Claude Cueny on the loner Alphonse Bertillon: a brilliant but complex character

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The Frenchman Alphonse Bertillon (1853–1914) was a capricious young man who was prone to choleric attacks and became a loner due to chronic migraines. He began his career at the age of 26 in the Prefecture of Police of Paris. His job was to copy descriptions of criminals onto index cards.

Having spent his childhood among statisticians, mathematicians and anthropologists, he knew that no two people have exactly the same masses. He developed a system for identifying people and began measuring pre-trial detention, which caused ridicule from his colleagues.

Four years later, based on eleven physical characteristics, he was able to identify a repeat offender. The chance of confusion was one in four million. Bertillon was appointed head of the Police Identification Service. His “Bertillonage” system has now been expanded to include photographs. Bertillon put the prisoner on a swivel chair and developed a device that allowed front and profile photos (photographs) to be taken one after the other and on the same plate, without the prisoner having to move. However, he refused to include fingerprints in his file because he considered them unreliable.

When the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre in 1911, criminal Vincenzo Perugia left his fingerprints on the doorknob. They were registered, but not in the file. Bertillon stubbornly adhered to his opinion and also devoted himself to graphology. He was an expert witness at the trial of the Jewish officer Alfred Dreyfus and absurdly argued that the accusatory document had to be from Dreyfus precisely because it could not be proved that it was his. Even after Dreyfus was rehabilitated, Bertillon refused to admit his mistake. This would be a condition for being awarded the Order of Merit. Bertillon again remained stubborn and refused the honour. It is not uncommon for people who have achieved great success in any field to have less outstanding personalities.

Claude Cueny (67) is a writer based in Basel. Most recently, his thriller Dirty Talk was released.

Source: Blick