ABSTRACT
This chapter indicates our improved understanding of changes in French medicine offer a clear lesson for the study of police detection in the nineteenth period. Though nothing was reported about the methods of police detection, success spoke for itself and helped greatly to improve the image of the police. Police detection continued to rely heavily on turncoat informants and police agents who could pass as criminals themselves. Apart from the practical concerns, however, the new direction in medicine, as well as scholarly assessments of it, has more important implications for our understanding of police work in post-revolutionary Paris. The detailed examination of the character and prosecution of Louis Baudoin and his fellow chauffeurs gives us the evidence readers need to understand the publication by the Swiss Almanach de l'an IX of a major story about a failed robbery at distant Paris. 'A Horrible Murder' is a remarkably concise compilation of the different tropes.
