Eugène-François Vidocq, inventor of the one-man-show? This is one of the surprising information revealed by his earthy biography written by Xavier Mauduit, which has just been republished by Tallandier editions. In 1845, the former policeman turned detective celebrates his 70th birthday, but nothing stops him, especially since he needs the money. He then decides to leave Paris to go to London, a booming capital, where he intends to rebuild his savings and a future. Barely arrived, he plans to open a branch of his intelligence agency, but the project falls short.
Never mind ! He comes into contact with intermediaries to sell his invention patents, such as the tamper-proof paper he has developed or even a security lock. He also plans to start importing fabrics or opening an office to help foreign entrepreneurs settle in England. And why not publish a new book, in the vein of the great success of his Memoirs, released in 1828, which will inspire many characters among writers, such as Vautrin at Balzac or Jean Valjean in Les Misérables by Victor Hugo…
Ideas flow, but the projects end up falling apart one after the other. It is then that Vidocq, who is not afraid of anything, launches into the one-man-show. It is no more and no less than telling his life with force of anecdotes, miscellaneous facts and twists to hold in suspense the British public eager for thrills… On the poster, in good peddler, he even offers reimbursement of the ticket in case of disappointment.
“Everything brings Vidocq to the stage,” explains his biographer Xavier Mauduit. His qualities as a speaker, his ego, his pleasure in putting himself on stage, his taste for disguise. Above all, he has a lot to tell…” And for good reason: Vidocq has lived a thousand lives, thug, acrobat, soldier, deserter, convict, fugitive… Until the moment when he ends up turning his jacket around to work as an informant in the police of Napoleon I. He then directs the security brigade of the prefecture of Paris, which fights against thefts, murders, prostitution and fraud.
The former thug is like a fish in water, champion of infiltration, cunning as a fox, he becomes the ace of disguise: one day dressed up as a thug, the next day as a priest, coalman, merchant or even a woman of the world – made up one day as an old duchess, it is said that he even deceived King Louis-Philippe… Dismissed from the ministries, then recalled, he always lands on his feet, seizes opportunities, uses his networks and also loses his money quickly win it…
It is all this human comedy, picturesque and colorful, between the grand boulevards and the slums of Paris, that he presents on the London stage with his irresistible glibness tinged with slang, as reported at the time by the writer and drama critic Jules Janin. “Really, yes, that it was amusing and entertaining to the point of destroying the collection of horrors piled up by Shakespeare in his history of Titus Andronicus, writes a conquered Janin. Come and see, English, Mr. Vidocq decorated with all his tricks. Come, you will touch with your hands the chains he has worn. »
We have to believe that his business lives on since he ends up returning to France, in 1848, hoping that the revolution will once again allow him to bounce back. He offered his services to the Republicans, then to Napoleon III, who proclaimed the Second Empire in 1852. At the age of 77, Vidocq spied on the royalists, watched suspects, set up spinning mills, wrote reports, tried to make himself useful in order to reach a pension. He will only receive a few hundred francs and the disdain of an administration which sees in him a relic of the old days… Before dying alone and almost ruined in a furnished apartment in the Marais at the canonical age of 81.