Vidocq: How France's Most Reckless Criminal Became a Threat to the Underworld and an Investigation Legend

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

In one such short human life, Eugene François Vidocq managed to become a legend of the underworld, a legendary police officer, an author of essays in the field of forensic science and the founder of the world's first detective agency. The time was like this in France: unexpected turns for the country turned into unexpected turns in the fate of ordinary citizens.

Slope path

Vidocq began his criminal career relatively late, at the age of fourteen, but immediately with murder: he stabbed his fencing teacher. In his memoirs, of course, he wrote that it was accidental, but it was no longer possible to verify. Taking a couple of thousand francs from the box office of his baker's father, the boy fled the city to sail from some French port to America and start a new life, but instead, a year later, he found himself without money in the company of a frivolous actress. So at the age of fifteen, Vidocq found himself a soldier of the Bourbon regiment - at least in the army, they fed and dressed.

With service to the homeland, too, did not work. Vidocq received constant disciplinary punishments, fought in duels with colleagues fifteen times, went over to the enemy's side during the war with Austria, but even there he was not particularly zealous: before attacking the French, he pretended to be sick. At the first opportunity, he gave up his military career.

Soon Vidocq was arrested on suspicion of sympathy for the monarchists - the time was revolutionary. He was rescued from prison by the Chevalier couple. The young man immediately knocked their daughter down, so that the Chevaliers had no choice but to bless their marriage. But Vidocq's family life was not very interested. Soon he left for Brussels on false documents. In his memoirs, in his defense, he will write that the girl herself turned him around and presented herself as pregnant, just to get married, and she herself, she herself, had a lover-officer whom she did not turn around!

In Brussels, Eugene François finally began his criminal career. He was a member of a gang of raiders. He lowered the loot in Paris on a cocotte and left for Lille. It is not known why he lived in this city not alone, but with a new mistress named Francine, but he thundered into prison not for unearned income, but after beating Francine's lover. It was boring in prison, and Vidocq forged documents to free his cellmate - a simpleton who stole bread.

For forging documents, he and his accomplices did not fly into a new term, but Francine helped her jealous lover escape, so only accomplices went through the stage. Vidocq himself went to the Netherlands. Hiring a privateer, he plundered English ships.

In general, the life of Eugene François was in full swing. He tried himself in a variety of criminal activities. He was imprisoned many times. He ran away. By the age of twenty-five, Vidocq was able to become a legend of the criminal world for his intelligence, resourcefulness and fearlessness. He was called the "king of risk" and "werewolf."

Who knows criminals better than a criminal?

Vidocq's fearlessness usually took the form of insolence. In 1809, he came to the Parisian police with a proposal to organize the most effective structure for catching dangerous criminals that they can imagine (and most likely even cannot). It was to his criminal experience that he, moreover, referred. Moreover, in his case, it was impossible to say something about the mistakes of his youth: he was still wanted for escapes.

One circumstance prompted Vidocq to act strangely. He hated being blackmailed or given ultimatums. In 1799, when the revolution and the confusion associated with it ended, Vidocq settled in Paris, leading a life - at least apparently outwardly, and we will not know more - a respectable bourgeois. He opened a shop selling ready-made clothes. Ten years later, former inmates appeared out of nowhere. They began to blackmail Vidok, threatening to reveal his past and turn him over to the police. Well, he went to the police, to spite the blackmailers.

And at the same time he headed a fundamentally new organization against people like former friends. Yes, he was given to do it! Widocq's special brigade was named the "General Directorate of National Security", after which structures such as Scotland Yard and the FBI were later created.

Usually, those who write about the Widocq brigade are interested in the fact that he has staffed it with many of the same former criminals. But just two numbers speak of the structure's work no less interesting. Even on her best days, she numbered no more than thirty people - and over the ten years of her work, the crime rate in France has dropped by 40%. First of all, because Vidocq was engaged in whole gangs, including the most formidable and largest.

It was Vidocq who introduced into the routine detailed archives with descriptions of the appearance of criminals and methods of their "work", secret surveillance and introduction into gangs. True, incidents occurred with the introduction: several times the members of the Vidoka brigade handed over plans to their old friends and themselves returned to a fun life of crime. In addition, very soon his service became not only dangerous, but very dangerous. All criminal France was hunting for his head.

Such heroes of France are not needed

In 1827, Vidocq was asked to resign: he did his job in many ways, and his reputation was not good enough for a new, respectable and dignified France. Vidocq's office was dismissed.

Eugene François did not even think to be discouraged. He began to master the field of literature. His style was not smooth, but there was a lot to tell, so Vidocq hired, as they say, a "literary slave" who would write down his memoirs in the best possible way. Just a year after the resignation, all of Europe was talking about the memories of a criminal and a detective rolled into one.

Five volumes of shocking details of the revolution and the thieves' world. Five volumes of selected documentary, from which the police could learn a lot not only curious, but also useful. Vidocq made good money on these memoirs.

I must say that Vidoca's management was reassembled in 1832, in connection with revolutionary uprisings. It is unlikely that Eugene François caught criminals in the streets of Paris, seething with thirst, - most likely, his job was to identify and arrest the leaders of the new revolution. In any event, after the suppression of the insurgency, the NSA was again disbanded.

First detective and first expert

This time Vidoku did not want to part with this gambling game at all: tracking down the most dangerous animal on Earth, man. He founded what he called the private police, the world's first detective agency, which he called simply and emphatically: the Bureau of Investigation. Fortunately, he has already earned wide popularity thanks to his memoirs. Clients flowed like a river. Vidoku was much more trusted than the official police.

Eugene François himself was depressed by the ignorance of the police in aspects of the very world with which she constantly came into contact and from which she had to protect citizens. To help the police (but for good money from the publisher) Vidocq wrote an essay on the manners and language of French professional thieves. He also published his views on prisons, hard labor and the death penalty.

The public was shocked by his books on the seamy side of French life: "The Real Secrets of Paris" and "Firemen of the North". Firemen, in criminal jargon, were gangs of burglars who roasted living people's feet to force them to tell them where valuables were hidden in the house.

Vidocq died, never surpassed by his contemporaries in his fame as a detective. Before his death, he managed - not for long - to work in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It was Vidocq who became the prototype of two heroes of Hugo's novel Les Miserables at once - the repentant convict Jean Valjean and the ruthless detective Javert. Moreover, Javert, perhaps, is more like Vidocq: Eugene François never differed in sentimentality and, perhaps, was a clinical psychopath who managed to find a useful application for himself in society. In any case, it was thanks to Vidoku that so many detective agencies appeared in the world and it became possible for such a character as Sherlock Holmes to appear - solving crimes, but not working for the police.

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