Memoirs of Paris’s Chief of Police under Napoleon III

Description

Jules Rouff et Cie Editeurs, Paris, undated, large 4° format, 2 volumes, half-leather binding, wear to corners, headbands and boards, 2020 pages, black-and-white illustrations. 521 first-person accounts spanning historical conspiracies (Bonapartist plots, the death of M. Thiers), common crimes (a serial killer of maids, a vengeful landlord’s eviction), and even supernatural cases (ghosts, the evil eye). Antoine François Claude (1807–1880), head of France’s sûreté from 1859 to 1875, documents his tenure as a flamboyant memoir blending adventure and history. A pioneer of forensic science, he details meticulous trace analysis, witness confrontation, psychological profiling, and early use of Bertillon’s anthropometry.