Eugène François Vidocq

(1775 - 1857)

As a onetime criminal who went on to found the Brigade de Sûreté in Paris, Eugène François Vidocq served as the basis for Honoré de Balzac’s character Jacques Collin (also known as Vautrin), who appears in various novels, among them Père Goriot and Lost Illusions. When Vidocq retired from the Paris police in 1827, he held a fortune of a half-million francs.