The Crimes of Paris: A True Story of Murder, Theft, and Detection (44 page)

A survey taken in 2008 indicated that Picasso’s
Les demoiselles d’Avignon
was the most frequently illustrated work in art history texts. Yet when he first showed it to friends and colleagues, their reaction led him to roll up the painting and keep it hidden for several years.
(Digital Image © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by Scala/Art Resource, NY; © 2008 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society
[
ARS
]
, New York)

Two views of Octave Garnier, one of the three principal members of the Bonnot Gang. The change in appearance that he accomplished indicates how important Bertillon’s methods of identification were to the police.
(Paris Préfecture de Police museum)

Raymond Callemin, known to his friends as “Raymond-la-Science” because he inevitably found scientific backing for his beliefs. At the commune of anarchists, he introduced a “scientific” diet of brown rice, raw vegetables, porridge, and pasta with cheese. Salt, pepper, and vinegar were banned as being “unscientific,” although herbs were acceptable.
(Paris Préfecture de Police museum)

Jules Bonnot, the ostensible leader of the Bonnot Gang, the man the press dubbed “the Demon Chauffeur” for his reckless feats at the wheel of the world’s first “getaway car.” Some allege that Bonnot had been a driver for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sher-lock Holmes.
(Paris Préfecture de Police museum)

The Delaunay-Belleville that Bon-not and his cohorts used to escape from the scene of their first crime. This French marque was widely regarded as the finest automobile in the world. Purchasers had to supply their own “coach,” or upper body, so the cars were identifiable only by the distinctive circular radiator.
(Paris Préfecture de Police museum)

André Soudy, posed by a police photographer reconstructing the scene of the bank robbery at Chantilly. Though Soudy never killed anyone, he was later guillotined for his involvement with the Bonnot Gang. Several others, either peripherally involved or outright innocent, received harsh prison terms.
(Paris Préfecture de Police museum)

There were several Paris news-papers that illustrated the events of the day with drawings of crime scenes. This one depicts one of the Bonnot Gang’s most spectacular crimes: the shooting of Louis Jouin, the head of the police force as-signed to apprehend the gang. Cornered in his hiding place, Bonnot shot and killed Jouin before jumping from an up-stairs window and escaping.
(From the authors’ collection)

A newspaper artist’s rendering of the last stand of Octave Garnier and René Valet, the only members of the Bonnot Gang still at large. The two men had held at bay a force of over 700 police and soldiers for an entire day before dynamite blasts destroyed their refuge.
(From the authors’ collection)

Postcards like this one depicted the seige at Choisy-le-Roi, where Bonnot single-handedly resisted a force of at least a hundred men. Newsreel cameras recorded the scene, and when it was shown in theaters, audiences cheered whenever Bonnot appeared on a balcony to fire his rifle.
(Paris Préfecture de Police museum)

Bonnot in the morgue. He had recognized that he had become famous and wrote a testament justifying his crimes and exonerating those who were unjustly accused.
(Paris Préfecture de Police museum)

Vincenzo Perugia, the man who confessed to stealing the
Mona Lisa.
Had he acted alone? That was a mystery whose answer took another two decades to solve.
(Paris Préfecture de Police museum)