Paris, From the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 2

by William Walton

It was accordingly resolved to endeavor to better the condition of the prisoners while at the same time preventing as much as possible their corruption by indiscriminate herding together. As far back as 1849, M. Dufaure advocated the keeping apart of prévenus and of those condemned for minor offences. But it was not till 1875 that a law was passed decreeing the separation of those serving sentences of imprisonment of less than a year. The department of the Seine endeavored to carry out the requirements of this law on as large and complete a scale as possible, and accordingly laid the foundations of these two large penal establishments outside the walls of the city. Those at Fresnes may be considered as model prisons; it has even been suggested that the comfort of the inmates has been almost too closely considered, and that, with the exception of the guards and the jailers, these buildings suggest the model cheap lodgings of modern practical philanthropy. The architect had taken the greatest care to assure the well-being of his involuntary clients, their health and personal cleanliness; their cells—more spacious than usual—have hardwood floors, the walls are painted and varnished, as are the table, the chair, and the iron bedstead provided with softer bedding; the latest mechanical and electrical appliances are to be found in these very modern dungeons. The extent of the mental and moral amelioration of the Parisian criminals that will follow the introduction of this new régime will doubtless be profitable to contemplate.

In addition to its various prisons, the department of the Seine maintains two very large establishments for beggars, paupers, vagabonds, and the wretched of every description, whether they have or have not records approved by the police. The largest of these Dépôts de Mendicité, that at Nanterre, is at once a prison and a hospital; it contains three thousand inmates of both sexes, and cost some twelve millions of francs. Of the five sections into which it is divided, the first, reserved for voluntary mendicants, is the only one which contains prisoners, properly speaking, men in one quarter and women in another. The other sections, each divided likewise into male and female quarters, are devoted, the second, to voluntary patients whose antecedents are known; the third, to those whose antecedents are doubtful or unknown; the fourth, to the impotent, infirm, paralytic, and septuagenarians; the fifth is the hospital proper. The inhabitants of these different sections are distinguished from each other, the men by the color of their woollen caps, and the women by the little trimming of imitation lace in theirs. The Dépôt de Villers-Cotterets, which occupies the buildings and dependencies of the celebrated château built by François I, on an admirable site, was at first a prison, devoted to vagabonds and beggars of all ages and conditions; since 1889 it has been a Maison de Retraite, an asylum to which are admitted only the aged and infirm indigent whose past has been without reproach. The number of these peaceable inmates is about a thousand men and half as many women.

All this imposing judicial edifice of Dépôts, prisons, magistrates, and high courts of justice is, of course, fed and maintained by the much humbler, almost unknown, and much more troubled service of searching out the criminal and laying hands upon him when found. Without the aid of the "simple police," serjents de ville, gendarmes, brigadiers, and agents de la sûreté, there could be no ermined judges and no maîtres des hautes-œuvres. The general methods employed in this obscure but indispensable preliminary work are much like those made use of elsewhere in civilized countries, but there are many details, not generally published, which are interesting, and we are indebted to a spirited newspaper article, by M. Guy Tomel, for some information concerning the ways and means of the French police in these matters. He begins by putting in a plea for these very useful employés of justice: "Have you ever thought of the very material difficulties which the agents de la sûreté have to encounter in arresting malefactors? These modest defenders of society risk their lives daily that you may sleep in peace, Madame, and earn less at this perilous trade than your coachman or your valet de chambre. For their moral recompense, they have the prospect of being treated as 'mouchards' [police spies], not by the thieves and the assassins, who call them the 'flics,' but by the respectable tax-payers who are indebted to them for the minimum of security which we possess.

"If, by chance, some of the chiefs of this force, as Houillier, Jaume, and Rossignol, succeed, by dint of acts of bravery, in causing their names to be known to the general public, the private soldiers of this army of real salvation live and die in the most perfect incognito, fortunate if they succeed in attaining the age of retirement without being crippled by some malicious stroke! Remember that they are obliged to carry out their task without arms, without any brutality. A bandit injured in a hand-to-hand struggle assumes very quickly the character of an interesting victim, and there are always to be found sensational newspapers that will exploit his woes under flaming head-lines: 'Another Police Outrage!' 'A Brutal Police Agent!' etc.

"The problem that presents itself is, therefore, this one: 'To get in your power, in exposing yourself as little as possible, and without doing him any injury, a blackguard who is armed and who is capable of anything.'"

And he proceeds to explain the very simple tricks and tools by means of which this somewhat difficult task is accomplished. In the first place, he states a curious psychological fact,—that, generally, any criminal, no matter how dangerous or brutal, if suddenly arrested by surprise, is for the moment so stupefied that he does not think of resistance, and in this moment may be secured, by the handcuffs or otherwise. This brief paralysis is apt to be succeeded by a furious outbreak, but in the majority of cases it is then too late. Were it not for this temporary catalepsy, how would it be possible, asks M. Tomel, to effect the arrest of such desperate fellows, dynamiters and anarchists, with no more bloodshed and fracas than if they were girls of the town! This little peculiarity of their clients is well known to the police agents, and they but very seldom fail to take advantage of it.

In the second place, the most dangerous offenders are not, as might be supposed, the hardened criminals, those who have repeatedly fallen into the hands of Justice. For them, a long experience has convinced them that, once caught, there is no escape. Neither are the assassins the most to be feared,—the sudden collaring by the iron hand of the law reduces them to temporary imbecility. Those whose arrest is usually attended with the greatest difficulty are young rascals in their first offence, and those who are accustomed to being rescued by a band of their companions. Bankrupts and ruined financiers are also apt to give trouble,—they take to their revolvers with "deplorable facility, quite ready to lodge the last bullet in their own heads if the others have not cleared the field for them."

It is, therefore, not without a certain amount of information concerning the irascibility and the bodily prowess of their quarry that the agents set out in his pursuit. Usually, they hunt in couples; if the game is reputed unusually dangerous, in larger numbers. For weapons, they carry each two pieces of stout cord,—a small one, fastened to the middle of a wooden handle at each end, this is the cabriolet; and a large one, the ligote, about two mètres and a half in length. These simple methods of correction have replaced—except in the country districts and where the prisoner has to be conducted a considerable distance—the old-fashioned poucettes, or handcuffs. Thus provided, the pursuers endeavor to surprise their prey as it issues from a house or an inn,—they wear no uniform, and they in nowise begin by summoning their victim in the name of the law, so that it is strongly advisable for them to be very sure of his identity ere they fall upon him from behind, exactly in the manner of the highwaymen themselves. With one hand they grasp the collar of his coat, a little below the nape of his neck, and with the other, not his arm, but the sleeve of his coat. An individual thus collared on each side is helpless; if he wish to strike with his fists or his feet, he is obliged to lash out sidewise or obliquely, his arms are held securely; and the coup de pied de vache, which he may endeavor to give with his feet, though "it will break a tibia like glass," is easily avoided. Moreover, while he has one foot in the air, his equilibrium is in danger, and he is promptly brought to earth and secured. Usually, however, the cabriolet is round his wrist, and he is bouclé before he can say "Jack Robinson!"