Shady Detectives
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Jules Beaujoint (pseudonym), Cartouche, King of the Bandits, 25 issues (Paris: Arthème Fayard, 1907). Author’s collection. Vidocq’s self-reference to the eighteenth-century bandit Cartouche in the preface to the Mémoires was on the mark. His narrative parallels the life and exploits of Cartouche: the child who first steals at home, runs away from his family, learns
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Frontispiece portrait by Marie Gabrielle Coignet, in Mémoires de Vidocq, chef de la police de sûreté, jusqu’en 1827, vol. 1 (Paris: Tenon, 1828). Wikipedia Commons: Musée Carnavalet, Paris. In both fact and fiction, Eugène-François Vidocq is often called the first modern detective. His life and exploits are recounted in the Mémoires (1828-1829), a sprawling four-volume collection
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In 1996, the French postal service issued a series of commemorative stamps, “French Heroes of the Detective Novel.” For mystery readers accustomed to a canon of fictional detectives that begins with Edgar Allen Poe’s Auguste Dupin, gains popularity with Sherlock Holmes, and achieves its golden age in Hercule Poirot, it’s a curious collection of characters.
Shady Detectives, Elegant Criminals & Dark Avengers 