Classic Literature: The Police Agent

The blurb: The Police Agent (1867) is a milestone in the development of crime fiction. Its eponymous hero, the cunning Mr. Porion, a.k.a. Père Cinnamon, does not employ his detective skills to pursue a vampire-like serial killer intent on bleeding children, but rather to protect him, while simultaneously serving other predatory aristocratic interests, such as providing the lecherous King Louis XV with a steady supply of virgins.

This crime novel Ponson du Terrail wrote may seem eccentric to 21st century eyes because the genre has undergone many refinements, but it remains fascinating as an example of its evolution. The Police Agent contains examples of deductive detection applied to a criminal investigation, as well as foreshadowing what became the “police procedural.”

The Police Agent boldly asks: if the police and the criminals are on the same side, possessed of all the power and legal authority, who can play a heroic role, and how can he possibly prevail, escaping torture, murder and annihilation?

The Book: this is the third story by Pierre-Alexis Ponson du Terrail that I’ve looked at here, the other two being the Vampire and the Devil’s Son and the Immortal Woman, and again it has been translated by Brian Stableford. Originally a serial entitled L’Auberge de la rue des Enfants Rouges it is, as stated in the blurb, crime fiction and features a serial killer who both drinks and bathes in human blood. The reason, because his face is ravaged by leprosy. The leprous Tartar isn’t the only one who does so, there is mention of a royal also indulging in the practice. The killer gains his blood two ways; one is using his sister to lure young men who are then drugged and bled and the other is to kidnap young children.

Interestingly, after one of the heroic characters, Hector, escapes the vampire, the killer leaves Paris and there are less murders (the minor royal is still indulging his peculiar tastes). When he has cause to return, his face is free of the disease and though he tells Louis XV that it was a potion (and not blood) that is able to bring the dead back to life, made younger, and suggests it is the method used by Le Comte de Saint-Germain, he does in fact still bathe in blood – though at times uses ox blood, “You took a human bath yesterday, today this [ox] blood will suffice”. He is required, when bathing, to take a paralysing narcotic himself and allow his own blood to mingle with the bath. This is not really explained.

So, though the vampire (named as such in text) is a human serial killer there does seem to be a supernatural element slipped into the narrative, given that his leprosy was cured. The book does ramble (like many of the stories of the time, written and published piecemeal) and sometimes contradicts itself. It is fascinating to see a story were so many of the primaries are drawn negatively, where the power of law and order is not used to protect and serve the people but, rather, maintain the privilege of the 1%. The vampire storyline is used to open the tale and lead to its denouement but the vast majority of the story is twisting and turning like a soap opera with no mind to that primary tale – though the very ending replicates historical fact and the assassination attempt on Louis XV by Robert-François Damiens.

In Paperback @ Amazon US

In Paperback @ Amazon UK