A MODEL PENITENTIARY
Fresnes--Final stage in the criminal career--The last chosen
site for the guillotine--History of the guillotine--Earlier
models of the instrument--The Italian “mannaia”--The “Maiden”
used in Edinburgh and some cities in Yorkshire--Opinions on
capital punishment--The alternative--Condition of eighty
murderers who escaped the death sentence, when seen at Ghent
ten years later--La Grande Roquette--Its inmates--The condemned
cell--The march to the scaffold--Principal executions in late
years--Verger murders the Archbishop of Paris in 1857--Avinain
and other cruel murderers--Campi and Marchandon who took
life boldly in the best parts of Paris--Execution of the
hostages during the Commune--The site still preserved and
honored--Passing of La Roquette--New and imposing prison of
Fresnes on the outskirts of Paris--Opened in 1898--Closing
considerations.
France, in building the prison of Fresnes, may be said to have given
to the world a model penitentiary. It is the perfection of penal
architecture and structural fitness for the purpose intended. Before
proceeding to its consideration, however, let us take up the story of
La Grande Roquette and the later annals of criminality with which it is
identified.
Immediately opposite La Petite Roquette is the great prison of the
same name. As I have already suggested, it is the final stage in the
criminal career which began in some minor offence, punished by a few
days’ detention in the boys’ prison, and here ends at the scaffold
upon the Place de la Roquette. It is more by administrative design
than definite design that these two extremes, the criminal cradle and
the place of final doom, are thus brought into close juxtaposition.
Various sites in Paris have been used from time to time for the dread
performance of “law’s finisher” commonly styled in stilted legal
language the “_executeur des hautes œuvres_,” the official instrument
for completing capital punishment. He was the agent of High Justice and
might hold his head above his fellows who feared and hated him because
he was the vindicator of the law. The office was not exactly honorable,
but it was lucrative, and its holder enjoyed many privileges. He was
entitled to levy taxes on food, upon all the corn brought into the
market, and on fruit, grapes, nuts, hay, eggs and wool. He collected a
toll on all who passed the Petit Pont (the bridge near the Châtelet).
Every leper paid him a fee, and he acquired, by right of office, all
the clothes of which his victims died possessed. But he carried a badge
of shame, a ladder embroidered on the breast of his coat and a ladder
on the back. His office was hereditary; son succeeded father, and if
the next in succession was of tender years a substitute was appointed,
but the rightful executioner, sometimes no more than seven or eight,
stood by the headsman as if to sanction his proceedings. The Sansons
filled the awful post for seven generations, nearly two hundred years.
They were for the most part in good repute and highly esteemed by
their royal masters. Louis XI indeed made a chosen companion of his
executioner, Tristan L’Hamitte, whom he ennobled.
The ceremony of inflicting death was performed anywhere in early days,
often from choice in the theatre of the crime. For a century or more
the Place de la Grève was the favored spot, and was used until the
revolution of 1830, but the scaffold was sometimes erected at the
Halles (the central markets) or the Croix du Trahoir or in almost any
wide street or square. The Barrier of Saint Jacques was substituted
for the Place de la Grève in 1832. It was a convenient distance from
the Conciergerie, in which prison the condemned found their last
resting-place. The execution was fixed always for the afternoon, and
the drive through the crowded streets was considered a scandal, so that
a further change was decreed.
The prison of La Grande Roquette had spare accommodation available.
This place had been in existence some years under the name of Little
Bicêtre, and had been used as a _dépôt des condamnés_, in which were
lodged all sentenced to _travaux forcés_ while awaiting further removal
to the seaport _bagnes_ or the great central prisons. The concentration
of so many desperate characters under one roof led them to feel their
strength and measure it against authority in a serious outbreak in
1886, in which the Director would have lost his life, but for the
courageous intervention of a veteran chief warder. From that time
forth the worst criminals were no longer sent to La Grande Roquette,
but retained in the central prisons after sentence, from which when
condemned to transportation they were collected by agents and taken on
to St. Martin de Ré to take ship for the Antipodes. The _bagnes_ were
abolished some time before those of Brest and Rochefort in 1850, and
Toulon in 1872.
But one quarter in La Grande Roquette was especially appropriated to
convicts condemned to death, and they proceeded after a more or less
lengthy detention direct from their cells to the guillotine. These
were in all cases the most notable murderers only, for increasing
reluctance to inflict the extreme penalty has been exhibited in France,
and successive presidents of the Republic, from President Grévy on,
have constantly commuted sentences to penal exile and spared lives that
were clearly forfeited. For the last forty years all who were actually
executed passed through La Grande Roquette, and a brief survey of the
principal malefactors and the circumstances attending the last dread
event will be given here.
A few words as to the guillotine; that instrument now invariably used
for capital punishment in France. It has played so large a part in
the modern French history that it will be interesting to trace its
origin back to the days of its godfather and supposed inventor, a
certain Doctor Guillotin, who in the Revolutionary times was very eager
to improve the system of capital punishment, which he desired should
be uniform for all; and he had fixed upon decapitation as the best
and simplest process. But the headsman had always been an uncertain
performer, a bungler often who could not command his nerves, and who
often slashed and wounded his victim without dealing the death blow.
Doctor Guillotin earnestly recommended in the Convention that every
criminal should be decapitated by means of some mechanical contrivance.
This passed into law, but before the contrivance had been settled upon,
Guillotin, at his wits’ end, applied to Charles Sanson, at that time
the official executioner, for guidance. In their joint researches,
they came upon an old Italian wood cut giving a presentment of the
“mannaia,” an ancient machine much used in Genoa and particularly for
the execution of Guistranin and other conspirators. The picture might
have served also for the Halifax “Maiden” of which more directly. In
both, the axe was suspended between two uprights, the culprit knelt
beneath it, and the executioner held the rope. It was also found that a
French Marshal, De Montmorency, had been beheaded in 1631 by means of a
sliding axe.
Difficulties of detail remained; chiefly, that of retaining the person
about to suffer in the proper position long enough for the descending
blow to take fatal effect. Then a friend, one Schmidt, a manufacturer
of musical instruments, brought Sanson a rough sketch which met all
objections and was in fact the model for the real machine. It seems
very closely to have followed the lines of the Halifax “Maiden.” It
was immediately accepted by the Convention, not without laughter.
Dr. Guillotin in describing his machine made use of some strange
expressions. He assured his audience that with it he “could drop off
their heads in a twinkling, and they would not suffer in the very
least.” The only sensation might be that of a “slight freshness about
the neck.” Before closing finally, the Assembly desired other opinions
and applied, among others, to a Doctor Louis who was at that time
physician to Louis XVI, still seated upon his tottering throne. The
following curious incident is touched upon in the Sanson “Memoirs.”
While discussing the model, Doctor Guillotin and the executioner paid
a visit one day to Doctor Louis. A stranger came into the room, who
seemed greatly impressed with the invention, but disapproved of the
shape of the axe, which was that of a crescent. He did not believe it
would act properly upon all kinds of necks; “not on mine for instance,”
said the objector, taking up pen and ink, and drawing an oblique edge
instead of the half moon. Sanson, the expert, was consulted, and
gave it as his opinion that the question should be tested by actual
experience. When the machine was completed, it was taken to Bicêtre
and set up for trial on three corpses in the presence of a numerous
company, including that of a number of prisoners, who looked out from
the windows above. The oblique knife edge was found to be by far the
more effective, and that model was adopted for all time.
The most curious part of the story is, that the stranger who suggested
the improvement in the axe was King Louis XVI, himself, a skilled
locksmith and mechanic, having learned a trade after the manner of
all royal children. His own neck within a few months’ time was to be
subjected to the supreme test, which succeeded perfectly. I have no
wish to deprive Doctor Guillotin of any credit that may attach to this
invention, of questionable utility, except in simplifying the act of
killing and minimising the pain inflicted upon the victim; but he was
certainly not the first inventor of the manslaying apparatus with which
his name is for ever associated.
Two centuries before the Revolution, an instrument very similar to the
guillotine was in use in Scotland, and known there as the “Maiden.”
James Douglas, Earl of Morton, died by it in Edinburgh in 1587, thus
adding to the long list of inventors who paid the penalty of death by
their own contrivance. The “Maiden” had been often used in Yorkshire
for the summary execution of thieves taken in the act, and the best
account of it extant is found in “Holinshed’s Chronicles,” which
describes the custom prevailing in Halifax and the machine in use. He
records the law or custom, that whosoever commits a felony or steals
to the value of fourteen pence or halfpenny shall be beheaded in the
market. “The engine wherewith the execution is done is a square block
of wood which does ride up and down in a slot between two pieces of
timber that are framed and set upright, of five yards in height. In
the nether end of the sliding block is an axe keyed or fastened with
an iron into the wood, which being drawn up to the top of the frame is
there fastened by a wooden pin, to the centre of which a long rope is
attached, that cometh down among the people, so that when an offender
hath made his confession and hath laid his head over the nethernmost
block, every man seizeth the rope to show his willingness that judgment
should be executed, and pulling out the pin the axe is released to fall
with such violence that had the neck below been that of a bull the head
would be dissevered and roll away to a great distance.” If the theft
had been that of any fourfooted beast the rope was to be fastened to
it, so that when driven away it would extract the pin.
France was then anxious to make a change in the method of carrying out
execution, if indeed capital punishment were to continue in force. But
there is now a strong tendency to abolish it altogether, as is the
rule already in Italy and Belgium, the substitute in both countries
being prolonged solitary confinement, which is really synonymous with
a death sentence of a lingering and painful kind. The life spared on
the scaffold must be passed in solitary confinement with the inevitable
fatal consequences of such treatment. I shall never forget the painful
impression made upon me when I came across some seventy or eighty
murderers collected in one apartment in the prison of Ghent, all of
whom had spent ten years or more in the cells of another prison, that
of Louvain. They were all either senile idiots or imbeciles prematurely
aged. They had been kept alive in deference to ultra-humanitarian
sentiment, but at the price of something worse than death. It does not
seem probable that the death penalty will disappear from the French
criminal code, but a strong feeling prevails that better arrangements
should be made for carrying out the sentence. Many are strongly in
favor of adopting the British practice of performing the execution in
private, within the limits of the gaol, that is to say, and in the
presence of only a few officials. The selection of these last presents
some difficulty, although it has been overcome in England, and is
after all no more than the justifiable demand on public servants to
perform their duty, however trying. One suggestion has been, to make it
incumbent upon the jury that convicted to be present; but the fear of
grave consequences has put this aside. It has been thought, not without
reason, that juries would hesitate to find a verdict of guilty if
they were to be compelled to witness the dread consequences of their
judgment. The desire for private execution has been emphasised in
France by a scandalous incident that occurred at Dunkirk towards the
end of 1905. A double murder of the most cruel and dastardly character
had been committed, resulting in a double execution. A great mob had
assembled, and, under the influence of strong excitement, stormed
the scaffold when the second head fell, determined to carry off the
decapitated corpses. The police were powerless to prevent the outrage.
An extraordinary and probably unparalleled incident occurred at this
execution. The victim had been a woman, and the widowed husband,
thirsting to avenge her, had offered the authorities the sum of 10,000
francs, to be paid to the funds of any public charity, if they would
allow him to act as executioner,--to the extent at least of touching
the spring by which the knife of the guillotine was released. The
strange request was refused; but as a particular favor a special place
in the first row of spectators was secured for the aggrieved husband.
The prison of La Grande Roquette, when I visited it, struck me
painfully from its gloomy and imposing architecture; and the effect
was heightened as I passed into the inner yards, where behind a tall
iron railing the bulk of the prison population were at exercise. As
they patrolled it in couples, backwards and forwards, their wooden
sabots made a hideous clatter on the stone pavement, which did not,
however, drown the hum of their voices as they gossiped idly with one
another, smoking their pipes in pleasant company. They were a rough,
evil-visaged lot, for this was at a date anterior to the disturbance
of 1886, before mentioned, and they were mostly habitual criminals
(_récidivistes_), who had been convicted again and again. They could
only be ruled by a strong hand, and the director, M. Beauquesnes, a
resolute and determined man, had been specially selected for this
responsible post. Before his time murderous assaults by prisoners upon
their officers were common enough. Many trades are carried on in the
prison, and desperate ruffians bent on mischief always found tools and
dangerous weapons of offence ready to their hand. Outrages of this
kind are now unknown. “How did you get the better of them?” I asked M.
Beauquesnes, almost anticipating his answer as I met his clear gray
eyes. “By constant surveillance, by being always on the lookout for
mischief, and crushing it before it could make head.” “Your warders
are all armed, of course?” “Not in the least. It is better to depend
upon moral than physical force.” It did not seem to me fair or safe to
leave officers entirely defenceless among so many desperate and easily
excited prisoners without even the protection of a baton or club, and
the evil result was presently seen in the outbreak already mentioned.
From the yard I passed into the workshops,--long, low, dark rooms in
which gas is never lighted, for labor begins and ends with daylight.
The trades followed were of the prison class, such as shoemaking,
tailoring and so forth. Industry and orderliness were generally
observable, but I seemed to detect a certain unsettled air. The
prisoners gazed furtively from under their peaked caps at a strange
visitor and seemed continually on the lookout for something to happen.
They were in fact constantly expecting the order to “move on,” and any
day the van might arrive to take them elsewhere. It might be to the
other end of the world.
This kind of removal, still known at La Grande Roquette, is horrible,
because it is final and irretrievable, and the journey is to that
unknown bourne from which no traveller returns. The French system of
dealing with condemned prisoners cannot be commended. It is cruel in
the extreme, from the long uncertainty in which the individual is left
as to his ultimate fate. He has made his last petition, the final
appeal from the legal tribunal to the possibly more merciful Chief
of the State, and he awaits the decision for weeks and weeks in the
condemned cell. The delay is sometimes horribly prolonged. One man
waited forty days, and was a prey the whole time to painful visions at
night. He dreamed of the guillotine and saw his head rolling in the
sawdust. He awoke with screams of terror and cried out perpetually,
“The knife! The scaffold! I see nothing else!” The agony of the delay
is intensified from the well-known fact that the dénouement, when it
comes, will be abrupt and with the briefest possible notice. Only on
the very morning of execution is the prisoner roused, generally from
profound slumber, and warned suddenly to prepare for immediate death.
All this time, since his sentence and reception at La Roquette, he has
occupied the condemned cell, one of three rather large chambers near
the hospital at the back of the prison. He has never been left for one
instant unattended. Two warders have been with him, and have watched
him closely day and night. Time was when, to render assurance doubly
sure, the convict was kept continually in a strait-jacket or _camisole
de force_. The priest of the prison has also been his constant
companion. From the condemned cell the prisoner is taken by a rather
long and circuitous route to the outer office, near the inner gate of
the prison. Here the executioner and his assistants receive him and
commence the “toilette of death.” The man is pinioned and bound by a
variety of intricate straps. Thence, when he is ready, the procession
passes across the courtyard to the outer prison gates. It is but a
step. Once through them, the scaffold is immediately reached, the last
act commences, is soon played, and the curtain promptly falls. Barely
fourteen seconds elapse, it is said, from the time the convict steps on
the scaffold to the moment when decapitation is effected. There is but
a short fruition, therefore, for the sightseers whom morbid curiosity
has attracted to the spot, even if they see anything at all, which
is doubtful, as the guillotine is placed on the ground level, and is
surrounded by a double line of mounted gensdarmes.
On the very night that the guillotine was being erected in the Place
de la Roquette for the execution of the poisoner La Pommerais, a
marvellous escape was effected by a child prisoner from the reformatory
prison opposite, the little Roquette.
At nine o’clock in the evening a lad of barely thirteen years, by
using his knife, cut away the metal covering of his window in which
the ventilator worked, then climbing up on a chair placed on top of
his bed he got his head through, and looked down into the courtyard;
it was quite empty, the night was dark; the only sound within was
the monotonous footstep of the night watchman. But beyond the wall,
there was a movement as of a crowd collecting, and from time to time
the sound of a hammer and other tools. The boy knew what was on foot,
for the story of La Pommerais and his approaching execution was known
within the reformatory, and it was also known that the dread event
was fixed for next morning. “Everybody is busy,” said the fugitive,
“no one will think of me.” So he worked his little body through the
ventilator, and reached the cornice between the first and second floor.
Resting his feet on this narrow ledge and holding to his window by one
hand, he stretched the other towards the next window and caught it,
creeping thus from window to window till he had passed six of them. He
was every moment in the utmost danger, for he hung on merely by his
fingers and the soles of his heavy shoes. He said long afterwards that
he suffered agonies in the hour occupied in thus creeping along. A
single slip would certainly have precipitated him into the yard below.
He was almost at the end of his strength, his arms ached horribly, and
his hands were torn and bleeding. He took courage, however, saying to
himself: “If I fall I shall be killed, if I stop I shall be recaptured;
I must certainly go on.”
Now the moon came through the clouds, and he knew that his shadow would
be seen from below. At that moment he heard his name called, “Molutor,
Molutor,” and he shivered, feeling sure he had been detected. But the
voice was that of a fellow-prisoner, the occupant of the cell, the
window of which he was passing, who had recognised him. But with true
loyalty to his class he did not betray him. On the contrary he tried
to help him, and after reconnoitring around encouraged him by saying
there were no warders in sight. Stimulated by these encouraging words,
the lad, who had already reached the fifth window, made a renewed
effort, and passed on to the sixth, next the angle of the building,
and there seized the water pipe. At this moment the clock struck
midnight. Then followed strange noises. Looking down, he saw beneath
him the open space of the Place de la Roquette, in which a crowd
was slowly gathering, and some workmen were moving forward an oddly
shaped machine, which he easily recognised. They were about to erect
the scaffold. The machinery for the guillotine and its purpose were
perfectly well known to the fugitive. At this moment it is said he
shuddered, not so much at the pressing danger of his situation, and the
near certainty of death if he slipped, but with inward despair at the
life that lay before him. Surely it was useless to compass his escape,
to risk so much to get away now, if some little time ahead he would
inevitably arrive at the guillotine, led step by step, passing from
court to court and judgment to judgment, until he mounted this same
scaffold, and expiated his offences as this same La Pommerais was about
to do. Not the less did he complete his escape. He slipped down to the
ground on the other side, gained the outer wall, and climbed it. Then
he waited until the square was thronged to get away. When the crowd was
seized with horror at the sound of the falling knife and the thud of
the severed head in the basket he would escape. At the supreme moment,
when a shiver of horror affected the spectators, he alone kept his
head, and, with sure, cautious step, slipped in amongst the people and
passed unchecked to the boulevard Voltaire.
A criminal drama which horrified all Paris in 1857 and had its
suitable dénouement on the Place de la Roquette, was the murder of the
Archbishop of Paris, Monseigneur Sibour, a dignified ecclesiastic,
who was universally loved and esteemed in his diocese. The Archbishop
was on his way to put on his vestments for the mass in the church of
St. Etienne du Mont. The procession was on the point of entering the
sacristy when a man, dressed in black, rushed in behind the Archbishop,
who was carrying aloft the Episcopal Cross, and with his left hand
caught hold of him and twisted him sharply round, while with his right
he struck him in the ribs with a knife. The wound was mortal, and the
Archbishop almost immediately fell dead, while his murderer was seized
and roughly handled by the indignant crowd. The police proceeded at
once to interrogate him and soon learned who he was. In appearance
short and thin, with a not unpleasing countenance, carefully dressed
in black, he proved to be one Louis Verger, an unfrocked priest. He
confessed that the murder was premeditated, and that he had come to
the church with the set intention of committing it. He had no animus
against the Archbishop, but desired to aim a blow at the dogma of the
Immaculate Conception. Thence his outcry when he struck the fatal blow,
“No more goddesses!” “Down with the goddesses!” He was quite calm and
self-possessed afterward, and the suggestion that he was insane quite
fell to the ground. When he was received at Mazas his mental condition
was inquired into, but there was no symptom of derangement. His first
demand was for food, for he had eaten nothing that morning, fearing
to interfere with the steadiness of his nerves. When questioned as to
the motives of his crime, his answers were clear and logical, except
that he was fanatically hostile to certain doctrines, and especially to
that of the celibacy of the clergy. In his parish he was constantly at
difference with his parishioners, with whom he had many quarrels, and
he was at length removed to another parish. He went to London to work
under Cardinal Wiseman, the new Archbishop of Westminster, and on his
return to Paris obtained fresh preferment at Saint Germain L’Auxerrois.
He was still turbulent and constantly a thorn in the side of the
Archbishop. His state of mind was held to be doubtful, but the doctors
declared him more dangerous than mad. He preached the most violent
diatribes against ecclesiastical authority, and richly deserved the
sentence of suspension that was decreed against him within a week of
his murderous attack upon the Archbishop.
No doubt excessive vanity and the desire to pose as a public character
were strong temptations to the crime he committed. He was always
greatly pleased when people came to see him and he gloried in his crime
as a new _cause célèbre_ which long would be the talk of the town. He
maintained this attitude all through his trial, and at times behaved
scandalously by insulting the judge and ridiculing the procedure. The
audience was furiously incensed with him, and more than once it was
necessary to suspend the proceedings. Public feeling was entirely on
the side of the murdered Archbishop. At the same time there can be very
little doubt that he was an irresponsible being, a maniac suffering
from exaltation, eager always to “show off;” and it would have been a
bitter disappointment to him if he had been put away in an asylum.
His conviction came as a matter of course, but he did not accept
it without protest, exclaiming contemptuously, “What justice! What
justice!” He cried out that he would appeal to the Emperor (Napoleon
III), and he assured his father, when the old man visited him, that
he would not abide by the sentence. Nevertheless he was removed from
the Conciergerie to La Roquette, and here in his last abode he tried
to play the hero, and with much satisfaction frequently repeated the
details of his crime. He denied that he felt any remorse for having
struck down “_ce pauvre Monseigneur_,” but was not glad that he had
done it. “My work was over,” he would say, “and I dropped my arms to
my side like the workman who has finished his task.” The appeal made
for reprieve was very ably maintained by his advocate, but was quite
fruitless. There could be no doubt as to his guilt, and no pity for the
criminal in the Emperor. Again and again the condemned man prayed to
be permitted to write to the head of the state, and was very indignant
when the privilege was denied him. Still he had access to friends
outside, and hoped for some reversal of sentence through their good
offices. He could hardly believe his ears when they came to him on the
morning of execution to make the last dread announcement, which was
conveyed by the Abbé Hugon, who was acting as _aumonier_, and who was
accompanied as usual by the Chief of the Police, the director of the
prison and other officials. “It is useless,” he repeated, “I know you
all; you are not speaking the truth and have only come to see what
effect the bad news would have on me. I do not, I cannot believe it. I
know the Emperor, and feel sure he will not abandon me.”
At last the dread reality forced itself on him, and his demeanor
completely changed. His air of nonchalant bravado suddenly disappeared,
and a fierce passion for self-preservation seized him. He grew livid
with fury, and with a wild gesture of repulsion he waved them away.
“Be off, I want no priests, no relics, no cross,” he cried. “Do not
think that I will go quietly to the scaffold. I’ll have no scaffold.
You will have to carry me there in pieces,” and he set himself to
resist vigorously, clinging to his bed, rolling himself in his
blankets, struggling with the warders, shouting, roaring, swearing
and blaspheming. Then the director of La Petite Roquette thought
of calling in the executioner, although by law he is not permitted
to enter the condemned cell. M. Heinderich came when summoned, an
embodiment of superior force, a perfect Colossus, six feet in height,
with broad shoulders, clear-eyed and full of resolution, the picture of
a self-reliant veteran. “Come, Verger,” he said quietly, “you will not
come of your own accord? we must take you then by force!” The prisoner
was conquered, and without more ado allowed himself to be secured.
Then he was led like a lamb to the outer office where his “toilette of
death” was quickly performed. At length he broke down, and cried with
bitter tears, “How terrible it is to die without relations or friends.”
He listened with gratitude to the consoling words of the priest,
confessed, received absolution, and almost immediately was a dead man.
A notability of the guillotine was Avinain, executed in 1867 for a
series of murders, all having similar features. Several corpses were
picked up, all of which had been very carefully dismembered by some
hand practised in dissection. In all, the head and limbs had been
skilfully removed from the trunk; but death had first been inflicted
by strangulation or many terrible wounds. The remains had generally
been found in the neighborhood of the Seine, and suspicion at length
attached to a certain Jean Charles, otherwise Charles Alfonse, who
had lived in four different houses on the riverside. The police now
discovered that there were stables and sheds forming part of these
several dwellings. In one building they picked up a saw, a hammer and
an axe, which evidently had been used for the purpose of dismembering
the bodies. These, according to French custom, had been exhibited at
the Morgue, and one of the articles was recognised by a young man
as having belonged to his father, who had recently disappeared. The
deceased was a forage merchant. He had come to Paris to sell a cartload
of hay, and had met Charles, with whom he agreed on a price. The
purchaser very civilly offered him the accommodation of his stables
for the night and a bed at his house, so that the purchase might be
completed next morning. It appeared in the trial that before this
another person had sold forage and had accepted hospitality for the
night, but when the host came, insisting that the light should be
extinguished for fear of setting fire to the barn, he carried in his
hand a hammer; and the guest, a little suspicious, declared that he
always slept with a light burning, and in a very significant fashion
took out his knife as though to use it in self-defence. There was
little doubt that this man with the hammer was the same Charles already
indicated, and the police proceeded to inquire into his identity. He
proved to be one Charles Avinain, a butcher by trade, who had recently
been a convict in Cayenne. Since his return from transportation he had
frequently been in trouble, and was now easily traced and arrested by
means of clues furnished by his wife and daughter. He still lived at
the riverside, and nearly made his escape from the police by means of
a trap door in the floor of the basement which opened on to a passage.
Several murders were brought home to him, committed either with hammer
or knife. His victims were mostly forage merchants, and he had dealt
with the bodies in the same barbarous fashion. It is recorded of him
that he never exhibited the slightest remorse, until the very last
moment, and then it was under the influence of overwhelming terror as
he trod the steps of the scaffold. He had always repulsed the chaplain,
but in the end accepted his ministrations, confessed, and received
absolution.
Moreux, who had murdered a girl to rob her and give a present to his
beloved, put down his pipe quietly, when he received the news, saying,
“I did not think it would be before next Wednesday,” ascended the
scaffold quickly, and remarked to the chief warder in bidding him
good-bye, “You see what comes of evil behavior.” Toly, who tried to
kill a warder when first locked up, took his sentence very calmly, and
faced death with great self-possession. He spent his last night at
cards, but received the chaplain with great emotion and deep sentiments
of repentance. Coutalier had murdered his wife with one blow of a
hatchet, and bore up well until he saw the guillotine, when he threw
himself back violently, but soon regained his impassiveness. Many were
at great pains to proclaim their innocence. It was so with Boudas,
an ex-priest, whose consuming desire was to become rich. He poisoned
two wives in succession, so as to secure their inheritances. It was
clearly proved against him, but he reiterated as he knelt and laid his
head on the block: “Let every one know that I am not guilty.” Gervais
sacrificed an aged companion, a well-to-do dealer in antiques, because
he wanted means to marry. His awakening on the last morning was a
frightful scene. “I can’t, I won’t believe it. It is impossible. The
law is about to commit a terrible crime.” He fought the executioner so
hard that he had to be led twice to the block. But he died smiling with
that curious, artificial grin that relaxes the muscles of the face at
moments of great nervous derangement, and has no connection with real
laughter. Billoir hated his wife for her extravagance and slovenliness,
murdered her, and threw the body into the Seine. He was an old soldier
of good character and distinguished service, but Marshal MacMahon, the
President, positively refused to pardon him. He was quite overwhelmed
with the shock when told the fatal news, but speedily recovered
himself, and, crossing his hands on his breast, respectfully saluted
the chaplain.
Welker, one of the worst and most inhuman of his class, who had
murdered a pretty child of eight, showed the most abject cowardice. It
was necessary to carry him bodily to the scaffold, and place him in
position under the knife. A corpse was really guillotined, for he was
already dead with fright, and had pardon come at the eleventh hour it
could not have benefitted him. Menesclon has left a name more execrable
than Welker, for his victim was an infant of four, whom he was believed
to hold in strong affection, lavishing gifts upon her constantly. One
day she went into his room, and the child was never seen again. After
many denials that he knew anything about her, a neighbor was drawn to
his room by the nauseating smell of burning flesh, and on forcing his
door he was found stirring up a blazing fire in his stove. Menesclon
was barely saved from the fury of the people when the story became
known. He was interrogated, and gave his own account of the affair. He
had invited the child into his room to give her some flowers. But she
irritated him by crying, and, being unable to quiet her, he suddenly
seized her by the throat and choked her. When she was dead he thrust
the body between his two mattresses, and slept the whole night through.
Early next morning he set himself to get rid of the horrible evidence
of his crime in the manner already described. This miserable creature
was one of the lowest type of his class. He had been graduated in the
lowest schools of vice, beginning as a child at La Petite Roquette, to
which he had been committed at the instance of his parents as perfectly
unmanageable at home. He passed thence into the navy, after having
been the despair of many workshops in which he had been employed, at
last having assaulted and robbed his father. He had developed into an
undersized weak creature with a hideous, pimpled face, low forehead,
furtive manner and foxy eyes. He was quite indifferent at his trial,
showed no remorse for his crime, and rarely answered the questions put
to him, which threw into strong relief the enormity of his conduct.
Service in Senegal had left him with an incurable deafness, which
heightened his stupidity. He gazed without flinching at the _pièces de
conviction_ lying on the table before him. Close by was a copy-book
filled with verses, for he had poetical aspirations and was a bit of
an artist. His cold-blooded unconcern culminated in his last answer
to the question why he had committed the crime. “I can’t tell you,”
he replied, “but you are at liberty to do the same to me.” Menesclon
exhibited the same impassibility at the last hour. He heard his fate
with his hand to his ear, the better to catch the words, and merely
said, “_Ah, bon!_” when he understood; and then walked quietly to the
scaffold.
One or two later cases possessing some of the same features may be
included here,--those of Michel Campi and of Marchandon,--which throw
up into strong relief the insecurity of life, even in the most crowded
parts of a large city. In the first instance a peaceable old gentleman
and his sister were murdered at three o’clock in the afternoon in the
rue du Regard, not far from the avenue de Clichy. In the other a lady
of good position and ample means was done to death in the middle of the
night by her own man-servant, whom she had only engaged the day before.
The case of Campi is as follows: On the afternoon of a tenth of
August, a man rang at the door of an apartment in the rue du Regard
where resided Du Cros de Sixt with his sister. They were both old
people. He was well to do and secretary to a religious society. Their
residence was in a pavilion apart from the principal building. Mlle.
du Cros answered the door in the absence of their maid, and Campi
at once struck down the old lady with a succession of violent blows
with a hammer. Mlle. du Cros fell screaming and her brother rushing
out was treated in the same manner. Then the miscreant, opening a
large knife, cut the poor woman’s throat and next wounded M. du Cros
mortally. Now the concierge came to the rescue, found the two bodies
lying in a pool of blood, and hurriedly called in the police. When
they arrived they found the murderer in one of the rooms hunting for
plunder. He was forthwith arrested, and without difficulty, although
he later explained this to the instructing judge by saying that had
he not broken the handle of his hammer, he would have taken other
lives. Robbery was judged to be the motive of the crime, but Campi’s
advocate wished to suggest an idea of vengeance, although no proof of
this was ever forthcoming. There was some mystery about the man and his
relations with M. du Cros which never came out. Campi was certainly
acquainted with M. du Cros and his sister, who survived for a couple
of days. When questioned, she begged piteously not to be forced to
reveal the secret of the man’s identity. Campi was perfectly well known
to the police as a criminal, who had been in prison frequently, but
his secret antecedents were never brought to light. He was said to
have served in the Carlist ranks in Catalonia. He belonged originally
to Marseilles, and his connection with the Spanish insurgents was
attested by Carlist officers who recognised him. The mystery about him
was never definitely cleared up, and it served only to increase the
interest attached to him at the time of his trial. The account given
of his last appearance differed little from those of other executions,
but he was most anxious to show no weakness, declined all assistance,
and cried: “I would rather walk alone. I am not in the least afraid.”
When he saw the guillotine, he exclaimed contemptuously, “Is that all!”
The exact truth as to his identity will never be known, but those who
knew him maintained to the last that he was not a thief; that he was
essentially an honest man, who would not stoop to murder for mere
gain; and that some family scandal would have been revealed if the
whole story of the crime had been laid bare.
In the case of Marchandon, his intention to murder his new mistress
without loss of time was shown by the fact that he only hired for a
single day the clothes in which he presented himself in the rue de
Sèze. He had secured employment in many houses by means of a forged
certificate of character, which was so unsatisfactory that it roused
the suspicions of the Princess Poniatowski, who had engaged him, but
would not allow him to enter her house. She had gone at once to the
registry office to warn them, but found that Marchandon had already
been placed elsewhere, in fact, with Madame Cornet, his future victim.
He proceeded promptly to carry out his crime. Having secured a livery
coat as already described, he waited at table, and, after receiving
his orders for next day, he went up to bed in the garret. About one in
the morning he went down again and entered Madame Cornet’s apartment
by means of a key which he had secured, and hid himself between the
salon and the bedroom. When Madame Cornet had undressed and gone to
bed, Marchandon attacked her. Her piercing screams disturbed the
concierge who slept above. He got up to call the chambermaid, believing
that Madame Cornet was taken ill. The two came down-stairs together
and knocked at the door, but received no reply. They listened at the
door for a time, and then left, thinking all must be right, as she was
moving about. It was the murderer whom they heard, busied in getting
rid of his blood-stained clothes, and hunting for valuables.
The first clue to the detection of the crime was the discovery of
the hired livery coat, which was recognised by its owner when he was
found. With it came the identification of the man-servant. He had a
snug little home of his own in Compiègne, where he lived with his
wife very comfortably. When arrested in the course of the day, he was
just sitting down to a little dinner of croutons and roast fowl. The
establishment was run with the means Marchandon acquired in Paris and
brought down to his wife, the proceeds, no doubt, of his thefts. At one
time he was in the service of the well-known M. Worth, the dressmaker
of the rue de la Paix, but always managed to get down to Compiègne
in the evening for dinner, bringing with him fish or fruit, or some
other delicacy. He was a man of simple tastes, very popular in his own
neighborhood. The raising of poultry was his favorite amusement, and
he delighted in growing flowers. He was not without a certain sense of
grim humor; and a witness deposed in court to his having exclaimed,
when reading his newspaper the day after the murder of Madame Cornet,
“Why are people so careless as to engage their servants without proper
characters!”
The two Roquettes, small and great, were much mixed up with the painful
drama of the Paris Commune. The junior prison was for some time
appropriated to military prisoners. Paris, as the insurrection grew,
became more and more crowded with troops, and some penal establishment
was much needed. When the Commune was in full swing, La Petite Roquette
contained about four hundred soldiers of all branches of the service,
who in their turn gave place to the juveniles brought back from other
prisons. These, to the number of 127, were retained until the end of
May, when they were released and sent out armed to take part in the
defence of the barricades. They soon returned clamorous for shelter.
Later, La Petite Roquette was utilised as a place of safe custody for
all regular soldiers found in Paris who had refused to ally themselves
with the Commune. Some twelve hundred of these more than filled the
prison.
A darker shadow lies upon La Grande Roquette, for it was made the place
of detention for the so-called hostages of the Commune. Many persons
of rank and authority were arrested by the Communal authorities as a
means of imposing respect upon the government of Versailles, now moving
its troops forward to recover Paris and re-establish law and order.
Some idea of the savage and bloodthirsty spirit that possessed the
insurgents had already been seen in the murder of the two generals,
Clément Thomas and Lecomte, who had been arrested and mercilessly shot
at Montmartre. Early in April it was decided to arrest Monseigneur
Darboy, Archbishop of Paris. It is said that the same priest, Abbé
Lagard, Archdeacon of St. Genevieve, who had warned Archbishop Sibour
that Verger had threatened to take his life, now desired to put M.
Darboy on his guard. The trustful prelate could not believe that anyone
wished him evil, but the very next day after the fight at Châtillon,
an order was issued to two Communist captains to secure the persons
of the Archbishop and some of his clerics, and convey them to the
Conciergerie, where they were arraigned before three members of the
Committee of Public Safety, Rigault, Ferré, Dacosta. “My children,”
began the Monseigneur, “I am here to render you any satisfaction.”
“We are not your children, but your judges,” replied Rigault. “For
eighteen centuries you and men like you have been locking up humanity;
it is now your turn.” Sentence of death was then and there passed upon
them. “These are not men, but wild beasts,” protested the Archbishop,
who was forthwith removed with his secretary to the depot of the
Prefecture, whence they were transferred to Mazas. The possession of
these and other hostages inspired the Communists to open negotiations
with Versailles, backed by the threat that they would kill their
prisoners unless their terms were conceded. But indeed, this political
murder had been resolved upon the first moment of their arrest, and on
the morning of the twenty-fourth of May, 1871, they were all brought
from Mazas to La Grande Roquette, where the Governor gave a receipt
for their bodies worded as follows: “Received forty priests and
magistrates.”
By this time the troops stationed at La Roquette had been strongly
reinforced, and on the evening of the twenty-fifth of May another
detachment arrived. It was frankly admitted that they were the “platoon
of execution.” A list was handed to François, a low creature who had
been a carpenter, containing the names of all his prisoners. These
names were called out one by one, Darboy, the Archbishop, first. “Let
me get my coat,” said Monseigneur, but some one called out, “You will
not want it,” and taking him by the arm they led him down to the garden
that runs round the interior of the prison. This was the first _chemin
de ronde_. The second was reached by turning to the left, and again
to the left, and was well out of sight of the ordinary prison and the
hospital. The hostages then appear to have been arranged according to
rank from right to left. The Archbishop first, then M. le President
Bonjean, and then the rest of the priests. Just before the final act,
the Archbishop raised his hand to bless and absolve his companions, six
in all, who faced the firing party at thirty paces distant. At the word
of command the execution was completed. In those days of massacre the
guillotine was deemed too slow, and the bullet took its place.
At daylight next morning the same process was repeated with the fifteen
remaining hostages, who were led out one by one and formed up under
the same wall. Nowadays the many sympathisers with the victims of this
dastardly act, who come from all parts of the world to visit the scene
of the murder, will find a marble tablet fixed in the wall over the
exact spot where they fell. It bears the inscription: “Respect this
place which witnessed the death of the sainted and noble victims of the
24th of May, 1871.” An iron balustrade keeps off irreverent feet, and
is constantly adorned with wreaths of immortelles. A large number of
hostages remained, many of whom were gensdarmes. They were removed from
prison and massacred in a body at Belleville.
After many essays at improvement the prisons of Paris have entered upon
a stage of approximate perfection, and the capital is now possessed of
a penal establishment that compares with any in the civilised world.
The great prison of Fresnes, after four years in building at immense
outlay, was completed and occupied in July, 1898. It is situated on the
very outskirts of Paris, replacing a number of old-fashioned prisons.
It covers a wide extent of ground. The entrance is on the Versailles
road (on the left of the visitor coming from Berny station), where
the great edifice with its imposing, but not too florid, architecture,
presents a view of many lofty parallel blocks, flanked by smaller
buildings appropriated to the service of the prison.
Passing first the gatekeeper’s lodge, in front of which stands the
Governor’s residence of ambitious dimensions, we enter a long avenue,
well planted with trees, and find on the left other dwellings occupied
by the superior staff, and on the right a great block of 156 cells in
three tiers. This cell house is the _quartier de transfèrement_; in
other words, the place of passage in which are accommodated all the
classes till now found in La Grand Roquette. Those sentenced to long
terms exceeding one year will in due course move on elsewhere to the
colonial establishment beyond the sea, or the _maisons centrales_, the
district prisons in or near Paris. Further on is the main building,
housing close upon two thousand cells, arranged in three grand
divisions, each separate and distinct and containing 508 cells. Each
affords ample provision for the different categories of prisoners to
be lodged, _prévenues_ or those waiting trial, short term prisoners
and juveniles. The first design was to receive females at Fresnes,
but Saint Lazare is eventually to be replaced by another especially
constructed prison for their reception. The main entrance of this
principal quarter is in the centre, with a gatekeeper’s lodge on
one side and a military guard under an officer on the other. Beyond
and behind them are the extensive yards and buildings required in
attending to the services of the prison, the storehouses for food
and clothing, the kitchens and bakeries and laundries, and the plant
for the generation of electricity. All these are on the left, while
on the right is the reception ward with four hundred cells of ample
dimensions, each having a cubical content of eighteen yards.
With such an extensive acreage the inconvenience of great distances
to traverse is met by transverse tunnels and many lines of railways
serving all parts of the prison. On the prison galleries too, there are
the trams to carry the day’s rations and necessaries from cell to cell.
There are lifts everywhere, and many staircases in the most convenient
places. The cells are all very spacious, their decoration and fittings
artistic, and in the best modern style, with varnished walls, washing
arrangements in porcelain, and a plentiful supply of water. The warming
and ventilation are on the best principles. The only fault to be found
with the modern plan of prison management is that over-much attention
is paid to material comfort. The condition of the wrongdoer in durance
is far superior to his way of life when at large. He goes back to it
improved in physique, better able to endure its hardships, and possibly
fortified against relapse.
Whether when he finally emerges he has benefitted morally may be
doubted. It is impossible with so large a population, spread over so
large an area, that there can be any reformatory process as applied to
individuals. Fresnes is open to the serious objection that it is too
large for effective moral discipline, and that government of some 2,500
persons, four-fifths of whom are criminals of many varied classes,
would make excessive demands upon even a heaven-born administrator and
philanthropist.
As we have seen in the closing paragraphs of this volume, the great
prison of Fresnes exemplifies the best practice of modern penology in
the incarceration and discipline of those whom society, for its own
protection, isolates from itself. But punishment is not necessarily
reform; and it may be doubted whether the redemption of the criminal
will ever be accomplished by model prison structures alone. France, in
common with all other nations, has this further step of reformation yet
to take. But little indication of what its nature shall be, in France
or elsewhere, has been given; for its revelation we must look to the
future.
END OF VOLUME IV.
[Transcriber’s Note:
Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation are as in the original.]