Autograph letter signed by François Vidocq, dated in his hand November 12, 1837, on a double leaf, with the autograph address of the correspondent on the fourth page "Monsieur Pujol ancien directeur des Postes de Vendôme à Gournay, Enbray [Gournay-en-Bray] (Seine-Inférieure)". Numerous usual folds.

Fine printed letterhead detailing the services offered by his private detective agency: "20 FRANCS PAR ANNEE, Et l'on est à l'abri de la ruse des plus adroits fripons !" [for 20 francs a year, one is protected from the most cunning of scoundrels!] It bears the address of his agency, recently relocated to "Rue Neuve St Eustache, N°39" (manuscript notation). Vidocq had retained his former offices at "Rue du Pont-Louis-Philippe, N°20" (printed letterhead).

The legendary thief and con man, who from 1811 onwards served as head of the Paris security forces and whose name still holds an important place in popular culture today, had founded in 1833 a commercial intelligence bureau whose list of services can be read in the letterhead. Vidocq penned this missive just days before his arrest, as well as a search of his premises by police, and subsequent trial. His debt collection enterprise was then highly successful and extremely lucrative thanks to the "20 francs par année" paid by thousands of subscribing merchants, bankers, and industrialists who enjoyed the services of his private police force. During the same period, he published his famous dictionary of criminal slang, Les voleurs, physiologie de leurs moeurs et de leur langage, also sold from his offices at Pont-Louis-Philippe and at the Tenon bookshop.

His agents were present throughout France and even abroad. Here he deals with tracking down a debtor for a Norman notable:

"Monsieur

J'ai l'honneur de vous informer, que, j'ai découvert l'adresse du sieur Beaurepaire votre débiteur et qu'il est dans une position de pouvoir vous payer, je pourrai si vous le désirez vous indiquer sa demeure, mais pour ce faire, vous ne trouverez pas mauvais que je vous réclame le payement de vingt francs qui me sont dûs dans cette affaire et dont vous voudrez bien avoir la bonté de me faire remettre [...]"

 

[Sir,

I have the honour to inform you that I have discovered the address of Sieur Beaurepaire, your debtor, and that he is in a position to pay you. If you wish, I can indicate his residence to you, but in so doing, you will not think it amiss that I request payment of the twenty francs owed to me in this matter, which you will be so kind as to remit to me [...]

He was then at the height of his fame, and the Paris prefecture seethed at this competition:

"in short, he operated a counter-police force which brought him into several disputes with the law" (Histoire complète de F.- E. Vidocq, 1858). Nine days after sending this letter, "On November 28, 1837, at eight o'clock in the morning, four police commissioners, one officer, and some twenty agents - 'only that many,' Vidocq remarked with irony- raided the agency on Rue Neuve-Saint-Eustache and seized three thousand five hundred files, for which no inventory was drawn up, contrary to what the law required. [...] Vidocq immediately protested through a letter to the press, a complaint to the King's prosecutor, and a statement addressed to the attorney general. [...] The commissioners appropriated confidential documents that compromised Louis-Philippe's police, notably notes and draft reports relating 'to persons who still hold office'" (Eric Perrin, Vidocq). Despite numerous intrigues against him and several months' imprisonment, Vidocq was definitively acquitted in 1843.

A rare investigative letter from this notorious figure who inspired one of Balzac's most fascinating characters: Vautrin.