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Crime in France had a long literary tradition, both in fiction and in fact — beginning with Vidocq, the real-life Frenchman who was the inspiration for countless crime stories (including those written by the American Edgar Allan Poe). Vidocq had been a legendary criminal before he became a policeman — and some thought he continued to cross the line throughout his career.

He liked to suddenly reveal himself to people who had not seen through his current disguise, announcing, “I am Vidocq, and I arrest you.” 2 Even today, his towering figure (contemporaries claimed he could appear tall or short, as suited his purposes) stands at the beginning of the history of modern criminology as well as the beginning of the detective story.

Much of what is known about Vidocq comes from his Memoirs, which were written with the assistance of Honoré de Balzac, one of France’s great novelists, and even the Memoirs are apparently as much a product of imagination as of memory. Fact or fiction? Vidocq blurred the line.

François-Eugène Vidocq begins the story of his life in typically dramatic fashion:

I was born at Arras, but as my constant disguise, the mobility of my features, and a singular aptness in make-up have caused some doubt about my age, it will not be superfluous to state that I came into the world on the twenty-third of July, 1775, in a house near where Robespierre had been born sixteen years earlier. It was during the night; rain poured down in torrents; thunder rumbled; as a result a relative, who combined the functions of midwife and sibyl, drew the conclusion that my career would be a stormy one. In those days there were still good people who believed in omens, while in these enlightened times men rely on the infallibility of fortune-tellers. 3

Even as a young man, Vidocq stood out from the crowd. Very large and strong, he was the terror of his neighborhood and was continually in fights. “My father’s house was on the Place d’Armes, the customary meeting-place for all the blackguards of the quarter, and here I early exercised my muscles in thrashing regularly my comrades.… All they heard at home were stories of injured ears, black eyes, and torn clothes. By the time I was eight I was the terror of all the dogs, cats, and children of the neighborhood.” 4 He earned the name locally of Le Vautrin (the Wild Boar), a name that Balzac later gave to a recurring fictional character based upon Vidocq.

His criminal career began with stealing money from the till of his family’s bakery. Later, after he pawned the family silver, his father insisted that the local authorities jail him — Vidocq’s first experience behind bars. Released after two weeks, he stole his mother’s savings and ran away from home. He had wanted to go to America and start a new life but lost his money to a con man along the way. Undaunted but wiser, he joined a traveling theater troupe and circus. He later recalled, “I went about the job, but I didn’t like it. The grease disgusted me and I wasn’t comfortable with the monkeys, which frightened by an unknown face, made unbelievable efforts to tear out my eyes.” 5 Tiring of this adventure, he returned to Arras and begged his mother’s forgiveness, something she could never resist giving him. He and his father were reconciled as well.

The uneventful life of a village soon bored him, and Vidocq joined the army. Here he fought fifteen duels in six months, according to his Memoirs. Vidocq saw much of Europe with the French army as it carried the Revolution into neighboring countries, but he learned that his chief loyalty must always be to himself. Frequently he was accused of crimes, ranging from assaulting an officer to forgery. Convicted, he usually managed to escape, mastering an ability to disguise himself — at least once in a nun’s habit. Recapture brought him harsher sentences to the “galleys,” which were prisons for hardened criminals, usually those convicted of capital crimes. But the galleys could not hold him either, and in the confusion of the times, Vidocq