Eugène François Vidocq (1775–1857) is a name that has redounded through the years as the epitome of the scientific, analytical detective. The first leader of France's Sûreté Nationale and sometimes credited with being "the father of modern criminology," Vidocq was a man of questionable character—to put it mildly—but also a man whose story somehow fascinated the literary world and still does even to the present day. If records were kept for number of times fictional characters in mystery novels were named after someone real, Vidocq might very well hold the record.
Life in Paris; or, The Adventures of a Marquis, which tells the story of a particularly dastardly criminal who rises to the level of being honored as a marquis in post-revolutionary France, is presumably Vidocq's attempt to get in on the money he felt was being made from his name by others. He was not a prolific writer himself, but he was not averse to making money and one can imagine him saying to himself, "Hey, if Victor Hugo, Edgar Allan Poe, and Honoré de Balzac are profiting from my life story, so should I!" Presented as fiction, he does not hide that many of the incidents in this novel are taken from real life; and given his personal past, there may be more than a little of his own criminal history included. Whether as fiction, non-fiction, or memoir, Life in Paris will give the reader a thorough education about crime in 19th century France, which the author frankly (pun intended) admits was part of his goal.
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