The History and Romance of Crime 2

The History and Romance of Crime 2

There was the “Milk Walk,” for those who had failed to pay for the

children they put out to nurse; the “Debtors’ Side,” in the centre

of the prison, where non-criminals were lodged; the “Lions’ Pit,”

described by a contemporary as the most horrible place conceivable,

where the worst classes of criminals were herded together. Next came

the “Sainte Madeleine,” then the “Quarter of the Niômes,” after that

the “Court of Fowls,” again the “Court of Sainte Anne,” for old men

and worn-out vagabonds, and lastly, the “Court of Sainte Marie of the

Egyptians,” a hateful place, being a deep well between high, damp

walls which the sun’s rays never reached, and in which were thrown

prisoners whom it was desired to isolate entirely. This prison of La

Force, from the first a very ruinous place, was in use down to the

middle of the nineteenth century and received in its turn a large

proportion of French criminality, criminal convicts being confined with

political offenders and persons at variance with the government of the

hour. On the same register might be read the names of Papavoine, the

child slayer, and the poet, Béranger; Lacenaire, notorious for his

bloodthirsty murders, and Paul-Louis Courier, the socialist.

 

An interesting contemporary account of La Force and other prisons of

Paris in Napoleonic days has been preserved. M. Paul Corneille, Mayor

of Gournay-en-Bray, has published in the _Revue Penitentiaire_ the

journal of his grandfather, who was an involuntary guest of La Force.

The régime in the prison was abominable. Discipline was all a matter of

money. Such comfort as the prison afforded was reserved for those only

who could pay for it. There were thirty-seven rooms in all. Thirty-four

were occupied by those who could pay the rent. The remaining three were

for the impecunious. In one case forty-two individuals were crowded

into nineteen beds, and in another nineteen persons used eleven beds.

The ordinary bedding issued consisted of a mattress, a woollen blanket

and a counterpane. A second mattress and sheets might be had for nine

francs a month. Prisoners on the “simple pistole” were lodged in the

back premises and excluded from the first court. Prisoners on the

“double pistole” were somewhat better lodged and served. The “pistole”

was the name given to the mode of prison life the prisoner was able to

ensure himself by his means, and was so called from the coin of that

name. Special small rooms were provided at exorbitant rates; and the

gaolers’ fees were considerable from all sources, and, when the prison

was full, enormous--each prisoner being good for at least a dozen

francs the month.

 

The prison rations were of the most meagre character. A daily loaf of a

pound and half of ammunition bread and a spoonful of unpalatable soup

would barely have saved the prisoners from starvation, had they not

been permitted to buy extra articles at the canteen. The insufficient

nourishment and the unsanitary conditions produced many deaths from

disease. An abbé, Binet by name, who had been imprisoned for four years

as a refractory priest, succumbed, and another was driven by misery to

poison himself, which he did by soaking copper covered with verdigris

in a liquid, to which he added some mercurial ointment, and then

swallowed this disgusting mixture. Prisoners were entirely at the mercy

of the gaolers, who had the monopoly of supplies and charged exorbitant

prices. Nothing could be sold except at their shops, where a small fowl

cost five francs, three eggs, twelve sous, five small potatoes, fifteen

sous. It was the same with drink, the prices of which were excessive

and the fluid bad. Many small devices were in force to increase the

gains of the gaolers, prisoners being allowed to pay twenty sous for

the privilege of sitting up two or three hours later than the regular

hour of closing. With all this, the police were constantly in the

prisons, seeking information against suspected persons or working up

proofs to support a new trial. The most rigorous rules existed as to

letter writing; prisoners were allowed to write complaints to the

ministers and even to the Emperor himself, but their correspondence

passed through the gaoler’s hands to the Prefecture of Police, where it

was generally lost.

 

The worst feature of La Force was that children of tender years, often

no more than seven years of age, were committed to it for the most

trifling misdeeds. They were cruelly ill-used by the gaolers, whip in

hand, and they passed their time in idleness, associating with the

worst criminals with the result that they grew up thoroughly corrupt.

 

We have a glimpse of La Force from the record of the imprisonment

of the poet, Béranger. The French governments after the Restoration

continued to be very sensitive, and frequently prosecuted their

critics, even versifiers of such genius as Béranger. They desired to

make people good, religious and submissive by law, and invoked it

pitilessly against the poet who dared to encourage free-thinking in

politics and religion. They were resolved to put down what they deemed

the abuse of letters, and to punish not only the preaching of sedition

but the open __EXPRESSION__ of impiety. So, as the persecuted said at the

time, poetry was brought into court, and songs, gay and light-hearted,

written to amuse and interest, were held to be mischievous, and their

writers were sent to prison. Béranger was tried at the assizes in 1822

for having exercised a pernicious influence upon the people, and he

was sentenced to three months’ imprisonment which he endured at St.

Pélagie. He was again arraigned in 1829 on charges akin to the first,

and now found himself sentenced to La Force for nine months, and to

pay a fine of 10,000 francs, greatly to the indignation of the general

public. It was considered a shameful perversion of the law to send the

joyous singer to herd with criminals, and he was visited by crowds

of right-thinking people from outside, eager to show their sympathy.

While in La Force, Béranger devoted himself to exposing some of the

worst evils of the régime, especially the improper treatment of the

juvenile offenders. On the day of his arrival, when the gate was opened

to admit him, he heard a childish voice exclaim, “Look at the street;

how beautiful!” The view within must have been dreary enough to force

the contrast with that without--the muddy, dirty side-street with its

poor shop-fronts and ugly, commonplace passers-by. He was still more

disgusted when they brought the daily rations for these poor little

ones: a coarse vegetable soup in great tin cans, which was distributed

in rations to each child to be eaten anyhow, without knife, fork or

spoon, very much like dogs from a trough. The poet made a vigorous

protest to the governor, adding that he wondered these human beings

were not obliged to walk like beasts on all fours. The answer he got

was that it would cost money to supply utensils; whereupon Béranger

took all the expense on himself. He was in fact continually employed

in charitable deeds. While in prison he visited all parts of it: the

various courts, the “Milk Walk” the “Debtors’ Side” and the “Lions’

Pit,” distributing food and small luxuries, wine, tobacco and bread to

the inmates. He listened patiently to all complaints, the injustice

of their punishment being, as ever with prisoners, the chief burden

of their song. “I see how it is,” he once replied, “the only guilty

one here is myself.” But he was always overwhelmed with grateful

thanks, and one inmate of the prison composed a poem in his honor. When

Béranger received it, he was eager to ascertain the name of his brother

songster. He learned that it was the work of Lacenaire, the murderer,

then awaiting sentence for his many atrocious crimes.

 

Another literary prisoner was thrown into La Force about the same

time. This was A. Chenu, who afterward published his experiences in a

small book entitled “Malefactors.” The first sight that met his eyes

on arrival, according to Coquers, was the words, written large upon

the wall, “Death to tell-tales.” He was at once approached by the

provost, the prisoner who wielded supreme power in the room and whose

business it was to collect the sums demanded from new arrivals, who

promised protection and help. The provost provided writing materials

and arranged the secret conveyance of letters for prisoners, and when

one of their frequent quarrels broke out he settled the preliminaries

of the duel, which was the only possible end. They were strange

fights, as often as not conducted with one knife, the only weapon to be

obtained, which the combatants used in turn, after drawing lots for the

first stab. Numerous wounds were frequently inflicted on each side with

fatal result before honor was satisfied.

 

St. Pélagie was used as a prison pure and simple during the

revolutionary epoch and afterwards, like La Force, received debtors,

convicted prisoners and prisoners of State. It was notorious in the

Napoleonic régime for having as governor one Wallerand, who deserved to

have been dismissed fifty times over, and was finally proceeded against

at law. He had powerful protectors, having married into the family

of the Prefect of Police, and was greatly feared for his vindictive

temper, which never spared any one who dared to protest against or to

complain of their treatment. This governor practised all the exactions

already described as prevailing at La Force, and raised the charges of

the “pistole” till the prisoners were completely fleeced and ruined.

 

Instances of Wallerand’s barbarous treatment may be quoted. A prisoner

named Thomas was employed by him as a groom, and escaped through an

unbarred window in the stable, but was recaptured. Wallerand, furiously

angry, threw him into a cell, and ordered that he should be flogged

three times a day. Death would probably have been his portion, had not

two other prisoners informed an inspector of police, who was visiting

the prison and who saved the victim from his keeper’s rage. Wallerand

avenged himself by lodging the two informers in the cell just vacated.

An ancient priest, after much cruel suffering, fell ill and begged hard

that he might be attended by another doctor than the medical attendant

of the prison. Wallerand obstinately refused to give his consent, and

the old man died. He got into trouble once by entertaining a great

party of some hundred and fifty friends in the prison on his fête day.

The largest hall in the prison was splendidly decorated and lighted by

five hundred candles. The entertainment consisted of the performance

of an opera and a grand display of fireworks in the prison court, a

great ball and a splendid supper. The police authorities, although well

disposed to Wallerand, could not tolerate this impudence, and he was

suspended for a time, but received no other punishment.

 

Among the many foul prisons of the Capital Bicêtre was quite the worst

of all, and it was said of it that nowhere else could such horrors

be witnessed. At once a prison, a madhouse and refuge for paupers,

wretchedness and insanity existed along with vice and crime. John

Howard, the English philanthropist, who visited it in 1775, draws a

terrible picture of it, which will best be realised by transcribing

his own words: “Bicêtre is upon a small eminence about two miles from

Paris; if it were only a prison, I should call it an enormous one. But

this for men, like the ‘Hopital General’ for women, is indeed a kind

of general hospital. Of about four thousand men within its walls, not

one-half are prisoners. The majority are the poor, who wear a coarse

brown uniform, and seem as miserable as the poor in some of our own

country workhouses; the insane; and men that have foul diseases. Each

sort is in a court and apartments totally separate from the other and

from criminals. These last are confined, some in little rooms about

eight feet square, windows three and one-half feet by two, with a

grate, but not many glazed. By counting the windows on one side of

the house I reckoned there must be five hundred of those rooms. There

is but one prisoner in each. These pay two hundred livres a year for

their board. There are others in two large rooms called La Force, on

the other side of the courtyard, La Cour Royale, which are crowded with

prisoners. Over these two rooms is a general infirmary; and over that

an infirmary for the scurvy, a distemper very common and fatal among

them.

 

“In the middle of La Cour Royale are eight dreadful dungeons down

sixteen steps; each about thirteen feet by nine, with two strong doors;

three chains fastened to the wall and a stone funnel, at one corner

of each cell, for air. From the situation of these dreary caverns and

the difficulty I found in procuring admittance, I conclude hardly any

other stranger ever saw them. That is my reason, and I hope will be my

apology, for mentioning the particulars.

 

“Prisoners make straw boxes, toothpicks, etc., and sell them to

visitants. I viewed the men with some attention and observed in the

looks of many a settled melancholy; many others looked very sickly.

This prison seems not so well managed as those in the city; it is very

dirty; no fireplace in any of the rooms, and in the severe cold last winter several hundred perished.”