The Persian

The Persian is a major character from the Gaston Leroux novel The Phantom of the Opera. In the book he is the one who tells most of the background of Erik's history. Erik refers to him as the "daroga" (داروغه, Persian for "police-chief") and his memoirs are featured in five chapters of the novel. He is also considered Erik's only friend.

In the 1925 silent film The Phantom Of The Opera, his character was changed into a French policeman named Ledoux who had been investigating Erik for months. He still helps and accompanies Raoul to rescue Christine. In the musical, he does not appear, although aspects of his character are merged with Madame Giry's. For instance, Madame Giry shows Raoul where Erik lives, although she does not accompany him to Erik's lair.

According to his account of himself in the novel, the Persian once served as the chief of police (daroga) in the court of the Shah of Persia during the years that Erik was there. He refers to these times as "the rosy hours of Mazenderan". Being kindhearted, he helped Erik escape from Persia when the Shah ordered him executed, a trick that involved presenting a body washed up on the shore as Erik's. When news of the escape spread, the Shah-in-Shah punished the Persian by stripping him of his property and sending him into exile.

The Persian later travels to Paris and takes up living in a small, middle-class flat in the rue de Rivoli, across the street from the Tuileries, on the modest pension he receives from the Persian government. He becomes known as a fixture of the Opera, considered an eccentric Persian who is allowed to wander backstage where he pleases. Research into Leroux's sources has revealed that Leroux based this description upon a real-life Persian who frequented the Paris Opera in the 19th century, a mysterious exiled prince living on a pension from the British government.

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Wikipedia