![]() The business went under, and Vidocq's next venture was to open le bureau des renseignements, the first private detective agency. There he employed mostly criminals and indigents. He consulted directly in the establishment of Scotland Yard, and the FBI later adapted many of his methods.Īfter a regime change in France that temporarily disbanded the Sûreté, Vidocq opened a paper company, hoping to capitalize on a new chemical process he invented to prevent check fraud. He was also the first person to employ ballistics in an investigation. Not expecting his agents to have the same skill, however, he set up the first police record system that contained information on a criminal's physical description, modus operandi, handwriting samples, etc. It was said he had a photographic memory and could recall the face of every criminal he ever came across. ![]() Vidocq trained his agents in fighting, including martial arts the use of disguises, which he himself often employed profiling the personalities and habits of criminals and applying the scientific method to cases. Under a writ of Napoleon, the brigade became a state police unit called the Sûreté Nationale-which still exists today-with Vidocq as its first director. Basically Vidocq hired criminals to spy on other criminals, a venture that was wildly successful. When he got out, he organized his own plainclothes police unit called the Brigade de Sûreté, the first undercover police force. To get out of prison, Vidocq agreed to spy on criminals for the French police. But what he's most well-known for is his role as the world's first private detective. He traveled with troupes of players, puppeteers, and gypsies at various times in his life, served in the army, and worked in prison gangs. He was an expert fighter and duelist, a skill he employed in numerous fights, mostly over the women he seduced. ![]() He was a complete troublemaker, stealing and going in and out of prisons from an early age. Portrait of Eugène François Vidocq by Achille DevériaĮugène François Vidocq's life was one that defined the term stranger than fiction.
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