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Grey Owl

Archibald Stansfeld Belaney (September 18, 1888 – April 13, 1938), commonly known as Grey Owl, was a popular writer, public speaker and conservationist. Born an Englishman, in the latter years of his life he passed as half-Indian, claiming he was the son of a Scottish man and an Apache woman. With books, articles and public appearances promoting wilderness conservation, he achieved fame in the 1930s. Shortly after his death in 1938, his real identity as the Englishman Archie Belaney was exposed. He has been called one of the first pretendians.

Moving to Canada as a young man, Belaney established himself as a woodsman and trapper, before rising to prominence as an author and lecturer. While working for the Dominion Parks Branch of Canada in the 1930s, Belaney was named the "caretaker of park animals", first at Riding Mountain National Park in Manitoba and then at Prince Albert National Park in Saskatchewan. His views on wilderness conservation, expressed in numerous articles, books, lectures and films, reached audiences beyond the borders of Canada, bringing attention to the negative impact of exploiting nature and the urgent need to develop respect for the natural world. He was particularly concerned about the plight of the beaver (Canada's national animal), which by the 1920s had been hunted almost to extinction.

Recognition of Belaney includes biographies, academic studies, historic plaques in England, Ontario and Quebec, and a film based on his life, directed by Richard Attenborough.

Early life (1888–1906)
Archibald Stansfeld Belaney was born on September 18, 1888, in Hastings, England, into an upper-middle-class English family. His father was George Belaney and his mother Katherine "Kittie" Cox. His paternal grandfather had come from Scotland and married in England.

Kittie was George Belaney's second wife. Before Archie's birth, George had immigrated to the United States with his then-wife Elizabeth Cox and her younger sister, Kittie. After Elizabeth's early death, George married 15-year-old Kittie. Within the year they returned to England in time for the birth of their son Archie. George was unable to settle down to steady employment and wasted much of the family's fortune on various unsuccessful business ventures. He agreed to return permanently to the United States in exchange for a small allowance. Archie remained in England in the care of his father's mother, Juliana Belaney, and his father's two younger sisters, Janet Adelaide Belaney and Julia Caroline Belaney, whom the boy would know as Aunt Ada and Aunt Carry. It was Aunt Ada who would come to dominate Archie's early life.

Belaney attended Hastings Grammar School, where he excelled in subjects such as English, French and chemistry. "He mixed little with the other students in class, or afterwards. The shy, withdrawn boy, ashamed of having been abandoned by his parents, lived largely in his own world." Outside school, he spent time reading and exploring St Helen's Wood near his home. He also collected snakes and other small animals. Belaney was known for pranks, such as using his chemistry set to make small bombs, which he called "Belaney Bombs".

Fascinated by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Belaney read about them and drew pictures of them in the margins of his books. He prepared maps showing the linguistic divisions in Canada and the locations of the tribes. His knowledge impressed his aunt Ada, who was "amazed at his knowledge of the detail... He was not interested in the romantic picture of the Indians but in their mastery over nature..."

Belaney left Hastings Grammar School and started working as a clerk in a lumber yard, where, on weekends, he and his friend George McCormick perfected knife throwing and marksmanship. He hated the job and ensured a sudden end to it by lowering a bag of fireworks down the chimney of the company's office. The resulting explosion almost destroyed the building. Although, in agreement with his aunt Ada, he was supposed to work longer in England, he was finally allowed to move to Canada, with the understanding he would "learn to be a farmer while he was getting used to the country".

On March 29, 1906, at the age of 18, Belaney boarded SS Canada for Halifax, Nova Scotia. Arriving on April 6, he went to Toronto, where, with no intention of becoming a farmer, he worked for some time in a retail shop (perhaps Eaton's).

First years in Canada (1906–1915)
Toronto held no appeal for Belaney, and in the fall of 1906 he headed north. Soon after arriving at Lake Timiskaming, located on the boundary between Ontario and Quebec, he encountered Bill Guppy, who later recalled "...his first meeting at the Temiskaming station with the 'decent young fellow, with such a friendly air, and so earnest about becoming a guide'. The veteran woodsman took him on, and would never forget this young Englishman who had individuality", a little something that made him stick out in any crowd'."

Belaney spent the winter of 1906–1907 with Guppy and his brothers, getting his first lessons in trapping and woodmanship. He had learned the piano as a child, and this proved to be an asset in the small community.

In spring Belaney and the Guppys left for Lake Temagami by canoe. During the long trip he experienced his first taste of portaging heavy loads over difficult trails. The Guppys found work for the summer as guides at the recently constructed Temagami Inn on Temagami Island. With no experience, Belaney was forced to work at the inn as a "chore-boy". He returned home to Hastings for a short visit during the winter of 1907–1908, perhaps to ask for money from his aunts. He learned then that his father had been killed in a drunken brawl in the United States.

Belaney returned to work at the Temagami Inn in 1908. He determined to lose the remaining traces of his English accent and began to develop his story of an Indian boyhood in Mexico and the American Southwest. At the Temagami Inn he met Angele Egwuna, who was working there as a kitchen-helper. She spoke little English and he little Ojibwe, but a friendship developed. Through Angele he also met members of her family, who called him "gitchi-saganash" (tall Englishman). Her uncle gave him the nickname "ko-hom-see" (little owl), a name that would be transformed years later into "Grey Owl".

The Egwunas invited Belaney to spend the winter of 1909–1910 trapping with them in the bush to the east of the south arm of Lake Temagami, where he learned how the Temagami Ojibwe managed their hunting territories by killing only the animals that they needed and leaving the rest to reproduce. The time with the Egwunas improved both his proficiency with the Ojibwe language and the skills he needed to survive and make a living in the bush. Belaney would later report this as his "formal adoption" by the Ojibwe. The boy from Hastings was finally living the life he had dreamed of.

In the summers of 1910 and 1911, Belaney worked as a guide at Camp Keewaydin, an American boys’ camp on Lake Temagami. On August 23, 1910, he and Angele Egwuna were married on Bear Island in a Christian ceremony. In spring 1911 their daughter Agnes was born.

Little is known of Belaney's life in the winter of 1911–1912. He next surfaces, alone, in the summer of 1912 in Biscotasing. He worked in the surrounding area as a forest ranger during the summers of 1912–1914 and spent the winters in the bush on the trapline. In Bisco, Belaney began a relationship with Marie Girard, a Metis woman who worked as a maid in the boarding-house where he stayed. At his invitation she joined him on his trapline during the winter of 1913–1914.

There is no record of Belaney's life in the winter of 1914–1915. In June, 1915, he sailed for England with the Canadian Army. Marie Girard died of tuberculosis in the fall of 1915, shortly after giving birth to their son, John Jero.

In his first years in Canada, Belaney had established himself as a backcountry woodsman, with a keen appreciation of the wilderness. His debut as husband and father had been less successful: "Archie kept falling deeper and deeper into personal problems of his own making, going from one crisis to another."

In the Canadian Army (1915–1917)
Belaney enlisted with the Canadian Overseas Expeditionary Force on May 6, 1915, during the First World War. In June he was shipped to England and initially assigned to the 23rd Reserve Battalion in Kent. He later joined the 13th Battalion (Royal Highlanders of Canada), known as the Black Watch, and was shipped to the front line in France, where he served as a sniper. Fellow soldiers accepted his assumed Indian identity, with one writing that he "...saw him squirm up muddy hills in a way no white man could. He had all the actions and features of an Indian.... Never in all my life did I ever meet a man who was better able to hide when we would go out onto No Man’s Land."

Belaney was wounded in the right wrist on January 15, 1916. Then on April 23 he was shot in the right foot, a serious injury from which he never fully recovered. He was shipped back to England, where it was found necessary to amputate a toe. From November 1916 to March 1917, he convalesced in the Canadian Military Hospital in his home town of Hastings.

Encouraged by his aunts, Belaney renewed his childhood friendship with Ivy Holmes. Ivy, then 26, was an accomplished professional dancer, who had travelled extensively in Europe. Acquainted with her since childhood, he dispensed with the pretense of being Indian. She found that his stories about canoeing in Canada made the "backwoods sound terribly attractive". Belaney was silent about his wife and child back in Canada. They were married on February 10, 1917.

The couple decided that Belaney would return to Canada and establish himself near Biscotasing, then send for Ivy, who "looked forward to seeing his beloved wilderness". Exactly how he thought that plan would work out, with a legal wife and child no more than 100 kilometers away and (as far as he knew) a mistress in the same town, is a mystery. Belaney left for Canada on September 19, 1917. Ivy never saw him again. He wrote to her for a year until he finally admitted that he was already married. Ivy divorced him in 1922.

Back to Canada (1917–1925)
Belaney returned to Canada in September 1917, and was discharged from the army at the end of November. His most pressing concern was his wounded foot, which was painful and limited his mobility–an unfortunate prospect for someone who wanted to go back into the bush. In October he received treatment at a hospital in Toronto, but achieved little success. He had other worries: What to do about his first wife, Angele, and his daughter Agnes? What to do about his second wife, Ivy, still in England and expecting to be sent for? What to do about his illegitimate son, Johnny, born to his deceased mistress Marie? After meeting with Angele, he returned to Biscotasing at the end of 1917, alone.

Belaney soon gained a reputation for drunkenness and disorderly conduct in Bisco. Despite this, he made a favorable impression on many people, one person recalling "[I] liked immensely this endearing rebel. Archie was one of the nicest things that happened to me when I was growing up."

Belaney spent much of 1918 recuperating and gradually regained control of his right foot, but the disability remained for the rest of his life, with his foot sometimes swelling to twice its normal size. He did not approach Johnny and the boy did not learn who his father was till years later. He finally admitted to Ivy that he was already married, which ended their relationship. (He would be served divorce papers in 1921.) Now he had a new worry: His aunts were furious with him and regarded his treatment of Angele and Ivy as "nothing less than diabolical".

In the summer of 1919, Belaney worked on a survey party in the bush. A co-worker recalled "The 'Mexican half-breed' had an unattractive side. 'He was taciturn and morose, with a violent, almost maniacal temper.

His best friends in Bisco were the Espaniels, an Indigenous family with whom he lived in the early 1920s. He joined them for two winters trapping at Indian Lake on the east branch of the Spanish River. Belaney also maintained a cabin on his hunting ground nearby at Mozhabong Lake. His command of the Ojibwe language benefited from this time with the Espaniels, and he also learned the "Indian way of doing things" – which in Jim Espaniel’s words "the white man calls conservation".

In the summers of 1920 and 1921, he worked as the deputy forest ranger on the Mississagi Forest Reserve.

"Here Archie was at his best, on the five three-week tours through the huge reserve, checking on the summer ranger stations situated 50 to 60 kilometres from each other.... [Belaney] loved the wilderness. He insisted that [the men under his supervision] carefully check all camping sites for fire and also work on the trails, keeping up the portages to the different lakes in their district, allowing access in case of a fire."

Worried about the logging of Ontario's remaining old-growth pine forests, Belaney wanted the Mississagi area made into a park. In a fledgling attempt at conservationism, he posted signs saying "GOD MADE THIS COUNTRY FOR THE TREES DON’T BURN IT UP AND MAKE IT LOOK LIKE HELL" and "GOD MADE THE COUNTRY BUT MAN DESTROYED IT".

Inspired by his boyhood reading of authors such as Fenimore Cooper and Longfellow, Belaney invented his own elaborately choreographed "war dance", which "...surprised the local Ojibwa and Cree for, as fur buyer Jack Leve put it, 'The Bisco Indians didn’t know his brand of Indian lore. Local reactions to the war dance were mixed, with some people saying it was good fun, while others said it was just an excuse for drinking. Some Indigenous men joined in, while others thought the dance was evil.

Belaney's big day arrived on Victoria Day, May 23, 1923. The Sudbury Star reported: "War Dance Given at Biscotasing. A Big Celebration Held on Victoria Day. In honour of the good queen to which his grandfather and namesake had sent his epic poem, The Hundred Days of Napoleon, Archie put on the greatest war dance of his life."

In April, 1925, an arrest warrant was issued for Belaney after a particularly egregious piece of misbehaviour. Soon after, he left Bisco for good, returning to Temagami and taking up again with Angele, who bore him a second daughter, Flora, in 1926. Amazingly, there is no record of Angele ever reproaching him for his treatment of her, and she appeared to accept his wayward conduct to the end. In the fall of 1925, she saw him off at the train station – and never saw him again. By then, Belaney had already begun his fourth relationship.

Transformation into Grey Owl (1925–1931)
The transformation of Archie Belaney from a backcountry woodsman into the popular writer and public speaker Grey Owl began in 1925. His concern, expressed in books, articles and public appearances, was the vanishing wilderness and the consequences of this for the creatures living in it, including man. His message was "Remember you belong to nature, not it to you."

In the late summer of 1925, 36-year-old Belaney began courting 19-year-old Gertrude Bernard. Their relationship would last till 1936, and prove to be both tumultuous and a crucial factor in Belaney's transformation. They met at Camp Wabikon on Lake Temagami, where he was working as a guide. She was of Algonquin and Mohawk descent.

Her father's nickname for her was "Pony", but she would come to be known by another name, "Anahareo". According to her account in Devil in Deerskins: My Life with Grey Owl, Belaney's answer to her father's question about his background was this: "I come from Mexico. [M]y father was Scotch and my mother was an Apache Indian." Anahareo did not discover Belaney's true identity until his death and exposure in 1938.

In February, 1926, Anahareo joined Belaney near Doucet in the Abitibi region of northwestern Quebec, where he was earning a living as a trapper. Their courtship was eventful at times. Anahareo later claimed she once stabbed Belaney with a knife. In summer Belaney proposed to her. Due to his undissolved marriage to his first wife, Angele Egwuna, the couple could not marry under Canadian law, but the chief of the Lac Simon Band of Indians declared them husband and wife.

After a summer working as a fire ranger in Quebec, Belaney was back trapping again in the winter of 1926–1927. Anahareo accompanied him on the trapline and was horrified by what she experienced:

"Nothing in her small-town up-bringing had prepared her for the heart-wrenching sight of the frozen corpses of animals who had died in agony while trying desperately to escape from the unyielding metal jaws of the leghold traps. Nor could she bear to watch as Archie used the wooden handle of his axe to club to death those who were still living."

She attempted to make him see the torture that animals suffered when they were caught in traps. According to the account given in Pilgrims of the Wild, Belaney located a beaver lodge, which he knew to be occupied by a mother beaver, and set a trap for her. When the mother beaver was caught, he began to canoe away to the cries of the kittens, which greatly resemble the sound of human infants. Anahareo begged him to set the mother free, but, needing the money from the beaver's pelt, he could not be swayed. The next day he rescued the baby beavers, which the couple adopted. As Albert Braz stated in his article "St. Archie of the Wild", "[P]rimarily because of this episode, Belaney comes to believe that it is 'monstrous' to hunt such creatures and determines to 'study them' rather than 'persecuting them further'."

In 1928, lured by stories of abundant wildlife and bush, Belaney and Anahareo, along with the adopted beavers, McGinnis and McGinty, moved to southeastern Quebec, where they were to reside until 1931. Their intention was to set up a beaver colony, where the beavers would be protected and could be studied. Arriving in Cabano in autumn to find the vicinity heavily logged and unsuitable, they moved to the area of Lake Touladi, east of Lake Témiscouata, and built a cabin on Birch Lake, where they spent Christmas and the rest of winter. They found a family of beaver in the vicinity.

That winter Belaney wrote his first article, "The Passing of the Last Frontier", which was published in 1929 under the name A.S. Belaney in the English outdoors magazine Country Life. In March 1929, Belaney received a check for the article and a request from the publisher for the book that would be published in 1931 as The Men of the Last Frontier.

An unfortunate incident occurred that put an end to their dream of founding a beaver colony on Birch Lake: A friend of theirs, David White Stone, had arrived at their cabin while they were away and, unaware of their plans, had trapped the beavers that were to be the start of the colony. Then yet another unfortunate incident occurred: The two beavers, McGinnis and McGinty, disappeared. The couple was devastated by the incidents. David White Stone and Anahareo found two beaver kittens to replace the "two Micks". One of them soon died. They adopted the surviving beaver, naming it Jelly Roll, and moved to a cabin on Hay Lake near Cabano. At the end of summer the three relocated for some time to the nearby resort town of Metis, where Belaney gave his first public lecture. He moved back to Hay Lake with Jelly Roll, while Anahareo and David White Stone left to work his mining claim in northern Quebec.

In 1930, Belaney published his first article for the periodical Canadian Forest and Outdoors, "The Vanishing Life of the Wild". Under the name "Grey Owl" he wrote many articles for the periodical in the following years, becoming increasingly known in Canada and the United States. In June he inadvertently caught a beaver in a trap, which he nursed back to health and named Rawhide. His writing brought him into contact with Gordon Dallyn, the editor of Canadian Forest and Outdoors, who introduced him to James Harkin, the Commissioner of National Parks. In the spring, he received a visit from the Parks Branch publicity director, J.C. Campbell. The Parks Branch commissioned the first beaver film, The Beaver People, which featured the two beavers, as well as Anahareo and Belaney (identified as Grey Owl), and was shot in the summer of 1930. In correspondence with his London publisher Country Life, Belaney signed himself "Grey Owl" for the first time in November.

In January, 1931, Belaney, in the persona of Grey Owl, gave a talk at the annual convention of the Canadian Forestry Association in Montreal, where the film was shown in public for the first time. "The event was a huge success. It set the pattern for numerous speeches Grey Owl was to give, dressed in his Indian regalia, with films of his tame beaver to illustrate his stories."

The Parks Branch offered Grey Owl a position as "caretaker of park animals" at the Riding Mountain National Park in Manitoba. Years later James Harkin explained his reasons for the offer: "The providing of a position for Grey Owl was entirely to serve our purpose of securing publicity for the National Parks and for wild life conservation by using Grey Owl’s beaver and Grey Owl’s personality as a spear-head in that connection."

Beaver Lodge (1931–1935)
In the spring of 1931, Grey Owl and Anahareo, with the beavers, left Quebec, bound for a new life in the west, where a cabin had been built for them on Beaver Lodge Lake.

In June, a second beaver film was produced. This film, The Beaver Family, was shot by the cameraman W. J. Oliver, and released in 1932. Grey Owl would work with W.J. Oliver on more films in the coming years.

Beaver Lodge Lake proved to be unsuitable for the beavers, as a summer drought had resulted in the water becoming stagnant and the risk of the lake freezing to the bottom in winter could not be ignored. The bigger waterways of Prince Albert National Park in Saskatchewan were found to be a better habitat for beaver..

In October the group relocated to Lake Ajawaan in the park, which was ideal for their needs, being isolated, heavily wooded and teeming with wildlife. The Superintendent of the Park, Major J.A. Wood, had a cabin built for them according to Grey Owl's specifications. It was known thereafter as Beaver Lodge, and would be Grey Owl's base until his death in 1938. He received many prominent visitors at the lodge, including the Governor-General, John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir, an admirer of Grey Owl's writings on wildlife.

In late 1931, Grey Owl's first book, on which he had been working for two years, was published under the title The Men of the Last Frontier. Grey Owl intended the title to be "The Vanishing Frontier", but to his chagrin, the publisher, Country Life, changed the title to "The Men of the Last Frontier" without consulting him.

Among other topics the book describes the plight of the beaver in the face of extensive trapping and raises concerns about the future of the Canadian wilderness and wildlife. The demand for beaver pelts in the 1920s and 30s had increased so much that the beaver was on the verge of extinction in Canada. Trappers were being drawn to the forests in higher numbers than ever before. Grey Owl argued that the only way to save the animal was to stop the influx of trappers. This was highly unlikely during the Depression, "beavers [being] to the north what gold was to the west". Though the book focusses on the beaver, Grey Owl also used the animal as "...representative not only of all North American Wild Life but of the wilderness itself..."

He believed that Canada's wilderness and vast open spaces, both of which were fast disappearing, were what made it unique in the world. Grey Owl also raised concerns about how the Canadian government and logging industry were working together to exploit the forests and attempt to replace them with "synthetic forests", all the while projecting a false image of forest preservation.

The winter of 1931–1932 saw Grey Owl at work on the early chapters of Tales of an Empty Cabin, his final book, which would only be published in 1936. Anahareo, pregnant and stuck in the cabin, was fed up, later writing "All I heard from Archie that winter was the scratch, scratch of his pen, and arguments against taking a bath. Like a kid, he loathed baths." On August 23, 1932, their daughter Dawn was born.

At Beaver Lodge, the third beaver film, Strange Doings in Beaverland, was shot by W. J. Oliver in August 1932. The roof of the cabin was temporarily removed to facilitate the filming of some scenes. Oliver returned in 1933 to film the fourth beaver film Grey Owl’s Neighbours, which showed Grey Owl interacting with various animals in addition to the beavers. It also showed him welcoming visitors arriving by canoe. Oliver took many photographs of Grey Owl looking "consciously Indian", which were used as publicity for his lecture tours. The photographs were also used as illustrations in Grey Owl's works. In September 1935, Grey Owl and W. J. Oliver collaborated on their final film, Pilgrims of the Wild, which showed Grey Owl and Anahareo together on a canoe trip in the bush.

From 1932 to 1934, Grey Owl worked on the autobiographical novel Pilgrims of the Wild, which was published in early 1935. Later in 1935 he finished the children's adventure story, The Adventures of Sajo and Her Beaver People.

Leaving Dawn with a family in Prince Albert, Anahareo went alone on prospecting trips to the Churchill River area. The first trip was in the summer of 1933. The second trip lasted an entire year, from the summer of 1934 to the summer of 1935, in which she travelled by canoe to Wollaston Lake, 550 kilometers north of Prince Albert, and continued farther north to the edge of the Barren Lands. Grey Owl's letters to her betrayed a mixed bag of emotions: admiration for her fiercely independent spirit and courage in making such an arduous trip alone, concern for her safety, envy that she could make a trip into the bush that poor health and the pressure of writing prevented him from making – also irritation that the endeavor cost more than they could afford. At his request, she returned in the summer of 1935 to help him prepare for the upcoming lecture tour in Great Britain and to look after the beavers in his absence.

First tour (1935–1936)
On October 17, 1935, Grey Owl arrived at Southampton, England on the Empress of Britain from Montreal for the start of his first lecture tour in Great Britain. The tour was organized by his London publisher, Lovat Dickson, who later reported "The crowds everywhere were immense and enthusiastic." So popular were the lectures that the tour, originally planned to end in 1935, was extended for two months into 1936. All told, Grey Owl gave over two hundred lectures and addressed nearly 250,000 people.

His lecture in Hastings was typical of those on the tour, beginning with words of greeting followed by a showing of Pilgrims of the Wild, a film about his life with Anahareo at Beaver Lodge. While the film ran, Grey Owl moved about the stage, telling stories about the wildlife in Canada, particularly about the beaver. "He talked directly to his audience, and used no notes. His animated dialogue and his second, third and fourth films magically transported his listeners from the narrow streets of Hastings to the vast, unbroken Canadian forests."

On February 14, 1936, Grey Owl embarked at Greenock on the Duchess of Bedford, arriving in Halifax on the 21st.

Back to Beaver Lodge (1936–1937)
Grey Owl returned to Beaver Lodge after the wildly successful British tour in the late winter of 1936. He continued to work on Tales of an Empty Cabin, which would be published later that year.

He also conceived of a new project: Having seen how much value the beaver films added to his lectures in promoting his ideas, he wanted to take a cameraman with him into the Canadian wilderness to show what it is like to travel in the bush in winter and summer. The films, along with the beaver films, would be shown during his lectures in the upcoming tour.

In March he pitched the idea to the Parks Branch, which had underwritten the five beaver films, and to a number of influential people, including the Prime Minister, Mackenzie King, but his request for funding was turned down. His publishers put up $2000 for the winter film. Grey Owl eventually paid for the summer film out of his own pocket, commenting "This picture is the dream of my life, & neither Parks nor financial considerations are to stop me." The summer film was supposed to be shot that year in 1936, but the complications of getting together the equipment, rivermen and a new cameraman (W. J. Oliver, with whom Grey Owl had collaborated on the previous films, not being available) led to it being postponed to the summer of 1937.

The Trail - Winter (1937) was shot by B.J. (Bert) Bach in the Abitibi area, Quebec, where Grey Owl spent many winters trapping in the 1920s.

The Trail - Summer (1937) was shot by B. J. (Bert) Bach in the Mississagi Forest Reserve, near Biscotasing, where Grey Owl worked for many years as a fire ranger in the 1910s.

In early August 1936, Grey Owl travelled to Fort Carlton, Saskatchewan, where he attended a convention of the Great Plains Indians, commemorating the 60th anniversary of the signing of Treaty 6. He participated in the "huge Indian dance" in "his own particular style" and addressed the assembly with the words: "If there is anything I can do to help your cause, please let me know, I know a number of their important people in Ottawa and I know they will listen to me, again I thank you all."

Grey Owl's tumultuous ten-year relationship with Anahareo suffered a serious rupture in April 1936, and they parted for good later that year, probably in September.

On November 9, Grey Owl spoke at the Toronto Book Fair. The venue was filled to capacity with a crowd of 1,700 people, while 500 were turned away due to lack of space. Donald B. Smith described his reception as follows:

"No one equalled Grey Owl for crowd appeal at Canada's first book fair, not C. W. Gordon (Ralph Connor), the best-selling Canadian novelist; not E. J. Pratt, the Canadian poet; not the famous American journalist John Gunther; not Carl Van Doren, the well-known American literary critic. The tall, lean man in buckskins and full headdress stole the show with his stirring talk on the 'Unknown Canada'."

On November 11, he addressed members and guests of the Empire Club, including many Toronto dignitaries, telling them he wants to "arouse in the Canadian people a sense of responsibility they have for [the] north country and its inhabitants, human and animal".

On December 7, 1936, Grey Owl married Yvonne Perrier, a French Canadian woman he had met in Ottawa in March. They returned to Beaver Lodge on New Year's Day, 1937.

In mid-March, the couple went to Abitibi for the shooting of the winter film. "Yvonne proved the perfect helper for Grey Owl. Quickly she learned to snowshoe and although new to winter travelling, loved it, even the camping out in Abitibi in sub-zero temperatures." Grey Owl was not in such good shape: "[I]n one or two shots he looks as though the work entailed was rather too much for him... By all accounts, Grey Owl was all in at the end of the day."

In early June, the couple went to Biscotasing, the start of the two-week canoe trip. Donald B. Smith writes "During the arduous filming that followed on the Mississagi River, one thought sustained Archie. Life on the trail in summer would be immortalized." Despite being exhausted by the end of the trip, Grey Owl put on his own form of war dance in Bisco, which "still lacked rhythm and had no Indian words in it".

In July the Indian Defense League of America invited Grey Owl to participate in the annual border crossing between Niagara Falls, Ontario, and Niagara Falls, New York, as "a naturalist and champion to the beauty of wild life, notably his beloved beaver". For the first time in his life, Grey Owl, supposedly raised in Arizona, stepped onto his native soil.

Second tour (1937–1938)
Grey Owl's second tour would take in, not only Great Britain, but also the United States and Canada. He arrived in England in October 1937, accompanied by his third wife, Yvonne, who proved to be a stabilizing influence. Donald B. Smith described the second tour as his "Greatest Triumph".

Grey Owl gave a Royal Command Performance at Buckingham Palace on December 10, 1937, attended by King George VI and the young princesses Elizabeth and Margaret. He began with the words "You are tired with years of civilization. I come to offer you – what? A green leaf." Grey Owl was impressed by the King, who struck him as a "keen woodsman". It is reported that, in parting, Grey Owl put out his hand to the King and said "Well, good-bye, Brother, and good luck to you."

After giving 140 lectures in the British stage of the tour, Grey Owl embarked for New York on December 21, arriving on New Year's Day, 1938. In the next three months he gave 28 lectures in the United States and visited nine cities in Canada.

On March 26, 1938, Grey Owl appeared at a packed Massey Hall in Toronto. "On that evening nearly three thousand Canadians gave him the greatest ovation of his life."

Death and exposure (1938)

The frantic pace of the North American stage of the tour in 1938 had taken a heavy toll on Grey Owl's health. To reach the Massey Hall lecture on March 26 in time, he and Yvonne had been on the train for seventeen hours, arriving in Toronto with two hours to spare. Despite this, he took the stage in the largest concert hall in Canada and gave the performance of his life: "[F]or two hours [he] enchanted everybody. He really was superb." After the lecture they immediately boarded the Canadian Pacific transcontinental train to Regina, where on March 29 he gave the last lecture of his life.

Exhausted and run-down, Grey Owl retreated, alone, to Beaver Lodge on April 7. (Yvonne was hospitalized with exhaustion in Prince Albert.) Very ill now, he called for help three days later on April 10. He was transported to hospital in Prince Albert, where he died on April 13 at the age of 49. The park superintendent and friend, Major J.A. Wood, reported "At 8.25 in the morning, he died very quietly, and pictures taken show that the congestion in his lungs [pneumonia] was very slight, which all goes to prove that he had absolutely no resistance whatever." He was buried on the ridge behind Beaver Lodge.

Upon receiving notice of his death on April 13, the North Bay Nugget, which had sat on the story for three years, ran an exposé, contending that Grey Owl was the Englishman Archie Belaney, and did not have a drop of Indian blood in him. Donald B. Smith described the resulting controversy:

"After he died on April 13, 1938, a battle waged on both sides of the Atlantic about his origins. Archie Belaney had been so convincing as Grey Owl. After the initial disclosures about his Canadian and English past, neither Major Wood, nor Betty Somervell, nor Lovat Dickson believed the allegations. Lovat Dickson led the fight in Britain, and Major Wood in Canada, to gain acceptance of Grey Owl’s own story about his past and to put his valuable work in perspective."

Lovat Dickson spent months after his death trying to disprove the claim that Grey Owl was in fact an Englishman, going so far as to ask Anahareo to England "expressly to meet Mrs. Scott-Brown, Archie's mother, hoping that [Anahareo] would, or could, detect in her a drop of Indian blood. Of course, there wasn't a trace". In the end she was forced to accept the truth: "I had the awful feeling for all those years I had been married to a ghost, that the man who now lay buried at Ajawaan was someone I had never known, and that Archie had never really existed."

The story of how a lonely boy playing Indian in the woods behind his house in Hastings transformed himself, first into an accomplished backcountry woodsman and trapper in the Canadian wilderness, and then into the renowned author and lecturer Grey Owl, continued to fascinate and arouse controversy well after his death.

Posthumous recognition
In 1972, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation broacast a documentary on Grey Owl, directed by Nancy Ryley.

In 1999, the film Grey Owl, directed by Richard Attenborough and starring Pierce Brosnan, was released. The film received mixed reviews and had no theatrical run in the United States.

In June 1997, the mayor of Hastings and the borough's Member of Parliament Michael Foster unveiled a plaque in his honor on the house where he was born at 32 St. James Road, Hastings, East Sussex. A commemorative plaque is on the house at 36 St. Mary's Terrace, where he grew up with his grandmother and aunts.

The Hastings Museum contains an exhibition of memorabilia and a replica of part of his Canadian lakeside cabin. The ranger station at Hastings Country Park has a commemorative plaque to Grey Owl.

In Riding Mountain National Park, the cabin, where he resided for six months in 1931, has been designated as a Federal Heritage Building. The cabin was restored in June 2019.

In Prince Albert National Park, the cabin built in the 1930s according to his specifications still stands and is open to visitors.

Books

 * The Men of the Last Frontier (1931)
 * Pilgrims of the Wild (1935)
 * The Adventures of Sajo and Her Beaver People (1935)
 * Tales of an Empty Cabin (1936)
 * The Tree (1937)

Collected editions

 * The collected works of Grey Owl: Three Complete and Unabridged Canadian classics. Toronto: Prospero (1999).
 * A Book of Grey Owl: Selected Wildlife Stories. Toronto: Macmillan of Canada (1989).

Articles
Articles published in Canadian Forest and Outdoors with excerpts archived online.

 * "King of the Beaver People" (January 1931)
 * "A Day in a Hidden Town" (April 1931)
 * "A Mess of Pottage" (May 1931)
 * "The Perils of Woods Travel" (September 1931)
 * "Indian Legends and Lore" (October 1931)
 * "A Philosophy of the Wild" (December 1931)

Other articles:

 * "A Description of the Fall Activities of Beaver, with some remarks on Conservation", in Harper Cory's book Grey Owl and the Beaver (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd, 1935).

Translations

 * Ambassadeur des bêtes. (Ambassador of the Beasts, was: Part 2 of Tales of an Empty Cabin) Translation by Simonne Ratel. Paris: Hatier-Boivin, 1956
 * Саджо и её бобры. Перевод с английского Аллы Макаровой. Предисловие Михаила Пришвина. Москва: Детгиз, 1958
 * Cаджо та її бобри. Переклад з англійської Соломії Павличко., Київ: «Веселка», 1986
 * Historia opuszczonego szałasu Translation by Aleksander Dobrot [Wiktor Grosz]. Warsaw (Poland): Towarzystwo Wydawnicze "Rój" 1939
 * Két kicsi hód (The Adventures of Sajo and Her Beaver People). Translated from the English by Ervin Baktay (1957); illustrations by Péter Szecskó. Hungary, Budapest: Móra Ferenc Könyvkiadó, 1957.
 * Ludzie z ostatniej granicy Translation by Aleksander Dobrot [Wiktor Grosz]. Warsaw (Poland): Wydawnictwo J. Przeworskiego, 1939
 * Индијанка Саџо и њени дабрићи. Translation by Виктор Финк. Illustrated by Михаило Писањук. Covers Ида Ћирић. Дечији Свет, Младо Поколеље, Београд (Belgrade, Serbia), 1967
 * Oameni și animale, pelerini ai ținuturilor sălbatice. Translation into Romanian by Viorica Vizante. Iasi, Junimea, 1974
 * Рассказы опустевшей хижины. Перевод и предисловие Аллы Макаровой. Художник Б.Жутовский. Москва: Молодая гвардия, 1974
 * Pielgrzymi Puszczy Translation by Aleksander Dobrot [Wiktor Grosz]. Warsaw (Poland): Wydawnictwo J. Przeworskiego, 1937
 * Pilgrims of the Wild. Éd. ordinaire. Translation by Jeanne Roche-Mazon. Paris: Éditions contemporaines, 1951
 * Récits de la cabane abandonnée. (Part1 of Tales of an Empty Cabin) Translation by Jeanne-Roche-Mazon. Paris: Éditions contemporaines, 1951
 * Sajo et ses castors (The Adventures of Sajo and Her Beaver People) Translated from the English by Charlotte and Marie-Louise Pressoir; illustrations by Pierre Le Guen. Paris: Société nouvelle des éditions G.P., 1963
 * Sajon ja hänen majavainsa seikkailut Translation by J.F. Ruotsalainen. WSOY Finland 1936
 * Sejdżio i jej bobry Translation by Aleksander Dobrot [Wiktor Grosz]. Warsaw (Poland): Wydawnictwo J. Przeworskiego, 1938
 * Seidzo ja tema kobraste seiklused (The adventures of Sajo and her Beaver people) Translation into Estonian by E. Heinaste, Tallinn, 1967

Alcohol use
Belaney started drinking when he arrived in Canada as a young man. "At some point during his first years in Temagami, he also discovered alcohol. Years later he said that 'he wished all liquor tasted like ginger ale so he could enjoy the taste as well as the effect.' He drank for the effect." He was a lifelong drinker. "If one accepts alcoholism as 'recurring trouble, problems or difficulties associating with drinking,' Archie by 1930 had become an alcoholic." His favorite drink, according to Anahareo, was "Johnny Dewar's Extra Special". He would also drink vanilla extract and occasionally make his own moonshine.

At the end of the 1935 British tour, "Anxious to ease the pressure of the hectic, stressful last four months, Grey Owl now wanted to drink heavily." His companion on the ship back to Canada, Betty Summervell, noticed that he smelled of onion and "...thought the onion smell came from an Indian cure he was taking for his sickness". In fact, he had on board "...a number of bottles of whisky, which he hid under his bunk. He drank whenever she left the cabin. Just before she returned he chewed a raw onion to banish the whisky smell. After three days of neither eating nor sleeping, the intoxicated Grey Owl looked like a ghost."

Excessive alcohol consumption compromised Grey Owl's position with the Dominion Parks Branch in Ottawa. The photographer Yousuf Karsh had organised a dinner in his honour, at which he was supposed to meet a group of important governmental officials. However, as the dinner began, Grey Owl was absent. Karsh later found him "raising a drunken row in the bar". James Harkin (the head of Parks Branch) was forced to defend Grey Owl, writing to the government's Assistant Deputy Minister "I am sorry to hear that Grey Owl has been indulging too freely in liquor. As a matter of fact, with so much Indian blood in his veins I suppose that it is inevitable that from time to time he will break out in this connection."

Grey Owl's names
Belaney had a number of names in his life:

 * Archibald Stansfeld Belaney. This was his full, legal name at birth and it was used in the shortened form "Archibald Belaney" throughout his life: Under this name, he enlisted in the army, received disability payments, was employed by Dominion Parks Branch, etc. He hated the name "Archibald" and preferred to be called "Archie". Even after adopting the name "Grey Owl" for certain purposes, he remained "Archie" to friends and acquaintances. Between themselves, he and Anahareo were always "Archie" and "Gertie".

 * Grey Owl. Belaney started using this name in the 1930s in his publications and lectures and it is under this name that he is commonly known to the public. He also used the name in correspondence.

 * Archie Grey Owl. Belaney made some abortive attempts to avoid his legal surname by enlisting "Grey Owl" in that role. He used this name in his Record of Employment at Prince Albert National Park. "The civil service, however, continued unimaginatively to address him in all correspondence as 'A. Bellaney'. At least they spelt his name incorrectly."

 * Wa-sha-quon-asin. The authorship of his books is attributed to this name as well as to "Grey Owl". The word "Wa-sha-quon-asie" (ending in "e" not "n") means "white beak owl" in Ojibwe. According to Smith, "[H]e later came up with a more original and dramatic translation of 'Washaquonasin' than 'Grey Owl'. He translated it into English as, 'He Who Walks By Night'.”

 * Ko-hom-see. This name ("Little Owl") was an affectionate nickname given to Belaney by his first wife's family, the Egwunas, since they regarded him as "the young owl who sits taking everything in". The name was a precursor of "Grey Owl".

 * Anaquoness. This is a nickname that Belaney got in Bisco due to the unusual Mexican sombrero he wore there. He translated the Ojibwe word as "Little Hat".

 * Archie McNeil. Belaney married his third wife, Yvonne Perrier, under this name, fearing a charge of bigamy due to his undissolved marriage with his first wife. In an elaborate fiction about his past, Belaney told Yvonne his father was a George McNeil, who was third generation Scottish in the United States. His will was also drawn up in the name of "Archie McNeil, familiarly known as Grey Owl".

Relationships with women
Belaney had known relationships with five women and fathered four known children:

 * Angele Egwuna, married in 1910 in Canada. Daughters Agnes Belaney, born in 1911, Flora Belaney, born in 1926.

 * Marie Girard, relationship from 1912 to 1915 in Canada. Son Johnny Jero, born in 1915.

 * Ivy Holmes, married in 1917 in England. Divorced 1922.

 * Gertrude Bernard (Anahareo), relationship from 1925 to 1936 in Canada. Daughter Shirley Dawn, born in 1932.

 * Yvonne Perrier, married in 1936 in Canada. (Belaney was married under the name "McNeil", due to his undissolved marriage with Angele Egwuna.)

title: Grey Owl


text:
Eugène François Vidocq

Eugène-François Vidocq (24 July 1775 – 11 May 1857) was a French criminal turned criminalist, whose life story inspired several writers, including Victor Hugo, Edgar Allan Poe, and Honoré de Balzac. He was the founder and first director of France's first criminal investigative agency, the Sûreté Nationale, as well as the head of the first known private detective agency. Vidocq is considered to be the father of modern criminology and of the French national police force. He is also regarded as the first private detective.

Life
Eugène François Vidocq was born in Arras, northern France during the night of 23/24 July 1775, in the Rue du Miroir-de-Venise, now the Rue Eugène-François Vidocq. He was the third child of Henriette Françoise Vidocq (maiden name Dion, 1744–1824) and her husband, baker Nicolas Joseph François Vidocq (1744–1799).

Childhood and youth (1775–1795)
Little is known about his childhood; most of it is based on his ghost-written autobiography and a few documents in French archives. His father was well educated and, for the time, very wealthy since he was also a corn dealer. Vidocq had six siblings: two older brothers (one of whom had died before he was born), two younger brothers, and two younger sisters.

Vidocq's teenage years were turbulent. He is described as being fearless, rowdy and cunning, very talented, but also very lazy. He spent much time in the armories (fighting halls) of Arras and acquired a reputation as a formidable fencer and the nickname le Vautrin ("wild boar" ). By stealing, he provided himself with some level of comfort.

When Vidocq was thirteen years old, he stole his parents' silver plates and spent the proceeds from them within a day. Three days after the theft, he was arrested and brought to the local jail, Baudets. Only ten days later, he learned that his father had arranged his arrest to teach him a lesson. After a total of fourteen days, he was released from prison, but even this did not tame him.

By age fourteen, he had stolen a large amount of money from the cash box of his parents' bakery and left for Ostend, where he tried to embark to the Americas; but he was defrauded one night and found himself suddenly penniless. To survive, he worked for a group of traveling entertainers. Despite regular beatings, he worked hard enough to get promoted from stable boy to playing a Caribbean cannibal who eats raw meat. He ended up living with puppeteers to get away from them. However, he was banished from them because he flirted with the young wife of his employer. He then worked some time as an assistant of a peddler, but as soon as he neared Arras, he returned to his parents seeking forgiveness. He was welcomed by his mother with open arms.

On 10 March 1791, he enlisted in the Bourbon Regiment, where his reputation as an expert fencer was confirmed. According to Vidocq, within six months, he challenged fifteen people to a duel and killed two. Despite not being a model soldier and causing difficulties, he spent only a total of fourteen days in jail. During those two weeks, Vidocq helped a fellow inmate successfully escape.

When France declared war against Austria on 20 April 1792, Vidocq participated in the battles of the First Coalition, including the Battle of Valmy in September 1792. On 1 November 1792, he was promoted to corporal of grenadiers, but during his promotion ceremony, he challenged a fellow non-commissioned officer to a duel. This sergeant major refused the duel. So Vidocq hit him. Striking a superior officer could have led to a death sentence. So he deserted and enlisted in the 11th Chasseurs, concealing his history. On 6 November 1792, he fought under General Dumouriez in the Battle of Jemappes.

In April 1793, Vidocq was identified as a deserter. He followed a general, who was fleeing after a failed martial coup, into the enemy camp. After a few weeks, Vidocq returned to the French camp. A chasseur-captain friend interceded for him, so he was allowed to rejoin the chasseurs. Finally, he resigned from the army because he was no longer welcome.

He was eighteen years old when he returned to Arras. He soon gained a reputation as a womanizer. Since his seductions often ended in duels, he was imprisoned in Baudets from 9 January 1794 to 21 January 1795.

On 8 August 1794, when he was barely nineteen, Vidocq married Anne Marie Louise Chevalier after a pregnancy scare. No child resulted, and the marriage was not happy from the start. When Vidocq learned that his wife had cheated on him with the adjutant, Pierre Laurent Vallain, he left again for the army. He did not see his wife again until their divorce in 1805.

Years of wandering and prison (1795–1800)
Vidocq did not stay long in the army. In autumn 1794, he spent most of his time in Brussels, which was then a hideout for crooks of all kinds. There, he supported himself by small frauds. One day, he was apprehended by the police, and as a deserter, he had no valid papers. When asked for his identity, he described himself as Monsieur Rousseau from Lille and escaped while the police tried to confirm his statement.

In 1795, still under the alias of Rousseau, he joined the armée roulante ("flying army"). This army consisted of "officers" who in reality had neither commissions nor regiments. They were raiders, forging routes, ranks and uniforms but staying away from the battlefields. Vidocq began as a lieutenant of chasseurs but soon promoted himself to a hussar captain. In this role, he met a rich widow in Brussels who became fond of him. A co-conspirator of Vidocq's convinced her that Vidocq was a young nobleman on the run because of the French Revolution. Shortly before their wedding, Vidocq confessed to her. Then he left the city, but not without a generous cash gift from her.

In March 1795, Vidocq moved to Paris, where he squandered all his money entertaining women. He went back north and joined a group of Bohemian gypsies, which he later left for a woman he had fallen in love with, Francine Longuet. When Francine left him for a real soldier, he beat both of them. The soldier sued him, and in September 1795, Vidocq was sentenced to three months in the prison Tour Saint-Pierre in Lille.

Vidocq was twenty and quickly adapted to life in prison. He befriended a group of men, among them Sebastien Boitel, who had been sentenced to six years for stealing. Then Boitel was suddenly released, but the next day, the local inspector noticed that the pardon was forged. Vidocq claimed two fellow inmates, Grouard and Herbaux, had asked to use his cell (as a soldier, Vidocq had a cell all to himself) to write something of an unknown nature because the common room was too noisy. Both inmates claimed, however, that he helped in the fabrication and that the whole thing had been his idea. Thus, Vidocq was not released after the three months.

In the following weeks, Vidocq escaped several times with the help of Francine, but was always captured soon again. After one of his escapes, Francine caught him with another woman. He disappeared for a few days, and when he was finally picked up again by police, he was told that Francine had been found with multiple knife wounds. Now, he was not only accused of forgery but also attempted murder. Francine later claimed that the wounds were self-inflicted and the charge was dropped. Vidocq's contact with Francine stopped when she was convicted and sentenced to six months in prison for aiding the escapes.

After a long delay, his trial for document forgery began. On 27 December 1796, Vidocq and a second accused, César Herbaux, were found guilty and sentenced to eight years of hard labour.

"Worn out by the bad treatment of every species which I experienced in the prison of Douai, tormented by a watchfulness redoubled after my sentence, I took care not to make an appeal, which would keep me there some months. What confirmed my resolution was the information that the prisoners were to be sent forthwith to the Bicêtre, and there, making one chain, to be sent on to the Bagne at Brest. It is unnecessary to say that I was relying on escaping en route."

In the prison of Bicêtre, Vidocq was to wait several months for the transfer to the Bagne in Brest to toil in the galleys. A fellow inmate taught him the martial art of savate, which was later to prove useful to him. An escape attempt on 3 October 1797 failed and precipitated his placement in a dungeon for eight days.

Finally, on 21 November, he was sent to Brest. On 28 February 1798, he escaped dressed as a sailor. Only a few days later, he was apprehended due to a lack of papers, but the police did not recognize him as an escaped convict. He claimed to be Auguste Duval, and while officials checked this claim, he was put into a prison hospital. There he stole a nun's habit and escaped in disguise. In Cholet, he found a job as a cattle drover and, in this capacity, passed through Paris, Arras, Brussels, Ancer and finally Rotterdam, where he was shanghaied by the Dutch. After a short career as a privateer, he was arrested again and taken to Douai, where he was identified as Vidocq. He was transferred to the Bagne in Toulon, arriving on 29 August 1799. After a failed escape attempt, he escaped again on 6 March 1800 with the help of a prostitute.

The turnaround (1800–1811)
Vidocq returned to Arras in 1800. His father had died in 1799. So he hid in his mother's house for almost half a year before he was recognized and had to flee again. He assumed the identity of an Austrian and spent some time in a relationship with a widow, with whom he moved to Rouen in 1802. Vidocq built up a reputation as a businessman and finally felt secure enough to let his mother come live with him and the widow; but finally, his past caught up with him. He was arrested and brought to Louvres. There, he learned that he had been sentenced to death in absentia. With the help of the local procurator-general, Ransom, he filed an appeal and spent the following five months in prison waiting for a retrial. During this time, Louise Chevalier contacted him to inform him of their divorce. When it seemed that there would be no decision concerning his sentence, he decided to flee again. On 28 November 1805, while unattended for a moment, he jumped out of a window into the adjacent river Scarpe. For the next four years, he was a man on the run once again.

He spent some time in Paris, where he witnessed the execution of César Herbaux, the man with whom his life had started a downward spiral. This event triggered a process of re-evaluation in Vidocq. With his mother and a woman he called Annette in his memoirs, he moved several times in the following years; but again and again, people from his past recognized him. He again tried to become a legitimate merchant, but his former wife found him in Paris and blackmailed him for money, and a couple of former fellow convicts forced him to fence stolen goods for them.

On 1 July 1809, only a few days before his 34th birthday, Vidocq was arrested again. He decided to stop living on the fringes of society and offered his services as an informant to the police. His offer was accepted, and on 20 July, he was jailed in Bicêtre, where he started his work as a spy. On 28 October, he continued his work in La Force Prison. He sounded out his inmates and forwarded his information about forged identities and unsolved crimes through Annette to the police chief of Paris, Jean Henry.

"I believe I might have become a perpetual spy, so far was every one from supposing that any connivance existed between the agents of the public authority and myself. Even the porters and keepers were in ignorance of my mission with which I was entrusted. Adored by the thieves, esteemed by the most determined bandits (for even these hardened wretches have a sentiment which they call esteem), I could always rely on their devotion to me."

After 21 months of spying, Vidocq was released from jail on the recommendation of Henry. So as not to raise suspicions among the other inmates, the release (which took place on 25 March 1811) was arranged to look like an escape. Still, Vidocq was not really free, because now he was obliged to Henry. Therefore, he continued to work as a secret agent for the Paris police. He used his contacts and his reputation in the criminal underworld to gain trust. He disguised himself as an escaped convict and immersed himself in the criminal scene to learn about planned and committed crimes. He even took part in felonies in order to suddenly turn on his partners and arrest them. When criminals eventually began to suspect him, he used disguises and assumed other identities to continue his work and throw off suspicion.

The Sûreté (1811–1832)

At the end of 1811, Vidocq informally organized a plainclothes unit, the Brigade de Sûreté ("Security Brigade"). The police department recognized the value of these civil agents, and in October 1812, the experiment was officially converted to a security police unit under the Prefecture of Police. Vidocq was appointed its leader. On 17 December 1813, Emperor Napoleon I signed a decree that made the brigade a state security police force. From this day on, it was called the Sûreté Nationale.

The Sûreté initially had eight, then twelve, and, in 1823, twenty employees. A year later, it expanded again, to 28 secret agents. In addition, there were eight people who worked secretly for the Sûreté, but instead of a salary, they received licences for gambling halls. A major portion of Vidocq's subordinates were ex-criminals like himself. He even hired them fresh from the prisons; for example, Coco Lacour, who would later become Vidocq's successor at the Sûreté. Vidocq described his work from this period:

"It was with a troop so small as this that I had to watch over more than twelve hundred pardoned convicts, freed, some from public prisons, others from solitary confinement: to put in execution, annually, from four to five hundred warrants, as well from the préfet as the judicial authorities; to procure information, to undertake searches, and to obtain particulars of every description; to make nightly rounds, so perpetual and arduous during the winter season; to assist the commissaries of police in their searches, or in the execution of search warrants; to explore the various rendezvous in every part; to go to the theatres, the boulevards, the barriers, and all other public places, the haunts of thieves and pickpockets."

Vidocq personally trained his agents, for example, in selecting the correct disguise based on the kind of job. He himself still went out hunting for criminals too. His memoirs are full of stories about how he outsmarted crooks by pretending to be a beggar or an old cuckold. At one point, he even faked his own death.

During 1814, at the beginning of the French Restoration, Vidocq and the Sûreté tried to contain the situation in Paris. He also arrested those who tried to exploit the post-revolutionary situation by claiming to have been aristocrats. During 1817, he was involved in 811 arrests, including those of 15 assassins and 38 fences. By 1820, his activities had reduced crime in Paris substantially. His annual income was 5,000 francs, but he also worked as a private investigator for fees. Rumors at the time claimed that Vidocq set criminals up, organizing break-ins and robberies and having his agents wait to collect the offenders. Even though some of Vidocq's techniques might have been questionable, there seems to be no truth to this.

Despite his position as chief of a police authority, Vidocq remained a wanted criminal. His forgery conviction had never been fully dismissed. So alongside complaints and denunciations, his superiors repeatedly received requests from the prison director of Douai, which they ignored. Finally, the Comte Jules Anglès, prefect of the Paris police, responded to a petition from Vidocq and requested an official pardon, which he received on 26 March 1817 from King Louis XVIII.

In November 1820, Vidocq married again, this time the destitute Jeanne-Victoire Guérin, whose origin is unknown, which at that time led to speculation. She came to live in the household at 111 Rue de l'Hirondelle, where Vidocq's mother and a niece of hers, the 27-year-old Fleuride Albertine Maniez (born March 22, 1793), also lived. In 1822, Vidocq befriended the author Honoré de Balzac, who began to use him as a model for several figures in his books. Vidocq's wife, who was ailing throughout their marriage, died in June 1824 in a hospital. Six weeks later, on 30 July 1824, Vidocq's mother died at age 80. She was buried with honours, and her requiem was performed in Notre Dame Cathedral.

Events of the 1820s affected the police apparatus. After the assassination of the Duc de Berry in February 1820, Police Prefect Anglès had to resign and was replaced by the Jesuit Guy Delavau, who set a high value on religiousness among his subordinates. In 1824, Louis XVIII died. His successor was the ultra-reactionary Charles X, during whose oppressive reign police agents were regularly withdrawn from their original activities. Finally, Vidocq's immediate superior, police chief Henry, retired and was succeeded by Parisot, who was soon superseded by the ambitious but also very formal Marc Duplessis. The antipathy between Vidocq and Duplessis was great. Time and time again, Duplessis complained about trivial matters, for example, that Vidocq's agents spent time in brothels and bars of ill repute. Vidocq's explanation that they had to do this to establish contacts and gather information was ignored. When Vidocq received two official warnings within a short time, he had had enough. On 20 June 1827, the 52-year-old handed in his resignation:

"Depuis dix-huit ans, je sers la police avec distinction. Je n'ai jamais reçu un seul reproche de vos prédécesseurs. Je dois donc penser n'en avoir pas mérité. Depuis votre nomination à la deuxième division, voilà la deuxième fois que vous me faites l'honneur de m'en adresser en vous plaignant des agents. Suis-je le maître de les contenir hors du bureau? Non. Pour vous éviter, monsieur, la peine de m'en adresser de semblables à l'avenir, et à moi le désagrément de les recevoir, j'ai l'honneur de vous prier de vouloir bien recevoir ma démission.

[Translation:] For eighteen years I served the police with distinction. I've never received any criticism from your predecessors. I must think therefore that I never earned any. Since your appointment to the Second Division, this is the second time you did me the honor to address me by complaining about my agents. Am I their master in the time they spend out of office? No. To save you, sir, the trouble of sending me further similar complaints in the future, and me the inconvenience of receiving them, I have the honor to solicit you for accepting my resignation."

He then wrote his memoirs with the help of a ghostwriter.

Vidocq, who was a rich man after his resignation, became an entrepreneur. In Saint-Mandé, a small town east of Paris where he married his cousin Fleuride Maniez on 28 January 1830, he founded a paper factory. He mainly employed released convicts – both men and women. This caused an outrageous scandal in society and led to disputes. In addition, the machines cost money, the semi-skilled workers needed food and clothing, and the customers refused to pay market prices with the argument that he had a seemingly cheaper workforce. The company did not last long; Vidocq went bankrupt in 1831. In the short time while he was away from Paris, both Delavau and Duplessis had to resign their posts, and the July Revolution of 1830 forced Charles X to abdicate. When Vidocq delivered a few useful tips that helped to solve a burglary in Fontainebleau and led to the arrest of eight people, the new police prefect, Henri Gisquet, again appointed him chief of the Sûreté.

Criticism of Vidocq and his organization grew. The July Monarchy caused insecurities in society, and there was a cholera outbreak in 1832. One of its victims was General Jean Maximilien Lamarque. During his funeral on 5 June 1832, a revolt erupted and the throne of "Citizen King" Louis-Philippe I was in danger. Allegedly Vidocq's group cracked down on the rioters with great severity. Not all of the police approved of his methods, and rivalries developed. A rumour arose that Vidocq had initiated the theft that led to his reinstatement himself to show his indispensability. One of his agents had to go to prison for two years because of that affair, but Vidocq's involvement could not be proved. More and more defenders claimed that Vidocq and his agents were not credible as eyewitnesses, since most of them had criminal pasts themselves. Vidocq's position was untenable, and on 15 November 1832, he once again resigned, using the pretext of his wife being ill.

"J'ai l'honneur de vous informer que l'état maladif de mon épouse m'oblige de rester à Saint-Mandé pour surveiller moi-même mon établissement. Cette circonstance impérieuse m'empêchera de pouvoir à l'avenir diriger les opérations de la brigade de sûreté. Je viens vous prier de vouloir bien récepter ma démission, et recevoir mes sincères remerciements pour toutes les marques de bonté dont vous avez daigné me combler. Si, dans une circonstance quelconque, j'étais assez heureux pour vous servir, vous pouvez compter sur ma fidélité et mon dévouement à toute épreuve.

[Translation:] I have the honor to inform you that the ill health of my wife is forcing me to stay in Saint-Mandé to monitor my establishment. This urgent circumstance will preclude my ability to steer the future operations of the security brigade. Please accept my resignation and my sincere thanks for all the marks of kindness with which you deigned to grace me. While, under any circumstances, I was happy to serve you, you can count on my loyalty and devotion by any means."

On the same day, the Sûreté was dissolved, then re-established without agents with criminal records, no matter how minor their offenses. Vidocq's successor was Pierre Allard.

Le bureau des renseignements (1833–1848)
In 1833, Vidocq founded Le bureau des renseignements ("Office of Information"), a company that was a mixture of a detective agency and a private police force. It is considered to be the first known detective agency. Once again, he predominantly hired ex-convicts.

His squad, which initially consisted of eleven detectives, two clerks and one secretary, pitted itself on behalf of businesspeople and private citizens against Faiseurs (crooks, fraudsters, and bankruptcy artists), occasionally using illegal means. From 1837, Vidocq quarreled constantly with the official police because of his activities and his questionable relations with various government agencies such as the War Department. On 28 November 1837, the police executed a search and seizure and confiscated over 3,500 files and documents. A few days later, Vidocq was arrested and spent Christmas and New Year in jail. He was charged with three crimes, namely the acquisition of money by deception, corruption of civil servants, and the pretension of public functions. In February 1838, after numerous witnesses had testified, the judge dismissed all three charges. Vidocq was free again.

Vidocq increasingly became the subject of literature and public discussions. Balzac wrote several novels and plays that contained characters modeled after Vidocq.

The agency flourished, but Vidocq continued to make enemies, some of them powerful. On 17 August 1842, on behalf of Police Prefect Gabriel Delessert, 75 police officers stormed his office building and arrested him and one of his agents. This time, the case seemed to be clear. In an investigation of defalcation, he had made an illegal arrest and had demanded a bill of exchange for the embezzled money from the arrested fraudster. For the next few months, 67-year-old Vidocq was remanded into custody in the Conciergerie. On 3 May 1843, the first hearings finally took place before judge Michel Barbou, a close friend of Delessert. During the trial, Vidocq had to give testimony about many other cases, among them, the kidnappings of several women whom he had allegedly delivered to monasteries against their will at the behest of their families. Also, his activities as a money lender and the possible benefits from it were examined. Finally, he was sentenced to five years imprisonment and a fine of 3,000 francs. Vidocq immediately appealed, and through the intervention of political friends like Count Gabriel de Berny and the attorney general, Franck-Carré, he quickly got a new trial, this time with the chief judge of the court royale. The hearing on 22 July 1843 took a matter of minutes, and after eleven months in the Conciergerie, Vidocq was free once again.

The harm was done, however. The lawsuit had been very expensive, and his reputation was damaged. Business at the agency suffered. Moreover, Delessert tried to get him expelled from the city for being a former criminal. Although the attempt failed, Vidocq increasingly considered selling his agency, but he could not find a qualified and reputable buyer.

In the following years, Vidocq published several small books in which he depicted his life to directly refute the rumours that were being circulated about him. In 1844, he presented an essay on prisons, penitentiaries, and the death penalty. On the morning of 22 September 1847, his third wife, Fleuride, died after 17 years of marriage. Vidocq did not marry again, but until his death, he had several intimate partners.

In 1848, the February revolution caused the abdication of "Citizen King" Louis-Philippe. The Second Republic was proclaimed, with Alphonse de Lamartine as the head of a transitional government. Although Vidocq had always been proud of his reception at the king's court and had boasted about his access to Louis-Philippe, he offered his services to the new government. His task was the surveillance of political opponents such as Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, the nephew of Napoleon I. Meanwhile, the new government sank into chaos and violence. In the presidential election of 10 December 1848, Lamartine received less than 8,000 votes. Vidocq presented himself as a candidate in the 2nd Arrondissement but received only one vote. The clear winner, and thus president of the Second Republic, was Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, who did not respond to Vidocq's offer to work for him.

Last years (1849–1857)
In 1849, Vidocq briefly went to prison one last time, on a charge of fraud. In the end, however, the case was dropped. He withdrew more and more into private life and accepted only small cases every now and then. In the last years of his life, he suffered great pain in his right arm, which had been broken and had never healed properly. Unwise investments had also cost him a large portion of his assets, requiring him to curb his living standard and live in rented accommodations. In August 1854, despite a pessimistic prognosis by his doctor, he survived a bout of cholera. Only in April 1857 did his condition deteriorate to the point he could no longer stand. On 11 May 1857, Vidocq died at the age of 81 in his home in Paris in the presence of his doctor, his lawyer and a priest.

"Je l'aimais, je l'estimais ... Je ne l'oublierai jamais, et je dirai hautement que c'était un honnête homme!

[Translation: 'I liked him, I appreciated him I will never forget him, and I can just say he was an honest man!'"

His body was brought to the church of Saint-Denys du Saint-Sacrement, where the funeral service was held. It is not known where Vidocq is buried, though there are some rumours as to the location. One of them, mentioned in the biography of Philip John Stead, claims that his grave is at the cemetery in Saint Mandé. There is a gravestone with the inscription "Vidocq 18". According to information from city officials, however, this grave is registered to Vidocq's last wife, Fleuride-Albertine Maniez.

In the end, his assets consisted of 2,907.50 francs from the sale of his goods and a pension of 867.50 francs. A total of eleven women came forward as owners of his testament, a document which they had received for their favours instead of presents. His remaining assets went to Anne-Heloïse Lefèvre, at whose house he had lived at the end of his life. Although Vidocq had no known children, Emile-Adolphe Vidocq, the son of his first wife, tried to get recognized as his son (even changing his last name for this purpose), but failed. Vidocq had left evidence which ruled out his paternity: he had been in prison at the time of Emile-Adolphe Vidocq's conception.

Criminology legacy
Vidocq is considered by historians as the "father" of modern criminology. His approaches were new and unique for that time. However, it should be said that a famous predecessor Antoine de Sartine who organised the secret police under the monarchy before the French Revolution influenced other governments of Europe, Catherine II of Russia, Maria Theresa of Austria, and the Pope. De Sartine is portrayed in the fictional detective French TV series Nicolas Le Floch. Nonetheless, Vidocq is credited with the introduction of undercover work, ballistics, criminology and a record keeping system to criminal investigation. He made the first plaster cast impressions of shoe prints. He created indelible ink and unalterable bond paper with his printing company. His form of anthropometrics is still partially used by French police. He is also credited with philanthropic pursuits – he claimed he never informed on anyone who had stolen out of real need.

At the same time, his work was not acknowledged in France for a long time because of his criminal past. In September 1905, the Sûreté Nationale exhibited a painting series with its former heads. However, the first painting of the series showed Pierre Allard, Vidocq's successor. The newspaper L'Exclusive reported on 17 September 1905 that on obtaining information concerning the omission, they had received the answer that Vidocq had never been head of the Sûreté.

Remodelling of the police force
When Vidocq gave his allegiance to the police around 1810, there were two police organizations in France: on the one side, there was the police politique, an intelligence agency whose agents were responsible for the detection of conspiracies and intrigues; on the other, the normal police, who investigated common crimes such as theft, fraud, prostitution, and murder. Since the Middle Ages, those constables wore identification insignia that, over time, had developed to full uniforms. Unlike the often covertly operating political police, they were easy to spot. For fear of attack, they did not dare to enter some Parisian districts, limiting their efforts at crime prevention.

Vidocq persuaded his superiors to allow his agents, who also included women, to wear plain clothes and disguises depending on the situation. Thus, they did not attract attention and, as former criminals, also knew the hiding places and methods of criminals. Through their contacts, they often learned of planned crimes and were able to catch the guilty red-handed. Vidocq also had a different approach to interrogation. In his memoirs, he mentions several times that he did not take those arrested to prison immediately, but invited them to dinner, where he chatted with them. In addition to information about other crimes, he often obtained confessions in this non-violent way and recruited future informants and even agents.

August Vollmer, the first police chief of Berkeley, California, and a leading figure in the development of criminal justice in the United States, studied the works of Vidocq and the Austrian criminal jurist Hans Gross for his reform of the Berkeley police force. His reform ideas were adopted by the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) and, as a result, also affected J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI. After Robert Peel established Scotland Yard in 1829, he sent a committee to Paris in 1832 to confer with Vidocq for several days. In 1843, two commissars of Scotland Yard traveled to Paris for further training. They spent only two days with Pierre Allard, who was head of the Sûreté by then. Then they went to Vidocq's private agency and, for one week, accompanied him and his agents in their work.

Identification of criminals
Jürgen Thorwald stated in his book Das Jahrhundert der Detektive (1964) that Vidocq had a photographic memory that allowed him to recognize previously convicted criminals, even in disguise. Biographer Samuel Edwards reported in The Vidocq Dossier about a trial against the fraudster and forger Lambert, in which Vidocq referred to his memory of the accused. Vidocq regularly visited the prisons to memorise the faces of the inmates and made his agents do the same. The English police adopted this method. Until the late 1980s, British investigators attended court hearings to observe the spectators in the public galleries and become aware of possible accomplices.

As Vidocq said at Lambert's trial, while his memory was phenomenal, he could not require the same of his agents. Therefore, for each arrested person, he carefully set up an index card with a personal description, aliases, previous convictions, modus operandi, and other information. The card of forger Lambert contained, among other things, a handwriting sample. The index card system was retained not only by the French police, but also by police units in other countries. However, it soon revealed its weaknesses. By the time Alphonse Bertillon came to the Sûreté as clerk in 1879, the descriptions on the cards were not detailed enough anymore to really identify suspects. This caused Bertillon to develop an anthropometric system for personal identification called the bertillonage. The sorting of the card boxes, which by then already filled several rooms, was converted to body dimensions, the first of many attempts to improve the structure of the sorting. With the advent of the information age, the cards were digitised, and the card boxes were replaced by databases.

Scientific experiments
Forensic science did not yet exist during Vidocq's time. Despite numerous scientific papers, the police did not recognize its practical benefits, and this could not be changed by Vidocq. Nevertheless, he was not so averse to experiments as his superiors and usually had a small laboratory set up in his office building. In the archives of the Parisian police are reports of cases that he solved by applying forensic methods decades before they were recognized as such.

 * Chemical compounds
 * In the France of Vidocq's time, there already existed cheques and promissory notes. Counterfeiters purchased those cheques and altered them to their advantage. In 1817, Vidocq addressed this problem by commissioning two chemists to develop a tamper-proof paper. This paper, for which Vidocq filed a patent, was treated with chemicals that would smear the ink if later amended and thus make the forgeries identifiable. According to the biographer Edwards, Vidocq used his connections extensively, recommending his paper to those who had been deceived, mainly bankers who hired him. Therefore, the paper came to be widely used. Vidocq also used it for the cards of his index card system to emphasize their reliability in court. He also commissioned the creation of indelible ink. This ink has been used, among other things, by the French government for the printing of banknotes from the mid-1860s.

 * Crime scene investigation
 * Louis Mathurin Moreau-Christophe, contemporary general director of French prisons, described in his book Le monde des coquins (The World of Scoundrels) how Vidocq used clues from the crime scene to determine the perpetrator based on his knowledge of specific criminals and their modus operandi. As a concrete example, Moreau named a burglary in the Bibliothèque nationale de France in 1831, where he himself had been present at the investigation. Vidocq inspected a door panel that had been damaged by the offender and said that, due to the method employed and the perfection with which it had been executed, he knew of only one perpetrator who could have done it. He suggested the thief Fossard but mentioned that he could not be the culprit, since he was still in prison. The police chief, Lecrosnier, who was also present, told them that Fossard had escaped eight days before. Two days later, Vidocq arrested Fossard, who had in fact committed the burglary.
 * Ballistics
 * Alexandre Dumas left records that describe a murder case from 1822. The Comtesse Isabelle d'Arcy, a woman much younger than her husband on whom she had cheated, was shot dead, whereupon the police arrested the Comte d'Arcy. Vidocq talked with him and was of the opinion that the "old gentleman" did not have the personality of a murderer. He examined his dueling pistols and found that they either had not been fired or had been cleaned since then. Then he persuaded a doctor to remove the bullet from the head of the noblewoman secretly. A simple comparison showed that the bullet was too big to come from the guns of the Comte. Vidocq then searched the apartment of the woman's lover and found not only numerous pieces of jewellery, but also a large pistol whose size fit the bullet. The Comte identified the jewels as those of his wife and Vidocq also found a fence to whom the lover had already sold a ring. Confronted with the evidence, the lover confessed to the murder. The first real comparison between a gun and a bullet took place in 1835 by the Bow Street Runner Henry Goddard. On 21 December 1860, The Times reported on a court ruling in which a murderer in Lincoln named Thomas Richardson had been convicted with the help of ballistics for the first time.

The Vidocq Society
In 1990, the Vidocq Society was founded in Philadelphia by forensic artist/sculptor Frank Bender (d. 2011). Its members are forensic experts, FBI profilers, homicide investigators, scientists, psychologists, coroners, and any other competent professionals. At their monthly meetings, they try to solve cold cases from around the world, free of charge and in accordance with their motto Veritas veritatum ("Truth generates truth"). The rolls of membership are closed and the number of members remains low enough to never exceed the number of years of Vidocq's life.

Literature

In 1829, two journalists under the pseudonym of a criminal named Malgaret published the book Mémoires d'un forçat ou Vidocq dévoilé to expose criminal activities Vidocq allegedly had committed. Other police officers followed the example of Vidocq's memoirs and published their own autobiographies in the following years, among them the prefect of police, Henri Gisquet.

Vidocq's life story inspired many contemporary writers, many of them his closest friends. In Balzac's writings, he was regularly the model of literary figures: his experiences as a failed entrepreneur were used in the third part of Illusions perdues, "Les Souffrances de l'inventeur"; in Gobseck, Balzac introduced the policeman Corentin; but most clearly, the connection to Vidocq can be found in the figure of Vautrin. This character first appears in the novel Le Père Goriot, then in Illusions perdues, Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes (as the main character), La Cousine Bette, Le Contrat de mariage, and finally as the main character in the 1840 theatre play Vautrin. Not only Vidocq as a person but also his methods and disguises inspired Balzac in his work.

In Victor Hugo's Les Misérables (1862), both main characters, the reformed criminal Jean Valjean and Police Inspector Javert, were modeled after Vidocq, as was the policeman Monsieur Jackal in The Mohicans of Paris (1854–1855) by Alexandre Dumas. He also was the basis for Rodolphe de Gerolstein, who secured justice in the serial newspaper novel The Mysteries of Paris of Eugène Sue in the weekly newspaper Journal des débats; and he was the inspiration of Émile Gaboriau for Monsieur Lecoq, one of the first scientific and methodical investigators who played the lead role in many adventures, who in turn was a major influence for the creation of Sherlock Holmes. It is also believed that Edgar Allan Poe was prompted by a story about Vidocq to create the first detective in fiction, C. Auguste Dupin, who appeared, for example, in the short story "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", which is considered the first detective story. Vidocq is also mentioned in Moby Dick ("Chapter 88: Schools and Schoolmasters") and White Jacket ("Chapter VI: The Quarterdeck Officers, etc.") by Herman Melville and Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.

In the Sandman Slim series of urban fantasy books by Richard Kadrey, a fictionalized version of Vidocq is a friend and mentor to the protagonist James Stark. Kadrey's Vidocq has become immortal thanks to an alchemical accident and lives in modern-day Los Angeles.

Another contemporary novel that features Vidocq is Louis Bayard's The Black Tower (2008), though it is set in Restoration France.

Vidocq also appears as a major character in James McGee's novel Rebellion (2011)

Vidocq is frequently alluded to in Burt Solomon's 2017 novel The Murder of Willie Lincoln.

Theatre
Vidocq was a friend of the theater. During his lifetime, the Boulevard du Crime, a road with several theatres that regularly presented crime stories in the form of melodramas, was quite popular. One of these theatres was the Théâtre de l'Ambigu-Comique, which was sponsored by Vidocq to a great extent. According to the biographer James Morton, Vidocq also submitted a play, but it was never produced. He also had plans to dabble in play acting but never carried them out.

Not only were many of Vidocq's paramours actresses, but many of his friends and acquaintances were also from the theatre scene. Among them was the famous actor Frédérick Lemaître, who among other things played the main role in Balzac's Vautrin, a play which debuted on 14 March 1840 at Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin after numerous problems with censorship. Lemaître tried to adapt his appearance to that of Vidocq, on whom the character Vautrin was based. At the premiere, there were commotions because the wig Lemaître had used was also similar to the one of King Louis-Philippe. The play was banned by the French interior minister after that and not performed again.

It was not only plays inspired by Vidocq that were shown in the theatre. His one life story also made it on stage several times, usually with his memoirs as a literary template. Especially in England, there was great enthusiasm for Vidocq. The memoirs had been rapidly translated into English, and a few months later, on 6 July 1829, the premiere of ''Vidocq! The French Police Spy'' was held at Surrey Theatre in the London Borough of Lambeth. The melodrama in two acts, produced by Robert William Elliston, was penned by Douglas William Jerrold, and the main character was played by TP Cooke. Although the critics, among them one from The Times, were quite positive, the play was performed only nine times in the first month and then dropped.

In December 1860, some years after Vidocq's death, another play about him, written by F. Marchant, was presented in Britannia Theatre in Hoxton under the title Vidocq or The French Jonathan Wild. It was included in the theatre program for only one week.

In 1909, Émile Bergerat wrote the melodrama Vidocq, empereur des policiers in five acts and seven scenes. The producers Hertz and Coquelin rejected it, but Bergerat sued them successfully for 8,000 francs in damages. The play debuted in 1910 in Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt. Jean Kemm, who years later would also participate in a movie about Vidocq, took over the lead role.

Film
A film based on Vidocq's memoirs was released in France on 13 August 1909, a short black-and-white silent film La Jeunesse de Vidocq ou Comment on devient policier. Vidocq was played by Harry Baur, who also portrayed him in two sequels: L'Évasion de Vidocq (1910) and Vidocq (1911). Under the direction of Jean Kemm, the silent movie Vidocq based on the memoirs appeared in 1922. The screenplay was written by Arthur Bernède and the main role was played by René Navarre. The first sound film, again entitled Vidocq, appeared in 1939. Jacques Daroy directed André Brulé in the title role. The film focused largely on Vidocq's criminal career.

On 19 July 1946, the first American film about Vidocq appeared – A Scandal in Paris, with George Sanders as Vidocq and direction by Douglas Sirk. It showed the rise of a rogue in society, coupled with a love story. It was followed in April 1948 by the next French version of Vidocq's life story, The Cavalier of Croix-Mort, directed by Lucien Ganier-Raymond with Henri Nassiet in the lead.

On 7 January 1967, the French television station ORTF showed the first of two television series, each with thirteen episodes. Vidocq starring Bernard Noël was still in black and white. The second series, Les Nouvelles Aventures de Vidocq, the first in color, premiered on 5 January 1971 and starred Claude Brasseur.

In 1989, the pilot episode "Footprint" was devoted to Eugène Vidocq. The series was called Adventure of Criminalistics and was filmed in a Czechoslovakian–German co-production.

In 2001, under the direction of Pitof, Gérard Depardieu played Vidocq in the French science fiction film Vidocq.

In 2018, Jean-Francois Richet directed a film with Vincent Cassel as Vidocq, The Emperor of Paris (L'Empereur de Paris).

Comics
Vidocq's life inspired a comics series by Dutch artist Hans G. Kresse, which was published in the magazine Pep between 1965 and 1969. It was a realistic adventure series set during the Napoleonic era, where Vidocq is portrayed as a detective with a criminal past.

Video games
Vidocq appears as a playable character in the adventure mystery game Inspector Javert and the Oath of Blood.

Writings
Around 1827, Vidocq wrote an autobiography, which he planned for the bookseller Émile Morice to publish in summer 1828. Honoré de Balzac, Victor Hugo, and Alexandre Dumas thought that the story was too short. So Vidocq found a new publisher, Louis-François L'Héritier. In December 1828, L'Héritier published the memoirs, which had grown to four volumes through the help of some ghostwriters. The work became a bestseller and sold over 50,000 copies in the first year.
 * Mémoires de Vidocq, chef de la police de Sûreté, jusqu'en 1827, ghost-written autobiography, 1828
 * Memoirs of Vidocq in English Vol III
 * Memoirs of Vidocq in English Vol IV
 * Les voleurs, a study of thieves and imposters, 1836, Roy-Terry, Paris
 * Dictionnaire d'Argot, a dictionary of argot, 1836
 * Considérations sommaires sur les prisons, les bagnes et la peine de mort, deliberations on reducing crime, 1844
 * Les chauffeurs du nord, a memoir of his time as a gang member, 1845
 * Les vrais mystères de Paris, a novel published under Vidocq's name, though authored by Horace Raisson and Maurice Alhoy, 1844

Influence on criminalistics

 * (earlier title: Das Jahrhundert der Detektive).
 * (earlier title: Das Jahrhundert der Detektive).
 * (earlier title: Das Jahrhundert der Detektive).
 * (earlier title: Das Jahrhundert der Detektive).
 * (earlier title: Das Jahrhundert der Detektive).

Influence on literature

 * (Reprint of the Paris edition of 1929).
 * (also thesis, Universität Giessen 2001).
 * (Reprint of the Paris edition of 1929).
 * (also thesis, Universität Giessen 2001).
 * (also thesis, Universität Giessen 2001).
 * (also thesis, Universität Giessen 2001).

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Eugène François Vidocq


text:
George Dupre

George Dupre (1903–1982) was a Canadian man who falsely claimed to have been a Special Operations Executive operative during World War II.

In 1953, Quentin Reynolds, an ex-war correspondent, had written a book The Man Who Wouldn't Talk about George Dupre's alleged wartime experiences. Dupre claimed that he had been working for Special Operations Executive and the French Resistance during World War II. He had masqueraded as a village idiot and had been captured and tortured by the Gestapo. He had been telling his story in Canadian service clubs and Boy Scout meetings for years. Any loopholes in his story he (and his listeners) attributed to wartime trauma and still existing security restrictions.

Random House published the book and it appeared in November 1953. There was also a Reader's Digest condensation. Dupre himself said he wanted no money, that only the message to trust in God was important. He gave the money to Scouts Canada. The book was a sensation.

The hoax began to unravel when a retired Royal Canadian Air Force officer appeared at the offices of the Calgary Herald. He had served with Dupre in Winnipeg in 1943, when Dupre claimed he was working undercover in France. Three other officers stated that they had sailed with him to Britain at the same time.

Calgary Herald reporter Douglas Collins, himself a former intelligence man, tricked Dupre by dropping fictitious names Dupre claimed to recognize. Eventually Dupre confessed. Reynolds was rather disappointed and Reader's Digest published a three-page retraction. Unfazed, Random House representative Bennett Cerf recommended that stores move the book to the fiction section. The book continued to sell well.

title: George Dupre


text:
Louis de Rougemont

Louis De Rougemont (12 November 1847 – 9 June 1921) was a Swiss explorer who claimed to have had adventures in Australasia.

Personal history
"De Rougemont" was born Henri Louis Grin in 1847 in Gressy, Vaud, Switzerland. He left home at the age of sixteen. He became a footman to the actress Fanny Kemble, servant to a Swiss banker de Mieville in 1870 and a butler for the Governor of Western Australia, Sir William Robinson. In the latter job he lasted less than a year.

He tried various ventures with very little success. He worked as a doctor, a "spirit photographer" and an inventor. He also married and abandoned a wife in Australia.

In 1898 he began to write about his invented adventures in the British periodical The Wide World Magazine under the name Louis De Rougemont. He described his alleged exploits in search of pearls and gold in New Guinea, and claimed to have spent thirty years living with Indigenous Australians in the outback. He claimed that the tribe with whom he had lived had worshipped him as a god. He also claimed to have encountered the Gibson expedition of 1874.

Various readers expressed disbelief in his tales from the start, for example, claiming that no one can actually ride a turtle. De Rougemont had also claimed to have seen flying wombats. The fact that he could not place his travels on a map aroused suspicion. Readers' arguments in the pages of the Daily Chronicle and other London newspapers continued for months.

Rougemont subjected himself to examination by the Royal Geographical Society. He claimed that he could not specify exactly where he had been because he had signed a non-disclosure agreement with a syndicate that wanted to exploit the gold he had found in the area. He also refused to talk about Aboriginal languages he had supposedly learned. Still his supporters continued to find precedents for his exploits.

In September 1898 the Daily Chronicle announced that a certain F.W. Solomon had recognized De Rougemont and identified him as Louis Grin, who had presented himself at Solomon's firm as an entrepreneur. Grin had collected tidbits for his exploits from the Reading Room of the British Museum. Edwin Greenslade Murphy had helped to expose him.

Grin tried to defend himself by writing a letter to The Daily Chronicle, using his original name, in which he expressed his consternation that anybody would confuse him with Louis De Rougemont. The Daily Chronicle was very willing to publish the letter. The Wide World Magazine exploited the situation and prepared a Christmas double issue. Sales of both papers increased greatly. De Rougemont himself disappeared from view.

During 1899 Grin travelled to South Africa as a music-hall attraction, "the greatest liar on Earth". On a similar tour of Australia in 1901 he was booed from the stage. In July 1906 he appeared at the London Hippodrome and successfully demonstrated his turtle-riding skills. During the First World War he reappeared as an inventor of a useless meat substitute. He died a poor man in London on 9 June 1921.

It was said of the would-be adventurer: Truth is stranger than fiction But De Rougemont is stranger than both

title: Louis de Rougemont