Vidocq
ACHIEVEMENTS: Leader of the first detective squad in the Paris police force.
DATE/PLACE OF BIRTH: 23rd July 1775, Arras, France.
DATE/PLACE OF DEATH/AGE AT DEATH: 11th May 1857, Paris, France. Aged 82.
DISCIPLINE: Detective.
FIELD: Criminology.
EDUCATION: No formal education.
MAJOR WORK: "Memoirs" (1827).
LIFE AND TIMES: An aggressive thirteen-year-old, Vidocq was apprenticed to a baker, to learn his father’s trade. Together with his brother, he stole small amounts of money on a regular basis and eventually robbed the till with a fake key he had made. He and his friends then spent the money in a tavern. His father had him arrested and put in prison, where he spent ten days before his mother pleaded for his release. In revenge, Vidocq then decided to rob his father of everything he owned. One Sunday, having got his mother out of the way, he opened the safe and took off, with the contents, for the port of Calais, looking for a ship to America. Finding he didn’t have enough money for the fare, he ended up in Ostend, Belgium .
During this search for a passage, he was conned out of all his money and had to return to Arras to beg his family's forgiveness. No sooner had he done this, than he left home again, now aged fourteen, in the company of an actress. Arriving in Lille, he enrolled in the Bourbon regiment, where he excelled within an elite group of swashbucklers. His aggression got him involved in fifteen duels, in which he killed two of his opponents. Vidocq, now in his twenties, escaped from gaol on many occasions and became well known in the criminal fraternity for this talent. During one escape he got stuck in a hole and had to call his guards to get him out. On another occasion, after being sentenced to eight years for forgery, he escaped from prison in Brest, France, disguised as a sailor.
In 1799, he settled in Paris as a dealer in second-hand clothes. In 1810, after years on the run, he went to the police and offered to work as an informer. At that time, crime in Paris was on the rise and the Chief of Police was willing to try anything. A staged arrest was carried out, and Vidocq was sent to La Force prison, where the hardest criminals were kept. His reputation in the criminal world ensured that he was received as a hero and, for nearly two years, he remained in La Force, informing on his fellow prisoners. At the end of this time an escape was arranged.
Back in Paris, he joined the police and organized their first detective force, recruiting his detectives from among his criminal friends, eventually building a force of twenty ex-convicts. After successfully infiltrating various gangs the truth eventually emerged and Vidocq had to become an expert at disguise. His exploits as a detective became the talk of Paris. His success was principally due to his exceptional memory for faces and voices, together with his persistence, and his understanding of the criminal mind.
After ten years and thousands of arrests, a new police chief decided that he didn't want criminals in the police force, and fired him. In 1827, Vidocq retired to write his memoirs. By this time his fame had spread outside France and, in America, the writer Poe* used Vidocq’s detective career as inspiration for his own work. When he finished his memoirs, he opened his own private inquiry agency. This was a huge success and handed thousands of cases. Eventually Vidocq was arrested for fraud, acquitted, re-arrested and convicted, then released on appeal in 1843.
The next year, following dinners with the novelist Balzac*, he decided to earn money by writing a novel. "Les Vrais Mysteres de Paris" was completed and he wrote a second book, "Les Chauffeurs du Nord", in five volumes, which appeared in instalments from 1845. That year, at the age of seventy, he went to explore business opportunities in London, where he mounted an exhibition (popular with Robert Browning*) showing souvenirs of famous crimes, paintings from his private art gallery, and wax models of tropical fruit which he claimed had been made for King Louis-Philippe of France. The souvenirs included murder weapons, clothes worn by victims of the guillotine, prison chains and other macabre objects.
Vidocq gave a demonstration of the various disguises and characters he had adopted in his career, and "The Times" newspaper reported that the greatest draw of the exhibition was Vidocq himself. While in England, he obtained permission from the home secretary to visit Newgate and Pentonville prisons, in London. Returning to France during the revolution in 1848, he worked for Lamartine*, a member of the Provisional Government. He died nine years later.
ASSESSMENT: Following his hugely successful detective career with the Paris police, Vidocq established one of the first private detective bureau. He became a famous figure and inspired a new type of detective fiction.
EXTRA CONNECTIONS: It is believed that he also inspired the works of Conan Doyle*.
His work related to the fingerprint research of Galton*
ONELINER: EF Vidocq, first French police detective
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Stead, Philip John, Vidocq, a Biography, Staples Press, London, 1955.
Vidocq, Eugene-Francois, Memoirs de Vidocq, 1827.
LANGUAGE: France.
PARENTS: Nicolas-Francois-Joseph Vidocq and Henriette-Francoise-Joseph Vidocq.
SIBLINGS: One brother.
SPOUSE: First wife: Louise Chevalier; second: Jeanne-Victoire Guerin; third: Fleuride Maniez
CHILDREN: None.