1834. Using a Pretender to the Throne of France, the powerful crime cartel known as the Black Coats plan to steal one of the largest fortunes of Europe. But from Jerusalem Street in Paris, the headquarters of the S{reti, to the Castles of Normandy, their schemes are foiled by a new nemesis: a young street urchin nicknamed Pistolet, worthy precursor of Rouletabille and Archie Goodwin. But the dreaded cabal is not so easily thwarted... In this book, for the first time, Paul Fival, the father of the modern detective novel, reveals the origins of the Black Coats and of their mysterious, seemingly eternal master, Colonel Bozzo. Long before the Corleones, Blofeld, Fu-Manchu and Moriarty, the historical saga of the Black Coats, spanning seven volumes of which this is the first to be translated, gave its lettres de noblesse to criminal literature.