cover image Vice and Virtue: Men of History, Great Crooks for the Greater Good

Vice and Virtue: Men of History, Great Crooks for the Greater Good

Paul Lombard. Algora Publishing, $22.95 (220pp) ISBN 978-1-892941-08-4

As long as there has been politics there has been corruption, but that's not necessarily a bad thing, according to prolific French author and noted lawyer Lombard. In this study of 13 famous French crooks, he finds that robbing the state blind, which most of his subjects did, might in the judgment of history be tolerated if in the process the state is also served, the nation made better. Is vice then virtue? Perhaps--Lombard is noncommittal. But surely corruption is preferable to a regime that pretends pure virtue, for when one believes ""men are virtuous, one is fatally led to kill them all."" Virtue is intolerance, corruption efficient, and the line between good and evil is often blurred within politics, believes the author. The subjects in Lombard's book are thieves of grandeur and style: Richelieu, the sourpuss embezzler who led France to unity and power under Louis XIII; Mirabeau, who grew rich while coming close to saving France from the Terror of the Revolution; Danton, a shady dealer who moderated, to a degree, the excesses of the Revolution. Not all of his characters--Coeur, Concini, Morny--are perhaps as familiar in the U.S., and a firm grasp of French history, as well as French literature, helps in following the ""plot"" here, but for patient readers Lombard's Gallic wordplay, wit, and cynicism are a joy. As a U.S. presidential election looms, his meditations on political good and evil may help put both in better perspective. (Sept.)