17 system of registration of criminals of the Frenchman François Vidocq. The absence of your criminal record is not your merit, but our shortcoming. F.E. Dzerzhinsky

In Russia, this man became known in the 1830s thanks to Pushkin’s epigrams dedicated to “Vidoc Figlarin,” in which the image of the foreign hero was mixed with a portrait of the poet’s enemy, Thaddeus Bulgarin. The similarity between them was obvious: both of them had the practice of writing denunciations about their surroundings. But in his homeland, France, Eugene Francois Vidocq was known much more widely. And no wonder - having been sentenced to death for many crimes, he created the world's first detective agency, developed many methods of criminal investigation and founded the genre of detective literature, becoming both its creator and hero. It's not often that something like this comes together!

He happened to be born in Arras, near the house where, 17 years earlier, another great Frenchman with a dubious reputation, Maximilien Robespierre, began life. They never met - the future leader of the revolution was studying in Paris, when on July 23, 1775, the wife of baker Nicolas Joseph Vidocq, Henriette, gave birth to their fifth child. That night a thunderstorm raged over the city, which, according to signs, promised a stormy life for the newborn. And so it happened - from the first years, the nimble Eugene became a thunderstorm for the surrounding children. His parents, dignified bourgeois, did not know what to do with him: neither affection nor punishment helped. Even then, the main character traits of Vidocq appeared: complete fearlessness, frantic ambition and incredible cunning in achieving his goals.

His father tried to raise him through hard work, forcing him to deliver fresh rolls to customers from the age of ten. More than once or twice, Eugene returned home without money, claiming that hooligans had taken it away. The parents did not know that in the neighboring blocks even older guys avoided their pugnacious child. Soon the guy needed money to visit a tavern, where he could always find wine and available girls, and at the same time play cards with local sharpers who willingly accepted young simpletons into the company. The loser Eugene was “put on the counter”, and he was forced to steal silverware from the house to pay the debt. Out of patience, his father sent him to a prison for juvenile offenders, but two weeks later he forgave him and returned him home. The lesson did not go well: the young man continued his previous life. At the age of sixteen, he spied where his parents were hiding money, and in their absence, he stole the family savings, planning to flee with them to America - a country of great opportunities for the brave and enterprising.

Vidocq was unlucky - in the port of Ostend he was lured into a brothel, drunk and robbed to the last sou. He couldn’t return home, so he got a job in a traveling circus. At first he was an errand boy, then they tried to make him a “cannibal of the south seas”, forcing him to swallow raw meat and stones. This “diet” was not to Eugene’s taste, and he left the troupe with a scandal, exchanging it for a puppet theater. He worked there until a new scandal: the puppeteer discovered that the young apprentice was playing tricks with his wife. After this, Vidocq finally returned to Arras, and the parents reluctantly forgave their son. But the peace in the family did not last long: the prodigal son refused to work, drank, and pursued visiting actresses. Therefore, the baker and his wife breathed a sigh of relief when one fine day Eugene announced to them that he was leaving for the army.

Soldier out of politics

It was March 1791. European monarchs marched against revolutionary France. Vidocq was not eager to defend the republic, since he was always indifferent to politics, but he considered the war a convenient chance to distinguish himself and win a worthy place in society. Military operations were sluggish, and the Bourbon regiment, to which the young man was assigned, remained stationed in Arras. Meanwhile, Eugene continued his usual life - he caroused in taverns and fought a duel fifteen times, killing several people. In the fall, his unit was sent to the front and was smashed to smithereens in one of the battles. After this, Vidocq moved from one regiment to another and fought bravely in those days when he was not under arrest for various offenses. Three times they wanted to shoot him, but the god of war protected the dashing soldier. In September 1792, he distinguished himself at the Battle of Valmy and was appointed corporal. Six months later, together with the traitorous general, Dumouriez went over to the side of the Austrians. And then, offended by the lack of attention to his person, he returned to the French side - and again survived, although defectors were subject to the death penalty.

Having had plenty of front-line romance, Vidocq arrived in Arras. He is only 18, but has as many adventures as would be enough for someone else to last a lifetime. Jacobin terror raged in his hometown; every day new victims were dragged to the guillotine, including the owner of the parrot, who shouted “Long live the king!” But Eugene did not care at all: he plunged into his former cheerful life with drinking, duels and love affairs. One of the girls he seduced, Marie-Anne Chevalier, declared that she was pregnant and brought the gentleman to court. Vidocq had to get married, but was there such a force that could chain him to the family hearth? Having learned that his young wife was feigning pregnancy in order to get a handsome gentleman, he decided to take revenge on her and fled to the army, taking the family savings, as was his custom. They met Marie only in 1805 during the divorce proceedings.

This time he did not intend to go to the front, but under the name of Rousseau settled in Brussels captured by the French. There, the brave gentleman made a living as a cheater, and then joined the famous “Wandering Army” - a community of criminals dressed as a diversion in military uniform. Posing as a war hero, Vidocq turned the head of a middle-aged Belgian baroness and stole 15 thousand gold ducats from her. With this money, he arrived in Paris in March 1796, where, after the harsh years of Jacobin rule, riotous fun had returned. Having happily immersed himself in this atmosphere, Eugene spent all his money in two months and went to wander with the gypsies. Once in Lille, he became involved with a beauty named Francine, whom he was desperately jealous of. It got to the point that one day he brutally beat one of her lovers and went to prison for three months. But with the help of the same Francine, he escaped, managing to lock all the guards in his cell. Having gone on the run, Eugene changed many names and occupations, pretending to be a circus performer, a priest, or the height of impudence! - a police officer. As a result, he was caught and sentenced to eight years of hard labor for theft and forgery of documents. It seemed that after this the path to freedom was closed. But the desperate and fearless “police officer” managed to escape many times with countless adventures, although he was caught and put back in a cell. As a result, he saw many prisons, thoroughly learned the rules there and gained considerable authority in the criminal world. For his daring escapes, he was nicknamed the “King of Risk” - what could be louder? - they said that he could pass through walls, did not burn in fire and did not drown in water. And it looks like it was true.

Great detectives
Before Vidocq, the detective service actually did not exist, although there were many attempts to create it (one of them was undertaken in England by the famous writer Henry Fielding). Almost immediately after the French “Surte”, such services appeared in other countries. In London in 1842, the investigation department was created at Scotland Yard, where 12 people worked. Its staff did not increase for many years, so private detectives like the fictional Sherlock Holmes came to the aid of the state - in 1895 there were more than 600 of them in England. In America, the son of a Scottish weaver, Alan Pinkerton (1819-1884), opened a detective agency in Chicago in 1850. His 11 employees not only solved hundreds of crimes, but also protected President Lincoln and fought against Southern espionage during the war between the North and the South. Until now, 250 branches of the Pinkerton agency operate in 22 countries. Ivan Dmitrievich Putilin (1830-1893), who became the first head of the detective police of St. Petersburg in 1867, was called “Russian Vidocq”. He managed to solve the high-profile cases of the “gang of stranglers” and “Pargolov devils”, find the killer of the Austrian attaché Prince von Arensberg, catch the “king of thieves” Dombrowski... Like Vidocq, Putilin described his exploits in fascinating memoirs. He and detectives like him worked the old fashioned way, relying on their wits and experience. But there were also those who used the latest scientific achievements in investigations. French anthropologist Alphonse Bertillon (1853-1914) invented “anthropometry” - identifying a criminal based on his physical parameters. So in 1890 he managed to catch the elusive terrorist-murderer Ravachol. However, in England, partly to spite the French, they preferred the fingerprint identification method invented by Francis Galton (1822-1911). Fingerprinting turned out to be more convenient and took the place of anthropometry, forever sending the latter to the museum of the history of detective work - the same place where many of Vidocq’s achievements found their place.

Everyday life of a secret agent

After another escape, he took refuge with smugglers in Brittany, from where, being arrested again, he was sent to the gloomy Parisian prison of Bicêtre, and from there to the Toulon prison. Eugene spent six months tying ropes... But he managed to escape from the prison and even make his way through secret paths to Arras. On the way, he either bought or stole clothes and documents from a German who had settled in France and lived in his hometown for quite a long time, posing as a foreigner. His father had already died, his brothers and sisters had moved away, and Eugene helped his mother by trading in a shop until the police got on his trail.

Vidocq went on the run again, and in the meantime, as an inveterate criminal, he was sentenced to death in absentia. It’s good that Napoleon came to power and began en masse recruiting volunteers into the army. The recruiters did not ask any unnecessary questions, and Eugene - as usual, under a false name - managed to enroll in the navy. From there he quickly moved onto the ship of the famous pirate Jean Bart and together with him boarded English ships. Then he returned to shore, receiving the rank of corporal of artillery and joining the secret society “Olympians” in Boulogne, organized on a Masonic model. This ruined his career - an agent who had slipped into their ranks betrayed the Society, and the authorities exposed him, dismissing all the “Olympians” from military service. What happened for the first time inspired Vidocq with the idea of ​​becoming a secret agent himself. He, with his intelligence and experience, would beat his competitors and catch all the criminals!

He entered his fourth decade in Paris, with a meager pension and the family of his first wife falling on his neck. The fact that Vidocq agreed to feed this crowd suggests that the King of Risk was not without sympathy and even humanism. But in order to get money, he had to take up the old “craft” - buying up stolen goods, which again led him to Bicêtre. There he crossed the Rubicon that separated the criminal from the servant of the law. He wrote a letter to the head of the First Department of the Parisian police, Mr. Henri, promising to inform him of information. Henri demanded evidence and received information about the impending robbery of the jeweler. The robbers were caught red-handed, and the police were convinced of the seriousness of Vidocq's intentions. For several months he moved from cell to cell, without interference, collecting material about the criminal world of the capital. Thieves and swindlers had no secrets from the King, which he skillfully used.

Vidocq left Bicêtre with a complete list of especially dangerous Parisian criminals. In the fall of 1811, according to his project, the organization “Surte” (“Security”) was created at the police department - the world’s first criminal investigation. It was headed by Henri, and Vidocq became the chief of the detective team, which he himself recruited from proven personnel, mostly former criminals. 12 people worked under his leadership, who, together with their tireless boss, achieved unprecedented success in a short time. If you believe the numbers, then in a year he detained 15 murderers, 120 burglars, 73 pickpockets, 38 buyers of stolen goods, 227 vagrants. During the same period, he solved 811 crimes and prevented about a hundred. Vidocq knew his “wards” very well, storing in his memory thousands of faces and names of criminals without any filing cabinet. Although his former colleagues sentenced him to death, he appeared without fear in the most remote slums thanks to the art of changing his appearance. Coming to seedy places, he ingratiated himself with the trust of their visitors, and they believed him - after all, he was a master of thieves' jargon, known only to the initiated. Many times, the creator of the detective agency asked to participate in crimes and even organized them himself, in order to later hand over his comrades to the police. In just 18 years, 17 thousand people were arrested on his tip, more than 400 of whom were sent to the guillotine.

Vidocq in art
The amazing fate of Vidocq, reflected in his memoirs, could not help but impress French writers, many of whom were personally acquainted with the famous detective. Already in 1843, Eugene Sue wrote his novel “Parisian Mysteries”, many of the plots of which were taken from Vidocq. However, the detective himself did not appear on its pages, which he was dissatisfied with, and responded to Xiu’s novel with his “True Secrets of Paris.” The next attempt was made by another acquaintance of Vidocq, Honore de Balzac, who created the image of the escaped convict Vautrin in several novels, starting with Father Goriot (1835). The detective was not happy with him either: the writer portrayed Vautrin as a scoundrel and a cynic who believes that “nothing can be achieved with honesty.” At the same time, one of the heroes spoke of him with admiration: “God and Satan united and together created this steely character.” After Vidocq's death, Victor Hugo's epic Les Miserables (1862) was published, where Vidocq "split into two" into two characters - the noble convict Jean Valjean and the vile police inspector Javert. The second of them pursues the first throughout the novel, but in the end, struck by his moral superiority, commits suicide. Beginning in 1866, Eugene Vidocq became the hero of detective novels by Emile Gaboriau under the name of detective Lecoq, a former criminal who became a servant of the law. Another “clone” of the hero is the “gentleman thief” Arsene Lupine, created by the imagination of Maurice Leblanc. And the detective’s masterful ability to change appearance was reflected in the image of the sinister Fantômas from the novels of Marcel Allen and Pierre Souvestre. All of these characters have become movie heroes more than once. And in 2001, the French director Pitof directed the film “Vidocq”, where the great detective himself, performed by Gerard Depardieu, appears on the stage. True, this bizarre thriller, full of computer graphics, as we see, is very far from the true story of Eugene Vidocq.

Royal pardon

As usual, envious police officers disliked Vidocq. They assured that he only extradited small fry, and released criminal “generals” for bribes. They said that his subordinates themselves were engaged in theft - then he dressed his team in white gloves, in which a pickpocket cannot work (employees of the French "Surte" still wear them as a sign of the cleanliness of their uniform). Vidocq and his people visited not only the thieves' "raspberries", but also the palaces of aristocrats. In the Louvre, he detained the Count de Roussillon, who had filled his pockets with stolen jewelry. The former convict became famous, and King Louis XVIII himself, who came to power after the fall of Napoleon, pardoned him, solemnly canceling the old sentence. Visitors to fashion salons listened with bated breath to his stories about the morals of the Parisian “bottom,” and aspiring writers secretly wrote them down, not without reason hoping to turn such stories into novels and plays.

Having earned considerable money, Vidocq in 1820 married the young widow Jeanne-Victoire Guerin, but she turned out to be sick with tuberculosis and died four years later, without giving birth to Eugene’s desired heir. In 1830, he married for the third time - to his cousin Fleuride-Albertina Magnier, who was 18 years younger than him. Together with her, he had to overcome new difficulties that fate had in store. And there were many of them - the political life of France was still seething, and it was not easy to remain in office. In 1827, Delaveau was appointed prefect of police, who immediately disliked Vidocq. His team was subjected to endless checks and nit-picking. The King was accused of his subordinates behaving immorally, for example, not attending church. Delaveau's calculation was justified - enraged by this nonsense, Vidocq resigned.

He was not given a pension, and soon the detective, accustomed to living in grand style, needed money. Seizing the moment, the publisher Tenon invited him to write his memoirs and paid him a generous deposit - 34 thousand francs. Within a few months, the first of four volumes of Vidocq's Notes was published, which was a resounding success. We can say that this book, published in France alone with a circulation of 30 thousand, became one of the first international bestsellers - in the coming years it was translated into eight languages, including Russian. Vidocq, who had never written anything, showed a lively figurative language and caustic humor, along with a remarkable ability to build the logic of a plot, and the adventures he described would be enough for many modern detective stories. Subsequently, a good dozen more books came out from his pen. Among them was the documentary study “Thieves”, and the “Dictionary of Thieves’ Argo”, invaluable for researchers, and the novel “The Real Secrets of Paris”, written in defiance of the sensational “Parisian Secrets” by Eugene Sue. He also created the treatise “A Few Words from the Author,” where the writer-agent proposed his methods of fighting crime, including “re-education through labor” and the humanization of the conditions of detention of prisoners.

To prove he was right, Vidocq opened a paper factory in the Parisian suburb of Saint-Mandé, where former prisoners worked. But in 1832 this work, useful for society, had to be interrupted. A republican uprising broke out in Paris, and Vidocq was again called to the head of the "Surte" to fight the rebels. He quickly created “flying detachments” that penetrated the rear of the rebels through secret passages known only to him. The uprising was suppressed, and the former convict received personal gratitude from King Louis Philippe, who called him “savior of the throne.” But his enemies did not calm down - already in September Vidocq was put on trial, accusing him of provoking a gang of thieves to commit a crime. The detective was perplexed - he had always used this method, why was he being judged? One way or another, the thief should be in prison, and why not speed up sending him there? This time Vidocq escaped justice, but soon he was dismissed anyway.

Why Vidocq is not a marshal

In 1833, the tireless Eugene Francois opened his own Bureau of Investigation - the first private detective agency in France, and perhaps in all of Europe. It was engaged not only in searching for criminals, but also, so to speak, in consulting: here, for a fee of 20 francs, businessmen could make inquiries about their business partners in order to find out the degree of their honesty. Over the course of a year, the number of Vidocq's clients reached 4,000; in business circles it became good form to present a certificate from the Bureau when making a transaction. But the enemies from the police did not calm down, bringing forward one accusation after another against the King - now detectives. First, they raided his office, confiscating several thousand files. Vidocq did not give up - with his phenomenal memory, he kept the most important facts in his head. Then they tried to put him on trial again, but then the power changed once again - monarchy to republic, then Emperor Napoleon III was on the throne. With all this leapfrog, the police forgot about the competitor.

Vidocq's clientele grew year by year, and the Bureau opened branches in the provinces. Now, in addition to criminal and economic crime, it was engaged in proving adultery - Eugene Francois had considerable experience in this matter. He worked until his death, which overtook him on May 11, 1857, shortly before his 82nd birthday. The King of Risk had no heirs, and a considerable fortune, which was vainly claimed by two or three illegitimate sons, went to his brainchild - a detective agency. Before his death, Vidocq said with regret: “I could have become a marshal if I had not loved women and duels so much.”

It is noteworthy that the first edition of Eugene Vidocq's memoirs appeared in St. Petersburg in 1828, where Pushkin bought and read it. Soon he composed an epigram on Thaddeus Bulgarin, a writer who also worked as an informant for the Third Section:

“It’s not a problem that you’re a Pole: // Kostiushka the Pole, Mitskevich the Pole!
Perhaps, be yourself a Tatar, // And here I see no shame;
Be a Jew - and it doesn’t matter; // The trouble is that you are Vidocq Figlarin.”

There was a response in prose as well. In the almanac "Dennitsa" Pushkin published a note "On Vidocq's Notes", where he indirectly pointed to the same Bulgarin: "A man who lives by daily reports... is a notorious rogue, as shameless as he is vile." In principle, this applied much more to Thaddeus Venediktovich, who scribbled denunciations on the friends of his youth, than to Vidocq - he still fought against real criminals, although he sometimes acted using the same methods as them.

Eugene François Vidocq (July 23, 1775 - May 11, 1857) was a French criminal who later became the first head of the General Directorate of National Security, and then one of the first modern private detectives and the “father” of criminal investigation in its modern form.

Most of the information about Vidocq comes from his autobiography. According to her, Vidocq was born on July 23, 1775 in the French city of Arras. His father was a baker.
At the age of 14, he apparently accidentally killed his fencing teacher and decided to flee the city. Initially, he intended to go to America, but spent all his money on an actress, a lady of easy virtue. In the end, a year later he was forced to join the Bourbon regiment.

He was far from an ideal soldier: he later recalled that he fought 15 duels, killed two opponents, and was subject to numerous disciplinary actions. During the war, Francois was forced to go over to the side of the Austrians, but, not wanting to fight against his own, he pretended to be sick before the battle.

During the French Revolution, Vidocq, according to his own statement, saved two noblewomen from the guillotine, but was subsequently arrested himself. His father saved him by turning to the Chevalier family for help. François fell in love with their daughter Louise and married her when she pretended to be pregnant. Having learned about her officer lover, Vidocq left for Brussels using false documents, where he courted a baroness older than him and was a member of a gang of raiders.

Having moved to Paris, he spent all his money on women of easy virtue and moved to the border city of Lille, where his relationship with a certain Francine began. Once catching her with her lover, Vidocq beat him, for which he was imprisoned for three months in St. Peter's Tower. There he met the peasant Sebastian Butatel, who was sentenced to six years for stealing bread and was having a hard time being separated from his large family. Subsequently, Sebastian was released on a fake petition drawn up by his cellmates Gerbaut and Grouard. Vidocq denied his involvement in this (according to him, Gerbaud and Grouard only used his camera without telling him the essence of the matter); cellmates claimed that it was Francois who was the instigator. Vidocq and Gerbo were sentenced to 8 years of correctional labor, but Francois, with the help of the repentant Francine, escaped from Brest prison, disguised as a police inspector.

In 1798 he moved to the Netherlands, where he helped the privateer Fromentin rob English ships. In Ostend he was again arrested and sent to Toulon prison under strict guard, from where he escaped thanks to the help of another prisoner.

Having tried many professions, Vidocq was imprisoned more than once, escaped and ended up behind bars again, for which he was nicknamed the “king of risk” and the “werewolf.” In 1799, Vidocq escaped from prison once again and lived in Paris for 10 years.
Blackmailed by his former neighbors in a prison cell, he took a decisive step: he went to the police prefecture of Paris and offered his services. In 1811, he formed a special brigade of former criminals according to the principle: “Only a criminal can overcome crime.” Largely for this reason, bad rumors circulated about his office, which did not prevent him from enjoying the favor of his superiors. The brigade was named "Surte" ("Security").

Before Vidocq, the detective service actually did not exist, although there were many attempts to create it (one of them was undertaken in England by the famous writer Henry Fielding). Almost immediately after the French “Surte”, such services appeared in other countries.
Under the leadership of Vidocq, 12 people worked, who, together with their tireless boss, achieved unprecedented success in a short time. If you believe the numbers, then in a year he detained 15 murderers, 120 burglars, 73 pickpockets, 38 buyers of stolen goods, 227 vagrants. During the same period, he solved 811 crimes and prevented about a hundred. Vidocq knew his “wards” very well, storing in his memory thousands of faces and names of criminals without any filing cabinet. Although his former colleagues sentenced him to death, he appeared without fear in the most remote slums thanks to the art of changing his appearance. Coming to seedy places, he ingratiated himself with the trust of their visitors, and they believed him - after all, he was a master of thieves' jargon, known only to the initiated. Many times, the creator of the detective agency asked to participate in crimes and even organized them himself, in order to later hand over his comrades to the police. In just 18 years, 17 thousand people were arrested on his tip, more than 400 of whom were sent to the guillotine.

Eugene François Vidocq remained at the head of the "Surte" for over 20 years. However, in 1827 he was forced to resign. He was again called upon to lead the "Surte" during the revolutionary uprisings of 1832, after the suppression of which he was again dismissed.
Vidocq is considered one of the first professional private detectives. The pinnacle of his career was the position of head of the office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the de facto head of the government of A. Lamartine during the Revolution of 1848. However, with the coming to power of Emperor Napoleon III, he retired.

As usual, envious police officers disliked Vidocq. They assured that he only extradited small fry, and released criminal “generals” for bribes. They said that his subordinates themselves were engaged in theft - then he dressed his team in white gloves, in which a pickpocket cannot work (employees of the French "Surte" still wear them as a sign of the cleanliness of their uniform).

The former criminal became famous, and King Louis XVIII himself, who came to power after the fall of Napoleon, pardoned him, solemnly canceling his long-standing death sentence.
At the same time, Vidocq had to overcome new difficulties that fate had in store. And there were many of them - the political life of France was still seething, and it was not easy to remain in office. In 1827, Delaveau was appointed prefect of police, who immediately disliked Vidocq. His team was subjected to endless checks and nit-picking. The King was accused of his subordinates behaving immorally, for example, not attending church. Delaveau's calculation was justified - enraged by this nonsense, Vidocq resigned.

He was not given a pension, and soon the detective, accustomed to living in grand style, needed money. Seizing the moment, the publisher Tenon invited him to write his memoirs and paid him a generous deposit - 34 thousand francs. Within a few months, the first of four volumes of Vidocq's Notes was published, which was a resounding success. We can say that this book, published in France alone with a circulation of 30 thousand, became one of the first international bestsellers - in the coming years it was translated into eight languages, including Russian.
Subsequently, a good dozen more books came out from his pen. Among them was the documentary study “Thieves”, and the “Dictionary of Thieves’ Argo”, invaluable for researchers, and the novel “The Real Secrets of Paris”, written in defiance of the sensational “Parisian Secrets” by Eugene Sue. He also created the treatise “A Few Words from the Author,” where the writer-agent proposed his methods of fighting crime, including “re-education through labor” and the humanization of the conditions of detention of prisoners. To prove that he was right, Vidocq opened a paper mill in the Parisian suburb of Saint-Mandé, where former prisoners worked.

But in 1832 this work, useful for society, had to be interrupted. A republican uprising broke out in Paris, and Vidocq was again called to the head of the "Surte" to fight the rebels. He quickly created “flying detachments” that penetrated the rear of the rebels through secret passages known only to him. The uprising was suppressed, and the former convict received personal gratitude from King Louis Philippe, who called him “savior of the throne.” But his enemies did not calm down - already in September Vidocq was put on trial, accusing him of provoking a gang of thieves to commit a crime. The detective was perplexed - he had always used this method, why was he being judged? One way or another, the thief should be in prison, and why not speed up sending him there? This time Vidocq escaped justice, but soon he was dismissed anyway.

In 1833, the tireless Eugene Francois opened his own Bureau of Investigation - the first private detective agency in France, and perhaps in all of Europe. It was engaged not only in searching for criminals, but also, so to speak, in consulting: here, for a fee of 20 francs, businessmen could make inquiries about their business partners in order to find out the degree of their honesty. Over the course of a year, the number of Vidocq's clients reached 4,000; in business circles it became good form to present a certificate from the Bureau when making a transaction. But the enemies from the police did not calm down, bringing one accusation after another against Vidocq - now a detective.

First, they raided his office, confiscating several thousand files. Vidocq did not give up - with his phenomenal memory, he kept the most important facts in his head. Then they tried to put him on trial again, but then the power changed once again - monarchy to republic, then Emperor Napoleon III was on the throne. With all this leapfrog, the police forgot about the competitor.
Vidocq's clientele grew year by year, and the Bureau opened branches in the provinces. Now, in addition to criminal and economic crime, it was engaged in proving adultery - Eugene Francois had considerable experience in this matter. He worked until his death, which overtook him on May 11, 1857, shortly before his 82nd birthday. The “King of Risk” had no heirs, and a considerable fortune, which was vainly claimed by two or three illegitimate sons, went to his brainchild - a detective agency.

Before his death, Vidocq said with regret: “I could have become a marshal if I had not loved women and duels so much.”

The amazing fate of Vidocq, reflected in his memoirs, could not help but impress French writers, many of whom were personally acquainted with the famous detective. Vidocq served as the prototype for such characters as:
- Jean Valjean and Inspector Javert in “Les Miserables” by Victor Hugo;
- Vautrin in “Human Comedy” by Honore de Balzac;
- Auguste Dupin in “Murder in the Rue Morgue” by Edgar Allan Poe, etc.

There is also a film directed by Jean-Christophe Comard "Vidocq" (French: Vidocq), released in 2001, in which the famous French detective fights a sorcerer nicknamed the Alchemist. The action of the science fiction film takes place against the backdrop of historical events - the July Revolution.

French criminal, detective and writer Eugene-Francois Vidocq had the most significant influence on the emergence of the detective genre and became the prototype of many literary heroes.

Eugene Francois Vidocq(Eugene-François Vidocq) was born on the night of July 23-24, 1775 in Arras (France). His father was a baker and a very practical person, and therefore quickly put his son to work, entrusting him with delivering bread to customers from the city. Eugene was the third child in the family of baker Nicolas Joseph Francois Vidocq. In total, Vidocq had four brothers and two sisters. Little is known about the childhood of the future celebrity, except that his nickname has been preserved Sword, since he spent a lot of time practicing fencing. But Vidocq grew up as an uncontrollable child and quickly began to steal from his parents. At first, he spent the stolen money on the usual pleasures for young people of that time, but later he began to save, hoping to collect the amount necessary for a trip to the New World. Ironically, the stolen money did not bring him happiness; he was robbed on the way to the port and, after a series of misadventures, he was forced to return to his home. When the money came Vidocq was initially afraid to return home and was forced to work as a juggler in a traveling circus. He also portrayed a cannibal from the Caribbean and eats raw meat in full view of the audience. Unable to withstand the regular beatings, he ran away and joined a group of puppeteers, but was also expelled from there because he flirted with the owner’s wife. Working as a street vendor, he reached his native Arras, asked for forgiveness from his parents and was received with open arms, but out of harm’s way they sent him to the army.

The service was successful, Vidocq took part in the battles of Valmy and Zhammapes and returned to his hometown safe and sound. Here he married Marie-Anne-Louise Chevalier in 1794, but soon abandoned him because he learned about her affair with another man. Failure on the personal front caused a trip to Belgium, where Vidocq got a job as an officer in the active army. There he became known as a bully with a hot temper and a formidable duelist. In six months, he fought 15 times and killed 2 people. After another quarrel with a colleague, he was sent to prison.

From this moment begins a period consisting of a series of imprisonments and escapes. Vidocq seems to find no place for himself in peaceful life. In 1796, he was sentenced to eight years of forced labor for forging a document emancipating laborers. In 1798 he was transferred to Brest, from where he successfully escaped, and the very next year he was caught and imprisoned again. The following year he was transferred to Toulon, after which a series of escapes and imprisonments followed. Vidocq gained a reputation as a successful fugitive among the criminal elements of Paris and entered their circle. The only exact date for this period was the divorce from his first wife in 1805.

Numerous crimes in the form of forgery of documents, escapes and thefts led to the fact that he was sentenced to death, but since he managed to escape once again, his friend was executed, which Vidocq witnessed. This execution had a profound impact on him, and the clever criminal decides to change his lifestyle.

In 1809, Vidocq decided to go legal and offered his services to the police. In his letter to the head of the Surete, he discussed in detail the unprecedented prevalence of crime in Paris and hinted that he knew one person who was well acquainted with the criminal world, since he himself was a former criminal. So Vidocq hinted at his own benefit for criminal investigations. But the police leadership believed that this was just a new sophisticated trick of another swindler, and Vidocq was assigned to begin with as a secret agent of Surte.

To ensure that his cooperation did not arouse suspicion, in 1810, with the approval of the new prefect of police of Paris, with whom Vidocq later became friends, he was arranged another jail break. And in 1811, Vidocq was given police powers and appointed head of the detective department in the Surete. By 1817, Vidocq's department had 17 agents, and under his leadership, 772 arrests were made, which was an absolute record for those years. In 1824, his department consisted of 31 agents, including 5 women.

In 1820 Vidocq married Jeanne-Victoire Guerin (Jeanne-Victoire Guerin), who died in 1824, after which he married his cousin Fluride Magnez (Fleuride Maniez).

By 1827, Vidocq was such a popular figure in Paris that he had many envious people who, through intrigue, forced him to resign. Vidocq bought a paper factory, and in order to reduce the cost of expenses, he used former convicts in his work. The business was so successful that Vidocq turned to writing memoirs. Full of incredible adventures and unprecedented details for that time, Vidocq's books sold in huge numbers.

At a moment of political instability in 1831, Vidocq returned to the police force and was even rumored to have played an important role in securing the throne for Louis Philippe. But the new prefect of the Parisian police was one of the secret envious people of the former criminal, and therefore through open confrontation he forced Vidocq to resign once again.

Vidocq was a very sociable person and easily made friends with prominent figures of French culture and literature. In 1832 he met Honore de Balzac, who was delighted with the criminal policeman and described Vidocq in Human Comedy . Vidocq was also familiar with Victor Hugo and a number of poets of that time. He himself wrote crime novels, which became the models that many creators of the first detective stories later relied on.

Vidocq's creativity

Eugene-Francois Vidocq was the first official detective of the Western world. After leading the life of a tramp, actor, soldier, brigand, card player and prisoner, in 1809 he was appointed as a police informer. Two years later, from an agent he became the head of the detective department in the Surete. The phenomenal success of his investigations was vividly described in his memoirs, and Vidocq became a legend not only in France, but also in England and Germany. His books were published even in the USA and Russia.

Vidocq's memoirs played a crucial role in the emergence of the detective genre. It was these memoirs that inspired Edgar Allan Poe to create the first detective stories. But Poe considered Vidocq brilliant guesser It was precisely by pushing away from the intuitive solving of cases that the American writer created Dupin's logic. Edgar Poe's hero is the mask of the writer himself, and the complete opposite of Vidocq. If the French detective is a bourgeois, bourgeois and bureaucrat, Auguste Dupin is an aristocrat, a poet with a mathematical mind.

Vidocq's successes in the investigation are not based on a logical method or harmonious reasoning. They are based on good knowledge of the criminal world. Vidocq is a master of disguise and disguise, and therefore he receives a lot of information from unsuspecting people. In his memoirs, the French detective describes methods that are more suitable for criminals than for police officers. But Vidocq's talent and skill were so strong that they were reflected not only in the stories of Poe, but were also captured in the novels of Honoré de Balzac, Victor Hugo, Eugene Sue, Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Emile Gaboriau, Maurice Leblanc, G.K. Chesterton and Leslie Charteris. Vidocq became the prototype for many popular criminal heroes - Arsene Lupin, Raffles and the Saint.

Selected bibliography

Notes from Vidocq, Chief of the Paris Secret Police (Mémoires de Vidocq, chef de la police de Sûreté, jusqu’en, 1828)
The thieves (Les voleurs, 1836)
Reflections on prisons, penal servitude and the death penalty (Considerations sommaires sur les prisons, les bagnes et la peine de mort, 1844)
The real secrets of Paris (Les vrais mysteres de Paris, 1844)
Stokers of the North (Les chauffeurs du nord, 1845)

And the “father” of criminal investigation in its modern form.

Eugene Francois Vidocq
Eugene François Vidocq
Date of Birth	July 23(1775-07-23 )
Place of Birth	Arras, France
Date of death	May 11(1857-05-11 ) (age 81)
A place of death	Paris, France
A country
Occupation	detective, writer, police officer, serviceman, private detective
Spouse	Fleuride-Albertine Maniez[d]
Eugene François Vidocq at Wikimedia Commons

Biography

Most of the information about Vidocq comes from an autobiography written by a "literary negro". According to her, Vidocq was born on July 23, 1775 in the French city of Arras. His father was a baker.

At the age of 14, he apparently accidentally killed his fencing teacher and decided to flee the city. Initially, he intended to go to America, but spent all his money on an actress, a lady of easy virtue. In the end, a year later he was forced to join the Bourbon regiment.

He was far from an ideal soldier: he later recalled that he fought 15 duels, killed two opponents, and suffered many disciplinary actions. During the war, Francois was forced to go over to the side of the Austrians, but, not wanting to fight against his own, he pretended to be sick before the battle.

After Vidocq's death, Victor Hugo used his image to create two characters in his Les Misérables - the escaped convict Jean Valjean and the ruthless police inspector Javert, obsessed with one goal. One of the prototypes of the hero was the convict Pierre Morin, who in 1801 was sentenced to five years of hard labor for a stolen piece of bread. Only one person, the bishop of the city of Digne, Monsignor de Miollis, took a consistent part in his fate after his release, first giving him shelter and then a recommendation for work. Morin justified his trust: he became a brave soldier and fell in the Battle of Waterloo. It was with Vidocq that the incident described in the novel of Valjean’s rescue of old Fauchelevent from under an overturned cart took place. In the 1860s, Vidocq's adventures were used for the plots of his books about Lecoq - a former criminal turned detective - Emile Gaboriau. Vidocq's traits can be seen in the images of the "gentleman thief" Arsene Lupin from the works of Maurice Leblanc, his "colleague" Raffles from the stories of Ernest Hornung and Simon Templar from the novels of Leslie Charteris. Vidocq, under his own name, appears repeatedly as a minor character in later works. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, French television broadcast three detective series in which he was already the main character. In the first series (1967), this role was played by Bernard Noel, in the second and third (filmed together with Canadian filmmakers) Claude Brasseur took his place.

In 2001, Vidocq became the title character of the French film of the same name, where his role was played by Gerard Depardieu; The plot of the film, however, has nothing to do with the real activities of the historical Vidocq. In 2018, a feature film directed by Jean-François Richet was released - “Vidocq: Emperor of Paris” (French) Russian, in which Vincent Cassel played the main role.

In Russia, Vidocq's name became famous after the Russian translation of his memoirs was published. In April 1830, Pushkin published (without a signature) a sharp review of this book in the Literary Gazette, in which literary scholars see veiled attacks on Thaddeus Bulgarin, a conservative writer and editor of the Northern Bee. Around the same time, Pushkin’s epigram “” was passed around, where these two people are also linked:

The epigram was published in Bulgarin’s “Son of the Fatherland” on April 26 in a distorted form - the mention of “Vidoc Figlyarin” disappeared from the last line

A French criminal who later became the head of the Brigade de sûreté - a police detachment made up of pardoned criminals. Eugene-Francois Vidocq He is also considered the “father” of criminal investigation and the first private detective.

Since childhood, he was very hyperactive... At the age of 14, probably by accident, he killed a fencing teacher and decided to run away from the city. Later he was repeatedly imprisoned.

In 1799 Eugene-Francois Vidocq escaped from another prison, after which he lived quietly in Paris for 10 years.
But in 1809, his former cellmates recognized him and blackmailed him... Therefore, Vidocq decided to voluntarily report to the Paris police and offered to use his knowledge of the criminal world to fight criminals.

For appearances, the police arrested him, but he was allowed to select employees, for which E.-F. Vidocq professed the principle: “Only a criminal can overcome crime.” At first, 4, then 12, and eventually 20 former criminals worked for Vidocq. The brigade was called Sûreté/Security.

During the first year of work with the help of the Sûreté brigade, the following were arrested: 812 murderers, thieves, burglars, robbers and swindlers.

Vidocq - “... a former thief and robber, who in his new capacity contributed greatly to the reduction of criminal crime in the French capital, deserved Pushkin the title of “an out-and-out rogue, as shameless as he is vile” (one can, however, assume that these expressive epithets were intended more Thaddeus Bulgarin- “Vidoc Figlyarin!” - to whom Pushkin generously appropriated the spy talents of his Parisian brother).”

Volgin I.L., The Missing Conspiracy. Dostoevsky and the political process of 1849, M., Liberey Publishing House, 2000, p. 36.

Myself Eugene-Francois Vidocq had a photographic memory and demanded the same from his employees; in addition, in his unit, a card was created for each criminal, which described in detail his appearance, name, number of convictions, etc. – as a result, the file cabinet accumulated about 5 000 000 cards with descriptions of criminals.

In 1818 E.-F. Vidocq received a long-awaited pardon from the authorities.

In 1828, having been sent into retirement by the police authorities, Eugene-Francois Vidocq published a book: Notes of Vidocq, Chief of the Paris Secret Police / Mémoires de Vidocq, chef de la police de Sûreté, jusqu’en.

Vidocq's memoirs inspired Edgar Allan Poe to create the first detective stories.

In 1836 Eugene-Francois Vidocq established the Bureau de renseignements in Paris - a private agency that found stolen things for a reward, monitored wives or husbands, etc., but the bureau was soon closed by decision of the authorities.