Ein eleganter Gauner

The real Francois-Eugene Vidocq, 1775 to 1857, was born and died in Paris. He was an adventurer and a brash youth who spent time in frequent jail sentences, mostly for petty thefts. He served admirably in the army and fought in early battles of the Revolutionary Wars in 1792. He was hired by the government in 1809 for his experience and knowledge of crime, and helped create the security police (Police de Sûreté) in France. In 1832 he was fired for allegedly planning a theft, and he set up the very first private police agency. That became the model for modern private detective firms. He is considered by historians to be the "father" of modern criminology and is credited with the introduction of undercover work, ballistics, criminology and a record-keeping system to criminal investigation. He made the first plaster cast impressions of shoe prints. He created indelible ink and unalterable bond paper with his printing company to combat forgery. Several books, including Mémoires de Vidocq (1828-1829), Les Voleurs (1837), and Les Vrais Mystères de Paris (1844), were published under his name but may have been ghost-written by others. In later life, Vidocq published two volumes of his memoirs. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, he was friends with several leading authors of the day - Hugo, Balzac, Dumas and others.

Vidocq is seen reading the memoirs of Casanova at the time of Napoleon's Egyptian campaign (1798-1801). The memoirs were not published until 1822.

[prologue] Vidocq, Eugene Francois, born 1775, spent the first thirty years of his life in every kind of villainy, probably as a preparation for the work of detecting criminals which was to occupy the remainder of his life. He published two volumes of what purported to be the true history of his adventurous career...Encyclopedia Britannica.

Referenced in Le cavalier de Croix-Mort (1948)