The first regular organisation of detective police may be said to have been created by Vidocq, the famous French thief, who, having turned his own coat, found his best assistants in other converted criminals. Vidocq's personal reminiscences have been read all the world over, and need hardly be recounted here. It was at the end of a long career of crime, of warfare with justice, in which he had been perpetually worsted, that he elected to go over to the other side. He would cease to be the hare, and would, if permitted, in future hunt with the hounds. So he offered his services to the authorities, who at first bluntly refused them. M. Henri, the functionary at the head of the criminal department of the Prefecture, sent him about his business without even asking his name. This was in 1809, during the ministry of Fouché. Vidocq, rebuffed, joined a band of coiners, who betrayed him to the police, and he was arrested, nearly naked, on the roof as he was trying to escape. He was taken before M. Henri, whom he reminded of his application and renewed his offers, which were now accepted, but coldly and distrustfully. The only condition he had made was that he should not be relegated to the galleys, but held in any [Illustration: VIDOCQ, THE CELEBRATED FRENCH DETECTIVE. (_From the Engraving by Mlle. Coignet._)] Parisian prison the authorities might choose. So he was committed to La Force, and the entry appears on the registry of that prison that he was nominally sentenced to eight years in chains; it was part of his compact that he should associate freely with other prisoners and secretly inform the police of all that was going on. He betrayed a number of his unsuspecting companions, and seems to have been very proud of his treacherous achievements. No prisoner had the slightest suspicion that he was a police spy, nor had any of the officials, except the gate-keeper. In this way he earned the gratitude of the authorities, who thought he might be more useful at large. In order to give a plausible explanation of his release, it was arranged that he should be sent from the prison of La Force to Bicêtre and permitted to escape by the way. Vidocq has given his own account of his escape: "I was fetched from La Force and taken off with the most rigorous precaution, handcuffed, and lodged in the prison van; but I was let out on the road." The report of this daring escape, as it was supposed, was the talk of all Paris, and the cause of great rejoicing in criminal circles, where Vidocq's health was drunk with many wishes for his continued good fortune.