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When a gang of Parisian criminals wondered who among them was the informant that had lately triggered an increase in arrests, no one suspected the sailor with the month's growth of beard, the red-headed pirate, or even the scar-faced, dark-haired Gypsy. Yet they were wrong on all counts. Each of these supposed thieves or grifters was in fact a single person: François Eugène Vidocq, a master of disguise and the very informant they sought to flush out. Supposedly he even accompanied a group of assassins who planned to ambush and kill Vidocq. When the target failed to show up, the group groused over their lost opportunity, entirely unaware that the one who complained the loudest was Vidocq himself.
While this story may be one of the many myths surrounding Vidocq in his time (due in part to his own efforts to blur the details of his life), such was the success of his series of disguises. He not only changed the color of his hair and the outfits he might wear-including becoming a woman-but he also advocated that to be successful at duping others, one must become fully immersed in the character one adopts. Supposedly, he once summed up for the author Honoré de Balzac the secret to passing as someone else: "Observe what you would become, then act accordingly and you will be transformed." Vidocq's favorite personas were "Jean-Louis," a 60year-old "fence" who paid high prices and spoke like a Breton, and "Jules," a bearded burglar who preferred physical force and was frequently seen with his blond mistress (another informant).
It's an irony that Vidocq became the world's first undercover detective, created the first detective bureau, and innovated a number of techniques for forensic investigation because he was also a former criminal. Yet he would insist that his prison experience gave him advantages that made him successful at law enforcement. An examination of his life proves that he was a resourceful visionary who learned to use a chaotic politico-legal system to achieve his ends. According to his memoir, his primary functions were "to prevent crimes, to discover malefactors, and to give them up to justice." He did that and more, seemingly better than any man in Europe during his time.
Born in Arras,...