WEBVTT - The Criminal Father of Criminology 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:05.360 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.640 --> 0:00:14.080 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's 0:00:14.160 --> 0:00:16.799 Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is Stuff you 0:00:16.920 --> 0:00:21.800 should Know, a little overlooked historical figure edition. 0:00:23.520 --> 0:00:27.280 Yes, yeah, boy, god, this guy. Could you could do 0:00:27.840 --> 0:00:31.040 a ten parter on his life easily. 0:00:31.560 --> 0:00:33.720 I mean, it's it's nuts. So we're talking about a 0:00:33.760 --> 0:00:39.599 man named Eugene Francois Vidocq. He is known as the 0:00:39.600 --> 0:00:44.279 father of criminology. Yeah, pretty much on the nose. That's 0:00:44.320 --> 0:00:48.040 a really good title for him. Yeah, he's also an 0:00:48.080 --> 0:00:54.040 inspiration for plenty of detective first early detective stories. He 0:00:54.240 --> 0:00:57.880 was at one time as famous as Napoleon in France 0:00:57.920 --> 0:01:01.880 and in Europe in general. He was in famous, incredibly wealthy, 0:01:02.360 --> 0:01:05.560 and it was because he dedicated himself as a public 0:01:05.600 --> 0:01:09.360 servant to the city of Paris to basically wipe out 0:01:09.680 --> 0:01:13.480 crime as best he could at a time when Paris 0:01:13.640 --> 0:01:16.360 was more overrun with crime than maybe it ever has 0:01:16.400 --> 0:01:17.360 been in its history. 0:01:18.200 --> 0:01:22.320 Yeah, it was. It was a time where the army 0:01:22.600 --> 0:01:25.440 was very busy, I guess it is the best way 0:01:25.440 --> 0:01:28.640 to say it, and like the army took up a 0:01:28.640 --> 0:01:31.839 lot of the men who might normally be cops, and 0:01:32.240 --> 0:01:35.320 they were preoccupied more with warring than with just taking 0:01:35.360 --> 0:01:39.800 care of regular police work. And Vidok stepped up in 0:01:39.840 --> 0:01:42.679 a big way, and like I said, like I had 0:01:42.680 --> 0:01:44.360 to stop researching because I was like, we can't do 0:01:44.400 --> 0:01:46.440 a twelve hour podcast on this guy. 0:01:46.680 --> 0:01:49.120 Rightly, no, but you can definitely go down a rabbit 0:01:49.160 --> 0:01:51.400 hole with him. And one of the reasons why is 0:01:51.400 --> 0:01:55.600 because depending on the source you consult, he was either 0:01:55.640 --> 0:02:03.080 a total scumbag, scoundrel or genuinely unjustly slandered. I leaned 0:02:03.120 --> 0:02:05.920 toward the second one, or closer to the second one. Obviously, 0:02:05.960 --> 0:02:10.120 no one's perfect, but I do think that the stuff 0:02:10.160 --> 0:02:13.960 that is really questionable or makes him into a questionable 0:02:14.080 --> 0:02:18.600 person or character, I think is remnants of his political 0:02:18.680 --> 0:02:22.400 rivals smearing his name so well that it still is 0:02:22.480 --> 0:02:23.200 around today. 0:02:24.400 --> 0:02:28.799 Here's what I think is that he was, and as 0:02:28.840 --> 0:02:32.280 you'll see, started off as a scoundrel and a criminal, 0:02:33.560 --> 0:02:37.839 later changed his tune because I think it was beneficial 0:02:37.840 --> 0:02:39.960 for him to not be in prison all the time, 0:02:41.040 --> 0:02:44.079 and I think he tried to do the right thing, 0:02:44.160 --> 0:02:48.919 but also like a little bit of that that scoundrel 0:02:49.400 --> 0:02:52.680 lived within him, but he also had people that had 0:02:52.720 --> 0:02:54.760 it out for him. I think he's a complex guy. 0:02:55.080 --> 0:02:56.280 I don't think he did a one to eighty and 0:02:56.440 --> 0:02:59.880 was like and now I am pure. I think he 0:03:00.200 --> 0:03:03.040 I think he, you know, did what was best for 0:03:03.160 --> 0:03:06.560 him usually, but also wanted to put criminals behind bars 0:03:06.720 --> 0:03:08.120 and make a few bucks while he did it. 0:03:08.600 --> 0:03:13.280 So I have a counterpoint to that, but I'll bring 0:03:13.280 --> 0:03:14.600 it up when we get to that part. But we 0:03:14.600 --> 0:03:17.240 should tell everybody. One of the reasons Vidock is famous 0:03:17.880 --> 0:03:20.280 if you have heard of him, is because not only 0:03:20.360 --> 0:03:22.800 was he the father of criminology, he started out as 0:03:22.840 --> 0:03:26.560 a genuine bona fide criminal who was serving time in prison, 0:03:26.600 --> 0:03:30.480 would escape prison, and then one day he basically switched 0:03:30.560 --> 0:03:36.320 sides from an outsider's standpoint and became like the top 0:03:36.400 --> 0:03:39.400 cop in all of France while he was. 0:03:40.000 --> 0:03:42.960 Serving Yeah, a good way to stay out of jail. 0:03:43.400 --> 0:03:46.640 For sure. Well let's start. Let's start with his early life, right, 0:03:46.680 --> 0:03:51.720 because he was unquestionably a troublemaker, a hot head, and 0:03:52.920 --> 0:03:55.760 just a handful. You could definitely say his parents actually 0:03:55.840 --> 0:03:58.000 let him get arrested when they stole from him once. 0:03:58.640 --> 0:04:02.440 Yeah, I mean you would classify as a juvenile delinquent today, 0:04:02.960 --> 0:04:07.280 But it wasn't because he was some you know, poor 0:04:07.360 --> 0:04:10.440 kid from the poor streets who had to steal to survive. 0:04:11.160 --> 0:04:13.680 His parents did pretty well, they had a successful bakery 0:04:14.480 --> 0:04:18.120 and how do you pronounce that rs? I think so yeah, 0:04:18.680 --> 0:04:22.279 A R R A S. And it seemed rather middle class. 0:04:22.760 --> 0:04:25.599 But like you said, he he stole from his parents. 0:04:25.640 --> 0:04:29.720 He was. He was a scoundrel. He pick pocketed. He 0:04:29.800 --> 0:04:32.320 was from very early on seemed like he was a 0:04:32.320 --> 0:04:36.080 bit of a ladies man and he would you know, 0:04:36.120 --> 0:04:38.320 this was sort of his early life until he ran 0:04:38.360 --> 0:04:42.480 away literally to join the circus, right like people actually 0:04:42.480 --> 0:04:45.279 did that. And he did that for a few months 0:04:45.360 --> 0:04:48.080 until he didn't like the work. Then he would eventually 0:04:48.279 --> 0:04:51.279 work for a Punch and Judy street show, which is 0:04:51.720 --> 0:04:54.280 if you guys are don't know who Punch and Judy were, 0:04:54.320 --> 0:04:55.800 they were They were puppets. 0:04:55.480 --> 0:05:00.560 Right, yes they were. Punch was a wife battering puppet 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:03.800 and Judy was the abused wife. They got into hysterical 0:05:03.880 --> 0:05:06.000 right yeah, really violent fights all the time, but it 0:05:06.040 --> 0:05:08.760 was puppets and kids thought it was hilarious. And he 0:05:08.960 --> 0:05:12.200 worked for that show and he had to. I guess 0:05:12.200 --> 0:05:13.960 he got fired in a way. 0:05:14.600 --> 0:05:16.560 I think so. I think as a fifteen year old 0:05:16.560 --> 0:05:19.360 he said some kind of a tryst with the wife 0:05:19.480 --> 0:05:24.120 of the guy who was running the thing. Yes, so 0:05:24.200 --> 0:05:27.440 that's not very specific. It says that they were embracing, 0:05:27.520 --> 0:05:28.719 so who knows what that means. 0:05:28.960 --> 0:05:31.039 Yeah, but it definitely goes to underscore a lot of 0:05:31.080 --> 0:05:33.479 things about him. He was very much into the ladies. 0:05:33.920 --> 0:05:36.359 He didn't mind if it was someone else's lady, if 0:05:36.400 --> 0:05:40.840 you were someone else's lady. And he was willing to 0:05:41.000 --> 0:05:45.440 put himself in great danger and at great personal risk 0:05:45.960 --> 0:05:49.320 to satisfy his own wants, needs, desires. 0:05:49.640 --> 0:05:51.120 That's a very nice way to say it. 0:05:51.480 --> 0:05:53.640 So he moved back home, he went back to ras 0:05:53.920 --> 0:05:56.960 or Us and his I don't know if we said 0:05:56.960 --> 0:06:01.240 his dad was a baker and his parents were totally normal, 0:06:01.279 --> 0:06:04.479 fine parents. But again they basically when he was caught 0:06:04.520 --> 0:06:06.640 stealing from them when he was thirteen, they said, okay, 0:06:06.760 --> 0:06:09.240 you're going to jail. When you moved back home after 0:06:09.279 --> 0:06:12.320 the circus and the Punch and Judy show, he wasn't 0:06:12.360 --> 0:06:16.120 even sixteen yet, and they said, all right, you're going 0:06:16.160 --> 0:06:18.160 to join the army whether you like it or not. 0:06:18.200 --> 0:06:21.000 They shipped him off to the army. Well he was fifteen, 0:06:21.360 --> 0:06:22.800 that's how bad a kid he was. 0:06:23.520 --> 0:06:26.920 Yeah, I think he's drinking, getting fights and womanizing, and 0:06:27.000 --> 0:06:29.360 you know, he's just one of those kids. They'd probably 0:06:29.400 --> 0:06:31.839 just say today that he was I don't know, what 0:06:31.839 --> 0:06:36.320 would you call it hot head? Yeah, teenage hothead. Yeah, 0:06:36.640 --> 0:06:39.120 he'd like to steal things sometimes. 0:06:39.000 --> 0:06:44.000 Right, and embrace other people's wives exactly. So he did 0:06:44.240 --> 0:06:46.600 serve in the army. Apparently he was in battle a 0:06:46.640 --> 0:06:52.040 few times because this was a post post French Revolution, 0:06:53.240 --> 0:06:55.600 and I think he may have been in the army 0:06:55.640 --> 0:06:58.440 when Napoleon first took power. At the very least, France 0:06:58.560 --> 0:07:00.839 was on all sorts of advance. Like you said, it 0:07:00.880 --> 0:07:06.320 had drained them their population of potential police people policemen, 0:07:07.680 --> 0:07:09.720 and so he fought in a few battles. He definitely 0:07:09.760 --> 0:07:11.600 saw some action and it was fine. But I think 0:07:11.640 --> 0:07:15.800 probably the biggest takeaway was that he learned how to fence. 0:07:16.080 --> 0:07:19.080 He became a very great fencer, and that served him 0:07:19.080 --> 0:07:22.640 well because he was also known to get into duels 0:07:22.720 --> 0:07:26.000 with people. And he actually had to desert the army 0:07:26.120 --> 0:07:29.600 because he was coming up on charges because he challenged 0:07:29.640 --> 0:07:32.760 a sergeant to a duel. The sergeant refused him, and 0:07:32.800 --> 0:07:36.360 he smacked the sergeant around, and that is not something 0:07:36.400 --> 0:07:38.920 you do in any army at any period of time. 0:07:39.320 --> 0:07:42.280 And so he took off and was now a desert 0:07:42.360 --> 0:07:45.520 ye from the army. And this is when his actual 0:07:46.640 --> 0:07:50.880 criminal life really began. Everything else was petty, in temperate, 0:07:51.000 --> 0:07:52.960 that kind of thing. This is like, Okay, I'm a 0:07:53.000 --> 0:07:55.600 deserter from the army. I need to support myself somehow. 0:07:55.720 --> 0:07:57.400 I guess I have to turn to a life of crime. 0:07:58.040 --> 0:08:00.360 Yeah, he actually deserted a few times. I don't think 0:08:00.360 --> 0:08:03.640 he was super popular among his peers there. Sure he 0:08:03.680 --> 0:08:05.560 had a habit for just sort of not being there 0:08:05.600 --> 0:08:08.920 all of a sudden when they called roll call. But eventually, 0:08:08.920 --> 0:08:11.440 when he finally left for good, he joined up with 0:08:11.880 --> 0:08:14.520 what was called the Rolling Army. You want to do 0:08:14.520 --> 0:08:15.960 the French there, you're a French guy. 0:08:17.200 --> 0:08:19.080 It was the Army Rulan. 0:08:19.920 --> 0:08:23.960 Okay, the Army Rulant, which was everything I saw about 0:08:24.000 --> 0:08:26.880 this was that it was a side army. I think 0:08:26.880 --> 0:08:29.880 it was a couple of thousand men, and that they 0:08:31.280 --> 0:08:33.640 they sort of just did what they wanted. They were 0:08:33.679 --> 0:08:39.240 fake uniforms. They plundered the countryside they gave themselves fake orders, 0:08:40.320 --> 0:08:43.920 and I'm not exactly sure what real army work they did. 0:08:44.160 --> 0:08:45.800 I'm sure they did, right. 0:08:46.360 --> 0:08:48.880 I don't think so, I think or was it all just. 0:08:48.840 --> 0:08:51.920 A thing to like? I think they're under in pillage. 0:08:51.600 --> 0:08:53.760 Yes, that's what that's my take. I don't think they 0:08:53.760 --> 0:08:55.240 were officially sanctioned at all. 0:08:56.160 --> 0:08:58.280 Well, no, they weren't officially sanctioned, but I just I 0:08:58.320 --> 0:09:02.839 figured they were. I thought that the real army might 0:09:02.880 --> 0:09:03.960 have used them at times. 0:09:04.080 --> 0:09:06.320 I don't know, I don't know enough about it. It's possible. 0:09:06.360 --> 0:09:08.760 I mean, you got a couple thousand people with guns 0:09:08.800 --> 0:09:09.840 ready to fight. Why not? 0:09:10.000 --> 0:09:12.280 Yeah? Well, I know they worked fake uniforms. And he 0:09:12.880 --> 0:09:16.960 made up a rank for himself and took a alias. 0:09:16.960 --> 0:09:19.960 He was Lieutenant Rousseau, and eventually even made himself captain. 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:21.720 I don't know why I didn't start off as captain 0:09:21.760 --> 0:09:22.920 as long as he's making things up. 0:09:23.920 --> 0:09:26.640 Yeah, he kind of sold himself short there, didn't he. 0:09:27.040 --> 0:09:30.880 Well, he became captain eventually, so he ended up. 0:09:30.760 --> 0:09:34.520 In Paris eventually after he left the army. Roulant and 0:09:35.120 --> 0:09:40.079 this is around seventeen ninety five. The French Revolution had 0:09:40.160 --> 0:09:43.920 been successful. But there's something to understand about it. Like, 0:09:45.520 --> 0:09:47.480 one of the reasons Paris was so over him with 0:09:47.520 --> 0:09:49.320 crime was not just that there was a lack of 0:09:49.520 --> 0:09:55.080 potential candidates for the police. There was also like the 0:09:55.200 --> 0:10:00.560 threat of revolution and regime change was constant during these decades. 0:10:01.080 --> 0:10:03.760 It wasn't like the French Revolution happened and it was over. 0:10:04.240 --> 0:10:05.080 Yeah, it was a mess. 0:10:05.200 --> 0:10:08.280 It was a mess. First Napoleon comes along is like, hey, 0:10:08.360 --> 0:10:11.400 I'll take over from here. I'm now emperor. He he 0:10:11.600 --> 0:10:14.720 ran France for a really long time, for a decade 0:10:14.800 --> 0:10:16.800 or something like that. Then he was deposed and a 0:10:16.840 --> 0:10:19.960 new king was installed, a new king was installed. After that, 0:10:19.960 --> 0:10:22.920 that king was just deposed and a new citizen king 0:10:23.360 --> 0:10:26.160 was put into place. And then around that time finally 0:10:26.880 --> 0:10:30.880 our our protagonist dies. But like throughout all this time, 0:10:30.960 --> 0:10:34.640 like there there's a lot of tension and conflict in 0:10:34.679 --> 0:10:39.360 the country, and because everybody was preoccupied with that stuff, 0:10:39.760 --> 0:10:43.800 crime was allowed to flourish. It was a really dangerous 0:10:44.200 --> 0:10:47.880 lawless time. It particularly in Paris, because a lot of 0:10:47.880 --> 0:10:50.880 people were also coming to Paris looking for opportunity and 0:10:50.920 --> 0:10:54.280 that kind of thing, and so it was a just 0:10:54.320 --> 0:10:56.240 to put that in your in your pipe and hold 0:10:56.240 --> 0:10:59.920 it in your hat for later, because that's that's that's 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:04.360 this is the backdrop that he shows up in Paris against. 0:11:04.600 --> 0:11:07.160 That's right. So he ends up in Paris during this 0:11:07.280 --> 0:11:12.040 very tumultuous time. Great time to be a criminal in Paris. Sure, 0:11:12.480 --> 0:11:14.520 you know very I don't know about easy to get 0:11:14.520 --> 0:11:16.319 away with stuff, but you know, you could be a 0:11:16.360 --> 0:11:19.400 pretty successful criminal at the time. And that's what he did. 0:11:19.800 --> 0:11:22.480 It sort of threw his twenties and into his thirties. 0:11:23.120 --> 0:11:25.319 He was in and out of prison, kind of off 0:11:25.360 --> 0:11:29.000 and on because of various schemes. It was never like, 0:11:30.160 --> 0:11:31.720 I'm not going to say it was victimless, but it 0:11:31.760 --> 0:11:35.000 was never like violent crimes. It seems like he was 0:11:35.040 --> 0:11:38.959 like a really good, really good forging documents and things 0:11:39.000 --> 0:11:41.560 like that, and all of his schemes seemed to be 0:11:43.160 --> 0:11:45.640 kind of like on the more intelligent side. 0:11:45.760 --> 0:11:48.280 Yeah, he was definitely intelligent, yes. 0:11:48.120 --> 0:11:50.200 Yeah, So it's not like he was walking up and 0:11:50.240 --> 0:11:53.200 bonking someone on the head and stealing their purse. He 0:11:53.280 --> 0:11:57.880 graduated to more elaborate kind of you know, forgeries and 0:11:57.920 --> 0:11:58.520 things like that. 0:11:58.800 --> 0:12:03.920 Yeah, and he also he was a criminal with a heart. 0:12:04.280 --> 0:12:07.440 He landed in this one prison. Oh what is it 0:12:07.480 --> 0:12:09.640 called Bagno, I believe. 0:12:10.600 --> 0:12:14.479 Oh was that where he the the bread. 0:12:14.240 --> 0:12:16.959 Guy was, Yes, So so this is a really good 0:12:17.000 --> 0:12:21.040 example of that. He Yeah, he was finally caught and 0:12:21.120 --> 0:12:23.960 sentenced for I think just three months in prison, just 0:12:24.000 --> 0:12:26.719 three months. But while there he was so moved by 0:12:26.760 --> 0:12:30.000 a guy who had been given six years for stealing 0:12:30.040 --> 0:12:33.600 grain to feed his family, who, by the way, the 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:36.520 bread guy, right, people are confused. So he was so 0:12:36.640 --> 0:12:39.000 moved by that and thought that it was so unjust 0:12:39.080 --> 0:12:42.720 that he'd been given six years. He forged documents that 0:12:42.720 --> 0:12:46.200 that that he signed as like the head of I 0:12:46.240 --> 0:12:49.000 think the prison or the police as saying like this 0:12:49.120 --> 0:12:52.320 man is to be released, his his sentence has been commuted, 0:12:52.640 --> 0:12:54.719 and the guy made it made made off like he 0:12:55.120 --> 0:12:59.120 was released. And I think it took a few months 0:12:59.120 --> 0:13:01.800 for the whole thing to finally be found out. But 0:13:01.960 --> 0:13:05.280 I think the doc was in jail at the time 0:13:05.280 --> 0:13:07.480 when they did find out, and they gave him eight 0:13:07.600 --> 0:13:11.080 years for that for forging papers that released a man 0:13:11.120 --> 0:13:13.280 who had been given six years for stealing grain. 0:13:14.040 --> 0:13:18.040 Yeah, so this time he went to a hard labor prison. 0:13:18.160 --> 0:13:20.440 Like you said, it was called a I don't know 0:13:20.440 --> 0:13:23.600 how it's pronounced. I think they started in Italy under 0:13:23.640 --> 0:13:26.960 a different name, but B A G n O the 0:13:27.040 --> 0:13:30.760 bag no, the bagno, like if you've ever seen the 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:35.600 movie I looked into these, the movie Papion. The island 0:13:35.600 --> 0:13:38.040 prison they were on that was one, and I think 0:13:38.040 --> 0:13:40.559 it was just like a very tough It was like 0:13:40.600 --> 0:13:45.599 the toughest of the tough prisons, hard labor, usually in shackles, 0:13:46.559 --> 0:13:49.600 very hard to escape from. Yet he did manage to 0:13:49.720 --> 0:13:54.400 escape even from here, and I think he escaped as 0:13:54.400 --> 0:13:56.800 a sailor and was caught and put back and then 0:13:56.960 --> 0:14:02.000 escaped again posing as a nun. So as you will 0:14:02.040 --> 0:14:04.520 see later, he was, in fact a master of disguise, 0:14:05.679 --> 0:14:07.360 was very good at it, and if he was able 0:14:07.400 --> 0:14:10.440 to pass himself off as a nun, clearly pretty good 0:14:10.480 --> 0:14:10.760 at it. 0:14:11.000 --> 0:14:13.680 Yeah, And it's really something that he escaped not just 0:14:13.760 --> 0:14:17.600 once but twice from a galley prison. Because they were 0:14:17.640 --> 0:14:21.320 originally before they moved them onto land, they were ships, 0:14:21.360 --> 0:14:24.160 giant ships with tons of oars sticking out of them, 0:14:24.640 --> 0:14:27.240 and you would be sentenced to hard labor rowing those 0:14:27.280 --> 0:14:30.280 oars day in and day out. It was a really 0:14:30.400 --> 0:14:33.960 rough place to spend eight years, and it would also 0:14:34.040 --> 0:14:36.720 be a really difficult place to escape from, but he 0:14:36.760 --> 0:14:39.440 did twice. So he started to get a reputation as 0:14:39.600 --> 0:14:42.880 someone who no prison could hold in addition to being 0:14:42.920 --> 0:14:45.680 a master of disguise. And when you start kind of 0:14:45.720 --> 0:14:48.600 doing stuff like that, your name gets around and you 0:14:48.640 --> 0:14:50.960 start to become a bit of a legend among not 0:14:51.120 --> 0:14:56.120 just the criminals, but also like law enforcement as well. 0:14:56.400 --> 0:14:59.720 So his star is starting to rise. And I think, 0:15:00.040 --> 0:15:03.360 as we reached this point, Chuck, it's time for message break. 0:15:03.360 --> 0:15:33.680 What do you think as we reached this point? I agree? 0:15:35.640 --> 0:15:39.320 All right, So where we left off, Vidoc has escaped 0:15:39.480 --> 0:15:42.760 prison a couple of times. He was a juvenile delinquent. 0:15:43.240 --> 0:15:46.560 He was a delinquent into his twenties and into his thirties, 0:15:46.560 --> 0:15:49.880 through his twenties and into his thirties, and then finally 0:15:50.000 --> 0:15:54.280 ends up back in Paris. He was trying to get 0:15:54.280 --> 0:15:57.920 pulled into the criminal underworld again because he was well known, 0:15:58.440 --> 0:16:00.280 and he was kind of in a bad spot because 0:16:00.280 --> 0:16:03.280 if he said no, he would get blackmailed by these 0:16:03.320 --> 0:16:06.480 low lifes and threaten to turn him in because he 0:16:06.520 --> 0:16:09.400 was a fugitive at this point still. So finally he 0:16:09.600 --> 0:16:12.720 was like, all right, what am I doing with my life, 0:16:13.440 --> 0:16:16.520 all this on the run stuff, on the lamb in 0:16:16.600 --> 0:16:21.080 disguise as a nun. This is for the birds. In 0:16:21.120 --> 0:16:24.000 eighteen oh nine, he said, I'm going to go to 0:16:24.120 --> 0:16:27.240 the cops and I'm gonna say I would like to 0:16:27.280 --> 0:16:30.640 turn myself in and make myself well, sort of turn 0:16:30.680 --> 0:16:32.840 myself in. What he really wanted to do was turn 0:16:32.880 --> 0:16:36.800 into a police informant and get out of jail. And 0:16:36.840 --> 0:16:39.160 they said, hey, great idea, but you're gonna do that 0:16:39.320 --> 0:16:41.280 for at least a little while in jail. 0:16:41.920 --> 0:16:44.200 Right, that is, I mean that sounds like, oh that's cool. 0:16:44.400 --> 0:16:47.800 That was an incredibly dangerous position to put himself in 0:16:47.880 --> 0:16:48.920 for two straight years. 0:16:49.280 --> 0:16:50.080 This still is. 0:16:50.200 --> 0:16:53.240 He was an sure he was an informant, a volunteer 0:16:53.280 --> 0:16:56.280 informant for the police, and he would he would inform 0:16:56.320 --> 0:16:58.840 on anybody. And so I was saying earlier that I 0:16:58.840 --> 0:17:00.800 would bring up a counterpoint to the idea that it 0:17:00.840 --> 0:17:04.439 was just completely self serving from what I saw. Another 0:17:04.520 --> 0:17:07.960 explanation is that he never actually thought of himself as 0:17:07.960 --> 0:17:12.919 a criminal. He thought of himself as an outlaw by circumstance, 0:17:13.040 --> 0:17:15.119 like he had made a lot of bad decisions. He 0:17:15.200 --> 0:17:17.600 knew that and that had made him run a foul 0:17:17.640 --> 0:17:20.680 of the law. But he wasn't a criminal, Like, that's 0:17:20.680 --> 0:17:22.760 not how he wanted to support himself. He didn't have 0:17:22.960 --> 0:17:26.080 the heart of a criminal, and so this was a 0:17:26.119 --> 0:17:29.399 way to basically say, I don't want to be a 0:17:29.400 --> 0:17:31.520 criminal anymore. I don't want to be associated with these people. 0:17:31.560 --> 0:17:33.160 I want to change sides, and this is how I'm 0:17:33.160 --> 0:17:35.159 going to try to do it. Or another way to 0:17:35.200 --> 0:17:40.800 look at it is that he was he was he 0:17:40.840 --> 0:17:44.239 finally grew up essentially and realized like, okay, this is 0:17:44.640 --> 0:17:46.359 this is not okay. I need to I need to 0:17:46.440 --> 0:17:49.600 change things, and I've worked myself into such a deep hole. 0:17:50.160 --> 0:17:53.720 This is the alternative to just going like, okay, I'm 0:17:53.720 --> 0:17:56.040 going to become a criminal from now. Those were his choices. 0:17:56.080 --> 0:17:58.920 That's how deep the Holy Doug was. And the thing is, Chuck, 0:17:58.960 --> 0:18:02.040 no matter how you interpret whether it was a selfish act, 0:18:02.240 --> 0:18:05.600 whether it was you know, you know, his destiny, whatever, 0:18:06.240 --> 0:18:09.760 that shows a remarkable amount of initiative to do that. 0:18:10.480 --> 0:18:12.399 Like he said, I'm not going to be a criminal. 0:18:12.440 --> 0:18:13.919 I'm not going to turn a life crime. I'm going 0:18:13.960 --> 0:18:17.520 to basically put myself in the hands of cops who 0:18:17.640 --> 0:18:20.840 hate me and see if they will have me as 0:18:20.960 --> 0:18:21.640 one of their own. 0:18:22.480 --> 0:18:25.679 Yeah, I think he probably grew up. I don't know that. 0:18:25.720 --> 0:18:29.600 I buy that. If he had come from nothing, I 0:18:29.600 --> 0:18:31.600 could buy that. But he came from a pretty good 0:18:31.640 --> 0:18:34.160 He wasn't forced into committing crimes to survive. 0:18:34.440 --> 0:18:36.320 No, But I think that's why he didn't see himself 0:18:36.320 --> 0:18:39.439 as a criminal, because he had made choices or whatever. 0:18:39.480 --> 0:18:42.320 He wasn't a criminal. He just didn't see himself like 0:18:42.359 --> 0:18:43.160 that from what I saw. 0:18:44.160 --> 0:18:46.360 So he made choices to commit crimes, but didn't see 0:18:46.440 --> 0:18:47.320 himself as a criminal. 0:18:48.359 --> 0:18:53.760 Yes, okay, yes, he made choices that were that were criminal, 0:18:55.000 --> 0:18:57.600 but he wasn't making choices like to do crime. That 0:18:57.920 --> 0:19:00.959 wasn't as his aim was for crime. He was just 0:19:01.080 --> 0:19:04.600 making bad decisions that were criminal, and that made him 0:19:04.600 --> 0:19:07.200 a criminal in the eyes of society. I'm not saying 0:19:07.200 --> 0:19:09.440 like it was. It didn't make him a criminal. He 0:19:09.560 --> 0:19:12.440 just didn't think of himself as a criminal. To him, 0:19:12.640 --> 0:19:17.520 there was a differentiation between people who commit crimes and criminals. 0:19:18.040 --> 0:19:21.800 He did not think very highly of criminals, like career criminals, 0:19:21.800 --> 0:19:24.840 somebody who would slit your throat for your wallet or 0:19:24.920 --> 0:19:25.640 something like that. 0:19:26.040 --> 0:19:29.479 That Elvis was a drug addict, but Elvis was on pills, 0:19:29.480 --> 0:19:32.040 and he looked down on real drug addicts that were 0:19:32.080 --> 0:19:33.840 taking hard drugs like heroin. 0:19:34.000 --> 0:19:35.879 It's funny you bring that up, because I think of 0:19:35.960 --> 0:19:40.280 this same him turning over himself to the police to say, hey, 0:19:40.359 --> 0:19:42.960 I want to inform for you as very similar to 0:19:43.000 --> 0:19:45.919 Elvis showing up at the White House and volunteering to 0:19:45.920 --> 0:19:48.720 be an undercovered narc agent for Nixon. 0:19:49.480 --> 0:19:53.840 Oh, totally yeah. And I think they're both pretty hypocritical. 0:19:53.400 --> 0:19:55.480 For sure. So for sure, Yeah, that's the thing. I 0:19:55.520 --> 0:19:57.199 don't want to give the impression that I'm just like 0:19:57.320 --> 0:20:00.760 an apologist for Vidalk. I just think that there is 0:20:00.800 --> 0:20:04.119 an alternative explanation, and one of them is that he 0:20:04.160 --> 0:20:06.399 didn't see himself as a criminal even though he was 0:20:06.440 --> 0:20:08.520 a criminal. Oh, I totally agree. 0:20:08.760 --> 0:20:11.840 I totally believe that, like there are nothing but innocent 0:20:11.880 --> 0:20:14.760 people in prison. If he asked them, okay, you know, 0:20:15.080 --> 0:20:18.720 sure that was what's it called chawshank? 0:20:19.680 --> 0:20:21.240 Oh? Is that who that was? Yeah? 0:20:21.280 --> 0:20:24.120 I remember that great scene when they were at lunch 0:20:24.200 --> 0:20:26.200 or whatever, when they were all saying like like, hey, 0:20:26.200 --> 0:20:27.760 none of us did it, Like, no one in here 0:20:27.800 --> 0:20:29.239 did any of the crimes that we're in here. For 0:20:30.080 --> 0:20:35.240 it's pretty funny anyway. So he for two years worked 0:20:35.240 --> 0:20:38.440 in that prison, like you said, just what he would 0:20:38.440 --> 0:20:41.600 do was pass on information to his girlfriend, who would 0:20:41.640 --> 0:20:43.760 get it to the police chief of Paris, and it 0:20:43.800 --> 0:20:47.080 was going really well, apparently so well that at some 0:20:47.200 --> 0:20:53.760 point he helped Napoleon's Empress Josephines catch the person who 0:20:53.800 --> 0:20:57.200 stole her emerald necklace, and so he was on Napoleon's 0:20:57.240 --> 0:21:00.160 radar at least for a moment. I'm not sure how 0:21:00.400 --> 0:21:04.400 much Napoleon hung onto that, but it was a sort 0:21:04.400 --> 0:21:06.880 of a feather in his cap as an informant for sure. 0:21:06.880 --> 0:21:09.640 For sure. And that police chief was named Jean Henry 0:21:09.880 --> 0:21:13.080 or Henri not with an eye but a why so 0:21:13.160 --> 0:21:16.959 I'm not sure how it's pronounced exactly, but he was. 0:21:17.760 --> 0:21:22.960 He was finally smitten. After two years with Vidoc, he 0:21:23.119 --> 0:21:25.919 was all in for this guy. So he said, Okay, 0:21:26.400 --> 0:21:30.400 we're gonna let you out, but this is an unofficial release, 0:21:30.480 --> 0:21:33.280 like you're actually not going to get pardoned or released 0:21:33.320 --> 0:21:37.160 on paper, because we need you as a police informant. 0:21:37.200 --> 0:21:39.720 What they used to call thief takers. They were kind 0:21:39.720 --> 0:21:42.400 of like the predecessors to bounty hunters, where anybody could 0:21:42.440 --> 0:21:45.800 go catch thieves and bring them in for money. He 0:21:46.000 --> 0:21:50.720 was an undercover version of that, and that's new, brand new. 0:21:50.840 --> 0:21:53.760 They did not have undercover police at the time. So 0:21:53.880 --> 0:21:58.600 Vidoc has basically carved out a totally unique, peculiar place 0:21:58.640 --> 0:22:01.960 for himself in the Paris Police. And it's largely because 0:22:02.800 --> 0:22:08.080 Jean Henry believes in him and sees also the value 0:22:08.280 --> 0:22:12.960 in him going back into the underworld and informing on them, 0:22:13.040 --> 0:22:16.160 not just from jail, but like from the actual outside 0:22:16.520 --> 0:22:17.480 crime world. 0:22:18.960 --> 0:22:20.880 And John Henry also said stay away from my. 0:22:20.840 --> 0:22:24.160