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Jean Valjean, the tormented protagonist of Victor Hugo’s “Les Misérables,” is one of the most famous characters in world literature. He has been the subject of numerous adaptations over the years, with the most well-known film portrayals by Gerard Depardieu and, more recently, Hugh Jackman (in a powerful performance that earned him an Oscar nomination). These adaptations have made the characters of “Les Misérables,” especially its protagonist, well known even to those who have not read Victor Hugo’s immortal work.
Eugène François Vidocq, the First Detective in History.
But the characters of Jean Valjean and his antithesis, Inspector Javert, are both based on a historical figure whose biography is worthy of its own saga: Eugène François Vidocq, a French criminal from the first half of the 19th century who became the first detective in history.
Vidocq was born in 1775, the third of seven children of a baker in Arras. From his earliest youth, he was known for his skill with a sword and for his innate talent for stealing, cheating, and escaping from any situation. At fourteen, he ran away from home after stealing from his parents and wandered from job to job, with his most bizarre role being a circus performer who played a cannibal eating raw meat.
Vidocq: Deserter, Womanizer, and Criminal
At sixteen, he joined the army, where his skills made him famous, though he continued to cause trouble with disputes and duels. After being imprisoned, he escaped within two weeks. In 1792, he attacked an officer, an offense punishable by death. Before he could be arrested, he deserted and re-enlisted under a false identity, though he was discovered shortly after and forced to leave the army.
He returned to his hometown, where he built a reputation as an inveterate womanizer, with his adventures and fights often ending in duels and the death of his opponents. However, the deceiver was also sometimes deceived: at age 19, he was tricked into marrying Anne Marie Louise Chevalier when she falsely claimed he had gotten her pregnant. They did not get along, and she was unfaithful, so he abandoned her and later divorced her. He would continue to encounter her throughout his life, usually when she was asking for money or threatening to turn him over to the authorities.
Vidocq spent the following years of his life immersed in the criminal underworld, frequently committing robberies, forgeries, and assaults. He was constantly in and out of prison, but his escapes were just as frequent; he never spent much time behind bars.
The Event That Changed Vidocq’s Life
In 1809, Vidocq witnessed an event that would change the course of his life: the public execution of César Herbeux, one of his former criminal associates. Vidocq began to reflect on the life he had led and became convinced that if he continued on the same path, his fate would be the same as Herbeux’s.
He tried to start a new, honest life, but wherever he went, people eventually recognized him and either reported him to the authorities or refused to associate with him. He was soon arrested again and sent back to prison. But this time in jail would be different. He offered to work for the authorities as a spy, first among the prisoners and later in the city’s criminal underbelly, where his reputation earned him the trust of other criminals. He even participated in crimes to help the police catch criminals in the act and adopted various identities when he began to arouse suspicion.
The “Brigade de la Sûreté” (Security Brigade)
In 1811, he created the “Brigade de la Sûreté” (Security Brigade), a group of undercover agents whose mission was to infiltrate criminal gangs and gather information to stop their plans. Seeing its enormous success, the brigade was established as an official police force the following year, with Vidocq as its leader. This unit was composed of a diverse group of people; many were ex-convicts, but it also included police officers, investigators, doctors, and even beggars who knew the city and its inhabitants well.
Vidocq himself trained his agents in the art of disguise and infiltration, teaching them the specific skills and behaviors needed to blend in with different criminal groups. He personally continued to pursue criminals, despite his growing fame. For these contributions and many more, Vidocq is considered the father of modern criminology. He reformed the police force in France and drastically reduced crime rates in Paris, making it one of the safest cities in the world during his time.
The Similarities Between Valjean and Vidocq
Vidocq’s fame was immense, and he appears in the works of many writers of the time, including Charles Dickens and Alexandre Dumas. He was a personal friend of Honoré de Balzac and Victor Hugo, who once witnessed Vidocq save a man by lifting a heavy cart that had trapped him—an event Hugo later recreated for Jean Valjean in the novel.
Like Jean Valjean, Vidocq spent much of his life on the run, fearing discovery, and he suffered a moral crisis that led him to become a respected member of society. And just as Valjean is Vidocq, so too is Javert: a relentless pursuer of criminals, intelligent and calculating, who could infiltrate revolutionary groups just as Vidocq did in the slums of Paris.
Persecutor and persecuted, man of the law and tormented soul—in “Les Misérables,” both Jean Valjean and Javert are Vidocq.
Read the original publication in Spanish. The first detective of history
