The name of the hero of the essay has long become a household name. In our country, it is synonymous with a double-dealing careerist, an unscrupulous person who, in order to achieve his goals, is ready to convey even to people close to him. Everyone has heard the lines of the caustic epigram of A. S. Pushkin:
It's not that bad, Avdey Flyugarin, That you are not a Russian master by birth, That you are a gypsy on Parnassus, That in the light you are Vidocq Figlyarin …
At the same time, the fact that Vidocq was not tracking political criminals is somehow overlooked. Therefore, comparing Faddey Bulgarin and others like him with him, Russian intellectuals involuntarily put themselves on a par with Parisian criminals. Yes, and Vidocq was not a typical criminal: he was not brought to great fame in the criminal environment by robberies and murders for the purpose of robbery (which simply did not exist), but numerous escapes from various prisons and penal servitude, which became legendary.
Eugene Francois Vidocq
Eugene François Vidocq was born in 1775 in Arras into a baker's family (in 1758 M. Robespierre was born in the same city). However, the well-fed, but boring life of the petty bourgeois did not seduce our hero. From the small world of a provincial city, he decided to flee to the country of great hopes and adventures - to America. The young man did not have his own savings and he began his independent life with a crime, having stolen 2,000 francs from his father's cash desk. However, in the port city of Ostend, crooks of higher qualifications were found: the very first rogue he met with the fugitive deceived and completely robbed the naive adventurer. Instead of the long-awaited overseas trip, Vidocq set off on a journey to rural France: at first he entered the troupe of a puppet theater, then became a servant of a wandering doctor. In the theater, Vidocq discovered in himself remarkable acting abilities and the gift of reincarnation saved the life of a failed comedian more than once. In 1791 Vidocq entered the army.
French soldiers, late 18th century
Revolutionary France waged a war with Austria and good prospects opened up for a young man with adventurous inclinations: in fact, why is the son of the baker Vidocq worse than the son of the innkeeper Murat or the hairdresser Moreau? Vidocq quickly rose to the rank of corporal of the grenadier regiment, but his character let him down: in six months he fought 15 times in duels, and killed two opponents. And after a duel with a non-commissioned officer, Vidocq was forced to flee to the Austrians, where he made good money on fencing lessons, which he gave to officers. However, a quiet life, apparently, was not the lot of Vidok: he managed to quarrel with the brigade commander, was punished with 20 blows with a stick and fled to his beloved France, which, if waiting for a deserter, then only to more reliably hide him behind bars. Vidocq did not become original: he gave himself out for a deserter - he called himself a Belgian who had fled from the Prussian army, and entered the cavalry. There, he immediately slapped the commander of his unit, and he was saved from punishment only by the battle with the Austrians, during which he was torn off two fingers. Vidocq did not wait for the trial and, having escaped from the hospital, left the French army forever. Since then, he was constantly in an illegal position, he was regularly identified and arrested, and he, disguised as a prison inspector, gendarme, and a nun, regularly fled from places of detention. They knew about his phenomenal abilities for reincarnation, in the accompanying notes to the heads of the prisons where Vidocq was going, they were strictly ordered to take special precautions, but it was simply impossible to keep him behind bars. However, the life of an outcast, full of dangers and hardships, bothered Vidoku, he tried to reconcile with the authorities, offering his services as a secret agent. But security guarantees were then denied to him, and the deal did not take place. After another imprisonment, Vidocq again offered his services to the police and this time they were accepted. During the 21 months he spent in the Fors prison in Paris, thanks to his information, many prominent criminals were arrested.
Force Prison, drawing from 1840
After that, the authorities staged an escape and from 1807 Vidocq with four assistants (also former criminals, since he believed that only a criminal could overcome a crime) began his activity to track down bandits, thieves and swindlers. For a long time in the criminal environment he was trusted - although there were rumors about his connections with the police, he managed to explain them as follows: he is on the run, some enemies would like to report to the police, so he himself spreads rumors about his cooperation with her. Gradually, the number of Vidocq's assistants increased to 20 people. In 1817 alone, thanks to their activities, 772 criminals were arrested. All in all, thanks to the activities of Vidocq, more than 17,000 criminals of all stripes were arrested. As a result of his activities, by 1820 the crime rate in Paris fell by 40%. The successes led to the appointment of Vidoc as head of the Surte - the criminal police. But Vidocq did not engage in political investigation out of principled considerations, although tempting offers came to him more than once. Leading the criminal police, our hero did not confine himself to the world of criminals, daring to expose several impostors who belonged to the high society of Paris. Thanks to his activities, despite the active opposition of his superiors, the former convict Coignard, who took the name of Comte de Saint-Helene, was exposed.
Pierre Coignard was an adventurer of the highest "brand": a native of a peasant family, sentenced in 1801 for theft to 14 years in galley hard labor. From Toulon, he somehow fled to Spain, from where he returned to France as a "Count" de Saint-Helene (whose documents he managed to get hold of) - together with Napoleonic troops. His fate confirmed the well-known statement of Balzac that "honesty can not achieve anything," and high society "must be hit with a cannonball or penetrate like a plague." After the fall of Napoleon, Coignard served Louis XVIII, and so well that he received the rank of colonel and became a Knight of the Order of Saint Louis. At the parade, he was identified by one of Vidoc's subordinates, who was serving hard labor with Coignard in Toulon. Coignard managed to escape from two gendarmes, but Vidocq tracked him down again, although he was wounded during this operation.
Another "high-ranking" swindler exposed by Vidocq was a certain Shaumbray, who had an outstanding talent for forging various documents. At the time of his arrest, he was a “marquis”, administrator of the royal court and chief of the palace police.
Many real aristocrats (who also often had very interesting, but not very beautiful stories) considered these revelations "unnecessary", and the unexpected attention of the head of Syurte to the people of the upper world - impudent and defiant. As a result, Vidocq has numerous powerful enemies. Finally, in 1827, Vidok was forced to write a letter of resignation. The new Delaveau police chief claimed that Vidocq had reduced his activity and that his subordinates behaved inappropriately during off hours. No, they didn’t rob on the streets or rob banks: they just didn’t attend church on Sundays. Finding himself out of work, our hero wrote his famous memoirs, about which A. S. Pushkin for some reason said that they “do not offend either the dominant religion, or the government, or even morality in the general sense of the word; for all that, one cannot but recognize them as an extreme insult to public decency. " But the sale (or mortgaging in the board of trustees) of entire villages with people living in them, playing cards on them and, considered the norm, cohabitation with serfs of a fine nature, the poet, apparently, did not offend - what can you do, a man of the era.
Memoirs of Vidocq, French edition of 1828
Vidocq also created a paper mill, where they worked … Well, of course, former convicts. Interestingly, it was Vidocq who invented watermarked paper, indelible ink, and several new ways to make cardboard. During the popular uprising of 1832, the authorities remembered Vidocq: he was again appointed head of Surte, and in this situation Vidocq for the first and last time deviated from his principles of non-interference in politics: his detachment, one of the few, successfully acted against the rebels. It was even said that the preservation of the throne of the Bourbons was in no small measure due to the cold-blooded actions of Vidoc's criminals. But gratitude was never the hallmark of the monarchs of this dynasty: after the restoration of calm, Vidocq was once again dismissed. Our hero did not want to lead a calm life. He opened the Bureau of Investigation in the Interest of Trade, a private organization that provided a wide variety of services to merchants for 20 francs a year: warned of dishonest gamblers on the stock exchange, swindlers and people with a dark past who tried to enter business circles under a false name. … Within a year, he had 4,000 clients, and offices of the Bureau began to open not only in the provinces, but also abroad - in Cologne, Aachen, Brussels, Liege, Utrecht and Amsterdam. When visiting London, where his memoirs were published, Vidocq put forward a proposal to create an organization "World Investigation" - an analogue of the current "Interpol". The police were extremely jealous of the activities of competitors and in 1837 Vidocq was arrested on suspicion of abuse and extortion. However, the court fully acquitted him. In 1842, the enemies inflict a new blow on Vidocq: after meeting with Vidocq, the well-known swindler Shampe agreed to pay the debt to his creditors, but the police announced that Vidocq had exceeded his powers, illegally substituting himself for power, and the arrested Champex accused our hero of illegal arrest and kidnapping. The court passed a sentence: 5 years in prison, 5 years of strict supervision, three thousand francs fine and payment of legal costs. This process caused a great resonance in society and protests against the arbitrariness of the judicial authorities. As a result, at the re-trial, the judge acquitted Vidok, without even listening to the speech of his lawyer. However, the enemies nevertheless achieved their goal: during the year Vidocq spent in the Conciergerie prison, his material well-being was irreparably shaken, he lost all clients, and income from other enterprises practically stopped. Even the publication in 1844 of the book "The True Secrets of Paris" did not help to improve matters.
E. Vidoc. The True Secrets of Paris, French Edition
In 1848 Vidocq went bankrupt and was forced to live in a building that belonged to his friend. Only in 1854 - three years before his death - Vidocq received a small pension from the government. His death was terrible - the agony lasted 10 days. They said that in his dying delirium, Vidocq whispered that he could become Kleber or Murat, achieve the marshal's baton, but he loved women and duels too much. However, the merits of Vidocq did not go unnoticed by his contemporaries, and his name did not sink into oblivion.
Gerard Depardieu as Vidocq, 2001
Balzac and A. Dumas (senior), Eugene Sue and V. Hugo, J. Sand and F. Soulier, who used his stories in their works, were proud of their acquaintance with our hero. Vidocq himself became the prototype of Vautrin - one of the main characters in Balzac's novels "Father Goriot", "Lost Illusions", "The Deputy from Arsi", "Glitter and Poverty of Courtesans", the drama "Vautrin": here Balzac uses the image of shadows "of the escaped convict. As for Gobsek, his prototype was Vidoc's acquaintance, the usurer Just. J. Sand used facts from Vidocq's biography when creating the image of Trenmore (the novel "Lelia"), and V. Hugo - when creating the image of Jean Valjean (the novel "Les Miserables").
Gerard Depardieu as Jean Valjean, TV series 2000
Based on the materials provided by Vidocq, A. Dumas wrote the novels "Paris Mohicans", "Salvatore", "Gabrielle Lambert", and Eugene Sue wrote the famous novel "Parisian Mysteries".
