Vidocq, Early Detective

In developing Mysterious Expeditions (my other blog -- http://mysteriousexpeditions.blogspot.com) and conducting various researches into crime and police history, I find Francois-Eugené Vidocq to be one of the most intriguing real-life characters in the realm of detection. Vidocq created the Sureté, the premier Parisian detective bureau, and served as its chief beginning in 1810.

What makes Vidocq especially interesting is his pre-police record: He himself had been imprisoned more than once for petty theft and other crimes and was renowned for his jail-breaking. He persuaded Napoleon’s government to let him earn an honest living by apprehending the criminal element with whom he was so intimate. This he performed extremely well; in a single year, working with a force of only a dozen regular detectives, he caught some 800 miscreants.

Vidocq enjoyed personal friendships with literary greats of his time, including Alexandre Dumas, Honoré de Balzac and Victor Hugo. Certain memorable literary characters -- police and criminals alike -- are thought to have been based on the person of Vidocq.

In later life, Vidocq was fired because of alleged involvement in a sensational theft. He formed a private police agency, which quickly was abolished by a wary French government. Some believe that to Vidocq belongs credit for organizing the world’s first detective agency -- a point which might be contended. Long before the era of Vidocq, either as an official or private police chief, law enforcement organizations in France and elsewhere employed spies to ferret out criminals. These were, in key respects, forerunners of today’s undercover agents.