Vautrin

By the time the Comédie humaine series begins, Jacques Collin is an escaped convict and criminal mastermind fleeing from the police.

In Father Goriot, set in late 1818/early 1819 (or 1819/1820 when later novels refer to the events), Collin lived under the name of Vautrin in the House Vauquer after an escape from the Bagne of Toulon in 1815.

However, the police are on his tracks: The chief of the Sûreté, one Bibi-Lupin, under the name of Gondureau, confronts two other inhabitants of the House Vauquer, telling them that Vautrin is really the escaped convict Jacques Collin, who functions as a banker and a confidant to the Parisian underworld.

He gives them a drug that will knock Vautrin unconscious, so they can search on his shoulders for the branded letters T.F., which stand for "Travaux [forcés]" and "Faussaire" ("hard labor" and "forger").

Some years later, in the novel Illusions Perdues, one Abbé Carlos Herrera stops Lucien de Rubempré from drowning himself in the Charente.

Collin, pretending that he is Lucien's true father to explain his affection for the young man, plays the role of the priest so admirably that the judge is nearly convinced.

He learns from them that his friend Théodore Calvi is awaiting execution and that another of the men, La Pouraille, also has no hopes of escaping the death sentence.

This involves giving himself up: like his historical model Eugène François Vidocq he offers to serve as an informer to the prosecutor.

The novel gives Vautrin a son (unlikely, seeing as it is made very clear that he has never had any interest in women) and includes his death at the hands of a forger.

Yet, Vautrin's plans with them are thwarted: Rastignac is far too independent to need a mentor and Lucien is too dreamy, romantic and feeble to be able to realize Collin's dreams.

The fact that he is not only bound to them by his hunger for power but also by emotional ties considerably increases the psychological tension of the novels and makes Collin's character more humane.

Love even makes him sacrifice himself: he was first condemned to five years hard labour for a fake that a young "friend" (Franchessini) of his committed and for which Vautrin, even though he was innocent, took the blame.