De la lisibilité mélodramatique à l’opacité policière : la théâtralité chez Vidocq, Gaboriau et Leroux

This article explores the relationships between the melodramatic imaginary and readers’ curiosity in the predecessors to 19th century detective novels. While melodrama facilitates the readability of narrative functions, the reworking of its repertoire reflects the development, in stages, of a new way of writing and reading about fictional investigation: the reader’s engagement in the search for clues. Through the theatrical topos of disguise in the form of a false beard, the text starts by analysing the relationship between the criminals in Mémoires (1828-1830) by Vidocq and the beard of the melodramatic “mysterious stranger” character, behind which lies the hero. It goes on to present the antithetical relationships between drama and investigation in the legal novels of Émile Gaboriau (1865-1869). Finally, the text presents the reappearance and proliferation of the beard in Le Mystère de la chambre jaune (1907), as a device to incite readers to search for clues and also to throw them off track.