The First Detective

by James Morton

Eugène-François Vidocq was born in France in 1775 and by his early twenties was a notorious criminal and prison escapee. He then turned police officer and employed a gang of ex-convicts as his associates. Vidocq's triumphs were many, and he became the darling of Europe -- actresses, politicians and thieves hung on his every word. He invented innovative criminal indexes and experimented with fingerprinting, establishing forensic techniques that are still in practice today. In disguise, he passed through the highest and lowest levels of society, until his cavalier attitude forced him out of the police. Few know that Vidocq opened the world's very first private detective agency. The cases he solved were high-profile, from forgery in London to stolen jewels in the south of France, and Vidocq grew in notoriety. His infamy hardly prevented him from becoming a spy, moving secretly across the dangerous borders of Europe. Novelists Balzac, Hugo, and Dickens all created characters based on the