Convicts have often to thank their own quick-wittedness and self-possession for succeeding in attempted escape. One convict at Brest, helped by a free workman, who had promised him shelter and a suit of plain clothes, reached the outskirts of the town, where he made up as a laborer, concealed his closely cropped hair under an old hat, borrowed a barrow and a pick and started off for Orleans as if he were in search of a job. His leisurely gait and frequent halts betrayed no feverish desire to get away. The people gave him bon jour as he passed, and the gensdarmes whom he met accepted a pinch of snuff; and he went on his way without interference. He marched thus for a couple of hundred miles, taking by-roads, still wheeling his barrow before him, resting by night in the woods, and at last reaching Orleans in the heart of France, where he found friends, who helped him out of the country.
Ingenuity and boldness of plan of escape were often equalled by the limitless patience with which it was pursued. More than once a long passage was tunnelled underground, leading to liberty beyond the Arsenal walls, and this in spite of surveillance and the galling inconvenience of carrying chains. In one case a space had been contrived at the end, large enough to contain the disguises, into which the fugitives were to change when the moment arrived, and to store the food saved up for the journey. The paving stones were taken up, and places of concealment contrived beneath to hide the intending fugitive until pursuit had passed on. Once a man got within a heap of stones, and presently more stones were brought outside to add to the heap. He narrowly escaped being built in alive. By desperate efforts he broke through and gained the boundary wall, which he escaladed, and fell into the arms of a couple of fishermen on the far side, who seized him and took him back to the bagne. The promised reward was generally too strong a temptation to working men to let a fugitive go free.
There were convicts with no sense of loyalty to their comrades, always ready to betray an intended escape, eager to gain the reward. Others, again, had invented a strange business, that of giving assistance to a comrade, resolved to attempt an escape, by helping him in the work of excavation, or of standing sentinel to prevent surprise by the guard. On the arrival of any convict, known to be well furnished with funds, he was approached by these friends with proposals. Sometimes the kindly convict made a double coup,—for when he had started to escape he betrayed the plot and was paid the authorised reward by the other side. The guards sometimes encouraged an attempt to escape, and then turned on the would-be fugitive after he had gone so far from the prison to be worth the full sum of a hundred francs.
Great cleverness in preparing, and promptitude in assuming, a disguise was frequently shown. One convict manufactured the whole of an officer’s uniform out of paper, which he painted and completed so as to escape detection. Petit, who has been mentioned already, whose escapes were almost miraculous, got away once from the court at Amiens, after being recaptured, by entering the dressing-room of the advocates, where he stole a robe and wig, in which he walked out into the street. A convict named Fichon, at Toulon, disappeared so effectually that it was concluded he had left for good. But he was still on hand, although the most minute searches were fruitless. He had hidden under water in the great basin of the dockyard, and had arranged a leather duct to bring him air from the surface. At night he emerged from his moist asylum, landed, ate his food, placed for him by his friends, and at daybreak took to the water again.
Long brooding on the impossibilities of regaining freedom has been known to produce mania. An Italian, named Gravioly, at the bagne of Rochefort, was driven mad by his failures to escape. He was sentenced for life after three brutal attempts to murder. The hopelessness of his condition led him to secrete a knife, with which he suddenly wounded the adjutant of the day, broke his chain and ran amuck through the prison, brandishing his weapon and attacking all who tried to stop him. Another adjutant fell before him, and the guard at the gate he killed. Another murderer, of exemplary prison character, after years of good behavior in the maritime hospital, struck one of the nursing sisters a fatal blow, which severed her head. It was supposed that she had discovered his intention to escape, and he was unable to persuade her to hold her tongue. In these days we should call this man a homicidal maniac, but he was executed; and, on mounting the scaffold, smiled pleasantly at the guillotine.
The disciplinary methods at the bagnes were brutal enough, but the severity of the system was softened by privileges and concessions, that would not be tolerated in any modern prison. It was much the same as in Australia in the early days and at this moment in the Spanish penal colony at Ceuta. The freedom given to some convicts in service naturally favored escape, and in one case a high official was robbed of his full uniform by a convict employé, who, having changed his costume, mounted his master’s horse and rode off through the principal gate, after having received the compliments of the sentries and guards at the grand entrance. When the reins were tightened and these improper privileges were forbidden, others of a minor and mitigating character still survived. There were situations in the service of the prison, as sweepers, barbers, cooks and lamplighters. Some became gardeners, others coopers, more were nurses and bedmakers in the hospital, and a few were permitted to act as hucksters in the sale of food and condiments within the prison buildings. A post of great profit was that of payole or prison scribe, which was given to an educated convict who was allowed to write the letters of his comrades. The payole became the confidant of every one, and knew all their most precious secrets. Often enough he abused his position, and, after eloquently stating the case to a prisoner’s family, would misappropriate the funds forwarded by soft-hearted relations. The payole was constantly the author of the so-called “Jerusalem letters,” the equivalent of the begging letter or veiled attempts at blackmail, which often issued in large numbers from the bagnes.
Reference has been made already to the ingenious manufacture of articles for sale, but a less honorable, although more profitable, trade was that of usury, which long flourished in the bagnes. The business was started by an ex-banker named Wanglen, who was condemned to travaux forcés in the time of the Empire. He brought with him to the bagne a certain amount of capital, carefully concealed, and with the skill acquired in his business he trafficked in usury, and made advances, like any pawnbroker, upon the goods and valuables secretly possessed by his fellows as well as upon the pécule or monthly pittance accorded as wages to the convicts. He had so large a trade that he created a paper currency to take the place of the specie so generally short in the prison. But his business suffered seriously from the competition that might have been expected in such a place; for after a time his notes were cleverly imitated by forgers, and he had no redress but to return to cash payments. This man Wanglen is said to have made a great deal of money by the time he retired from business, and to have had many successors. When a borrower could offer no tangible security the good word of a convict reputed to be a man of substance was accepted instead; and such men were to be found in the bagnes.
A notable one was the celebrated Collet, whose criminal career will be detailed further on. Collet, strange to say, was always in funds. According to M. Sers, who wrote at some length on the bagnes, from facts under his own observation, Collet, during the twenty years of his imprisonment, was never known to hold a single centime more, in the hands of the official paymaster, than the regulation allowance, yet he lived luxuriously the whole of these twenty years. He always wore respectable clothing and the finest underlinen, very different from that supplied by the prison; he lived on the fat of the land, despising the mess of pottage, the horrible haricot of beans, that made up the daily ration. He was supplied always with abundant and succulent repasts from the best hotel in the town. The source of his wealth and the means used to bring it to his hand were secrets never divulged during his long term of imprisonment, although inquiries were constantly made, and every effort tried to unravel the mystery. The secret died with him; and even after death nine pieces of gold were found sewn into his waistcoat pocket.
The authorities in due course set their faces against these convict usurers, called capitaines, whose processes were very properly condemned as tending to demoralise convicts and aggravate their miserable condition. A very strict surveillance was instituted, and when detected the capitaines were severely punished. Sometimes they were flogged; but other methods were tried, one in particular, calculated to bring the culprit into ridicule, always a potent weapon in dealing with Frenchmen. The prison barber was ordered to shave the culprit’s head, leaving one lock only upon the crown. He was then dressed as an old woman, and made to sit upon a barrel at the entrance to the prison, where he was exposed to the jeers of his comrades on their return from labor. The same measure was meted out to the capitaine’s assistants, for the big men always employed a number of agents or canvassers in extending their business.
Thus, it is seen, that ours is a world of worlds, one within the other; and assuredly the prison world is not less interesting, though much less inviting than many others held in greater esteem.