The trial of Troppmann was in its way a public scandal. The court was crammed with curious spectators, whose morbid minds drew them to stare at the hero of this horrible tragedy as though he were a wild beast in a menagerie, about to be subjected to physical torture. People of the highest rank and fashion demeaned themselves to gain places in the audience by any means; by social intrigues, by using private influence with the judges and officers of the court. Troppmann was the centre of attraction, the cynosure of every eye. His features and demeanor were closely scanned, his dress was commented upon critically. It was noted, also, that he was clean shaved. This was on the demand of his counsel, who hoped that his small, youthful face, which when smooth and hairless looked like that of a lad of fifteen, would impress the jury with the idea that he could not possess the strength to handle a knife with such deadly effect as had been exhibited in the cruel wounds of his victims. Before the barber, however, was permitted to use the razor, Troppmann was put into a strait-waistcoat (camisole de force); he was tied down in a chair, with one warder on either hand, ready to seize him and check any attempt at self-destruction. Troppmann laughed at these precautions, and plainly hinted that he had means of suicide at his disposal, of which they had no idea. It was known that Troppmann had himself manufactured the prussic acid he gave to Kinck. But he disdained to use them or to bring discredit on his family, a rather far-fetched nicety in a miscreant who had been guilty of such crimes.
They were not all murderers who passed through Mazas, although some were top-sawyers in the criminal business, such as Shaw, the Englishman who stole the Duke of Brunswick’s diamonds. It will be remembered that one of the most marked features in the eccentric character of the late Duke of Brunswick was his passion for precious stones. He long made Paris his principal home, and resided in a quaint old mansion in the Beaujour quarter, a house with red walls, massive gateways and innumerable bolts and bars. The Duke, a worn-out voluptuary, a faded old beau, who, on the rare occasions when he showed himself in public, came out painted, made up and bewigged, lived here quite secluded among his treasures, which he kept in an enormous iron safe. These jewels were valued at £600,000, a splendid collection, accumulated at great cost, and carried off by him when he fled from his principality. They served no purpose but to gratify his greedy passion for possession. Except when he had taken them out to gloat over them, these priceless gems never saw the light. He took the most painful care of them. They were lodged in an inner apartment, to reach which it was necessary to pass through the Duke’s study and bedroom. There were electric wires communicating with many bells to give warning of the approach of any unauthorised person; other bells were attached to the triggers of revolvers to fire them off automatically at any intruder. It was the Duke’s craze, not altogether unfounded, that thieves were always aiming at him. He thought that all the world wanted to rob him. At his particular request two police officers watched constantly over him, seldom letting him out of their sight, and keeping a careful eye upon his treasure house. The fact that the Duke of Brunswick’s house was full of rich booty was known to every depredator in Europe, and a thousand plans were devised to break in and rifle it. At last England acquired the questionable credit of overcoming all obstacles, and carrying off the Duke’s diamonds.
In 1863 the Duke had an English valet, a very confidential personage named Shaw, a native of Newcastle-on-Tyne. He had got the place in the ordinary way through a registry office, supported by first-class references, all forged; he proved himself to be a very excellent servant, quiet, attentive, much liked by both his master and his fellows. He was really the agent and confederate of a gang of thieves who had especially selected him for the job they had in view. It was his business to become familiar with the safe and its surroundings, taking the first opportunity to “lift” its contents when he could do so without danger to himself. The safe stood in a receptacle behind an iron door in the wall at the head of the Duke’s bed, and a silk curtain hung in front of this door, which was secured with special locks. These might be picked some day, but in behind was the great safe with its alarm bells and automatic batteries of firearms. There was infinite danger in interfering with these. Only the practised hand of some one in the secret of the machinery would dare to risk it. Shaw was patient and bided his time.
One day (December 17, 1863) the Duke sent for a working jeweller he employed, meaning to have certain changes made in the setting of some of his stones. In anticipation he opened the inner safe and, contrary to his custom, left it open. This did not escape Shaw, who was in attendance, but he hoped little from it until he saw his royal master, wearied of waiting for the jeweller, go out without relocking his safe. The Duke was satisfied to secure the external door at the head of the bed.
This was Shaw’s opportunity. He had a picklock, and soon used it with good effect on this the first obstacle. There was no second or inner defence, and the safe door being ajar the machinery did not work. He was, in fact, master of the situation, and with all haste made the most of it. The Duke’s treasures lay at his mercy, jewel-cases, diamond stars, bags of gold. He soon filled his pockets and hurried out, being careful to close the outer door and pull the curtain across, hoping that the abstraction might not be immediately observed. Having packed a small valise with a few effects he told a fellow-servant to take up his service with the Duke, on the ground that he was unwell, and then slipped out of the house.
The theft was, however, quickly discovered, and the French police were put on the alert. Shaw immediately betrayed himself by addressing an anonymous letter to a royal personage in London, in which the writer offered to restore to their rightful owners, the English royal family, certain jewels wrongfully detained by the Duke of Brunswick, on receiving a reward of 100,000 francs. This letter was at once handed over to the authorities in Scotland Yard, who passed it on to Paris. A postscript was added to the letter, stating that the writer would meet any messenger sent with the money at Boulogne. Acting at once on this clue, the French detectives hastened to Boulogne, and, visiting every hotel, soon found a young man answering the description, who was arrested and taken back to Paris. The diamonds were found in his possession. This Shaw, a tall, very thin young man, with a pale, intelligent face, and very bold, prominent eyes, was soon recognised by the police as a professional thief of English extraction, who had worked much abroad, and was indeed a cosmopolitan rogue, having committed many great robberies in the capitals of Europe, generally by the same means. He was sentenced to twenty years (travaux forcés), although the Duke, dreading the publicity of the Assize court, would not appear to prosecute.
The prison known as La Santé was situated in the rue de la Santé close to the Boulevard Arago, upon the left bank of the Seine. Founded and completed in the palmiest days of the French Empire, it was the newest and certainly long the best prison in Paris. Enthusiastic Frenchmen have, indeed, declared that it was the best and most beautiful building of the kind in Europe, but the statement is rather far-fetched. Coming twenty years later than Mazas, it was a marked advance upon that penitentiary, which it resembled in many respects. It consisted of two distinct divisions, or “sides,” and the inmates of each were subjected to different systems of imprisonment. In one, unbroken cellular confinement was the rule, in the other, prisoners occupied separate sleeping cells at night, but took their food and exercise, and worked together during the day. The former régime was applied to all sentenced for the first time, the latter to récidivistes, or habitual offenders, who fell into trouble again and again. The cellular division, that first reached when the threshold of the prison, with its sleepy gatekeepers and punctilious greffier, was passed, was cleaner and tidier than Mazas as I saw it, and altogether better kept. There were the same radiating wings, extending like the spokes of a wheel round a central nave, the rond point; in which was the same glass house or observatory, with an altar on top, towards which all the cell doors, as to their Mecca, religiously turned for the Mass. The cells were warmed and ventilated by an arrangement of hot water pipes and fresh air flues, just as is seen in every modern prison since the days of Sir Joshua Jebb. The cells at La Santé were spacious and fairly clean; their furniture and fittings of more modern design than those of Mazas. The hammock was replaced by an iron bedstead, the table was a flap, fastened on hinges to the wall, and a three-legged stool replaced the rush-bottomed chair chained by the leg. The floor was boarded, not paved with bricks, and no small pains were taken to polish the oak planks, which were rubbed vigorously till they shone like parquetry. All parts of the cells were not so entirely above reproach, and a severely critical eye would detect a certain want of neatness in the interior economy of many. Here and there rubbish was suffered to accumulate and lie untouched. Upon a shelf in one cell was a quantity of broken bread; in another several clay pipes and a half empty wine carafe; the walls of a third, occupied by a prison bookbinder, were hung with scraps of tawdry decoration, crucifixes, hearts, monograms shaped out of the gold leaf and colored paper which he used in his trade. Prisoners were permitted, too, to deface their cells with impunity by scribbling on the notice boards and writing on the walls. Remarks upon the articles supplied from the canteen appeared upon the price list. Expressions of regret, vows of vengeance, even, were recorded upon the boards of rules. The prison almanac, prepared by the good chaplain for the special behoof of prisoners, with appropriate texts and maxims, served really as a calendar, such as school boys keep, to mark off the days as they slowly dragged along towards release.
Behind and beyond the cellular quarter of the prison was the “associated” prison, consisting of two spacious quadrangles, in which were the exercising yards and the lavatories, while around it were arrayed the ateliers, or workshops, and the dining halls. Upon an upper floor were the sleeping cells, each containing a bedstead, and nothing more, each lighted by means of a large barred opening above the cell doors, through which shone the light of gas lamps in the corridors. The crowded ateliers of La Santé, instinct with busy life, were an interesting and instructive sight, and from them a fairly good idea could be obtained of the peculiar conditions under which prison labor is utilised in France. This is everywhere accomplished through the intervention of a contractor or employer from outside, who provides tools, materials and instructors, and takes in return half the earnings of the prisoners. The other half, known as the pécule, goes to the prisoner himself, and this is again sub-divided into the pécule disponible and the pécule reservé, the former of which can be drawn upon and expended by the prisoner in adding to his creature comforts whilst incarcerated; the latter, accumulating from day to day, to be handed over to him upon his release to provide means of support during those early days of freedom, when a man is hesitating between honesty and the temptation to relapse into fresh crime.
The contract system appears open to many grave objections; for instance, that it introduces “lay” or outside influences, erecting in the prison a second authority, to which prisoners look for praise or blame rather than to the constituted chiefs of the place. At times a certain antagonism might arise between the two; the one looks naturally to profits, the other to maintenance of effective discipline, and where the first was affected, the latter would no doubt sensibly suffer. As an instance of this may be quoted the case of prisoners sentenced to very short terms, who, if they are not already acquainted with some trade, do absolutely nothing at all whilst in prison. To teach them a metier would be to waste time and materials, and there is in France no “penal labor,”—as it is commonly understood in England,—no sharp, correctional employment, such as the treadwheel, stone breaking, or oakum picking, the execution of which requires no special previous knowledge or skill. As a matter of fact, therefore, prison has but few horrors for the offender committed for less than a week, except in the temporary loss of liberty; and in all that relates to physical comfort, indeed, in food, shelter and clothing, he is often far better off inside than out. His confinement may be irksome and monotonous, time may hang rather heavily on his hands; still he manages to get pretty comfortably through his days, lounging lazily about the refectories, or ranging up and down in the exercising yards, pipe in mouth, and gossiping with any one he meets.
These idlers, it must be confessed, were, at La Santé, the exception and not the rule. There was no little stir and bustle in the workrooms; the occupations were many and varied; the prisoners were industrious and often exhibited no mean skill. Parisians are naturally a quick-witted and nimble-fingered race, whose talents, when in durance, prison contractors know well how to turn to the best account. At La Santé we found tailors at work upon clothes for the slop shops, shoemakers and cobblers making excellent slippers and shoes. Here a cabinet-maker completed a drawing-room chair; there, by his side, an upholsterer covered another in damask or silk. Long rows of prisoners, seated upon benches, manufactured feather brushes for dusting furniture, or dolls and children’s toys, or paper boxes for bonbons and patent medicines, or frills of the same material for the cooks and confectioners. Some were staining and coloring sheets of paper for the bookbinders, to be subsequently varnished and polished; others, in large numbers, were employed upon the manufacture of papier-mâché boot buttons through all the various stages of inserting the eyelet holes in rows upon the pasteboard, stamping out the buttons, trimming them, hardening them and varnishing them. A certain air of contentment, if not of actual good humor, was visible on every side. Prisoners met my eye, and did not immediately hang their heads and look down. Silence was the general rule, but they talked sotto voce to one another, and to me if I cared to address them. One man, proud of his English, told me of “another English gentleman,” who recently came to La Santé. “As a visitor?” “Oh, no, as a detenu (prisoner).” Others, if I appeared interested in the work in hand, would explain all its intricacies, and return my salutation with the bow of a finished courtier when I took leave. All the while the warders in charge exercised an easy-going surveillance, and were evidently neither hard taskmasters nor severe disciplinarians.