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Lépine had to deal with several high-profile cases during his tenure, including the Mona Lisa theft and the notorious Bonnot Gang of bank robbers. But it was an ongoing threat that probably caused him the most anxiety: the growth of the apaches, the young street criminals who had been glamorized by fashionable Parisians.

Women apaches, known as gigolettes, were important members of the gangs. When police raided dance halls looking for weapons, the young women would conceal their companions’ knives, guns, and blackjacks under their clothing. A woman known as La Grande Marcelle was a sort of apache queen whose followers carried out her orders without question. Several murders of women concierges, killed for the rent money that they collected, were attributed to Marcelle’s gang. Her companion was Jacques Liabeuf, regarded as one of the most vicious of the apaches. He became famous for the special outfits that made him a fearsome adversary: Liabeuf wore a bulletproof waistcoat and a suit with brass sleeves and wristbands bristling with sharp points that inflicted grave damage on anyone trying to grab him. He carried a pistol but preferred an enormous knife for fighting.

In early January 1910, a policeman named Deray was killed, allegedly while attempting to arrest Liabeuf. Prefect of Police Lépine stood at the grave of the murdered policeman, in a section of Montparnasse Cemetery reserved for those killed in the line of duty, and promised that Deray’s killer would be brought to justice. He issued instructions that his men “must not hesitate to use weapons in cases where they were in danger of serious bodily injury.” Paris, he said, was “the refuge for too many bandits and justice treated them too tenderly.” 52

Many Parisians, particularly in the working classes, felt differently. Another view of the killing of the policeman came from the pen of M. Hervé, editor of La Guerre Sociale, the most extreme socialist newspaper in Paris. “Do you know,” he wrote, “this Apache who has just killed Deray is not lacking in a certain beauty, a certain greatness, not often found in this century of feeble wills and beastlike submission. He has given a fine lesson of energy, perseverance, and courage to us revolutionists. He has set a fine example to the honest workmen who are every day victims of police brutality. Did you ever hear that one of them avenged themselves?” 53 The radical journalist was sentenced to four years in jail for publishing these words.

The police finally caught Liabeuf during a raid on a house in Montmartre. It seemed surprising that he was taken alive, but he soon remedied that. While in jail, he overpowered a guard who was bringing him food and made his way to the roof. A standoff resulted, and his lawyers were called to persuade him to come down. Despite their pleas, Liabeuf remained on the roof until a brigade of firemen arrived to retrieve him. Crying out, “To hell with the police and long live anarchy!” he threw himself to his death. 54

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Among those who attempted to discover the roots of the apaches’ criminal behavior and rage was Edmond Locard, the greatest of French criminologists, born in 1877. After studying medicine and law, he became Lacassagne’s assistant before setting up his own crime lab at Lyons in 1910. Locard was a forensic pioneer in many fields. He became particularly adept at handwriting analysis, forgery detection, and dental comparisons.

In studying the apaches, Locard was influenced by Lacassagne’s views that urban crime was different from rural crime. He further sought to understand the apaches through their art, which he collected. Examples often depicted such scenes as murders and guillotinings.

Locard felt that fiction could be a source of real-world inspiration. He wrote:

I hold that a police expert, or an examining magistrate, would not find it a waste of his time to read [Arthur Conan] Doyle’s novels. For, in the adventures of Sherlock Holmes, the detective