies based on the cultivation of grains and, in the process, chained
individuals to their tasks and to service to the state. Like Scott in Against the
Grain, it did seem to me that the period since about 1600 – the same one he
identifies as marking a new epoch in which states and their tax collectors
covered the earth – bore witness to a new departure in the regulation of human
mobility. Of course the “monopolization of the legitimate ‘means of move-
ment’” has never been completely effective and, as I noted in the book, it is
especially difficult to constrain pedestrians. But with the invention of all sorts
of conveyances, such as railroad cars, airplanes, and, indeed, automobiles, it
has become much easier to subject travelers to regulation. Those who cross
international borders now typically do so in such mobile containers, and are
thus more easily subjected to constraints than the traveler on foot.
Accordingly, the effectiveness of the passport system is much enhanced for
the millions of those who traverse borders in conveyances, but even those who
move on foot widely confront more developed infrastructures of mobility
regulation. Differences across states are a result of their varying bureaucratic

xiv

.001
 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

capacities, just as their effective sovereignty varies (Krasner 1999). In sum,

while I disagree with Scott’s general criticism from fifteen years ago (and it
seems that he might not agree with it himself at this point), there is unques-
tionably a gap between written regulations and facts on the ground and it is an
empirical question how large that gap may be in particular instances. Still, to
see nothing but loopholes in these laws is to see only trees rather than the
forest they comprise.
In conclusion, I must thank Marianne Madoré and Kamran Moshref, PhD
students at the CUNY Graduate Center, for their research assistance in
preparing this revised edition. I simply couldn’t have done it without them.
Marianne, in particular, made a number of suggestions for improving the text,
some of which I took and some of which I declined; in all events, no one is
responsible for the final text but me.
I must also thank the Graduate Center itself, which has provided a most
congenial and stimulating academic home for me over the past decade and
more. I am more grateful to the Graduate Center and to my colleagues there
than I can adequately say. The opportunity to direct the Ralph Bunche
Institute for International Studies since 2014 has been particularly gratifying,
and I am especially indebted to several of my colleagues there: director
emeritus Thomas G. Weiss, long-time administrative director Nancy Okada,
incoming administrative director Eli Karetny, and the associate director of the
European Union Studies Center, Patrizia Nobbe. They make coming in to the
office every day a genuine pleasure.

xv

.001
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

While I was confident from the outset that a book about “the history of
the passport” was a clever idea, I was less convinced at first that this was
a subject of any real significance. I therefore owe a great debt to several
historians who helped persuade me very early on that this would indeed
prove a worthwhile undertaking: Paul Avrich, Eric Hobsbawm,
Stephen Kern, Eugen Weber, and Robert Wohl. While I had the
good fortune to enjoy an extended colloquy with Robert Wohl in the
context of a National Endowment for the Humanities–sponsored semi-
nar on intellectuals and politics during the summer of 1994 when the
idea for this study was first formulated, the others simply responded to
an unsolicited query from a young scholar unknown to them. This
generosity only increased the admiration I had for them, which was of
course what had led me to write to them in the first place. Todd Gitlin
also reacted with enthusiasm to the idea of the book. Todd’s endorse-
ment of the project as well as his steadfast support for me and my work
have been a source of great satisfaction over the past decade and more;
I feel honored to have his friendship and encouragement. Without the
generosity of these people, this project would never have become more
than an idle curiosity.
Once I had seriously embarked on the project, two other people,
Gerard Noiriel and Jane Caplan, lent their enthusiasm and provided
shining examples of the kind of scholarship I wanted to produce.
Noiriel’s writings on the history of immigration, citizenship, and iden-
tification documents in France have been a major inspiration for me;
the citations of his work in the text point only to the visible peak of an
iceberg of scholarly debt. Jane Caplan’s support for this project quickly
led to a collaborative undertaking on related issues concerning the
practices that states have developed to identify individuals in the
modern period, to be published elsewhere. Working with her has
been both a real pleasure and an extended private tutorial (entirely
unrecompensed) in scholarly professionalism. I feel profoundly fortu-
nate and grateful that David Abraham put us in touch, somehow

xvi
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

intuiting – as a result of my work on passports and Jane’s on tattooing –

that “you’re working on the same kind of stuff.”
Next, I am particularly indebted to Aristide Zolberg, whose work on
the dynamics of international migration in the modern world has
deeply influenced my own thinking about these matters. Although we
had earlier met on a couple of occasions and I was familiar with
a number of his writings on this subject, it was as a result of my
participation in the German American Academic Council-SSRC
Summer Institute on Immigration, Integration, and Citizenship, orga-
nized by Ari and the impressive Austrian migration scholar
Rainer Münz during the summers of 1996 and 1997, that I came to
a fuller grasp of Ari’s approach to understanding migration processes.
His ideas pervade this book, which I can only hope will provide a useful
complement to his work on the role of states in shaping migration
processes.
Although the list of others I wish to thank is long, I hope this will not
be regarded as merely a surreptitious effort at self-congratulation.
The fact that these people and institutions are to be found in several
countries on three continents is both a measure of the good fortune
I have had in carrying out this project and testimony to the reality of an
international community of scholars, of which I am thrilled to be a part.
Much of the research for this book was carried out while I held a Jean
Monnet Fellowship at the European University Institute in Florence,
Italy during 1995–1996. Upon my arrival in the world’s most beautiful
city, a young legal historian, Stefano Mannoni, insisted that the place
for me to conduct the research I wanted to do was the Library of the
Chamber of Deputies, situated happily in the shadow of the Pantheon
in Rome. Stefano called his friend, bibliotecario straordinario Mario di
Napoli, on my behalf, and the rest was smooth sailing. I am greatly
indebted to Mario’s colleague Silvano Ferrari, who tracked down many
an obscure source for me and, if he couldn’t find it, invited me to join
him in the otherwise closed stacks for the search. At the EUI, Raffaelle
Romanelli’s enthusiasm for the project helped sustain me through some
uncertain times; my friend Christian Joppke pushed me forward, and
provided plenty of good company.
For kindnesses, criticisms, assistance, suggestions, hospitality, cita-
tions, and occasionally quizzical looks, I wish to extend my sincere
gratitude to Peter Benda, Didier Bigo, Scott Busby, Kitty Calavita,
Craig Calhoun, Mathieu Deflem, Gary Freeman, Bernard Gainot,
Janet Gilboy, Phil Gorski, Valentin Groebner, Virginie Guiraudon,

xvii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

David Jacobson, David Laitin, Leo Lucassen, Michael Mann, John

McCormick, Bob Moeller, Daniel Nordman, Giovanna Procacci,
Marian Smith, Peggy Somers, Yasemin Soysal, Anthony Richmond,
Tim Tackett, Sara Warneke, the late Myron Weiner, and Bruce
Western. I am especially grateful to Susan Silbey for inviting me to
contribute this volume in the Cambridge Series on Law and Society.
In the course of writing this book, I have benefited greatly from the
largesse of several other institutions that have provided funding for
research or time away from regular academic duties, as well as congenial
surroundings in which to carry out the project. At a time in which
public support for scholarship is under sharp attack in the United
States, I wish to make special mention of a fellowship from the
National Endowment for the Humanities, the award of which
I regarded as a particular honor. I was also delighted that the German
Marshall Fund found my work worthy of its support. In Paris, I enjoyed
the assistance of Professor Catherine Duprat at the Institut de l’Histoire
de la Revolution Française and the hospitality afforded by the Maison
Suger/Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, whose director, Maurice
Aymard, has been most helpful. The University of California at
Irvine has been supportive of me and of this project, for which I am
grateful.
I have talked about aspects of this project in venues too numerous to
indicate here, but I would nonetheless like to take this opportunity to
thank Charles Maier, director of the Center for European Studies at
Harvard, and Nancy Green, a distinguished historian of migration at
the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, for invitations to
speak about this project at their respective institutions and for the
helpful comments I received on those occasions.
An earlier version of Chapter 1, together with the Conclusion,
appeared previously as “Coming and Going: On the State
Monopolization of the Legitimate ‘Means of Movement,’” Sociological
Theory 16(3) (November 1998): 239–259. That article has also
appeared in French as “Aller et venir: le monopole ètatique des ‘moyens
légitimes de circulation,” Cultures et Conflits 31–32 (Autumn-Winter
1998): 63–100. A French translation of parts of Chapter 3 was pub-
lished as “Le contrôle des passe-ports et la liberté de circulation: Le cas
de l’Allemagne au XIXe siècle,” Genèses: Sciences sociales et histoire
(March 1998): 53–76.
I must also thank my research assistants, Derek Martin and Sharon
McConnell, who helped me get under the trapdoor just before it came

xviii
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

down. Alas, unlike when Harrison Ford is involved, the door did not
remain open until there was time for one last act of heroism. I am
grateful to Phillipa McGuinness and Sharon Mullins at Cambridge
University Press for their enthusiasm about the project, and for holding
the door open just a little longer than they might have liked.
Apparently the result justified their patience.

xix
 I N T R ODUC TION

In an obscure paragraph of a package of immigration reforms adopted in

1996, the US government committed itself to developing “an auto-
mated system to track the entry and exit of all non-citizens, thus
providing a way of identifying immigrants who stay longer than their
visas allow.” At the time that the legislation was supposed to be put into
effect, however, some in the government came to regard this measure as
likely to cause undue complications for millions of border-crossers, and
the implementation of the law was postponed for two and a half years.
The postponement was also deemed advisable in part because the
Immigration and Naturalization Service, the agency mandated to
design the system, was far from having amassed the technology “to
process information estimated to be so vast that in one year it would
exceed all the data in the Library of Congress.”1 Clearly, this program
would be an enormous and unprecedented undertaking.
This book examines some of the background to such efforts to
identify and track the movements of foreigners. The study concentrates
on the historical development of passport controls as a way of illumi-
nating the institutionalization of the idea of the “nation-state” as
a prospectively homogeneous ethnocultural unit, a project that neces-
sarily entailed efforts to regulate people’s movements. Yet because
nation-states are both territorial and membership organizations, they
must erect and sustain boundaries between nationals and nonnationals
1
See “Law to Track Foreigners Entering US Postponed,” New York Times (West Coast edition),
October 4, 1998: A4; “Agreement Resolved Many Differences over Policy as Well as Money,”
New York Times (West Coast edition), October 16, 1998: A17.

.002
 THE INVENTION OF THE PASSPORT

both at their physical borders and among people within those borders.2
Boundaries between persons that are rooted in the legal category of
nationality can only be maintained, it turns out, by documents indicat-
ing a person’s nationality, for there simply is no other way to know this
fact about someone. Accordingly, a study that began by asking how the
contemporary passport regime had developed and how states used
documents to control movement ineluctably widened to include
other types of documents related to inclusion and exclusion in the
citizen body, and to admission and refusal of entry into specific
territories.
I argue that, in the course of the past few centuries, states have
successfully usurped from rival claimants such as churches and private
enterprises the “monopoly of the legitimate ‘means of movement’” – that
is, their development as states has depended on effectively distinguishing
between citizens/subjects and possible interlopers, and regulating the
movements of each. This process of “monopolization” is associated
with the fact that states must develop the capacity to “embrace” their
own citizens in order to extract from them the resources they need to
reproduce themselves over time. States’ ability to “embrace” their own
subjects and to make distinctions between nationals and nonnationals,
and to track the movements of persons in order to sustain the boundary
between these two groups (whether at the border or not), has depended
to a considerable extent on the creation of documents that make the
relevant differences knowable and thus enforceable. Passports, as well as
identification cards of various kinds, have been central to these processes,
although documentary controls on movement and identification have
been more or less stringently developed and enforced in different coun-
tries at various times.
This study focuses on the vicissitudes of documentary controls on
movement in Western Europe and the United States from the time of
the French Revolution until the relatively recent past. I begin with the
French Revolution because of its canonical status as the “birth of the
nation-state.” Yet the transformation of states inaugurated by the
French Revolution turns out to have had much more to do with the
gradual process of inclusion of broad social strata in the political order
than with the construction of an ethnically “pure” French population,
although I examine efforts along these lines as well. The shift toward
broader incorporation of the populace in political decision-making is

2
See Brubaker 1992, chapter 1; Crowley 1998.

.002
 INTRODUCTION

reflected in the controversies chronicled in Chapter 2, where I recount

how the French revolutionaries publicly debated the issue of passport
controls on movement for the first time in European history. Because
I was intrigued by the question of who supported and who opposed
documentary controls on movement in various contexts and why they
did so, I discuss subsequent debates over these matters in other coun-
tries wherever I have been able to find source materials. The narrative
addresses the legal history of passport controls in these countries until
shortly after the Second World War. I say relatively little about the
postwar period, mainly because others have analyzed the process of
European unification and its attendant relaxation of documentary
restrictions on movement in greater detail than I could hope to do.3
Instead, I say only enough about the postwar era to indicate some
doubts about whether we have entered into a period of “post-national
membership,” as some commentators have recently suggested.4
The geographical frame of the study derives from my belief that the
dominance of Western states in the period examined has been rela-
tively clear-cut, and that the imposition of Western ways on most of the
rest of the world has been one of the most remarkable features of the
era. Here I am only echoing what I take to be common wisdom about
the rise and dominance of the West during the modern age. This should
not be taken to imply any denigration of non-Western cultures, but
only the recognition that those societies have not been sufficiently
powerful to impose their ways upon the world. Indeed, I would be
delighted if this study were to stimulate studies of systems of documen-
tary controls on movement and identity in other parts of the world and
in other periods.5 For now, however, it seems worthwhile to begin to
make sense of the processes that spawned the world-girdling system of
passport controls on international movement that arose from the gra-
dual strengthening of state apparatuses in Europe and the United States
during the past two centuries or so.
Because the passport system arose out of the relatively inchoate
international system that existed during the nineteenth century, I do
not undertake strong, systematic comparisons of one country versus
another. I argue that the emergence of passport and related controls on
movement is an essential aspect of the “state-ness” of states, and it

3
See especially Wiener 1998. 4 See Soysal 1994.
5
I have myself been involved in organizing an effort toward this end, although the temporal frame
and geographic reach ultimately remained more restricted than we would have wished; see
Caplan and Torpey 2001.

.002
 THE INVENTION OF THE PASSPORT

therefore seemed to be putting the cart before the horse to presume to

compare states as if they were “hard,” “really-existing” entities of a type
that were more nearly approximated after the First World War.
Moreover, what is remarkable about the contemporary system of pass-
port controls is that it bears witness to a cooperating “international
society” as well as to an overarching set of norms and prescriptions to
which individual states must respond.6 This does not mean, as some
seem to think, that there is no such thing as “sovereignty,” but only that
this is a claim states make in an environment not of their own making.
To paraphrase Marx, states make their own policy, “but they do not
make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances
chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly found, given,
and transmitted” from the outside.
The following study seeks to demonstrate that passports and other
documentary controls on movement and identification have been essen-
tial to states’ monopolization of the legitimate “means of movement”
since the French Revolution, and that this process of monopolization has
been a central feature of their development as states during that period.
The project has been motivated in considerable part by the uneasy
feeling that much sociological writing about states is insupportably
abstract, failing to tell us how states actually constitute and maintain
themselves as ongoing concerns. By focusing not on the grand flourishes
of state-building but on what Foucault somewhere described as the
“humble modalities” of power, I hope to contribute to a more adequate
understanding of the capacity that states have amassed to intrude into
our lives over the past two centuries.
The narrative focuses on the legal history of passport controls in the
United States and Western Europe until shortly after the Second World
War. I say relatively little about the postwar period (1945–1990), mainly
because others have analyzed the process of European unification and its
attendant relaxation of documentary restrictions on movement in
greater detail than I could hope to do.(3) The discussion of the postwar
era does, however, register some doubts about whether we have entered
into a period of “post-national membership,” as some commentators
have suggested.(4) The narrative concludes with a chapter on the very
substantial developments in passport controls in Western Europe and
North America that followed the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001,
in the United States.

6
My thinking on this issue has been much influenced by Bull 1995 [1977].

.002
 CHAP TER ONE

COMING AND GOING

On the State Monopolization of the Legitimate “Means of
Movement”

In his writings, Karl Marx sought to show that the process of capitalist
development involved the expropriation of the “means of production”
from workers by capitalists. The result of this process was that workers
were deprived of the capacity to produce on their own and became
dependent upon wages from the owners of the means of production for
their survival. Borrowing this rhetoric, Marx’s greatest heir and critic,
Max Weber, argued that a central feature of the modern experience was
the successful expropriation by the state of the “means of violence”
from individuals. In the modern world, in contrast to the medieval
period in Europe and much historical experience elsewhere, only states
could “legitimately” use violence; all other would-be wielders of vio-
lence must be licensed by states to do so. Those not so licensed were
thus deprived of the freedom to employ violence against others.
Following the rhetoric used by Marx and Weber, this book seeks to
demonstrate the proposition that modern states, and the international
state system of which they are a part, have expropriated from indivi-
duals and private entities the legitimate “means of movement,” parti-
cularly though by no means exclusively across international
boundaries.
The result of this process has been to deprive people of the freedom
to move across certain spaces and to render them dependent on states
and the state system for the authorization to do so – an authority widely
held in private hands theretofore. A critical aspect of this process has
been that people have also become dependent on states for the posses-
sion of an “identity” from which they can escape only with difficulty

.003
 THE INVENTION OF THE PASSPORT

and that may significantly shape their access to various spaces. There are,
of course, virtues to this system – principally of a security nature – just as
the expropriation of workers by capitalists allows propertyless workers to
survive as wage laborers and the expropriation of the means of violence
by states tends to pacify everyday life. Yet in the course of each of these
transformations, workers, aggressors, and travelers, respectively, have
each been subjected to a form of dependency they had not previously
known.
Let me emphasize that I am not claiming that states and the state
system effectively control all movements of persons, but only that they
have monopolized the authority to restrict movement vis-a-vis other
potential claimants, such as private economic or religious entities. Such
entities may play a role in the control of movement, but they do so
today at the behest of states. Nor am I arguing that states’ monopoliza-
tion of the legitimate “means of movement” is a generalization valid for
all times and places; the monopolization of this authority by states
emerged only gradually after the medieval period in Europe and paral-
leled states’ monopolization of the legitimate use of violence.
My argument bears strong similarities to that of John Meyer when he
addresses the delegitimation of organizational forms other than the
nation-state in the emerging “world polity.” Various non-state associa-
tions, Meyer writes,
are kept from maintaining private armies, their territory and property are
subject to state expropriation, and their attempts to control their popu-
lations are stigmatized as slavery . . . although states routinely exercise
such controls with little question. A worker may properly be kept from
crossing state boundaries, and may even be kept from crossing firm
boundaries by the state, but not by the firm.1
To be more precise, firms may keep a worker from crossing the bound-
aries of those firms, but they do so under authority granted them by the
state.
An understanding of the processes whereby states monopolize the
legitimate “means of movement” is crucial to an adequate comprehen-
sion of how modern states actually work. Most analyses of state formation
heretofore have focused on the capacity of states to penetrate societies,
without explicitly telling us how they effect this penetration. Such
analyses have posited that successful states developed the ability to

1
Meyer 1987 [1980]: 53.

.003
 COMING AND GOING

reach into societies to extract various kinds of resources, yet they typi-
cally fail to offer any specific discussion of the means they adopted to
achieve these ends. Foucault’s writings on “governmentality” and the
techniques of modern governance represent an important corrective to
this tradition. For all their preoccupation with policing, population, and
“pastoral power,” however, Foucault’s considerations of these matters
lack any precise discussion of the techniques of identification that have
played a crucial role in the development of modern, territorial states
resting on distinctions between citizens/nationals and aliens.2
Meanwhile, analyses of migration and migration policies have
tended to take the existence of states largely for granted, typically
attributing migration to a variety of socioeconomic processes (“push-
pull” processes, “chain migration,” “transnational communities,” etc.)
without paying adequate attention to territorial states’ need to distin-
guish “on the ground” among different populations or to the ways in
which the activities of states – especially war-making and state-
building – result in population movements. The chief exception to
this generalization is found in the writings of Aristide Zolberg, who has
urged for decades that the state-building (and state-destroying) activ-
ities of states should occupy a central role in studies of human move-
ment or its absence, alongside the more routine examination of states’
immigration policies.3 Rather than ignoring the role of states, studies of
immigration policies take them as given and thus fail to see the ways in
which regulation of movement contributes to constituting the very
“state-ness” of states.
These approaches are inadequate for understanding either the devel-
opment of modern states or migration patterns. In what follows, I seek
to supersede these partial perspectives and to show that states’ mono-
polization of the right to authorize and regulate movement has been
intrinsic to the very construction of states since the rise of absolutism in
early modern Europe. I also attempt to demonstrate that procedures and
mechanisms for identifying persons are essential to this process, and
that, in order to be implemented in practice, the notion of national
communities must be codified in documents rather than merely
“imagined.”4
2
See Foucault 1979, 1980b, 1991.
3
See, e.g., Zolberg 1978, 1983. It seems to me that Zolberg’s pleas have only gradually begun to be
heeded; see, e.g., Skran 1995.
4
See Anderson 1991 [1983]. Michael Mann (1993: 218) has noted that “Anderson’s ‘print
capitalism’ could as easily generate a transnational West as a community of nations” in the
absence of the institutionalization of the latter.

.003
 THE INVENTION OF THE PASSPORT

In the remainder of this chapter, I undertake four tasks. First, I show

how and why states have sought to monopolize the “legitimate ‘means of
movement’” – that is, to gather into their own hands the exclusive right
to authorize and regulate movement. Next, I argue that the processes
involved in this monopolization force us to rethink the very nature of
modern states as they have been portrayed by the dominant strands of
sociological theories of the state. In particular, I seek to show that the
notion that states “penetrate” societies over time fails adequately to
characterize the nature of state development, and argue instead that we
would do better to regard states as “embracing” their citizenries more
successfully over time. Then, I analyze the need for states to identify
unambiguously who belongs and who does not – in order to “embrace”
their members more effectively and to exclude unwanted intruders.
Finally, I examine some of the efforts of early modern states in Europe
to implement documentary restrictions on movement, and thus to render
populations accessible to their embrace.

MONOPOLIZING THE LEGITIMATE “MEANS OF

MOVEMENT”
States have sought to monopolize the capacity to authorize the move-
ments of persons – and unambiguously to establish their identities in
order to enforce this authority – for a great variety of reasons that reflect
the ambiguous nature of modern states, which are at once sheltering
and dominating. These reasons include such objectives as the extrac-
tion of military service, taxes, and labor; the facilitation of law enforce-
ment; the control of “brain drain” (i.e., limitation of departure in order
to forestall the loss of workers with particularly valued skills); the
restriction of access to areas deemed off-limits by the state, whether
for “security” reasons or to protect people from unexpected or unac-
knowledged harms; the exclusion, surveillance, and containment of
“undesirable elements,” whether these are of an ethnic, national, racial,
economic, religious, ideological, or medical character; and the super-
vision of the growth, spatial distribution, and social composition of
populations within their territories.
States’ efforts to monopolize the legitimate “means of movement”
have involved a number of mutually reinforcing aspects: the (gradual)
definition of states everywhere – at least from the point of view of the
international system – as “national” (i.e., as “nation-states” comprised of
members understood as nationals); the codification of laws establishing

.003
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 Pendant cinq jours et cinq nuits, la descente du fleuve continua
et la méthode de Mac Trigger, afin de bien inculquer au chien-loup la
civilisation, se poursuivit par trois autres rossées, qui lui furent
administrées à terre, et par un recours supplémentaire au supplice
de l’eau.
Le matin du sixième jour, l’homme et la bête atteignirent Red
Gold City et Mac Trigger campa près du fleuve. Il se procura une
chaîne d’acier, s’en servit pour attacher solidement Kazan à un gros
piquet, puis coupa lanière et muselière.
— Maintenant, dit-il à son prisonnier, tu ne seras plus gêné pour
manger. Je veux que tu redeviennes fort et aussi féroce que
l’Enfer… L’idée que je rumine vaut toute une cargaison de fourrures !
Oui, oui, c’est un riche filon qui bientôt remplira mes poches de
poussière d’or. J’ai déjà fait cela, et nous le referons ici. Par la grâce
de Dieu ! Voilà enfin un riche atout dans mon jeu !
 XXVI
LE PROFESSEUR WEYMAN DIT SON
MOT

Deux fois par jour, désormais, Sandy Mac Trigger apportait à

Kazan de la viande fraîche. Il ne lui donnait ni poisson, ni graisse, ni
bouillie à la farine, mais seulement de la viande crue. Il lui rapporta
un jour, de cinq milles de distance, les entrailles encore chaudes
d’un caribou, qu’il avait été tuer tout exprès.
A ce régime reconstituant, Kazan ne tarda pas à recouvrer la
santé et à se refaire de la chair et des muscles. Mac Trigger ne le
battait plus, et c’était Kazan qui l’accueillait, au bout de sa chaîne, en
grondant et en découvrant ses crocs.
Un après-midi, Sandy amena avec lui un autre homme. Kazan
bondit soudain sur l’étranger, qui s’était approché d’un peu trop près,
et qui sauta en arrière, avec un juron étouffé.
— Il fera l’affaire, grogna-t-il. Il est plus léger de dix à quinze
livres que mon danois. Mais il a ses crocs et la rapidité… Avant qu’il
ne touche le sol, ce sera un beau spectacle !
— Touche le sol… rétorqua Mac Trigger. Je te parie vingt-cinq
pour cent de ma part de bénéfices que ma bête n’aura pas le
dessous.
 — Tope là ! dit l’autre. Combien de temps encore avant qu’il ne
soit en forme ?
Sandy réfléchit un moment.
— Une semaine… Il n’aura pas avant tout son poids.
L’homme acquiesça de la tête.
— Ce sera donc pour aujourd’hui en huit, au soir.
Et il ajouta :
— Cinquante pour cent de ma part, que mon danois tuera ton
champion.
Sandy Mac Trigger regarda longuement Kazan.
— Je te prends au mot, dit-il finalement.
Et secouant la main de l’étranger :
— Je ne pense pas qu’il y ait, d’ici au Yukon, un seul chien qui
soit capable de venir à bout de ce métis de loup.
L’heure était à point pour offrir aux gens de Red Gold City une
fête de ce genre. Ils avaient bien, pour se distraire, le jeu et les
tripots, quelques rixes de temps à autre et les joies de l’alcool. Mais
la présence de la Police Royale avait mis un frein à l’excès de ces
divertissements. Comparée à celle que l’on menait, à plusieurs
centaines de milles vers le nord, dans la région de Dawson [38] la vie
était austère et plate à Red Gold City.
[38] Ville du Klondike.

L’annonce du combat organisé par Sandy Mac Trigger et par le

tenancier du bar, Jan Harker, fut accueillie par de multiples bravos.
La nouvelle s’en répandit, sous le manteau, à vingt milles à la ronde
et agita toutes les cervelles.
Au cours de la semaine qui précéda la rencontre, Kazan et le
gros danois furent, dans une arrière-pièce du bar, exhibés chacun
dans deux cages de bois, construites tout exprès.
Le chien de Harker était un métis de grand danois et de mâtin.
Né dans le Northland, il avait porté le harnais et tiré les traîneaux.
 La fièvre des paris commença. Ils étaient pour le danois, dans la
proportion de deux à un.
Parfois ils montaient à trois contre un. Les gens qui risquaient sur
Kazan leur argent et leur pain étaient d’anciens familiers du
Wilderness. Ils savaient ce qui signifiait, comme force et comme
endurance, l’éclat rougeâtre qui luisait aux yeux du chien-loup.
Un vieux trappeur, devenu mineur, confiait, à voix basse, à
l’oreille de son voisin :
— C’est pour celui-ci que je ferai ma mise. Il battra le danois à
plate couture. Le danois n’aura pas son savoir-faire.
— Mais il a le poids, répliquait l’homme, qui doutait. Regarde-moi
ses mâchoires et ses épaules…
— Regarde toi-même, interrompit le vieux trappeur, les pattes
trop faibles de ton champion, sa gorge tendre et trop exposée aux
crocs du chien-loup, et la lourdeur de son ventre. Pour l’amour de
Dieu, camarade, crois-m’en sur parole ! Ne mets pas ton argent sur
le danois !
D’autres hommes prirent part à la discussion, qui tenaient chacun
pour une des deux bêtes.
Kazan, tout d’abord, avait grondé vers toutes ces faces qui
l’entouraient. Puis il avait fini par se coucher dans un coin de la
cage, la tête entre ses pattes, et il regardait les gens, maussade et
silencieux.
Le soir du combat, la grande salle du bar de Jan Harker se
trouva complètement déblayée de ses tables. Surélevée sur une
plate-forme de trois pieds de haut, une grande cage, de dix pieds
carrés, autour de laquelle des bancs avaient été rangés, occupait le
milieu de la pièce. La partie supérieure de cette cage était ouverte
et, au-dessus, pendaient du plafond deux grosses lampes à pétrole,
munies de réflecteurs.
Trois cents spectateurs, qui avaient payé chacun cinq dollars
d’entrée, attendaient l’arrivée des deux gladiateurs.
 Le gros danois avait été introduit le premier dans la grande cage.
Il était huit heures du soir lorsque Harker, Mac Trigger et deux autres
hommes apportèrent dans la salle, à l’aide de forts brancards de
bois passés en dessous d’elle, la cage où était Kazan.
Le danois, qui clignotait des yeux sous la lumière crue des
réflecteurs, en se demandant ce qu’on lui voulait, dressa les oreilles
lorsque le chien-loup fut introduit près de lui.
Mais Kazan ne montra pas ses crocs et c’est à peine s’il se raidit
sur ses pattes, pendant quelques instants. Ce chien, qu’il ne
connaissait pas, lui était indifférent. Le danois ne bondit, ni ne
grogna. Kazan non plus ne l’intéressait point.
Il y eut parmi le public un murmure de désappointement. Le gros
danois tourna son regard vers les trois cents faces de brutes qui
l’entouraient et parut les examiner curieusement, en se dandinant
sur ses pattes. Kazan fit de même.
Un rire de dérision se mit à courir sur les lèvres de cette foule
étroitement tassée dans la salle, et qui était venue là pour un
spectacle de mort. Des cris d’animaux, et des quolibets partirent à
l’adresse de Mac Trigger et de Harker, et une clameur grandissante
s’éleva, qui réclamait la bataille promise ou le remboursement du
prix des places.
La figure de Sandy était pourpre de mortification et de rage. Sur
le front de Harker les grosses veines bleues s’enflaient comme des
bourrelets, au double de leur grosseur normale.
Le tenancier du bar montra le poing à la foule et hurla :
— Vous êtes bien pressés, tas d’idiots ! Laissez-les prendre
contact ! Patience, s’il vous plaît !
Le tumulte s’apaisa et les yeux se reportèrent à nouveau vers la
cage. Kazan était venu, en effet, se placer en face de l’énorme
danois et celui-ci avait commencé à dévisager Kazan.
Puis le chien-loup s’avança imperceptiblement. Avec prudence, il
se préparait à bondir sur son adversaire, ou à se jeter de côté, s’il y
avait lieu. Le danois l’imita. Leurs muscles à tous deux se raidirent.
On aurait pu, dans la salle, entendre maintenant le vol d’une
mouche. Sandy et Harker, debout près de la cage, respiraient à
peine.
Les deux bêtes, pareillement splendides, les deux lutteurs de tant
d’impitoyables batailles, allaient sans nul doute, par la cruelle
volonté des hommes, livrer leur dernier duel. Déjà les deux animaux
s’affrontaient.
Mais, à ce moment, que se passa-t-il en eux ? Est-ce O-se-ki, le
Grand Esprit des Solitudes, qui opéra dans leur cerveau et leur fit
comprendre que, victimes de la barbarie humaine, ils avaient l’un
envers l’autre un impérieux devoir de fraternité ?
Toujours est-il qu’à la seconde décisive, alors que toute la salle,
haletante, s’attendait à une mutuelle prise de corps, imminente et
féroce, on vit le gros danois lever lentement sa tête vers les lampes
à pétrole et esquisser un bâillement.
Harker, qui voyait son champion offrir ainsi sa gorge aux crocs de
Kazan, se mit à trembler de tous ses membres et à proférer d’affreux
blasphèmes. Kazan pourtant ne bondit pas. Le pacte de paix avait
été mutuellement scellé entre les deux adversaires qui, se
rapprochant l’un de l’autre, épaule contre épaule, parurent regarder
avec un immense dédain, à travers les barreaux de leur prison, la
foule à nouveau furieuse.
Ce fut, cette fois, une explosion de colère, un mugissement
menaçant, pareil à celui d’un ouragan. Exaspéré, Harker tira de l’étui
son revolver et coucha en joue le gros danois.
Mais, par-dessus le tumulte, une voix s’éleva.
— Arrêtez ! jeta-t-elle d’un ton de commandement. Arrêtez au
nom de la loi !
Il y eut un silence soudain et toutes les figures se retournèrent
vers la voix qui parlait.
Deux hommes étaient montés sur des tabourets et dominaient
les assistants.
 L’un était le sergent Brokaw, de la Police montée du Nord-Ouest.
C’est lui qui avait parlé. Il tenait sa main levée, pour ordonner
attention et silence. L’autre était le professeur Paul Weyman. Ce fut
lui qui, protégé par la main levée du sergent, prit ensuite la parole.
— Je donnerai, dit-il, aux propriétaires cinq cents dollars pour ces
chiens.
Il n’y eut personne dans la salle qui n’entendît l’offre ainsi faite.
Harker regarda Sandy. Leurs deux têtes se rapprochèrent.
— Ils ne veulent pas se battre, continua celui qui était survenu, et
ils feront d’excellents chiens de traîneaux. Je donnerai aux
propriétaires cinq cents dollars.
Harker fit un geste indiquant qu’il voulait parler.
— Donnez-en six cents ! Oui, six cents, et les deux bêtes sont à
vous.
Le professeur Paul Weyman parut hésiter. Puis il acquiesça de la
tête.
— Je paierai six cents, affirma-t-il.
La foule recommença à grogner. Harker grimpa sur la plate-
forme qui supportait la cage.
— Je ne suis point responsable, clama-t-il, pas plus que le
propriétaire du chien-loup, s’ils n’ont pas voulu se battre ! S’il est
toutefois, parmi vous, des gens assez peu délicats pour exiger le
remboursement de leur argent, on le leur rendra à la sortie ! Mais
nous sommes innocents de ce qui se passe. Les chiens nous ont
roulés, voilà tout.
Paul Weyman, accompagné du sergent, s’était frayé un chemin
jusqu’à la cage et, tout en sortant de sa poche une liasse de billets,
dont il compta trois cents à Jan Harker et trois cents à Sandy Mac
Trigger, il dit à mi-voix, aux deux bêtes qui le considéraient
curieusement à travers les barreaux :
— C’est un gros prix, un énorme prix que je paie pour vous, mes
petits amis… Mais vous me serez utiles pour poursuivre mon voyage
et bientôt, j’espère, nous serons les meilleurs camarades du monde.
 XXVII
SEULE DANS SA CÉCITÉ

Bien des heures après que Kazan fût tombé sur la rive du fleuve,
sous le coup de fusil de Sandy Mac Trigger, Louve Grise attendit
que son fidèle compagnon vînt la retrouver. Tant de fois il était
revenu vers elle qu’elle avait confiance dans son retour. Aplatie sur
son ventre, elle reniflait l’air et gémissait de n’y point découvrir
l’odeur de l’absent. Mais, de tout le jour, Kazan ne reparut point.
Le jour et la nuit étaient depuis longtemps semblables pour la
louve aveugle. Elle sentait pourtant, par un secret instinct, l’heure où
les ombres s’épaississaient, et que la lune et les étoiles devaient
briller sur sa tête. Mais, avec Kazan à côté d’elle, l’effroi de sa cécité
n’était plus pareil. Le même abîme des ténèbres ne lui semblait pas
l’envelopper.
Vainement elle lança son appel. Seule lui parvint l’âcre odeur de
la fumée qui s’élevait du feu allumé par Mac Trigger sur le sable. Elle
comprit que c’était cette fumée, et l’homme qui la produisait, qui
étaient la cause de l’absence de Kazan. Mais elle n’osa pas
approcher trop près ses pas ouatés et silencieux. Elle savait être
patiente et songea que, le lendemain, son compagnon reviendrait.
Elle se coucha sous un buisson et s’endormit.
La tiédeur des rayons du soleil lui apprit que l’aube s’était levée.
Elle se remit sur ses pattes et, l’inquiétude l’emportant sur la
prudence, elle se dirigea vers le fleuve. L’odeur de la fumée avait
disparu ainsi que celle de l’homme, mais elle percevait le bruit du
courant, qui la guidait.
Le hasard la fit retomber sur la piste que, la veille, Kazan et elle
avaient tracée, lorsqu’ils étaient venus boire sur la bande de sable.
Elle la suivit et arriva sans peine à la berge, à l’endroit même où
Kazan était tombé et où Mac Trigger avait campé.
Là son museau rencontra le sang coagulé du chien-loup, mêlé à
l’odeur que l’homme avait, tout à côté, laissée sur le sable. Elle
trouva le tronc d’arbre auquel son compagnon avait été attaché, les
cendres éteintes du foyer, et suivit jusqu’à l’eau la traînée laissée par
le corps de Kazan, lorsque Mac Trigger l’avait tiré demi-mort,
derrière lui, vers la pirogue. Puis toute piste disparaissait.
Alors Louve Grise s’assit sur son derrière, tourna vers le ciel sa
face aveugle et jeta vers Kazan disparu un cri désespéré, tel un
sanglot que le vent emporta sur ses ailes. Puis, remontant la berge
jusqu’au plus prochain buisson, elle s’y coucha, le nez tourné vers le
fleuve.
Elle avait connu la cécité, et maintenant elle connaissait la
solitude, qui venait y ajouter une pire détresse. Que pourrait-elle
faire ici-bas, désormais, sans la protection de Kazan ?
Elle entendit, à quelques yards d’elle, le gloussement d’une
perdrix des sapins. Il lui sembla que ce bruit lui arrivait d’un autre
monde. Une souris des bois lui passa entre les pattes de devant.
Elle tenta de lui donner un coup de dent. Mais ses dents se
refermèrent sur un caillou.
Une véritable terreur s’empara d’elle. Ses épaules se
contractaient et elle tremblait, comme s’il avait fait un gel intense.
Épouvantée de la nuit sinistre qui l’étreignait, elle passait ses griffes
sur ses yeux clos, comme pour les ouvrir à la lumière.
Pendant l’après-midi, elle alla errer dans le bois. Mais elle eut
peur et ne tarda pas à revenir sur la grève du fleuve, et se blottit
contre le tronc d’arbre près duquel Kazan enchaîné avait dormi sa
dernière nuit. L’odeur de son compagnon était là plus forte
qu’ailleurs et, là encore, le sol était souillé de son sang.
Pour la seconde fois, l’aube se leva sur la cécité solitaire de
Louve Grise. Comme elle avait soif, elle descendit jusqu’à l’eau et y
but. Quoiqu’elle fût à jeun depuis deux jours, elle ne songeait point à
manger.
Elle ne pouvait voir que le ciel était noir et que dans le chaos de
ses nuages sommeillait un orage. Mais elle éprouvait la lourdeur de
l’air, l’influence irritante de l’électricité, dont l’atmosphère était
chargée, et qui s’y déchargeait en zigzags d’éclairs.
Puis l’épais drap mortuaire s’étendit, du sud et de l’ouest, jusqu’à
l’extrême horizon, le tonnerre roula et la louve se tassa davantage
contre son tronc d’arbre.
Plusieurs heures durant, l’orage se déchaîna au-dessus d’elle,
dans le craquement de la foudre, et accompagné d’un déluge de
pluie. Lorsqu’il se fut enfin apaisé, Louve Grise se secoua et, sa
pensée toujours fixée vers Kazan qui était bien loin déjà à cette
heure, elle recommença à flairer le sable. Mais l’orage avait tout
lavé, le sang de Kazan et son odeur. Aucune trace, aucun souvenir
ne restaient plus de lui.
L’épouvante de Louve Grise s’en accrut encore et, comble de
misère, elle commença à sentir la faim qui lui tenaillait l’estomac.
Elle se décida à s’écarter du fleuve et à battre le bois à nouveau.
A plusieurs reprises, elle flaira divers gibiers qui, chaque fois, lui
échappèrent. Même un mulot dans son trou, qu’elle déterra des
griffes, lui fila sous le museau.
De plus en plus affamée, elle songea au dernier repas qu’elle
avait fait avec Kazan. Il avait été constitué par un gros lapin, dont
elle se souvint qu’ils n’avaient mangé que la moitié. C’était à un ou
deux milles.
Mais l’acuité de son flair et ce sens intérieur de l’orientation, si
puissamment développé chez les bêtes sauvages, la ramenèrent à
cette même place, à travers arbres, rochers et broussailles, aussi
droit qu’un pigeon retourne à son colombier.
 Un renard blanc l’avait précédée. A l’endroit où Kazan et elle
avaient caché le lapin, elle ne retrouva que quelques bouts de peau
et quelques poils. Ce que le renard avait laissé, les oiseaux-des-
élans et les geais des buissons l’avaient à leur tour emporté. Le
ventre vide, Louve Grise s’en revint vers le fleuve, comme vers un
aimant dont elle ne pouvait se détacher.
La nuit suivante, elle dormit encore là où avait dormi Kazan et,
par trois fois, elle l’appela sans obtenir de réponse. Une rosée
épaisse tomba, qui aurait achevé d’effacer la dernière odeur du
disparu, si l’orage en avait laissé quelques traces. Et pourtant, trois
jours encore, Louve Grise s’obstina à demeurer à cette même place.
Le quatrième jour, sa faim était telle qu’elle dut, pour l’apaiser,
grignoter l’écorce tendre des saules. Puis, comme elle était à boire
dans le fleuve, elle toucha du nez, sur le sable de la berge, un de
ces gros mollusques que l’on rencontre dans les fleuves du
Northland et dont la coquille à la forme d’un peigne de femme ; d’où
leur nom.
Elle l’amena sur la rive avec ses pattes et, comme la coquille
s’était refermée, elle l’écrasa entre ses dents. La chair qui s’y
trouvait enclose était exquise et elle se mit en quête d’autres
« peignes ». Elle en trouva suffisamment pour rassasier sa faim. En
sorte qu’elle demeura là durant trois autres jours.
Puis, une nuit, un appel soudain sonna dans l’air, qui l’agita d’une
émotion étrange. Elle se leva et, en proie à un tremblement de tous
ses membres, elle trottina de long en large sur le sable, tantôt
faisant face au nord, et tantôt au sud, puis à l’est et à l’ouest. La tête
rejetée en l’air, elle aspirait et écoutait, comme si elle cherchait à
préciser de quel point de l’horizon arrivait l’appel mystérieux.
Cet appel venait de loin, de bien loin, par-dessus le Wilderness. Il
venait du Sun Rock, où elle avait si longtemps gîté avec Kazan, du
Sun Rock où elle avait perdu la vue et où les ténèbres qui
l’enveloppaient maintenant avaient, pour la première fois, pesé sur
ses paupières. C’est vers cet endroit lointain, où elle avait fini de voir
la lumière et la vie, où le soleil avait cessé de lui apparaître dans le
ciel bleu, et les étoiles et la lune dans la nuit pure, que, dans sa
détresse et son désespoir, elle reportait tout à coup sa pensée. Là,
sûrement, s’imaginait-elle, devait être Kazan. Alors, affrontant sa
cécité et la faim, et tous les obstacles qui se dressaient devant elle,
tous les dangers qui la menaçaient, elle partit, abandonnant le
fleuve. A deux cents milles de distance était le Sun Rock, et ç’était
vers lui qu’elle allait.
 XXVIII
COMMENT SANDY MAC TRIGGER
TROUVA LA FIN QU’IL MÉRITAIT

Kazan, durant ce temps, à soixante milles vers le nord, était

couché au bout de sa chaîne d’acier et observait le professeur Paul
Weyman, qui mélangeait dans un seau, à son intention, de la
graisse et du son.
Le gros danois, à qui la moitié du repas était destinée, était
couché pareillement, à quelques pieds de Kazan, et ses énormes
mâchoires bavaient, dans l’attente du festin qui se préparait.
Le refus de ces deux superbes bêtes de s’entre-tuer pour le
plaisir de trois cents brutes, assemblées tout exprès, réjouissait
infiniment le digne professeur. Il avait dressé déjà le plan d’une
communication sur cet incident.
Ce fut le danois que Paul Weyman commença par servir. Il lui
apporta un litre environ de la succulente pâtée et, tandis que,
remuant la queue, le chien la malaxait dans ses puissantes
mâchoires, il lui donna sur le dos une chiquenaude amicale.
Son attitude fut toute différente quand il se dirigea vers Kazan.
Très prudemment il s’avança, sans vouloir, cependant, paraître avoir
peur.
 Sandy, qu’il avait longuement interrogé, lui avait conté l’histoire
de la capture de Kazan et la fuite de Louve Grise. Paul Weyman ne
doutait pas que le hasard ne lui eût fait retrouver la même bête qu’il
avait eue déjà en sa possession et à qui il avait rendu la liberté.
Tout en estimant que lui redonner cette liberté était devenu
inutile, puisque sa compagne sauvage avait disparu, à tout jamais
sans doute, le professeur s’efforçait, de tout son pouvoir, d’obtenir
les bonnes grâces de Kazan.
Ces avances demeuraient sans succès. Elles n’amenaient dans
les yeux du chien-loup aucune lueur de reconnaissance. Il ne
grognait pas à l’adresse de Weyman et ne tentait pas de lui mordre
les mains lorsqu’elles se trouvaient à sa portée. Mais il ne
manifestait nul désir de devenir amis. Le danois gris, au contraire,
s’était fait rapidement familier et confiant.
Parfois, sous un prétexte ou sous un autre, Mac Trigger venait
rendre visite à la petite cabane de bûches, qu’en compagnie d’un
domestique habitait Paul Weyman, au bord du Grand Lac de
l’Esclave, à une heure environ de Red Gold City.
Alors Kazan entrait en fureur et tirait sur sa chaîne par bonds
frénétiques, afin de se jeter sur son ancien maître. Ses crocs ne
cessaient pas de luire et il ne se calmait qu’en se retrouvant seul
avec le professeur.
Un jour, comme la même scène s’était renouvelée, Sandy Mac
Trigger dit à Paul Weyman :
— C’est un stupide métier que d’essayer de s’en faire un
camarade !
Puis il ajouta brusquement :
— Quand démarrez-vous d’ici ?
— Dans une huitaine, répondit le professeur. Les premières
gelées ne vont pas tarder. Je dois rejoindre le sergent Conroy et ses
hommes au Fort du Fond-du-Lac, le 1er octobre.
— Comment effectuez-vous ce voyage ?
 — Une pirogue viendra me chercher avec mes bagages et, en
remontant la Rivière de la Paix, m’emmènera d’ici au Lac
Athabasca [39] .
[39] Le Lac Athabasca, sur lequel se trouve le Fort du
Fond-du-Lac, est situé, comme nous l’avons dit, au sud
du Grand Lac de l’Esclave. La Rivière de la Paix relie les
deux lacs. La distance est de 350 kilomètres.

— Et vous emporterez avec vous tout le bazar qu’il y a dans cette

cabane ? Je pense que vous emmenez aussi les chiens…
— Oui.
Sandy alluma sa pipe et, d’un air indifférent en apparence, quel
que fût l’intérêt visible que ce dialogue faisait luire dans son regard :
— Ça doit coûter chaud, tous ces voyages, monsieur le
professeur ?
— Le dernier qui a précédé celui-ci m’est revenu à environ sept
mille dollars. Celui-ci en coûtera dans les cinq mille. Mais j’ai
diverses subventions.
— Bon Dieu de bon Dieu ! soupira Sandy. Alors vous partez dans
huit jours ?
— A peu près.
Sandy Mac Trigger se retira, avec un mauvais sourire au coin de
la lèvre.
Paul Weyman le regarda s’en aller.
— J’ai dans l’idée, dit-il à Kazan, que cet homme ne vaut pas
cher. Peut-être n’as-tu pas tort de toujours vouloir lui sauter à la
gorge. Il aurait apparemment désiré que je le prenne pour guide.
Il plongea ses mains dans ses poches et rentra dans a cabane.
Kazan, s’étant couché, laissa tomber sa tête entre ses pattes, les
yeux grands ouverts. L’après-midi était déjà fort avancé. On était
bientôt à la mi-septembre et chaque nuit apportait avec elle les
souffles froids de l’automne.
 Le chien-loup regarda les dernières lueurs du soleil s’éteindre
dans le ciel du Sud. Puis les ténèbres s’étendirent rapidement.
C’était l’heure où se réveillait son désir farouche de liberté. Nuit
après nuit, il rongeait la chaîne d’acier. Nuit après nuit, il avait
regardé la lune et les étoiles, et, tandis que le grand danois dormait
allongé tout de son long, interrogé l’air pour y saisir l’appel de Louve
Grise.
Le froid, cette nuit-là, était plus vif que de coutume, et la morsure
aiguë et glacée du vent de l’est agitait Kazan étrangement. Il lui
allumait dans le sang ce que les Indiens appellent la « frénésie du
froid ». Les nuits léthargiques de l’été s’en étaient allées et le temps
se rapprochait des chasses enivrantes, interminables. Kazan rêvait
de bondir en liberté, de courir jusqu’à épuisement, avec Louve Grise
à son côté.
Il fut en proie, toute la nuit, à une agitation extraordinaire. Il se
disait que Louve Grise l’attendait et il n’arrêtait pas de tirer sur sa
chaîne, en poussant des gémissements plaintifs. Une fois, il entendit
au loin un cri qu’il imagina être celui de sa compagne. Il y répondit si
bruyamment que Paul Weyman en fut tiré de son profond sommeil.
Comme l’aube était proche, le professeur se vêtit et sortit de la
cabane. Il remarqua aussitôt la froideur de l’air. Il mouilla ses doigts
et les éleva au-dessus de sa tête. Par le côté des doigts qui s’était
aussitôt séché, il constata que le vent était remonté au nord. Il se mit
à rire sous cape et, allant vers Kazan :
— Ce froid, mon vieux ! va détruire les dernières mouches. Dans
quelques jours, nous serons partis. La pirogue qui nous emmènera
doit être en route…
Au cours de la journée, Paul Weyman envoya son domestique à
Red Gold City, pour quelques emplettes, et il l’autorisa à ne rentrer
que le lendemain matin. Lui-même s’occupa à faire ses préparatifs
de voyage, à emballer ses bagages et à classer ses notes.
La nuit qui suivit fut calme et claire. Tandis que Weyman dormait
à l’intérieur de la cabane, dehors, le grand danois en faisait autant,
au bout de sa chaîne. Seul, Kazan ne faisait que somnoler, son
museau entre ses pattes, les paupières mi-closes.
Quoiqu’il fût moins agité que la nuit précédente, il redressait la
tête, de temps à autre, en humant l’air.
Soudain, le craquement d’une brindille sur le sol le fit sursauter. Il
ouvrit tout à fait les yeux et renifla. Un danger immédiat était dans
l’air. Le gros danois continuait à dormir.
Quelques minutes après, une forme ombreuse apparut dans les
sapins, derrière la cabane. Elle approchait prudemment, la tête
baissée, les épaules ramassées. Pourtant, à la lueur des étoiles,
Kazan ne tarda pas à reconnaître la face patibulaire de Sandy Mac
Trigger. Il ne bougea pas, suivant l’usage du loup, et feignit de ne
rien voir, de ne rien entendre.
Mac Trigger, cette fois, n’avait à la main ni fouet, ni gourdin. Mais
il tenait un revolver, dont le canon poli scintillait imperceptiblement. Il
fit le tour de la cabane, à pas silencieux, et arriva devant la porte,
qu’il se préparait à enfoncer d’un bref et violent coup d’épaule.
Kazan épiait tous ses mouvements. Il rampait sur le soi, en
oubliant sa chaîne. Chaque once de force de son corps puissant se
rassemblait sur elle-même pour bondir.
Il bondit, et l’élan fut tel qu’un des anneaux d’acier, plus faible
que les autres, céda, avec un bruit sec. Avant que Sandy Mac
Trigger eût eu le temps de se retourner et de se mettre en garde, le
chien-loup était à sa gorge.
Avec un cri d’épouvante, l’homme chavira et, tandis qu’il roulait
sur le sol, la voix grave du gros danois qui tirait sur sa chaîne,
gronda en un tonnerre d’alarme.
Paul Weyman, réveillé, s’habillait. Sur la terre sanglante, le
bandit, atteint mortellement et la veine jugulaire tranchée, se tordait
dans son agonie.
Kazan regarda les étoiles qui brillaient au-dessus de sa tête, les
noirs sapins qui l’entouraient. Il écouta le murmure du vent dans les
ramures. Ici étaient les hommes. Là-bas, quelque part, était Louve
Grise. Et il était libre.
Ses oreilles s’aplatirent et il fila dans les ténèbres.
 XXIX
L’APPEL DU SUN ROCK

Les oreilles rabattues, la queue basse et pendante sur le sol, le

train de derrière à demi écrasé, comme celui du loup qui se sauve
craintif devant le péril, Kazan fuyait à toute vitesse, poursuivi par le
râle de la voix humaine de Sandy Mac Trigger. Il ne s’arrêta pas
avant d’avoir parcouru un bon mille.
Alors, pour la première fois depuis des semaines, il s’assit sur
son train de derrière et poussa vers le ciel un vibrant et profond
appel, que les échos répétèrent au loin.
Ce ne fut pas Louve Grise qui répondit, mais, la voix du gros
danois. Paul Weyman, penché sur l’immobile cadavre de Sandy Mac
Trigger, entendit le hurlement du chien-loup. Il prêta l’oreille, en
écoutant si l’appel se renouvellerait. Mais Kazan était, déjà,
rapidement reparti.
L’air vif et froid qui, par-dessus les immenses Barrens, lui arrivait
de l’Arctique, les myriades d’étoiles qui luisaient au-dessus de sa
tête dans le vaste ciel, le bonheur enfin de la liberté reconquise, lui
avaient rendu toute son assurance et excitaient encore l’élasticité de
sa course.
Il galopait droit devant lui, comme un chien qui suit, sans que rien
ne l’en détourne, la piste de son maître.
 Contournant Red Gold City et tournant le dos au Grand Lac de
l’Esclave, il coupa court à travers bois et buissons, plaines,
marécages et crêtes rocheuses, en se dirigeant vers le Fleuve Mac
Farlane. Lorsqu’il l’eut atteint, il entreprit aussitôt d’en remonter le
cours, quarante milles durant. Il ne doutait point que, de même que
Louve Grise l’avait souvent attendu, elle ne l’attendît encore, à la
même place, sur la berge où lui-même avait été capturé.
Au lever du jour, il était arrivé à son but, plein d’espoir et de
confiance. Il regarda autour de lui, en cherchant sa compagne, et il
gémissait doucement, et remuait la queue. Louve Grise n’était point
là.
Il s’assit sur son derrière et lança dans l’air son appel du mâle.
Nulle voix ne lui répondit. Il se mit alors à flairer et à chercher
partout.
Mille pistes s’entre-croisaient et, toute la journée, il les suivit à
tour de rôle. Toujours sans succès. Aussi vainement il renouvela,
plusieurs fois, son appel.
Un travail semblable à celui qui s’était opéré chez Louve Grise se
produisit dans son cerveau. Sans doute celle qu’il cherchait et qui
avait disparu, il la retrouverait dans l’un des lieux où tous deux
avaient vécu.
Il songea tout d’abord à l’arbre creux, dans le marécage
hospitalier où s’était écoulé l’hiver précédent. Et, dès que la nuit
embrumée eut envahi le ciel, il reprit sa course. O-se-ki, le Grand
Esprit, se penchait sur lui et dirigeait ses pas [40] .
[40] On sait que, comme le loup, le chien est
susceptible de parcourir, sans se perdre, des distances
considérables et d’y suivre une direction fixe vers le but
qu’il s’est assigné. On a vu des chiens qui, lors des
campagnes de Napoléon, avaient accompagné des
soldats jusqu’en Russie et à Moscou s’en revenir seuls à
travers toute l’Europe, leur maître étant mort, et regagner,
en France ou en Italie, leur ancien domicile.