In 1798 he moved to the Netherlands and for some time worked for the privateer Fromentin who raided English shipping. When he was transferred to Brest for the use in galleys, he escaped again, this time using a disguise. When he gave himself up to clear the name of a guard, he was arrested and sentenced to eight years of hard labor. Once he tried to forge a pardon to a cellmate who had been sentenced to death. He became a bandit and was arrested many times but always managed to escape. Vidocq moved to Paris where he ended up spending all his money on loose women. He left later with a parting gift of 15,000 gold francs. In Belgium he courted an older baroness and joined a band of raiders. He acquired a false passport with the name of Rousseau. When he found out that Louise was having an affair with an officer, he left for Brussels. Vidocq fell in love with their daughter Louise and married her when she falsely claimed she was pregnant. His father got him out by asking the Chevalier family to help. Vidocq claimed that he saved two noblewomen from a guillotine in Arras but was captured and faced the same fate. The French Revolution was already in full swing. Striking a superior officer could have led to a death sentence so he deserted and moved back to Arras. In 1792, when a sergeant major refused a duel with him, he hit him. Even during the war against Austria he continued dueling, although he also rose to a rank of grenadier corporal. He later claimed that he fought 15 duels and received numerous reprimands. He ended up joining the Bourbon Regiment a year later. He planned to sail to the Americas but lost his money to an unscrupulous actress. At the age of 14 he apparently accidentally killed his fencing instructor and decided to skip town. According to it, Vidocq was born in Arras, France in July 23, 1775. Most of the information about Vidocq's earlier life comes from his ghost-written biography. Eugène François Vidocq (J– May 11, 1857) was a French criminal who later became a first director of Sûreté Nationale and one of the founders of modern criminal investigation.
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