Eugène François Vidocq

Eugène François Vidocq – portrait by Achille Devéria

Eugène François Vidocq (French pronunciation: [øʒɛn fʀɑ̃swa viˈdɔk]; July 23, 1775 – May 11, 1857) was a French criminal and criminalist whose life story inspired several writers like Victor Hugo and Honoré de Balzac. A former crook who subsequently became the founder and first director of the crime-fighting Sûreté Nationale as well as the subsequent opening of the first known private detective agency, he is nowadays considered by historians as the "father" of modern criminology^[1][2] and of the French police^[3]. He is also regarded as the first private detective of all.^[4]

Biography

Eugène François Vidocq was born in the night from 23 to 24 July 1775 as the third child of the baker Nicolas Joseph François Vidocq (1744–1799) and his lawful wedded wife Henriette Françoise Vidocq (1744–1824, née Dion) in Arras in the Rue du Mirroir-de-Venise^{[N 1]}.

Childhood and Youth (1775-1794)

Little is known about the childhood of Vidocq, most of it from his ghost-written biography and a few documents in French archives. His father was well-educated and for those days very wealthy since he also operated as a corn dealer. Vidocq had six siblings: two older brothers (one of whom had already died at the time of Vidocqs birth), two younger brothers and two younger sisters.

Vidocq's teens were turbulent. He is described as being fearless, rowdy and cunning, very talented, but also very lazy. He spent much time in the armories (fighting halls) of Arras and acquired a reputation as a formidable fencer and the nickname „le Vautrin“ (wild boar^{[N 2]}) By stealing he provided himself with some level of comfort.

When Vidocq was thirteen years old he stole his parent's silver plates but spent the money from them within one day. Three days after the theft he was arrested and brought to the local jail Baudets^{[N 3]}. Only ten days later he learned that his father was the one who arranged for the arrest to teach him a lesson. After a total of fourteen days he was dismissed from prison, but even this warning and further punishment could not tame him.

By age fourteen, he had stolen a large amount of money from the cash box of his parent's bakery and left the town for Ostend where he tried to embark to The Americas. But he was defrauded one night and thus found himself suddenly fundless. To survive, he hired himself out to a group of traveling entertainers. Despite regular beatings, he worked hard enough to get promoted from stable boy to fair-monster. In this role he had to play a Caribbean cannibal who eats raw meat, which he could not stomach for very long, so he switched to a group of puppeteers. However, he was banished from them because he flirted with the young wife of his employer. He then worked some time as an assistant of a peddler, but as soon as he neared the area of Arras he left for his parents in hope of forgiveness. He was welcomed by his mother with open arms.

On 10 March 1791 he enrolled in the Bourbon Regiment, where his reputation as a terrific fencer was confirmed. According to Vidocq, within six months he had challenged fifteen people to a duel and killed two men. Despite not being a model soldier and causing difficulties, he spent only a total of fourteen days in jail. During those two weeks Vidocq helped a fellow inmate successfully escape.

Battle of Valmy

When France declared war against Austria on 20 April 1792, Vidocq had to participate in the battles during the First Coalition. For instance, he took part at the Battle of Valmy in September 1792. On 1 November 1792 he was appointed to corporal of the grenadiers. But during his promotion ceremony he challenged a higher officer to a duel. This sergeant major refused the duel, so Vidocq hit him. Striking a superior officer could have led to a death sentence so he deserted from his regiment and enlisted in the 11th chasseurs, of course, concealing his history. On 6 November 1792 he fought under General Dumouriez in the Battle of Jemappes.

In April 1793, Vidocq was identified as a deserter. He had followed a general, who was fleeing after a failed martial coup, into the enemy camp. After a few weeks, Vidocq returned to the French camp. A chasseur-captain friend interceded for him, so he was allowed to return safely to the chasseurs. Finally, he resigned from the army because he was no longer welcome to remain.

He was eighteen years old when he returned to Arras. He soon gained a reputation as a womanizer. Since his seductions often ended in duels, he was imprisoned in Baudets on 9 January 1794, where he was incarcerated until 21 January 1795.

On 8 August 1794, when he was barely 19, Vidocq married Anne Marie Louise Chevalier who was 5 days his senior, after she had feigned pregnancy. The marriage was not happy from the start and when Vidocq learned that his wife had cheated on him with the adjutant Pierre Laurent Vallain, he left again for the army. He did not see his wife again until their divorce in 1805.

Adventure years and prison (1795-1800)

Vidocq didn't stay long in the army. In autumn 1794, he spent most of his time in Brussels, which back then was a hideout for crooks of all kinds. There he lived on small frauds. Then one day he got into a police control and as a deserter he had no valid papers. When asked for his identity he described himself as Mr. Rousseau from Lille and while police still tried to confirm his statement Vidocq escaped.

1795 he joined - still under the name Rousseau - the armée roulante (English flying army). This army consisted of officers who in reality did have neither a officers commission nor a regiment. They were raiders, forging routes, ranks and uniforms, but staying away from the battlefields. Vidocq a.k.a. Rousseau began as a lieutenant of the chasseurs, but soon promoted himself to a hussar captain. In this role he met a rich widow in Brussels who took a shine to him. A conspirator of Vidocq made her believe that Vidocq was a young nobleman on the run because of the French revolution. Shortly before the planned wedding Vidocq scrupled and confessed to her. Then he left the city but not without a generous cash gift from her.

In March 1795 Vidocq moved to Paris, where he squandered all his money on loose women. He went back to the North and joined a group of Bohemian gypsies, which he later left for a woman he fell in love with, a certain Francine Longuet. When Francine cheated on him with a soldier he beat both of them up. The soldier sued him on which in September 1795 Vidoqc was sentenced to three months in prison. He was sent to the prison Tour Saint-Pierre in Lille for the period.

Vidocq was 20 and quickly adapted to life in prison and the usual practices. He befriended a group of men, one of them being Sebastien Boitel who had been sentenced to six years imprisonment for stealing. Then Boitel suddenly was released, but on the next day the local inspector noticed that the pardon was forged. Here starts the biggest controversy around Vidocq: Vidocq always claimed that he was completely innocent and not at all involved in the forging. Vidocq told the story as follows: two fellow inmates, Grouard, and Herbaux, had asked him to use his cell (as a soldier, Vidocq had a cell all to himself) for writing works of an unknown nature, because the common room was too noisy. Both inmates claimed however, that he helped in the fabrication and that the whole thing had been his idea. Thus Vidocq was not released after the three months.

In the next weeks Vidocq escaped several times with the help of Francine but always was captured soon again. During one of his escapes Francine caught him with another woman. He hid from her and when he finally was picked up again by police he learned that Francine had been found injured with multiple knife wounds. Suddenly he was not only accused of forgery but also attempted murder. It took some time until Francine conceded that the wounds were self-inflicted and the charge was dropped. Vidocq's contact to Francine was stopped when she was convicted to six month of prison for aiding at prison escapes.

The sentence

After a long delay his trial for document forgery began. On 27 December 1796 Vidocq and a second accused, César Herbaux, were found guilty and sentenced to eight years of hard work.

Worn out by the bad treatment of every species which I experienced in the prison of Douai, tormented by a watchfulness redoubled after my sentence, I took care not to make an appeal, which would keep me there some months. What confirmed me in my resolution was, the information that the prisoners were to be sent forthwith to the Bicêtre, and there, making one chain, to be sent on to the Bagne at Brest. It is unnecessary to say, that I relied on escaping on our route.

—Eugène François Vidocq, Memoirs of Vidocq, p. 54 ^[5]

Le Malheureux Cloquemin Sous les Verroux, 1830, shows a typical chain transport from Bicêtre to the bagne

In the prison of Bicêtre Vidocq had to wait several months for the transfer to the Bagne in Brest to labor in the galleys. A fellow inmate taught him the martial art savate which later was often useful for him. A escape attempt on 3 October 1797 failed and placed him into a dungeon for eight days. Finally on 21 November the transport to Brest began. No opportunity for escape opened on the way, but as soon as he arrived in Brest he got lucky. On 28 February 1798 he escaped dressed like a sailor. Only a few days later he was apprehended due to a lack of papers, but the police did not recognize him as an escaped convict. He claimed to be Auguste Duval and while officials checked this claim he was put into a prison hospital. There he stole the habit of a nun and escaped again in this disguise. In Cholet he found a job as cattle drover and while travelling through the country in this capacity he passed through Paris, Arras, Brussels, Ancer and finally Rotterdam, where he was shanghaied by Dutch. After a short career as privateer he was arrested again and brought to Douai where he was identified as Vidocq. He was transferred to the bagne in Toulon, where he arrived on 29 August 1799. After one failed escape attempt, he finally escaped again on 6 March 1800 with the help of a prostitute.

The turnaround (1800-1811)

Vidocq returned to Arras in hiding. The year was 1800. His father had died in 1799, so he found accommodation at his mother's home. There he hid for almost half a year, before he was recognized and had to flee again. He assumed an identity as Austrian and spend some time in a relationship with a widow, with whom he also moved to Rouen in 1802. Vidocq build up himself a reputation as businessman and finally felt secure enough to let his mother come live with him and the widow. But finally his past caught up with him. He was arrested and brought to Louvres. There he learned that he had been sentenced to death in absentia. With the help of the local Procurator-General Ransom he filed an appeal and spent the following five month in prison waiting for a re-trial. During this time Louise Chevalier contacted him to inform him about their divorce. When it seemed that there would be no decision concerning his sentence he decided to flee again. On 28 November 1805 while being unattended for a moment he jumped out of a window into the bypassing river Scarpe. The next four years he once again was a man on the run.

He spent some time in Paris, where he witnessed the execution of César Herbaux, the man with whom his life had started to spiral downwards. This event triggered a process of reconsideration in Vidocq. With his mother and a woman he called Annette in his memoirs, he moved several times in the following years. But again and again people from his past recognized him. He had again tried to become a legitimate merchant, but his former wife had found him in Paris and blackmailed him for money and a couple of former fellow convicts forced him to fence for them.

La Force prison in Paris

On 1 July 1809, only a few days before his 34th birthday, Vidcoq was arrested again. He decided to stop living on the fringes of society and offered his service as an informant to the police. His offer was accepted and on 20 July he was jailed in Bicêtre where he started his work as a spy. On 28 October he continued his work in La Force Prison. He sounded out his inmates and forwarded his information about forged identities and unsolved crimes through Annette to the police chief of Paris Jean Henry.

I believe I might have become a perpetual spy, so far was every one from supposing that any connivance existed between the agents of the public authority and myself. Even the porters and keepers were in ignorance of my mission with which I was entrusted. Adored by the thieves, esteemed by the most determined bandits (for even these hardened wretches have a sentiment which they call esteem), I could always rely on their devotion to me.

—Eugène François Vidocq, Memoirs of Vidocq, p. 190 ^[5]

After 21 months of spying Vidocq was released from jail on the recommendation of Henry. To not raise suspicion among the other inmates, the release which was taking place on 25 March 1811 was arranged to look like an "escape." Still, Vidocq was not really free, because now he was obliged to Henry. Therefore, he continued to work as a secret agent for the Paris police. He used his contacts and his reputation in the criminal underworld to gain trust. He disguised himself as an escaped convict and immersed himself into the criminal scene to learn about planned and committed crimes. He even took part in felonies in order to suddenly turn on his partners and arrest them. When criminals eventually began to suspect him, he used disguises and assumed other identities to continue his work and throw off suspicion.

The Sûreté (1811-1832)

At the end of 1811 Vidocq informally organized a plainclothes unit, the Brigade de la Sûreté (engl. Security Brigade). When the police department recognized the value of the civil agents, the experiment in October 1812 got officially converted to be a security police under the umbrella of the Prefecture of Police. Vidocq was appointed to be its leader. On 17 December 1813 Napoleon Bonaparte signed a decree, which made the brigade a state security police. From this day on it was called Sûreté Nationale.

The Sûreté initially had eight, then twelve, in 1823 twenty employees, and one year later one more increase to 28 secret agents. In addition, there were eight persons who secretly worked for the Sûreté but instead of a salary they received licences for gambling halls. A major part of Vidocq's subordinates were ex-criminals like himself. He even hired them fresh from the prisons, like e.g. Coco Lacour, who later would be Vidocq's successor at the Sûreté. Vidocq described his work from this period:

It was with a troop so small as this that I had to watch over more than twelve hundred pardoned convicts, freed, some from public prisons, others from solitary confinement: to put in execution, annually, from four to five hundred warrants, as well from the préfet as the judicial authorities; to procure information, to undertake searches, and to obtain particulars of every description; to make nightly rounds, so perpetual and arduous during the winter season; to assist the commissaries of police in their searches, or in the execution of search-warrants; to explore the various rendezvous in every part; to go to the theatres, the boulevards, the barriers, and all other public places, the haunts of thieves and pickpockets.

—Eugène François Vidocq, Memoirs of Vidocq, p. 233 ^[5]

Vidocq personally trained his agents, for example in selecting the correct disguise depending on the kind of job. He himself still went out hunting for criminals too. His memoirs are full with stories about how he outsmarted criminals by pretending to be a beggar or an old cuckold. At one point he even simulated his own death.

During 1814, at the beginning of the French Restoration, Vidocq and the Sûreté tried to contain the situation in Paris. He also arrested those who tried to exploit the post-revolutionary situation by claiming to have been aristocrats. During 1817, he was involved with 811 arrests, including those of 15 assassins and 38 fences. By 1820 his activities had decreased the crime of Paris substantially. His annual income was 5,000 francs, but he also worked as a private investigator for a fee. Evil rumors at the time claimed that Vidocq set criminals up, organizing break-ins and robberies and having his agents wait to collect. Even though some of Vidocq's techniques might have been questionable, there seems to have been no truth about this.

Despite his position as chief of a police authority Vidocq still was a wanted criminal. His conviction for document forgery had never been fully dismounted and so alongside complaints and denunciations his superiors repeatedly received requests from the prison director of Douai, which were ignored. Finally the Comte Jules Anglès, prefect of the Paris police, reacted to a petition by Vidocq and initiated the official pardon, which he received on 26 March 1817 by king Louis XVIII.

Honoré de Balzac

In November 1820 Vidocq married again, this time the destitute Jeanne-Victoire Guérin, whose origin is unknown, which at that time led to speculations. She moved in his house in Rue de l'Hirondelle 111, where also Vidocq's mother and a niece of her, the 27-year-old Fleuride Albertine Maniez (* March 22, 1793), lived. In 1822 Vidocq befriended the author Honoré de Balzac who began to use him as a model for several figures in his books. Vidoq's wife, who was ailing during the whole conjugal life, died after four years of marriage in June 1824 in a hospital. Six weeks later, on 30 July 1824, Vidcoq's mother died at age 83. She was buried with honours and her requiem was performed in Notre Dame Cathedral.

During the 1820s some events occurred, which also had an impact on the police apparatus. After the assassination of the Duc de Berry in February 1820 police prefect Anglès had to resign and was replaced by the Jesuit Guy Delavau who set a high value on religiosity among his subordinates. In 1824 Louis XVIII died. His successor was the ultra-reactionary Charles X, who reigned repressively and for this purpose regularly withdrew police agents from their original activities. Finally Vidocq's immediate superior, the police chief Henry, retired and was succeeded by Parisot who quickly was superseded by the ambitious but also very formal Marc Duplessis. The antipathy between Vidocq and Duplessis was great. Time and time again Duplessis complained about trivial matters, for example, that Vidocq's agents spent time in brothels and bars of ill repute. Vidocq's reasoning that they had to do this to establish contacts and gather information was ignored. When Vidocq received two official warnings within a short time, he had enough. On 20 June 1827, the 52-year-old handed in his resignation:

Depuis dix-huit ans, je sers la police avec distinction. Je n'ai jamais reçu un seul reproche de vos prédécesseurs. Je dois donc penser n'en avoir pas mérité. Depuis votre nomination à la deuxième division, voilà la deuxième fois que vous me faites l'honneur de m'en adresser en vous plaignant des agents. Suis-je le maître de les contenir hors du bureau? Non. Pour vous éviter, monsieur, la peine de m'en adresser de semblables à l'avenir, et à moi le désagrément de les recevoir, j'ai l'honneur de vous prier de vouloir bien recevoir ma démission.
Translation: "For eighteen years I served the police with distinction. I've never received any criticism from your predecessors. I must think therefore that I never earned one. Since your appointment to the Second Division, this is the second time you did me the honor to address me by complaining about my agents. Am I their master in the time they spend out of office? No. To save you, sir, the trouble of sending me further similar complaints in the future, and me the inconvenience of receiving them, I have the honor to solicit you for accepting my resignation"

—resignation of Eugène François Vidocq

He then wrote his memoirs with the help of a ghost-writer.

Marriage certificate (page 1 of 3)

Vidocq, who was a rich man after his resignation, became an entrepreneur. In Saint-Mandé, a small town north of Paris, where he also married his cousin Fleuride Maniez on 28 January 1830, he founded a paper factory. He mainly employed released convicts - both men and women. This caused an outrageous scandal in society and lead to disputes. In addition, the machines cost money, the semi-skilled workers needed food and clothing, and the customers refused to pay marked prices with the argument that he had a seemingly cheaper workforce. The company did not last long - Vidocq went bankrupt in 1831. But in the short time while he was away from Paris, both Delavau and Duplessis had to resign their posts and Charles X had to abdicate during the July Revolution in 1830. When Vidocq delivered a few useful tips which helped to solve a burglary, the new Police Prefect Henri Gisquet appointed him again chef of the Sûreté.

The criticism of Vidocq and his organization grew. The July Monarchy caused insecurities in society, and there was a cholera outbreak in 1832. One of its victims was General Jean Maximilien Lamarque. During his funeral on 5 June 1832 a revolt erupted and the throne of "Citizen King" Louis-Philippe I was in danger. Allegedly Vidocq's group cracked down on the rioters with great severity. Not all the police approved of his methods, and rivalries developed. A rumour came up that Vidocq had initiated the theft that led to his reinstatement himself to show his indispensability. One of his agents had to go to prison for two years because of that affair, but Vidocq's involvement could not be proved. Finally the problems for his agency culminated, when more and more defenders claimed that Vidocq and his agents were not credible as eye witnesses since most of them had a criminal past themselves. Vidocq's position was untenable for good and on 15 November 1832 he once again resigned using the pretext of his wife being ill.

J'ai l'honneur de vous informer que l'état maladif de mon épouse m'oblige de rester à Saint-Mandé pour surveiller moi-même mon établissement. Cette circonstance impérieuse m'empêchera de pouvoir à l'avenir diriger les opérations de la brigade de sûreté. Je viens vous prier de vouloir bien récepter ma démission, et recevoir mes sincères remerciements pour toutes les marques de bonté dont vous avez daigné me combler. Si, dans une circonstance quelconque, j'étais assez heureux pour vous servir, vous pouvez compter sur ma fidélité et mon dévouement à toute épreuve.
Translation: "I have the honor to inform you that the ill health of my wife is forcing me to stay in Saint-Mandé to monitor my establishment. This urgent circumstance will preclude my ability to steer the future operations of the security brigade. Please accept my resignation and my sincere thanks for all the marks of kindness with which you deigned to grace me. Yes, under all circumstances I was happy to be able to attend you, and you can count on my loyalty and devotion by any means."

—Vidocq in his resignation from 15 November 1832

On the same day, the Sûreté was dissolved and re-established. Agents with criminal records were no longer allowed. Vidocq's successor was Pierre Allard.

Le bureau des renseignements (1833-1848)

In 1833, Vidocq founded Le bureau des renseignements (engl. Office of Information), a company that was as a mixture between detective agency and private police. It is considered as the first known detective agency.^[6] Once again he predominantly hired ex-cons.

His squad, which initially consisted of eleven detectives, two clerks and one secretary, pitted itself on behalf of businesspeople and private citizends against Faiseurs (crooks, fraudsters, bankruptcy artists), occasionally using illegal means too. As from 1837 Vidocq was in constant quarrels with the official police because of his activities and his diffuse relations with various government agencies such as the War Department. On 28 November 1837 the police executed a search and seizure and confiscated over 3,500 files an documents. A few days later Vidocq was arrested and spent Christmas and New Year in jail. He was charged with three crimes, namely the acquisition of money by deception, the corruption of civil servants, and the pretension of public functions. In February 1838 after the hearing of numerous witnesses the judge rejected all three indictments. Vidocq was free again.

Vidocqs person increasingly became the subject of literature and public discussions. Balzac wrote several novels and plays which contained characters modeled after Vidocq.

The Conciergerie

The agency flourished, but Vidocq continued to make enemies, some of them powerful. On 17 August 1842, on behalf of police prefect Gabriel Delessert 75 police officers stormed his office building and arrested him and one of his agents. This time the case seemed to be clear. In an investigation for defalcation he had made an illegal arrest and had demanded a bill of exchange for the embezzled money from the arrested fraudster. For the next few month 67 years old Vidocq was remanded in custody in the Conciergerie. Only on 3 May 1843 the first hearings took place before judge Michel Barbou, a close friend of Delessert. During the trial Vidocq had to give account for many other cases, among them the kidnapping of several women which allegedly he had delivered to monasteries against their will at the behest of their families. Also his activities as money lender and possible benefits from it were examined. Finally he was sentenced to five years imprisonment and a fine of 3,000 franc. Vidocq immediately appealed and through the intervention of political friends like the count Gabriel de Berny and the attorney general Franck-Carré he quickly got a new trial, this time with the chief judge of court royale. The hearing on 22 July 1843 was a matter of minutes, and after eleven months in the Conciergerie Vidocq once again was a free man.

The harm was done. The lawsuit had been very expensive and his reputation was damaged, so that the business at the agency no longer ran properly. Besides Delessert tried to get him expelled from the city for being a former criminal. Although the attempt failed Vidocq increasingly considered to get rid of the agency. But qualified reputable buyers were lacking.

In the following years Vidocq published several small books in which he depicted his life in direct confrontation with the rumours about him which were afloat. In 1844 he presented an essay on prisons, penitentiaries, and the death penalty. On the morning of 22 September 1847 his third wife Fleuride died after 17 years of marriage. Vidocq did not marry again, but until his death he had several life partners.

In 1848 the February revolution caused the abdication of "Citizen King" Louis-Philippe. The Second Republic with Alphonse de Lamartine as the head of a transitional government was proclaimed. And although Vidocq always had been proud of his receptions at the kings court and had boasted with his access to Louis-Philippe, he offered his services to the new government. His task was the surveillance of political opponents such as Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, the nephew of Napoleon I. Meanwhile, the new government sank into chaos and violence. At the presidential elections scheduled for 10 December 1848 Lamartine received less than 8,000 votes. Vidocq present himself as a candidate in the 2nd Arrondissement, but received only one vote. The clear winner and thus president of the Second Republic was Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte who did not react to Vidocqs offer to work for him.

His last years (1849-1857)

In 1849 Vidocq had to go to prison one last time for a short time. However the indictment for fraud was dropped. He withdrew more and more into private life and only accepted only small cases every now and then. In the last years of his life he suffered a massive pain in his right arm which had been broken in the past and never healed properly. Also malinvestments had costed him a large portion of his assets, so he had to curb his living standard and live in rented accommodation. In August 1854 despite contrary prognosis by his doctor he survived the cholera. Only in April 1857 his condition deteriorated so that he could no longer stand up. On 11 May 1857 Vidocq died at the age of 82 years in his home in Paris in the presence of his doctor, his lawyer and a priest.

Je l'aimais, je l'estimais… Je ne l'oublierai jamais, et je dirai hautement que c'était un honnête homme!
Translation: "I liked him, I appreciated him… I will never forget him, and I can just say he was an honest man!"

—Alphonse de Lamartine^[7]

Entry in the register of deaths of the church Saint-Denys

His body was brought the church Saint-Denys du Saint-Sacrement, where the funeral service was held. It is not known where Vidocq is buried, wherefore some rumours about it exist. One of them for example which is mentioned in the biography of John Philip Stead claims that his grave is located at the cemetery in Saint Mandé.^[8] There is a gravestone with the inscription "Vidocq 18". According to information from city officials however, this grave is registered to Vidocqs last wife Fleuride-Albertine Maniez.

In the end, his assets consisted of 2,907.50 francs from the sale of his goods and a pension of 867.50 francs.^[6] A total of eleven women came forward as owners of his testament, a document which they had received for their favour instead of presents. His remaining assets went to Anne-Heloïse Lefèvre, at whose house he had lived at the end. Vidocq had no children, at least none that would be known. Recognition attempts by Emile-Adolphe Vidocq, the son of his first wife, who for these purposes changed his last name, failed. Vidocq had left evidence which excluded his paternity. At the time of conception he had been in prison.

Criminal legacy

Vidocq is considered by historians as the "father" of modern criminology.^[1][2] His approaches were new and unique for that time. He is credited with the introduction of undercover work, ballistics, criminology and a record-keeping-system to criminal investigation. He made the first plaster casts of shoe impressions. He created indelible ink and unalterable bond paper with his printing company. His form of anthropometrics is still partially used by French police. He is also credited for philanthropic pursuits – he claimed he never informed on anyone who had stolen for real need. At the same time his work was not acknowledged in France for a long time because of his criminal past. In September 1905 the Sûreté Nationale exhibited a painting series with its former heads. However, the first painting of the series showed Pierre Allard, Vidocqs successor. The newspaper L’Exclusive reported on 17 September 1905 that on obtaining information concerning the omission they had gotten the answer that Vidocq never had been head of the Sûreté.

Remodelling of the police force

When Vidocq crossed to the police around 1810, there were two police organizations in France: on the one side the police politique, a intelligence agency, whose agents were dealing with the detection of conspiracies and intrigues; on the other side the normal police, who investigated in the common crimes like theft, fraud, prostitution, and murder. Since the Middle Ages those constables wore identification insignia which over time had developed to full uniforms. Unlike the often covertly operating political police, they were easy to spot. For fear of attacks they did not dare to enter some Parisian districts, their possibilities in crime prevention were correspondingly limited.

Vidocq persuaded his superiors to allow his agents, which also included women, the utilization of plain clothes and disguises depending on a situation. Thus they did not attract attention and as former criminals also knew the hiding places and methods of criminals. Through their contacts they often learned about planned crimes and were able to catch the thugs red-handed. Vidocq also had a different approach on interrogations. In his memoirs he mentions several times that he didn't take the arrested to prison immediately, but invited them to dinner where he had a chat with them. In addition to information about other crimes he often obtained confessions the non-violent way and recruited future informants and even agents.

August Vollmer, the first police chief of Berkeley, California and a leading personality in the development of criminal justice in the United States^[9] engaged himself into the works of Vidocq and the Austrian criminal jurist Hans Gross for his reform of the Berkeley police force.^[10] His reform ideas were adopted by the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) and as a result also affected J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI.^[11] After Robert Peel had established Scotland Yard in 1829, he sent a committee to Paris in 1832 which conferred with Vidocq for several days. In 1843 again two commissars of Scotland Yard traveled to Paris for further training. They spent only two days with Pierre Allard, who was head of the Sûreté by then. Then they went to Vidocq and for one week accompanied him and his agents in their work.

Identification of criminals

Bertillonage

Jürgen Thorwald stated in his book Das Jahrhundert der Detektive (1964) that Vidocq had a photographic memory which allowed him to recognize previously convicted criminals, even in disguise. Biographer Samuel Edwards reported in The Vidocq Dossier about a trial against the fraudster and forger Lambert, in which Vidocq referred to his memory of the accused. Vidocq regularly visited the prisons to memorise the faces of the inmates, and made his agents visit prisons for the same purpose. The English police adopted this method. Until the late 1980s, British investigators attended court hearings to observe the spectators in the public galleries and become aware of possible accomplices.

As Vidocq said at Lambert's trial while his memory was phenomenal, he could not require the same of his agents. Therefore for each arrested person he carefully set up an index card with a personal description, aliases, previous convictions, modus operandi, and other information. The card of forger Lambert contained among other things a handwriting sample. The index card system had been retained not only by the French police but also employed by police units in other countries. However, it soon revealed its weaknesses. By the time Alphonse Bertillon came to the Sûreté as clerk in 1879, the descriptions on the cards were not detailed enough anymore to really identify suspects based on them. This caused Bertillon to develop a anthropometric system for personal identification called the bertillonage. The sorting of the card boxes, which by then already filled several rooms, was converted to body dimensions, the first of many attempts to improve the structure of the sorting. With the advent of information age the cards were digitised and the card boxes were replaced by databases. Among them are several databases which are managed by the FBI, e.g. the IAFIS, a biometric database, the MUPS, a database containing data on missing persons and unidentified bodies, and the NIBRS, which documents criminal incidents.

Scientific experiments

Forensic science didn't exist during Vidocq's time. Despite numerous scientific papers the practical benefits had not yet been recognized by the police which should not be changed by Vidocq. Nevertheless, he was not so adversed against experiments as his superiors and usually had a small laboratory set up in the office buildings. In the archives of the Parisian police there are some reports of cases for whose solving he had applied forensic methods decades before their actual recognition.

Chemical compounds

In the France of Vidocqs time there already existed cheques and promissory notes. Counterfeiters purchased those cheques and then changed them to their advantage. To address this problem in 1817 Vidocq commissioned two chemists to develop a tamper-proof paper. This paper for which Vidocq filed a patent had been treated with chemicals which would smear the ink in case of later amendments and thus make the forging identifiable. According to the biographer Edwards Vidocq used his connections extensively, soliciting his paper to those who were deceived, mainly bankers who contracted him to investigate. Thereby the paper was widely-used. Vidocq also used it for the cards of his index card system to emphasize their reliability in court. He also instructed the creation of ink that could no longer be made invisible. This ink has been used among other things by the French Government for the printing of banknotes from the mid-1860s.

Crime scene investigation

Louis Mathurin Moreau-Christophe, contemporary general director of the French prisons, described in his book Le monde des coquins how Vicoq used traces at the crime scene to determine the perpetrator based on his knowledge about familiar criminals and their modus operandi. As a concrete example Moreau named a burglary in the Bibliothèque nationale de France in 1831 where he himself was present at the investigation too. Vidocq accurately inspected a door panel which had been damaged by the offender and then told that due to the used method and the perfection in which it was executed he only knew one perpetrator to be considered for the act. He suggested the thief Fossard but mentioned that he couldn't be the culprit since he was still in prison. Thereupon the also present police chief Lecrosnier told that Fossard had escaped eight days before. Two days later Vidocq was able to arrest the thief who really had committed the burglary.

Literature

Rastignac and Vautrin on the cover of Le Père Goriot

Around 1827 Vidocq wrote a biography about his life so far, which he planed to publish in summer 1828 at the bookseller Emile Morice. But the friendly authors Honoré de Balzac, Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas were of the opinion that the story was too short, so Vidocq looked for a new publisher which he found in Louis François L'Héritier. In December of the same year L'Héritier published the memoirs which had increased to four volumes through the help of some ghostwriters. The work became a bestseller and sold over 50,000 times in the first year according to biographer Samuel Edwards. The success inspired imitators. In 1829 two journalists under the pseudonym of a criminal named Malgaret published the book Mémoires d’un forçat ou Vidocq dévoilé which should expose criminal activities Vidocq allegedly had committed. Also other police officers followed Vidocqs example and published their own biographies in the following years, among them the prefect of police Henri Gisquet.

Vidocqs life story inspired many contemporary writers, many of them belonged to his closest friends. In Balzacs writings he regularly was the model of literary figures: in the third part of Illusions perdues – Les Souffrances de l'inventeur – his experiences as failed entrepreneur were seized, in Gobseck Balzac introduces the policemen Corentin, but most clearly the connection to Vidocq can be found in the figure Vautrin. This character first appears in the novel Le Père Goriot, then in Illusions perdues, Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes (as main character), La Cousine Bette, Le Contrat de mariage and finally is the main character in theatre play Vautrin from 1840. Not only Vidocq as a person but also his methods and disguises inspired Balzac in his work.

In Victor Hugo's Les Misérables (1862) both main characters, the reformed criminal Jean Valjean and his pursuer, police inspector Javert, were modelled after Vidocq; same for the policemen Monsieur Jackal in Les Mohicans de Paris (1854–1855) from Alexandre Dumas. He also was the basis for Rodolphe de Gerolstein who provided justice in the serial newspaper novel The Mysteries of Paris of Eugène Sue in the weekly newspaper Journal des débats. And he was the inspiration of Émile Gaboriau for Monsieur Lecoq, one of the first scientific and methodical investigators who played the lead role in many adventures, who in turn then was a major influence for the creation of Sherlock Holmes. It is also believed that Edgar Allan Poe was prompted by a story about Vidocq to create the first detective in fiction, C. Auguste Dupin^[12], who appeared for example in the short story The Murders in the Rue Morgue which is considered the first detective story.^[13][14][15] Vidocq is also mentioned in Moby Dick of Herman Melville^[16] and Great Expectations of Charles Dickens.

Theatre

Melodrama at the Parisian Boulevard du Crime, Honoré Daumier

Vidocq was – probably obvious considering his penchant for disguises – a friend of the theater. During his lifetime the Boulevard du Crime was quite popular, a road with several theatres which regularly presented crime stories in form of melodramas. One of this theatres was the Théâtre de l'Ambigu-Comique, which was sponsored by Vidocq to a great extent. According to the biographer James Morton Vidocq also submitted a play, but it never was produced. He also had plans to dabble in play-acting but never carried them out.

Not only many of Vidocqs paramours were actresses, but a lot of his friends and acquaintances too were from the theatre scene. Among them was the famous actor Frédérick Lemaître who inter alia played the main role in Balzac's Vautrin, a play which debuted on 14 March 1840 at Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin after numerous problems with the censorship. Lemaître tried to adapt his appearance to that of Vidocq on whom the character Vautrin was based. At the premiere there were commotions because the wig Lemaître had used was also similar to the one of King Louis-Philippe. The play was banned by the French interior minister after that and not performed again.

But not only plays inspired by Vidocq were shown in theatre, his one life story also made it on stage several times, usually with his memoirs as literary template. Especially in England the enthusiasm was great for Vidocq. The memoirs had been rapidly translated into English and a few month later on 6 July 1829 the premiere of Vidocq! The French Police Spy was taking place in Surrey Theatre in the London Borough of Lambeth. The melodrama in 2 acts, produced by Robert William Elliston, was penned by Douglas William Jerrold, the main character was played by TP Cooke. Although the critics, among them one from The Times, were quite positive, the play was performed only nine times in the first month and then dropped.

In December 1860, some years after Vidocqs death, another play about him, written by F. Marchant, was presented in Britannia Theatre in Hoxton under the title Vidocq or The French Jonathan Wild. It was included in the theatre program for only one week.

In 1909 Émile Bergerat wrote the melodrama Vidocq, empereur des policiers in five acts and seven scenes. The producers Hertz and Coquelin rejected it but Bergerat sued them successfully for 8,000 francs damages. The play debuted in 1910 in Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt. Jean Kemm, who years later would also participate in a movie about Vidocq, took over the lead role.

Film adaptations

The first film about Vidocq was made back in 1909. Based on his memoirs on 13 August 1909 the short black and white silent film La Jeunesse de Vidocq ou Comment on devient policier was published in France.^[17] Vidocq was played by Harry Baur who also portrayed him in the two sequels L'Évasion de Vidocq (1910^[18]) and Vidocq (1911^[19])

Under the direction of Jean Kemm the next silent movie Vidocq was created in 1922.^[20] The screenplay was written by Arthur Bernède based again on Vidocqs memoirs. The main role was played by René Navarre.

The first sound film, albeit still in black and white, was published in 1938. Jacques Daroy shot the film which once again was named after the main character Vidocq with actor André Brulé. The film mostly displayed Vidocqs criminal career. Compared to other contemporary crime films it was rather unglamorous but still was played in some movie theatres outside of France.^[21]

On 19 July 1946 the first film about Vidocq made by Americans appeared – A Scandal in Paris^[22], still in black and white. George Sanders portrayed Vidocq in the highly fictionalized biopic by Douglas Sirk, which showed the rise of a rogue in society coupled with a love story. Already in April 1948 it was followed by the next French version of Vidocqs life story. Le Cavalier de Croix-Mort was shot by Lucien Ganier-Raymond with Henri Nassiet in the leading role.^[23]

On 7 January 1967 the French television station ORTF showed the first of two television series, each with 13 episodes. Vidocq^[24] with Bernard Noël was still in black and white. This changed only with the second series Les Nouvelles Aventures de Vidocq^[25] which premiered on 5 January 1971. Claude Brasseur was the first to display Vidocq in colour.

Finally in 2001 Gérard Depardieu under the direction of Pitof depicted Vidocq in a science fiction film, once again named Vidocq.

Further information

Notes

Literature

Books by Vidocq

• Mémoires de Vidocq, chef de la police de Sûreté, jusqu'en 1827 (ghost-written autobiography), 1828
• Les voleurs (a study about thiefs and imposters), 1836, Roy-Terry, Paris
• Dictionnaire d'Argot (a Argot-dictionary), 1836
• Considérations sommaires sur les prisons, les bagnes et la peine de mort (deliberations on how to reduce criminality), 1844
• Les chauffeurs du nord. (memories of his time as a gang member), 1845

• Les vrais mystères de Paris. (a novel written by Horace Raisson and Maurice Alhoy, but for promotional reasons was published under Vidocqs name), 1844

Biographies

• Morton, James: The First Detective: The Life and Revolutionary Times of Vidocq. Ebury Press, ISBN 978-0-09-190337-4. 
• Stead, John Philip: Vidocq. Picaroon of Crime. 1954.
• Guyon, Louis: Biographie des Commissaires et des Officiers de Paix de la ville de Paris. Édition Goullet, Paris 1826.
• Hodgetts, Edward A.: Vidocq. A Master of Crime. Selwyn & Blount, London 1928.
• Maurice, Barthélemy: Vidocq. Vie et aventures. Laisné, Paris 1861.
• Savant, Jean: La vie aventureuse de Vidocq. Librairie Hachette, Paris 1973.

• Edwards, Samuel: The Vidocq dossier: the story of the world's first detective. Houghton Mifflin, Boston 6 December 2009, ISBN 0-395-25176-1. 

About Vidocqs influence on criminalistics

• Emsley, Clive; Shpayer-Makov, Haia: Police detectives in history, 1750-1950. Ashgate, Aldershot, Hants, England 6 December 2009, ISBN 0-7546-3948-7. 
• Feix, Gerhard: Das große Ohr von Paris. Fälle der Sûreté. Verlag Das Neue Berlin, Berlin 1979.
• Kalifa, Dominique: Naissance de la police privée. Détectives et agences de recherches en France, 1832–1942 (Civilisations et Mentalitès). Plon, Paris 2000, ISBN 2-259-18291-7.
• Metzner, Paul: Crescendo of the Virtuoso. Spectacle, skill and self-promotion in Paris during the age of revolution. University of California Press, Berkely, Cal. 1998, ISBN 0-520-20684-3 (online).
• Thorwald, Jürgen: Wege und Abenteuer in der Kriminalistik. Droemer Knaur, München 1981, ISBN 3-85886-092-1 (earlier title: Das Jahrhundert der Detektive).

About Vidocqs influence on literature

• Buchloh, Paul G.; Becker, Jens P.: Der Detektivroman. Studien zur Geschichte und Form der englischen und amerikanischen Detektivliteratur. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1978, ISBN 3-534-05379-6.
• Engelhardt, Sandra: 'The investigators of crime in literature. Tectum Verlag, Marburg 2003, ISBN 3-8288-8560-8.
• Messac, Régis: Le „detective novel“ et l'influence de la pensée scientifique. Slatkine, Genf 1975 (Nachdruck der Ausgabe Paris 1929).
• Murch, Alma E.: The development of the detective novel. P. Owen, London 1968.
• Rzepka, Charles J.: Detective Fiction. Polity Press, Cambridge 2005, ISBN 0-7456-2941-5.
• Schwarz, Ellen: Der phantastische Kriminalroman. Untersuchungen zu Parallelen zwischen „roman policier“, „conte fantastique“ und „gothic novel“. Tectum Verlag, Marburg 2001, ISBN 3-8288-8245-5 (zugl. Dissertation, Universität Giessen 2001).
• Symons, Julian: Bloody Murder. From the Detective Story to the Crime Novel; a history. Pan Books, London 1994, ISBN 0-330-33303-8.

See also

• A Scandal in Paris
• Vidocq (2001 film)
• August Vollmer
• Vidocq society

References

External links

French Wikisource has original text related to this article: Eugène-François Vidocq

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Eugène François Vidocq

• Vidocq – Du Bagne à la Police de Sûreté (französisch)
• Works by Eugène François Vidocq at Project Gutenberg
• Appraisal by Vidocqs hometown Arras (französisch)
• Vidocq in CrimeLibrary
• Vidocq Society