FRENCH WAR PRISONS
French war prisons in Napoleon’s time--Civilians detained in France
in large numbers--The various prisons on the north-eastern
frontier--General Wirion, a cruel and rapacious gaoler--Verdun
described--A hot-bed of vice and iniquity--Wirion’s
exactions--Treatment of prisoners--Wirion’s suicide--Succeeded by
the inhuman Colonel Courcelles--Evidence of a subordinate, Anthony
Latreille--Fierce reprisals--Life at Verdun described by an
eyewitness, Captain Seacombe Ellison--Breaks out of the citadel of
Verdun and is injured--After long wanderings is recaptured and
removed to the fortress of Bitche, commonly known as the “Castle of
Tears”--Description of Bitche--The Grande Souterrain.
When in 1803 there was a fresh rupture between France and England and a
renewal of embittered hostilities, Napoleon took great umbrage at the
action of his marine neighbour. He was hot with anger at the sudden
seizure, without notice, of all French ships in British ports, on the
declaration of war, and decided upon immediate reprisals. He decreed
that all British subjects on French soil should be arrested and
detained. This arbitrary act was made worse by the plain notice that the
prisoners, for the most part non-combatants, need not look for release.
No exchanges were to be permitted and imprisonment promised to become
permanent or to last at least to the far-off end of the war. Many
thousands of luckless, harmless folk were involved by this harsh
measure, altogether at variance with the law of nations. At the end of
the war the total reached the large number of more than twenty-one
thousand. Numbers of English people had but recently taken advantage of
the Peace of Amiens to visit Paris or set up their residence in France.
Some of the cases were very hard, as that of the young doctor about to
establish himself in a practice upon the south coast, who ran over to
Paris for a short holiday but was caught by the order of arrest and held
prisoner for many years.
Various fortresses and strongholds on the northeastern frontier were
constituted places of durance among which the war prisoners were
divided. Of these Verdun, Longwy, Givet, Valenciennes, Arras, Briançon,
Cambray, Sedan and Bitche were chief. At one time Verdun was used as a
common centre and placed under the supervision and command of a general
officer, Wirion by name, whose cruelties and extortions placed him in
the category of the brutal and oppressive gaolers who have inflicted so
much suffering on their fellow creatures in all ages and countries. Of
Wirion I shall have occasion to speak further. Verdun was the most
important of these northeastern places of detention. It is an ancient
city of the Gauls and played its part in early ecclesiastical history,
the seat of a bishop who kept his state as a count and prince of the
Holy Roman Empire. As it grew in wealth and splendour it was fortified
and the foundation laid of the strong citadel which survived until the
Napoleonic era and has since been worked into the scheme of frontier
defence. Its aspect is architecturally imposing with its bishop’s
palace, citadel and cathedral. It is situated on the Meuse which divides
the town into two parts, flowing through rich meadows under umbrageous
trees, past well wooded ramparts. It was made the centre and
headquarters of the prisoners’ depots, and was always crowded with the
victims of an unrighteous policy, governed by merciless and rapacious
tyrants, and may be taken as typical of many similar places that
disgraced the Napoleonic regime. It is but fair to add that when the
atrocities committed were fully exposed, the Emperor was swift to call
the offenders to account, to weed them out and replace them by
honourable soldiers of high principle and good repute, who speedily
retrieved the character of their cloth. But the evil deeds of their
predecessors stand out in the records of the time and will be best
appreciated by a brief reference to the just retribution that overtook
them. Of a total of eleven French officers employed in the superior
administration of the depots of prisoners, three committed suicide to
escape punishment, five were tried by court-martial and sentenced to be
dismissed from the service, one was condemned to the galleys, and
another reduced to the ranks.
The chief culprit was Wirion, a general officer and Inspector General
of Imperial Gendarmerie, the Commander in Chief of the war prisoners,
who shot himself; next in order of cruelty was Colonel Courcelles, the
commandant of Verdun and senior officer in the department of the Meuse,
who was cashiered; three others were lieutenants of gendarmerie, two
were aides-de-camp to General Wirion, who were both dismissed from the
service. The commandant of Bitche only saved himself by a testimonial of
his prisoners. There were many more delinquents, mostly insignificant,
against whom the evidence was not sufficiently strong.
Verdun at that time was a hot-bed of vice and iniquity. The collection
within the narrow limits of a second class provincial town of persons of
rank and affluence,--for the English _détenus_ were largely people of
good social pretensions,--for the most part idle and at all times
horribly bored and with no legitimate outlets for their energies, or
useful means of employing their time, tended to general demoralisation.
Detention long protracted, with small hope of enlargement, drove the
weak and self-indulgent without mental resources to the solace of the
bottle, and numbers became confirmed sots. Well meant efforts to reform
them seldom succeeded; deaths from delirium tremens or by _felo de se_
were frequent. The argument often used was that when a man could get
drunk twice a day for fourpence, he made the best use of his time. Life
otherwise was not worth having. A French peasant who had dragged a
drunken prisoner out of a ditch and saved his life, asked for his
reward. “He would have deserved twice as much if he had left me there.
What could be better for me than death?” was the reply.
The place was for years a perfect hell. Gambling tables for roulette and
_rouge et noir_ had been established by the permission of the presiding
authorities and were openly encouraged. General Wirion was a partner and
received a large percentage of profit. The rooms were just what may be
seen to-day at Monte Carlo; the tables of green cloth covered with coin
surrounded by a varied crowd, high and low, English peers and
indescribable riff-raff, with loose characters who came in hundreds from
Paris. Vice stalked shameless through the throng; high play was
incessant, large sums were won and lost, the latter chiefly, and as
money could be easily borrowed, ruin, disgrace and death constantly
overtook the unfortunate. Napoleon in 1806 very rightly forbade play and
abolished the tables, which from the first were only introduced for the
English, the French residents not being permitted to gamble.
In such a community as this Wirion and his myrmidons reaped a fine
harvest. Fees and fines were levied on the smallest and most trivial
grounds; every luxury was taxed by privilege and must be bought at a
price. No device was omitted that would put money into Wirion’s pocket.
It was said of him that he “persecuted the rich for his profit, the
poor for his pleasure.” He had begun life as a police officer and he
drew upon his training and experience to establish a system of espionage
by which he was kept informed of all that went on; he learned all he
wanted to know as to the private means of his prisoners and to what
extent he might squeeze money out of them. He began to ill-use them from
the moment they appeared in Verdun.
All prisoners on arrival were taken first to the citadel where they gave
particulars about themselves--name, age, birthplace, profession and
personal description. Then a paper was given them to sign, in which they
promised upon honour to conform to the rules of the depot, and to make
no attempt to escape, if permitted to reside in the town or beyond it,
the latter privilege being extended to a radius of six miles out into
the country. This last “parole” was generally kept, but it was evaded by
purposely seeking punishment for some trifling offence, as the fact of
arrest cancelled the parole.
The privileges purchasable were such as missing the daily roll call,
permission to drive or ride for some distance, to belong to clubs, and
to organise race meetings. Bills might be drawn on England and would be
cashed at twenty-five percent. discount. All wine to be consumed must be
obtained from the commandant’s cellars at increased rates.
Handicraftsmen or labourers were only allowed to earn wages on accepting
a percentage of reduction levied by the governor. The gross total
receipts of the governor and commandant were enormous and amounted in a
few years to upwards of thirty thousand pounds, secured by the most
high-handed and discreditable methods. When in 1809 Wirion was summoned
before the minister of war, Marshal Clarke, Duc de Feltre, to give an
account of misdeeds and the charges were handed to him, the minister
said, “If these things be true, my advice is that you go and shoot
yourself immediately.” The wretched general dressed himself in full
uniform, went to the Bois de Boulogne and there blew out his brains.
Colonel Courcelles outrivalled his late chief in brutality. He belonged
to a respectable family and was passably rich, advantages which neither
rendered him sociable nor honest; on the contrary, he was ignorant,
wicked, miserly and inhuman; he possessed in an eminent degree every
vice and folly of his predecessor without the least particle of his
fleeting goodness. Where poverty drove the one, avarice led the other;
where passion mastered the first, cruelty triumphed over the second. The
former often concealed his exactions under the polite deportment of a
gentleman, but the latter disdained such covering and gloried in the
exposition of his naked villainy. Courcelles commenced by arraigning the
measures of Wirion, whose errors he said he could plainly perceive, but
perceived only to plunge deeper into cruelty. He declared that no
prisoner should ever obtain the least favour from him, and in this, and
this only, he religiously kept his word.
The following extracts from the work of M. Anthony Latreille, who had
been at one time a trusted subordinate of Courcelles, but who fell into
his bad graces, show the character of this cruel man.
“I was ordered to discontinue my attendance at the _appel_; my intimacy
with the prisoners, it was observed, was too much cemented to entrust me
with so important a duty. All persons, without distinction, were
required to show themselves daily, and money could no longer exempt from
this regulation. If any one missed the _appel_, he was immediately
conducted to the citadel; and fearing that sooner or later he might get
into trouble by the masters of merchantmen, he begged of the minister
their removal to another town. This request was accorded and with the
exception of two hundred and sixty, of whom some were married and others
above the age of fifty, the whole class were marched to Auxonne.
“Courcelles obtained from Paris the powerful aid of the examination of
letters, which Wirion could never obtain. The peculation spoken of in
Wirion’s administration could not be abandoned; it was too profitable
and too facile in the collection, easily to be relinquished. Courcelles,
with his associate, Massin (lieutenant of gendarmerie), enjoyed the
sweets for two years; during which time ninety-six prisoners escaped
and the greatest part got clear off. A lieutenant in the royal navy, in
gaol for debt, contrived to break his bars and took refuge at a house in
the country, where he was speedily betrayed and given up to Courcelles,
who marched him through the principal streets of the city, thumb-screwed
and loaded with chains; he was then cast into a dungeon. Some months
afterwards he effected his liberation, when the commandant, from
feelings of revenge, threw his wife, who had remained behind, into
confinement from which she only came out by the interference and upon
the responsibility of several gentlemen.
“A declaration now appeared that, if any one decamped, the whole class
to which he belonged would be immediately arrested; ‘the only proper
method,’ as Courcelles observed, ‘of treating Englishmen.’ This threat
was afterwards carried into execution but without the desired effect.
The desertions still increasing, Napoleon’s famous decree was published,
condemning every prisoner taken in the act of breaking their parole to
the galleys. Rejoiced at this severity, the commandant knew not how to
contain his satisfaction. ‘Let them depart,’ said he, ‘I shall not miss
them.’ This savage pleasure was somewhat abated on finding that, between
the date of the law, 23rd December, and 30th January, no less than nine
had taken flight, two of whom were retaken and had sentence passed; but,
in spite of every obstacle that bolts, locks and sentinels could throw
in their way, they again delivered themselves and finally reached their
own country.
“These continual escapes caused Courcelles the greatest torment. It was
in vain that he placed guard upon guard, and patrol upon patrol; the
idea of his barbarity had fixed itself so firmly on everybody’s mind,
that they were anxious to take advantage of any opportunity to fly from
him. There was in the citadel a spacious convent, capable of containing
five hundred persons and into this he determined a great part of the
depot should be conducted. He wrote accordingly to the Minister of War
and after some trouble obtained permission to form a permanent depot of
certain persons at the monastery of St. Vannes.
“In a short time, about two hundred persons were lodged there, including
about one hundred and forty midshipmen. Innumerable representations were
made to the commandant but none were answered. A principal inhabitant of
the town interfered and having remarked that the reputable citizens were
indignant at the punishment inflicted on the _détenus_, Courcelles
ridiculed the idea of reputable citizens, observing, that he should have
very great trouble to find any in Verdun; ‘they were,’ he said, ‘only
concerned on account of letting their lodgings and if their interests
did not prevent them, they would be the first to favour the prisoners’
escape.’ ‘The plan I have adopted,’ added he, ‘ought long since to have
been followed, but the unhappy Wirion, who had accepted money, trembled
and dared not pursue it.’
“As was easy to foresee, the midshipmen not infrequently created riot
and disorder. Unoccupied and discontented, their accidental friendships
generally terminated in disputes--quarrelling and fighting seemed wholly
to engross their attention. Their altercations were but too often
submitted to Courcelles, who, without any regard to justice (where
justice was indeed somewhat difficult to administer) punished
indiscriminately and thus added to the evil. Teased with complaints, he
on one occasion shut up fourteen of the most noisy in so small a dungeon
that they had nearly been suffocated. Complaint being made by the senior
officer, he smilingly answered, ‘The more the merrier,’ and that as the
weather was cold, they would serve to keep each other warm.
“Courcelles pretended that his orders were to confine the prisoners in
the caverns of the citadel, and not in the convent--that appropriating
this to their use from motives of humanity, it was but just, he said,
that they reimbursed him for the necessary repairs the building had
lately undergone. The midshipmen appealed to their commanding officer;
this gentleman promised to resist for them the iniquitous claim. At the
expiration of the month, Courcelles desired him to retain a certain sum
for lodging money. ‘You may, sir,’ replied the officer, ‘lord it over my
countrymen, for unhappily they are too much in your power, but you
shall never force me to aid you; and no punishment you can inflict would
ever induce me to act dishonourably. Your order is unjust and I will not
listen to it.’ This firm language so intimidated Courcelles that he did
not enforce it.
“The midshipmen finding that he gave way so easily, petitioned the
Minister of War, in hopes that a statement of their circumstances might
ameliorate their situation. They stated their grievances as
follows:--‘That they had been compelled to purchase his wines; that the
difference (a small fraction) between the franc and the _livre tournois_
was still withheld; that an attempt had been made to force them to pay
for the apartments into which they had been thrust; with other minor
things.’
“The petition had the desired effect. The Duc de Feltre, with that
justice and humanity which ever distinguished his conduct towards the
prisoners, immediately caused the matter to be examined. A general with
two British officers were nominated to inquire into it. The general
observed to Courcelles that two of the charges were comparatively
trifling but that the payment in livres instead of francs could not so
easily be surmounted; and he wished to know what he had to say thereon.
Courcelles answered, ‘Nothing--I have never had to do with the
prisoners’ pay; it is the gendarmerie alone that have been employed in
this service; no profit has arisen to me--I am ignorant on the
subject.’ ‘Sir,’ said the general, ‘the gendarmerie are under your
orders; if they have committed abuses, you are answerable for them.’ I
was then sent for; and after answering a number of questions, the
following dialogue took place between the two men:
“‘How happens it that, resident in a town where so much money has been
spent and yourself one of the principal persons that has been employed,
no part of the treasure has come to you?’
“‘I confess that, since my stay in Verdun, I have annually consumed
above one hundred pounds more than my pay and that I have received this
sum from the generosity of the English.’”
Reference has been made above to the bitter pangs endured by the
commandant on the frequency of successful escapes. They were undertaken
with remarkable boldness in the teeth of abundant and it might have
seemed insurmountable obstacles, and accomplished after facing and
surmounting extraordinary hardships and incredible sufferings. This will
be best realised by recounting in some detail a few of the most
noteworthy evasions of British prisoners of war. One is recorded in a
small book, “Prison Scenes,” from the hand of a principal actor in the
enterprise, Mr. Seacombe Ellison, the master of a Liverpool merchantman,
the brig _Rachel_, carrying sixteen guns. The ship was captured by a
French privateer, off the American coast on her passage home from
Honduras, and taken to Bordeaux whence her captain and crew were sent
to Verdun. His experiences at that much and rightly abused depot have
been largely drawn upon in the following pages.
When the hope of release became more and more vague, Mr. Ellison cast
about him to compass his escape. In conference with some of his comrades
various plans were debated and dismissed as too hazardous; but at last
one was adopted. Mr. Ellison tells us that he always viewed the
undertaking with dread “particularly when in the morning he looked out
of the window and the weather happened to be wet and cold.” The idea was
to get across the French frontier, to pass the Rhine and travelling
through Baden, Wurtemburg and Bavaria enter Austria and make for the sea
at Trieste. This was in effect the route taken when finally success
crowned their efforts. But they were to be sorely tried by misfortune
before they regained their liberty. The first aim was to rid themselves
of the obligation of parole given. As has been said, it was only
necessary to commit some trifling breach of the regulations to secure
committal to the citadel, from which the open country might be reached
without passing through the gates of the fortress; such an escape,
moreover, when shut up in the citadel, would exonerate the bondsmen who
were jointly responsible with them for safe custody.
All the necessary preliminaries were completed by the intending runaways
at their lodgings in town; they bought very privately all the tools and
appliances required to assist them in breaking out--gimlets, small lock
saws and a fine saw made of a watch spring and set in a steel handle, to
be used in filing through iron bars; they also obtained maps and marked
out their projected route. These various articles, with a store of food
sufficient for eighteen days, were conveyed during daylight to a secure
hiding place in a wood beyond the walls, to which they had access, while
the gates were open. At the last moment they secreted the rope to be
used in their descent into the ditch, by lapping it round and round
their bodies under their waistcoats; it was about the thickness of a log
line or a window cord, so that a great length could be conveniently
secreted. Carrying all these on their persons they proceeded to the
office of the lieutenant of gendarmerie pretending that they were late
for roll call. Whereupon the choleric officer promptly ordered them to
the citadel under close arrest.
This citadel was familiar ground; from frequent visits they knew all its
intricacies and soon saw that the plan they had conceived was perfectly
feasible. They had access to the chapel adjoining the citadel and
belonging to the convent of St. Vannes. Happily but few prisoners were
in confinement in the citadel and no one suspected or spied upon them. A
passage through the chapel was effected by taking out one of the panels
of the door; a series of holes were bored through with the gimlet but
the panel was retained in its place by leaving one bit of wood intact.
At the appointed hour the loose panel was broken out, not without noise,
but no alarm was given; then all passed through the aperture, although
one man stuck fast in the opening and was with difficulty extricated.
Once through the body of the church, they groped about seeking a place
of exit and came upon an altar above which was a window undefended by
bars, through which they climbed and quietly descended into the convent
garden. They now gained the open enclosure of the citadel, reached the
general’s garden, easily surmounted a low wall to find a descent of
twenty feet on the far side, down which they slid, narrowly escaping
accident. Here they came upon a sentry box and found a sentinel soundly
asleep within. They were now at the inner edge of the rampart but not at
the point at which they had originally intended to pass; the drop was at
least sixty-five feet, nearly double that which they had expected, but
they now unwound the ropes from around their bodies and cast lots as to
who should go down first. Three fugitives preceded Ellison and descended
safely, but Ellison could not hold the rope, which had become slack and
slimy, and let go his hold, finishing with a fall of fifteen to twenty
feet.
They were now at the bottom of the ditch, two of them, Ellison and
another, in horrible pain from their falls, but not seriously injured,
and after a rest they hobbled away to their selected hiding place in the
recesses of the wood. At this moment the gun fired announcing the
escape, but they crept further in amongst the bushes and were not
discovered. Here they lay four whole days and nights, two of them in
great bodily pain and all in much discomfort, for rain fell
continuously. On the fifth night, when the injured men were somewhat
stronger, they left the wood and reached the bank of the Meuse, now
closely pursued by villagers who were blowing horns. What was to be
done? They had run into the toils, the enemy was before and behind, the
river on each side and none of them swimmers. They turned off the road,
ran along the bank and to their great joy found a boat, into which they
jumped, and were across in a moment and very soon out of hearing of
their pursuers. Their situation was by no means secure, but they were
undisturbed and at dark resumed their march. Progressing by night, lying
in the woods by day, they had still plenty of food and a small supply of
brandy, but their chief need was lack of water. By the help of their
maps they kept in a pretty direct course, never entering a house or
holding any communication with persons they met. On the eleventh day
their hiding place was on the edge of a steep hill; one of the party was
now exhausted and almost spent, but they would not desert him, being
still resolved to sink or swim together. That evening they made a
somewhat earlier start and on reaching a village found to their dismay
that there were still many people about. One was a gendarme who
accosted them, demanding their passports with much insistence; although
he could not read, he demurred at accepting the papers put forward,
which were not really passports, and while the discussion was proceeding
a brigadier of gensdarmes came up and all was lost. “Ah, gentlemen,” he
exclaimed, “I am glad to see you; I have been expecting you for above a
week,” and pulling out a paper he read out their names and descriptions.
Next morning the disappointed fugitives under a strong escort began to
retrace their steps towards Verdun, which they re-entered on the second
day. “We made,” he relates, “as may readily be imagined, a sorry
appearance; our clothes bearing evident signs of what had been the
nature of our lodgings, and our linen shewing that it had not lately
been in the hands of the laundress. We were paraded through the streets
into the citadel and lodged in the Tour d’Angouleme, a small round
building with only two apartments, one above the other, with a circular
stair outside, leading to the upper one.”
Soon afterwards a posse of gensdarmes appeared and proceeded to make
rigorous search. The prisoners were ordered to strip to their shirts,
their hats and shoes were examined, their neckerchiefs, coats,
waistcoats and pantaloons and stockings were visited and explored, but
nothing was found until a button was seen to exceed a regular size and
when cut in two was found to contain a double louis d’or. After this
every button was disembowelled but no more cash was detected. Yet
Ellison managed to retain five double louis sewn inside his flannel
waistcoat and one under the arm of his coat. After the search, the
prisoners were separated, a sentry placed over them and no communication
allowed between them. The only food issued was a loaf of black bread and
a pitcher of water. No bedding was given, not even straw.
To have failed brought down on the recaptured runaways the full weight
of the commandant’s wrath. They were bullied, brow-beaten, threatened
with all manner of pains and penalties, until they would make confession
of what had induced them to attempt escape, who first suggested it, who
aided and abetted, who procured the tools, who did the actual work of
cutting out, and which of the fugitives had first proposed an escape;
and no credence was given to the reply that the subject of escape had
been the constant theme of conversation with the prisoners, a subject of
perennial interest to all captives since they were first deprived of
personal liberty. The commandant would believe nothing and in his fury
ordered the culprits to be put in irons hand and foot, and kept so
continuously day and night, subjecting them to exquisite torture in
their damp, dirty, dungeon, unable to cope with the vermin that infested
it. The irons were of diabolically ingenious design and very heavy, so
that at best those weighted with them could only shuffle about, moving
two or three inches at a time as far as the sill of the window for a
breath of air.
A still sharper recompense was to be their portion. It was decided to
remove them to another prison, Bitche, a gloomy fortress adjudged as the
receptacle for the turbulent and disorderly, a place so hideous that it
was commonly known as the “Castle of Tears.” En route they met fourteen
of their fellows chained together on their way to Metz for trial by
court-martial, on a charge of plotting to blow up the powder magazine of
the fort in which they were lodged. They had attempted to escape by an
underground passage leading out to the open. They had cut through the
wooden door, undermined an iron one, and in forcing the third alarmed a
sentry who gave the signal, and they were taken red-handed. Their trial
was long and patient, and ended in conviction with sentences to the
galleys for terms varying from seven to ten years. But after
promulgation the president of the court announced that as many of the
accused were British officers all would be pardoned out of respect for
their cloth.
Our prisoners proceeding to Metz were, contrary to usual custom, often
allowed to hire vehicles. The general rule was to march by
“correspondence,” passing, that is to say, from town to town, or
village, and from the headquarters of one brigade of gendarmerie to the
next at a distance of five or six leagues. The machinery existed really
for the transfer of conscripts, thirty or forty thousand of whom were
continually on the move through the country, either to join their
regiments or in durance for having already deserted. It was a common
sight to see thirty or forty of these conscripts chained in a string
like a lot of horses taken to a fair. It was a dismal procession from
brigade to brigade, and prison to prison. The long tramp by day, the
night spent under lock and key in cold damp places without fire or
special covering, or more than a scanty allowance of straw. Austrian and
Prussian prisoners were more harshly treated than the English or the
conscripts. One of the gensdarmes who had formed the escort of Prussians
into France told Mr. Ellison it was a constant practice to shoot in cold
blood any who fell down from fatigue on the road.
This fortress of Bitche which had such an evil reputation was situated
some thirty miles north of Strasburg and the same distance from Metz. It
stands upon an isolated rocky hill rising a thousand feet above a
verdant plain. It dates from the reign of Louis XIV and was so highly
esteemed as a frontier defence that vast sums were spent on its
construction. The French king, indeed, when called upon for more money,
asked whether it was being built of golden bricks. Although excavated
out of the solid rock, which was cut down perpendicularly from ninety to
a hundred and fifty feet deep, it was faced all round with masonry. The
central space was filled with barracks, store-houses and magazines. At
each end were two strong works styled respectively the Grosse Tête and
the Petite Tête, separate, but connected with the main fort by
drawbridges. Fifty feet below the Grosse Tête a mortar battery had been
built out and another battery mounting ten heavy guns commanded the
approaches to the entrance to the fort. This entrance was on the east
side where the carriage road, after winding round and round the hill,
ended in a long incline, raised upon arches, ascending to the drawbridge
and the main gate. Here began a tunnel, cut into the solid rock, blocked
by two other gates, one in the centre and one at the far end. The
garrison consisted of seventeen gensdarmes and a hundred veterans, and
the place was under the command of a Major Clement who is spoken of as
“a worthy, indulgent officer with much of the milk of human kindness in
him.” He desired to govern humanely and showed great forbearance, but
was very sorely tried by his charges, for the most part the refuse of
the other prison depots. At this place were congregated the dissolute,
the abandoned, the profligate, the drunken and the reckless.
The Grande Souterrain--the great underground cellar or main dungeon--was
a perfect pandemonium, filled with rough, savage sailors, desperate
dare-devils, rendered utterly reckless by interminable confinement,
untamable, ungovernable, a constant terror to their guardian, who
dreaded coming in contact with them. There can be little doubt that if
they could have seen their way to leave France finally they would have
risen, overpowered the garrison and walked straight out of the fort into
the country. They were ripe always for disturbance; the least thing
offended them. One of their crowd was an Englishman who bore a colonel’s
commission in the Russian service, but who had been arrested in France
on suspicion of being a spy. He was a prime favourite with the sailors
and when he was committed to the _cachot_ for some prison offence, they
combined and rescued him from arrest. Upon this the garrison of veterans
intervened, but their appearance on the scene was the signal for a
general mutiny. The prisoners tore up the guard beds to provide weapons
and armed themselves with great billets of fire wood, bidding defiance
to the old soldiers. Their leader, however, cautioned them not to be the
assailants. “Let us wait,” he cried, “till blood is drawn from any of
us; then we will fall upon the Frenchmen and murder the whole lot.”
Their attitude was so imposing, their determination so plain that the
authorities practically gave in and on being promised by the prisoners
that they would behave peaceably, withdrew their veterans.
Again, it was a standing order in the fort that all lights should be
extinguished at eight o’clock, but on occasions when fresh inmates
arrived, when drink was on tap and the spirit of rejoicing prevailed,
this regulation was openly defied. If the gensdarmes after mildly
protesting ventured down into the Souterrain they were met with a storm
of missiles, hats, shoes, and logs of wood were thrown at the lantern as
a target and then at the gensdarmes themselves, who were compelled to
beat a hasty retreat.
Boxing matches and prize fights were of constant occurrence and at first
the guards, not understanding them, desired to interfere, thinking the
prisoners might injure one another; their interference was fiercely
resented and the commandant decided to leave them alone, saying that if
they would they might kill each other; that he, for his part, would
listen to no more complaints, nor give the injured redress, and
henceforth the prisoners must govern themselves. They took him at his
word and disposed of all offences by a formal court-martial, chosen from
their own body, when accused and accuser were brought face to face and
the former, if found guilty, was forthwith flogged with a cat o’ nine
tails, which after use was entrusted for safe keeping to the brigadier
of gensdarmes. But no gendarme might raise his hand with impunity
against a prisoner. One dared to strike a sailor with the scabbard of
his sword, which the offended tar snatched out of his hand and threw
over the ramparts, adding, “There, you may go and fetch it for
yourself.”
All were determined prison breakers at Bitche; attempts at escape were
frequent, and kept the poor commandant constantly on the rack to
circumvent them. He was greatly blamed for the cruelty employed in
enforcing safe custody. One story is told of a ship’s carpenter who had
escaped from another depot but was caught and brought to Bitche, where
he was lodged in the Grande Souterrain. With active mind and practised
hands he contemplated breaking through from the underground into the
ditch of the fort and worked steadily, assisted by two more, night after
night until they had reached a last door. It was said that their
progress had been watched and regularly reported to the commandant by
his spies, and that when the final attempt was to be made the commandant
was stationed with a party of gensdarmes outside the door to meet the
fugitives as they came through. A cowardly attack was at once made on
them; they were fired upon and slashed at with sabres, so that two were
stabbed to death, but the third saved himself by jumping back into the
prison. As a warning to others, the two dead bodies were publicly
exposed next day, but so much disfigured by wounds that they were barely
recognisable.
Another nearly successful escape ended disastrously. A naval lieutenant
and five others, occupying a dungeon beneath the Grosse Tête, contrived
to loosen one of the iron bars of the grating and get through. They had
possessed themselves of a rope which they had made fast to another bar
and part of its length was left lying across the passage. Unfortunately
a sergeant with a relief of sentries, stumbled over the rope, and the
prisoners who were already outside, descended the rope in great haste
one after the other. It suddenly snapped; the lieutenant who was placed
lowest on the rope fractured his skull and the others following were
seriously injured. One strained both ankles; a second from concussion of
the brain lost his reason, and the remaining two were more or less
bruised.
On arrival at Bitche they were consigned to the Little Souterrain, only
thirty-one steps down and occupied by the better class of prisoners. Our
friends soon became habituated to their new quarters, which were less
objectionable than they had expected. They were permitted to hire beds,
bedding and linen from the town and purchase cooking utensils.
Provisions cheap and plentiful were brought for sale at the gate, but
all were marched down in turn under escort to do their shopping in the
town. They had been deprived of their watches and money on their first
arrival, but all valuables were presently restored to them. Trouble came
with the warm weather and with it intermittent fever, when the sufferers
were almost distracted with the noises around them,--dancing upon the
benches, singing, carousing. One of the party, luckily for himself, had
friends at court and was removed into a room upstairs, the inmates of
which had matured a plan for escape and were on the point of putting it
into execution. He was let into the secret, his coöperation accepted and
in a few days more he was gone; it was one of the first of the
successful escapes made.