The character of Vidocq looms large in the annals of French crime. His was a strange personality, and he did some wonderful, although unworthy, not to say infamous, things. A good picture of him is preserved by M. Moreau Christophe, long Inspector General of French prisons. Vidocq, he tells us, was gifted with extraordinary audacity. His courage was almost unexampled. He had an amazing fertility of resource, and was endowed with remarkable physical strength. He belonged in turn to the two extremes of society. He might late in life be called an honest man, but he certainly had been a thief. His nature was strangely contradictory and had two sides, both in manners and in conduct. He was garrulous yet discreet; always a boaster, yet cunning and secretive. Although prompt to execute, he was much given to thought before action; when he seemed to make a chance stroke it was the result of careful previous calculation. His appearance was peculiar. Of middle height, but built like a small Hercules, he had a large head, carried on a short, sinewy neck. His yellow hair was thick and close grown; he had a flat nose, open nostrils and a large humorous mouth, fleshy cheeks with salient cheek-bones, small, piercing green eyes, which glittered under prominent thick eyebrows. A phrenologist was called in to examine his head without knowing his name, and reported on his cranium as combining three types: “that of a liar, a diplomatist and a sister of charity.” To this M. Moreau Christophe adds the suggestion that he would have been better described as “an ape, a fox and an old humbug.”
Vidocq’s character was despicable, but his underground methods, exercised for the protection of society, were largely adopted by the police of the day. If the ex-thief thief-taker betrayed his old associates, his action contributed to the reduction of crime; but there was no such excuse for the official guardians of law and order who encouraged, indeed actually manufactured, crime. Men who had come into power at the Restoration stooped to support their authority by seeking to prove that the monarchy was still threatened by conspirators, eager to reëstablish the fallen régime. Rumors of dangerous plots were constantly current, and, as they were mostly insignificant or imaginary, it was necessary to invent them. For this purpose a special police was called into existence, known at the time as the Police provocative. Agents were employed to instigate and incite those who were unguarded in the expression of their Bonapartist leanings to join in some combination against existing authority. Traps were laid, sham conspiracies started and simple folk drawn into them, only to be betrayed and denounced by the treacherous agents, who had led them on. Often enough honest workmen were persuaded, by specious counsels and unlimited drink, to band themselves together to overthrow the government; and when committed beyond explanation or avowal they were arrested and thrown into gaol. This system of provocation largely prevailed under the Bourbons. A very shabby trick was played upon Colonel Caron, who was concerned in the so-called conspiracy of Colmar. He had been arrested on suspicion, but was released and was living quietly at Colmar, when a secret agent came to him, pretending to be in trouble with the police for his known political leanings. Colonel Caron opened his heart to this traitor, revealed particulars of a plot in progress, all of which were duly carried to the Prefect, who gave the agent orders to lead his victim on. A rising was planned, and everything was ready. Colonel Caron put on his uniform to head the conspirators, and when he rode out with cries of “Vive l’Empereur,” he was arrested by his own supposed followers, who were agents in disguise. For this he lost his head, while the police agents were handsomely rewarded.
The Saumur conspiracy was similarly fatal to General Berton. He had long been more than suspected of heading a conspiracy centred at Saumur, for the necessary evidence had been gained through the abominable practice then in force of tampering with private correspondence in the post. The warrant for his arrest had been issued, but he saw the officers approaching from his window and escaped through a door leading into the garden. The authorities were determined to take him and sent a secret agent to hunt him up. The agent ran into him at length at Thouars, where he was in hiding with a supposed fellow conspirator, an ex-sergeant Wolfen, who was in reality another agent of the police. The general was presently arrested and tried as a traitor, and in due course suffered death.
Another case on all fours with these was that of Colonel La Bédoyère, who, to make the story blacker, was denounced by a police officer under the greatest obligation to him. This Colonel La Bédoyère was an ardent adherent of the Emperor Napoleon, whom he had joined on his return from Elba. He was engaged at Waterloo, and found it advisable to disappear after the Hundred Days. He took refuge in the country, and was safely concealed for some months; but then, in the teeth of the strong protests of his friends, came back to Paris, where he was arrested and thrown into the Conciergerie. Some devoted friends arranged for his escape from prison, but they could not see their way to passing him out of Paris. Release from the prison was to be effected by buying over an employé with a bribe of 10,000 francs, but the rest was not easy, and there were no generous English officers to offer the same help that had been given to La Valette. When the agent, above mentioned as being under obligation to La Bédoyère, was found, he promised to see the Colonel safely through the barrier. When all had been satisfactorily arranged, the scoundrel went straight to the Prefect, and gave information, both of the intended escape and the persons who were to assist in it. Shortly after this La Bédoyère was sentenced to death and was shot, while the agent received promotion and a considerable sum as a reward. The sequel is worth telling as a proof that Nemesis waits on such contemptible conduct. The man was looked upon with disfavor even by the police, retired into private life and became engaged in a commercial undertaking, which presently failed. His misfortunes deepened. He was constantly a prey to remorse, and eventually he took his own life.
Whatever the faults of the system of police espionage and criminal detection, of which Vidocq was the first to make systematic use, it was the premier attempt at anything like a well equipped detective organisation ever made; and as such it must be regarded as the foundation of the whole detective establishment of the police system of to-day.
CHAPTER V
THE COMBAT WITH CRIME
How French justice secures convictions—Services of spies and informers utilised—The “coqueurs” or “moutons” largely found in French prisons—Baseness of the average “mouton”—One youth plans the murder of his own father—Another offers to murder his cell-companion to save him from the scaffold—The skeleton of Madame Houet brought to light after thirteen years—Clever detection in the case of Lacenaire—A whole series of murders exposed, committed by this bloodthirsty assassin—Some remarkable cases—Detection often follows—The difficulty of disposing of the remains—L’Huissier, Prevost, the “woman of Clichy” and Voirbo.
French justice has always been open to the reproach of using unworthy means to arrive at its end, commendable enough in itself—the conviction of the criminal. The services of spies and informers have always been utilised in a clandestine fashion. The rule has long obtained, and indeed is still in force, of employing an agent to insinuate himself into the confidence of accused persons to worm out secrets and betray them to the authorities. The most favorable opportunity is offered by the intimacy of cell association, and it is seldom that the spy fails to come upon the secret, however carefully concealed. The system is still in force, and has been tried in notable recent cases, such as that of the truculent and mysterious Campi, the murderer. The coqueurs, the unofficial attachés of the police, are as old as the hills, and are to be found in every country; but their ignoble business is perhaps more widely followed in France than elsewhere. They are of two classes, those at large and those in confinement,—the latter being very generally found in French prisons. The first class live with and on the criminal class, in whose operations they ostensibly take part, so as to gather the knowledge that makes them useful to the police; but they are actively engaged in them when they find it safe and profitable. More often they prefer to inform and take the reward, but when times are bad they have been known to invent imaginary schemes and persuade their friends to undertake them, betraying the dupes when they were compromised and fully committed.
The treacherous business of provocation is said to have been carried further in the troublous times of the second Revolution. The police were then directly charged with having invented a serious disturbance in order to make short work of a number of political prisoners. In 1832 St. Pélagie was full of such prisoners. There was great unrest within the prison, mutiny was constantly imminent, and the discontent was encouraged by an absurd rumor circulated that they were being poisoned by the authorities. It was a period of great effervescence in Paris, for the cholera, then a new and fearful epidemic, was raging, and the story was spread that the government was actually propagating it in order to reduce the number of its political foes. At last the disturbance came to a head, and there was a serious outbreak. The prisoners rose in revolt, smashed the furniture, ill-used their keepers and by degrees gained possession of the inner gates. At the same time an insurgent band, consisting of a couple of hundred Republicans, had assembled and were bent upon breaking open the prison to release their friends. It was believed to be a concerted movement, and was on the point of success, when the troops arrived. A large body of the municipal guard advanced, and, dispersing the crowd, entered the prison, where their attack was violently resisted. The revolted prisoners were formally ordered to surrender, but sturdily refused. The troops felt compelled to open fire, and many casualties resulted. When peace was restored, the ringleaders were arrested and removed, and brought to trial at the Assizes, where many were sentenced to travaux forcés. The authorities were then charged, as has been said, with having instigated the disturbance, but no proof of this accusation was ever produced, and the Prefect of Police indignantly repudiated the charge.