Nothing came of this arrest, which Vidocq took quite as a joke, although he was detained in the Conciergerie for three months and his business suffered. Yet, afterwards, the police would not leave him alone. Old animosities had never disappeared, and they were revived when Vidocq occasionally turned his hand to his old work and caught someone whom the regular police could not find. He had started a sort of “trade protection society,” by which, on payment of a small annual fee, any shopkeeper or business man could obtain particulars concerning the solvency of new clients. The number of subscribers soon exceeded 8,000, and Vidocq, in one of his published reports, fixed the amount he had saved his customers at several thousands of pounds. A fresh storm burst over him when he unmasked and procured the arrest of a long-firm swindler, before the police knew anything of the case.
Once more he was arrested, in 1842; his papers were impounded, there were rumours of tremendous disclosures, family scandals, crimes suppressed—all manner of villainies. No doubt he had made himself the “intermediary” in matters not quite savoury, but the worst things against him were an unauthorised arrest and a traffic in decorations very much on the Grévy-Wilson lines of later days. The prejudice against him must have been strong, and the case
ended in a sentence of eight years’ imprisonment, which was, however, reversed on appeal. He was much impoverished by his lawsuits, and one of his last proceedings was to appear before a London audience dressed, first as a French convict in chains, then in the various disguises he had used in following up malefactors. Although his lecture was in French, he seems to have attracted large audiences at the Cosmorama. Sir Francis Burdett was a great patron and supporter of Vidocq, and was in the habit, whenever he visited Paris, of inviting the old thief-taker to dine with him at the Trois Frères Restaurant in the Palais Royal. Vidocq died in penury in 1857 at a very advanced age.
Vidocq’s mantle, after his resignation of his official post, fell upon one of his own young men, for the fallacious idea still held that to discover thieves it was necessary to have been a thief. The choice fell upon one Coco-Latour, who had been a robber of the housebreaking class, and was much esteemed for his enterprise in that particular branch of crime. He now took over Vidocq’s offices and staff, with much the same results. Arrests were constantly made, numbers of depredators were brought to justice, but again and again in court there were some discreditable scenes; fierce recriminations between the dock and the witness-box, little to choose between the accused criminal and the man who had captured him. Public feeling was revolted by these exhibitions, and at last the authorities resolved to abolish the system. M. Gisquet, who was prefect of police, broke up Coco-Latour’s band of ex-brigands and ordered that in future the work should be done by persons of unblemished character. Any who had been once convicted were declared ineligible. New and respectable offices were installed under the wing of the Prefecture, replacing the old dens in low streets which had been no better than thieves’ haunts infested by the worst characters.
From 1832, when this salutary change took effect, until the present day the French detective has won well-deserved credit as an honourable, faithful public servant, generally with natural aptitude, trained and developed by advice and example. “A man does not become a detective by chance; he must be born to it”; he must have the instinct, the flair, the natural taste for the business—qualities which carry him on to success through many disheartening disappointments and seeming defeats. The best traditions of the Paris Prefecture have been worthily maintained by such men as Canler, Claude, Macé, Goron, and Cochefert. Their services have been conspicuous, their methods good, and they are backed by useful, if arbitrary, powers, such as the right to detain and interrogate suspected persons, which our police, under the jealous eye of the law, have never possessed. This might seem to give the French police the advantage as regards results, yet it is the fact that, with all their limitations, the English police can compare favourably with that of our French neighbours, and, as has been said, if we have at times to reproach our servants with failure, there are also many undetected crimes, cases “classed,” or put by as hopeless, in France.
A few stories may be inserted here illustrating the more prominent traits of the French detectives, their patience, courage promptitude, and ingenuity. No pains are too great to take; a clue is followed up at all costs and all hazards. The French detective is equal to any labours, any hardships, any emergency, any dangers. The words “two pounds of butter,” written on a scrap of paper found on the theatre of a great crime, led Canler and his officers to visit every butterman’s shop in Paris, till at last the man who had sold and the criminal who had bought the butter were found. In the same way a knife picked up was shown to every cutler until it was identified and the purchaser traced. A murdered man had been seen in company with another the day before the crime; the latter was described to the police, who got on his track within twenty-four hours, checked the employment of his time, and found the tailor who had sold him his clothes; within another day his lodging was known, on the fourth he was arrested and the crime brought home to him. Two men on the watch for a criminal held on three days and nights out of doors, in December, almost without food, and, to justify their presence in the high road, pretended to be navvies working at repairs. Four detectives, in pursuit of five murderers, divided the business among them: one played the flute at a hall often visited by their men, another sold pencils in the street, a third worked in brickfields frequented by their quarry, a fourth kept the men wanted constantly in view.
Another detective disguised himself as a floor polisher, simply to get on friendly terms with a man of the same calling, who was an assassin. The disguises assumed are various and surprising, and this may be taken as fact in spite of statements to the contrary. A detective has been seen in a blue blouse distributing leaflets in the street, and has been recognised (by a friend) in correct evening dress at a diplomatic reception. There was once attached to the Prefecture a regular wardrobe of all sorts of costumes, and a dressing-room as in a theatre, with wigs and all facilities for “making up.” This is now left to the individual himself, but not the less does he disguise. So sedulous are these detectives in playing assumed parts, that it is told of two who were employed in a high-class case, one as master, the other as valet, that after the job was done, the master had so identified himself with his part as to check his comrade afterwards for his familiarity in addressing him!