The depot of the Prefecture—Procedure on arrest—Committal to Mazas—Origin of Mazas—First inmates victims of the coup d’État second of December, 1852—Description of Mazas—The rÉgime—The cells—The prisoners and their dietaries—Method of conducting divine service—Escapes from Mazas—Chief Parisian criminals have passed through it—Demeanor of the convicted upon arrival and while waiting the extreme penalty—Abadie and Gilles—How affected.

He of whom the law falls foul in Paris finds himself in due course at the depot or prison of the Prefecture. This has been called the universal prison, for it is the portal through which all offenders, all actual or suspected law breakers, must necessarily pass. It receives, examines, rejects and releases, or commits for further proceedings, a whole world of people. The continuous stream passing in and out includes all classes, men and women, old and young, the healthy and the infirm, Parisian and provincial, natives and foreigners of nearly all nationalities. It has well been called a place of deposit, in which all are impounded who have gone astray under suspicious circumstances. Every one is brought here,—the criminal and the degenerate; the luckless and the unfortunate; the vagabond, the lost or abandoned, the weakminded and the unprotected. Three times in every twenty-four hours, the cellular omnibuses lodge all they find in their rounds of the sub-police stations, the violons, so called from the well-known musical instrument, and also from an instrument by which prisoners’ feet are bound.

The process of arrest and treatment at the violon has been graphically described by one who has been through it. “As soon as my name had been inscribed on the register, the brigadier in charge promptly ordered me to empty my pockets, and not to forget anything. After this, to make quite sure, I was personally searched, and everything of value, and much that was not, was taken from me; my collar, my necktie, one cigar, my penknife, watch, purse and even my braces, were all put into my pocket handkerchief and tied up. As they were taking me away to the cell I begged that my braces and pocket handkerchief might be returned. The rude answer was, ‘You must hold up your trousers with your hand, and blow your nose as best you can. That’s enough;’ and I was very summarily locked up in one of three cells at the end of the passage; a dirty looking place, smelling like a rabbit hole, and already occupied by a ragged creature, who immediately demanded tobacco; and, on my saying I had none, asked me to stand treat for some food as he had not eaten since the day before. I ordered this out of compassion, and he devoured it voraciously, then went soundly to sleep upon the wooden guard bed. It was bitterly cold, and towards morning my companion, saying that he was half frozen, battered at the door, and asked permission to go out into the large room and warm himself by the stove, a privilege accorded to me also.

“At an early hour the omnibus came, and I was taken to the depot, where I was registered in the outer office, and then passed in to undergo the ordeal of the petit parquet, where I was subjected to the interrogations of one of the substitutes of the Procureur of the Republic. The work is done quickly. Time presses. There are many cases to be examined and disposed of.”

The plan of procedure is the same for all. Where the offence is venial the culprit is speedily set at large. Others whose guilt is clearly proved, or who make a clean breast of it, are passed on without a moment’s delay to the correctional police. It is only for those who are charged with grave crimes, with robbery, forgery, murderous assaults, and the like; whose cases are surrounded with doubt, or who obstinately refuse to confess, that the whole machinery of the French law is set in motion. The accused is then handed over to the tender mercies of one of the juges d’instruction, in order that, at all costs, the ends of justice may be assured. The examination was conducted until recently in a manner abhorrent to all ideas of fair play. It is the rule in a free country that no man need incriminate himself. In France the accused was fully expected to do so. He was, indeed, forced into it if he would not do it of his own accord. Under the system which prevailed till quite recently the judge in turn cajoled, beguiled and hectored the accused. He set pitfalls and wove snares; he repeated his questions in a dozen different forms; he had recourse to coups de thÉÂtre, and openly produced the piÉces de convictions, the weapons used in a murder to confront a supposed criminal, or brought him face to face with the reeking and revolting remains of the victim. Sometimes judge and accused were fairly matched, and there was as much fence and finesse, as much patient cunning and persistency on the one side as on the other. Sometimes the moral torture was more than the prisoner could bear, and he abandoned his defence. It is of record that a murderer, maddened by the assiduity of the interrogating judge, cried suddenly: “Yes, I did it. I can deny it no longer. I’d rather be guillotined than be bullied like this.” But in most cases the process of investigation ordinarily extended over many days. The prisoner was brought up again and again before he was finally arraigned. Even then there was a further delay before he was convicted and received sentence. All this time he spent at Mazas, the old maison d’arrÊt cellulaire. He now goes, after sentence, to Fresnes, on the outskirts of Paris, the imposing prison recently erected to replace Mazas.

But Mazas had a history. It was associated with the chief criminality of Paris for more than half a century, and a detailed account of it should be preserved. It was the first tardy effort of the French to follow in the path of prison reform, and was first opened on the nineteenth of May, 1850, to receive the seven hundred inmates of the then condemned La Force. Elsewhere prisons and their inmates had occupied a large share of public attention in the first half of the nineteenth century. The United States led the way with plans of amelioration, and the prisons of Auburn and Sing-Sing were conspicuous examples of the new order of things. In England, Millbank Penitentiary had been erected regardless of cost, after a scheme originated by John Howard and Jeremy Bentham, and had given place after thirty years of experiment to Pentonville, built under the auspices and personal supervision of some of the most distinguished Englishmen of the day. France alone lagged behind. The question was discussed there, but little more than talking was done. Two eminent publicists, MM. Beaumont and De Tocqueville, had visited America in 1837, and published a valuable monograph upon the penitentiaries of the United States. In 1840, an energetic and philanthropic prefect of Paris, Gabriel Delessert, converted, by his own authority, the boys’ prison of La Petite Roquette into a place of cellular confinement. Still, it was not till 1844 that the principle of isolation and separation for all prisoners was accepted even theoretically, in France. Five years more elapsed before Mazas, the first French prison built in accordance with modern ideas was ready for the reception of prisoners.

It must be confessed that, although French prison administrators were slow to put their hands to the work, when once it was undertaken they did their best to make the new establishment a success. The best models of the time were adopted and closely followed. The architect of Mazas, if he did not exactly imitate Sir Joshua Jebb, the eminent English engineer who gave the model for prison construction to all the world, was clearly inspired by him. In its main outlines Mazas greatly resembled Pentonville. The ground plan was much the same. There was the same radiation of halls or divisions from a common centre. The same tiers of cells rise story above story. The size of the cells (ten feet by six), the method of ventilation and warming, by means of hot water pipes with extraction flues and furnaces in the roof, are nearly identical in the French and English prisons. Nor was it only in the construction of Mazas that the French authorities sought to secure the perfection of the new arrangements. With a tenderness for the welfare of the occupants of the prison, which contrasted almost violently with their previous apathy as to the treatment of criminals, they tested its sanitary fitness by filling it for a time with paupers, before it was opened for prisoners. No evil effects having appeared among the former it was deemed safe for the latter and presently became the place of detention for all male prÉvenus or prisoners awaiting trial. Such it long continued, and has only been replaced by Fresnes since 1898.

The newly constructed prison of Mazas played its part in the Napoleonic coup d’État of 1853. It became for the time being a political prison. When the Legislative Assembly was invaded and the Chamber forcibly dissolved, two hundred of its members met at the Mayoralty of the Tenth Arrondissement. The place was surrounded by the troops. An order to disperse was issued, with the alternative of a transfer under escort to Mazas. Their leaders were already imprisoned, among the number Generals Cavaignac, LamonciÈre and Bedeau; Colonel Charras, MM. Thiers, Broglie, Odillon, Barot and Remusat. It was feared that to commit a larger number to gaol might create a disturbance, and the deputies now arrested were confined in the barracks near the Quai d’Orsay. The only interesting fact connected with this high-handed treatment of political opponents by the founders of the Second Empire was that M. Thiers had been the minister who, in 1849, had decreed the building of Mazas, and was, as we have seen, one of the first to occupy it. History repeats itself. Often before, as in the cases of Hugues d’Aubriot at the Bastile and Cardinal La Balue at Loches, men had been cast into cells of their own creation.

Mazas, in the half century of its life, was always a striking object on the boulevard of the same name, which had been so called after a distinguished soldier of the First Empire, the Colonel Mazas who was killed at the Battle of Austerlitz. It was well known to all travellers to the South of France from the busy Gaol de Lyon, and with its grim faÇade of dark granite was in strong contrast to the bright boulevard crowded with vehicles and animated passers-by. It was the privilege of the present writer to pay it a lengthened visit in its palmy days, and he may be permitted to draw upon his own experience in describing it.

The outer approaches were easily passed. A first gate was unlocked by a warder in dark green uniform, with white metal buttons, bearing the badge of an open eye. This gate led into an inner courtyard, surrounded by storerooms and waiting rooms with the faÇade of the director’s residence—bright with masses of green creeper growing luxuriantly on one side. On the ground floor was a second portal where another Cerberus kept guard. To the right of this second entrance was the office of the greffier, or registrar of the prison, whose business it was to examine the credentials of all who would penetrate into the body of the prison. It was his business also to take a minute description of all prisoners on their reception, a formality known as the Écrou, or enrolment upon the prison books. These books are voluminous, but are very accurately and carefully kept. The signalement of the prisoner gave all information concerning him, a full account of his personal appearance, of the clothes he was wearing, and of his position in life.

The greffier satisfied, a few more steps led us to another door, and this passed, we were in the rond point, or central hall of the prison. In the middle of this was a circular office and observatory, with sides entirely of glass, where a superior warder was posted to exercise a general supervision over the long corridors of the radiating wings. There were six of these wings arranged in three tiers or landings, each containing two hundred cells, after making due deductions for cells appropriated as bathrooms and parloirs d’avocats, or places where prisoners have private interviews with their attorneys. The whole prison at that time accommodated some eleven hundred souls. Although displaying a strong family likeness to prisons of its class, there was nothing particularly striking about the interior of Mazas. The prison was not very trimly kept. There was an absence of that spick and span cleanliness, that glittering prison polish, that freshness of paint and whitewash, which are generally deemed indispensable in every first-class prison. Untidy bales of goods, containing work just completed by the prisoners lay here and there awaiting removal; there was a good deal of litter about, and a suspicion of dust and soot. The walls throughout were stained a muddy, yellowish brown, which could not have been renewed for years. The passages were floored with brick, as were also the cells. Odors the reverse of fragrant in places assailed the nostrils. The system of introducing fresh air and extracting foul, although based on sound principles, did not seem to be thoroughly effective. Flushing was carried out by hand from water-cans supplied to the prisoners, and was altogether unsatisfactory. But with the cells and their furniture no great fault could be found. The former were light and airy, the latter supplied their occupants with those bare necessaries which are usually conceded to the inmates of prisons. The prisoner’s bed was a hammock with a mattress stuffed with wool or hair, and he had sheets and one blanket; in winter two blankets. A small table was built into the wall, about the centre of the cell. Over it was a gas jet, and close by was a straw-bottomed chair, attached to the wall by a chain just long enough to allow the prisoner to move his seat to and fro. Besides these he had an earthenware basin, a tin dinner dish, a large tin bottle for water, a drinking cup, a wooden spoon and spittoon. The cell walls were adorned with official notices: the regulations of the prison, in which all that the prisoner must and might not do was set forth with considerable prolixity; an inventory of what the cell contained and a list of prices, approved by the Prefect of the Police, of the articles of consumption which the prisoner might buy at the prison canteen with the money he earned or was sent him by friends. Prisoners unconvicted were, naturally, not compelled to work in prisons, but they were invited, even persuaded, to do so, and were at liberty to expend half the money they might earn in purchasing small comforts or adding to their daily fare. Those who preferred it were permitted, as elsewhere, to supply themselves altogether with food; and in cases where the prÉvenu was of good family, if he or his friends were in funds, his meals came straight from a good restaurant or his own home.

The inmate of Mazas could not well complain of the neglect of the authorities, nor, judging by outward appearances, of the harshness of their rule. In addition to many minor indulgences, he was permitted to purchase a certain fixed quantity of wine, three double decilitres of good ordinary Bordeaux,—“vieux, pur, naturel, franc de goÛt,” it is set forth in the canteen notice,—and as much tobacco as he could smoke when and where he pleased. He had an excellent library of books at his disposal, and might see his friends from outside when he chose. In some respects, indeed, he might deem the official solicitude for his welfare a little exaggerated and misplaced. The law was before all things anxious that he should do himself no harm. The precautions against suicide were many and minute, and included the deprivation of all dangerous weapons, with constant observation, extending, if necessary, to the unceasing companionship of two or more fellow-prisoners. With the recalcitrant prÉvenu who refuses to plead guilty these cell-comrades had other duties to perform. They acted also as moutons, (the prison spies already spoken of), and wheedled the unconscious prisoner into incautious confessions, of which full use was made later. Thus the notorious murderer, Troppmann, confided his secret to his prison attendants, and greatly assisted the prosecution thereby. In his case the most extraordinary care was taken to prevent his laying hands upon himself. During his long detention he was not allowed to shave, lest he should injure himself with the razor. He appeared in court with a long beard, which his advocate insisted should be removed. The demand was only reluctantly conceded; and the operation was carried out under the close surveillance of a number of officers after putting him in a strait waistcoat and tying him into a chair.

Except, however, where the ends of justice seem to require a special departure from the rule, isolation, that is, the complete separation of prisoners one from the other, was strictly maintained at Mazas. All the arrangements of the prison were based upon this idea—the private boxes of the parloir, or visiting cell; the separate compartments in the exercising yards, where each prisoner ranges like a beast in a menagerie up and down a narrow cage, in shape like a wedge cut out of a plum cake; all are meant to secure the great end. Even the method of conducting divine service was such that every prisoner could attend mass without seeing or being seen by his neighbors or leaving his own cell. This was effected by establishing an altar on the top of the office in the rond point, or central hall. The aumonier, or prison chaplain, who officiated here, could be seen from every cell in the prison. All the doors were bolted ajar by a very ingenious arrangement. The long steel bar which usually secured the cell was shot for the time being into a ring projecting from the casing of the door, and thus a long, narrow aperture was left facing the altar, but only a few inches wide. This system no doubt prevented the intercommunication possible in an open chapel; yet, while this can be reduced to a minimum where discipline is strong and supervision effective, the prisoner alone in his cell was under no surveillance at all. He could behave just as it suited him. A close observer, Maxime du Camp, examined thirty-three cells, and observed what their inmates were doing while mass was being said. Three only were reading their missals and following the priest; one was on his knees; one was standing uncovered, looking towards the altar; one had opened his prayer book, but for choice was looking at the Magasin Pittoresque; one other, with his head buried deep in his arms, was shaken by a paroxysm of tears.

Escapes were rarely attempted at Mazas, and if tried were scarcely ever successful. Once a practised locksmith contrived to remove the fastenings of his cell during the night, to get through the bars beyond and lower himself into the yard, where he found a scaffold pole, and raising it against the first wall climbed up by it to the top. It helped him also to descend to the far side, where he came upon the night watchman wrapped up in his cloak and sleeping peacefully. The boundary wall had still to be surmounted, but the scaffold pole was too short. Foiled in this direction the fugitive retraced his steps and now attacked the grating of the chief sewer which passed under the outer wall, flowing towards the river. He climbed down it, but unhappily for him found that the Seine was in flood, and, being unable to swim, was all but drowned. He managed to extricate himself, however, and, being now thoroughly worn out and disheartened, he returned to his cell, where the evidence of his fruitless efforts remained to convict him next morning. Two other prisoners made a somewhat similar attempt. They also removed their windows, lowered themselves by ropes made from their bed sheets, and, gaining the yard, forced the grating of the sewer by means of bars taken from their iron bedsteads. They entered the sewer, and, traversing it for some distance, were stopped by a much larger grating, which separated the prison branch from the main sewer. This they also forced and were at liberty to issue forth, if they pleased, upon the Seine. But by this time the alarm was given; the fugitives were traced into the prison sewer; all the sewer mouths were closely watched, and the two men were re-captured a couple of days later.

Mazas as the prison of the prÉvenus, the receptacle of all persons accused of serious crime and detained on reasonable presumption of guilt, was intimately associated with the passing criminality of Paris for fifty years. Every Ishmaelite, charged with raising his hand against his fellows, passed through its forbidding portals to emerge once more, if fate was kind to him, or if convicted, to disappear into its inner darkness. Confinement in a trial prison is the most painful phase in the criminal’s career. He is a constant prey to sickening anxiety, or the plaything of exaggerated hope. He alternates between overmuch confidence and dreadful despair. His surroundings affect him according to his quality. The cellular isolation, which is his almost invariable lot, may be grateful to the victim of circumstance, whether really innocent or by no means hopelessly bad. The old offender, on the other hand, suffers acutely, it is said, not so much from remorse as from boredom and disgust; less from the prickings of his conscience than self-reproach at having played his cards badly and failed in his latest attempt at depredation. In any case the days are long when spent in a separate cell, awaiting judgment, the nights dark and often sleepless and interminable. We have authentic assurance that the end of it all, the very worst,—conviction, sentence, the heaviest, the extreme penalty of the law,—comes as a distinct relief, and although a certain, shameful death is now before him, the condemned prisoner sleeps soundly on his final return from court. The prisoner condemned to death is generally worn out with the struggle for life. He is wearied, mentally and physically, and wishes, as a rule, to forget the horrible episode which has kept his faculties tense-strung, and, for a time at least, he sinks into apathy and is more or less callous of his impending fate. Now and again, and this is specially characteristic of the French prisoner, he is defiant with cynical bravado. He may be passive, or active, as in the case of Camp, who, when he reached his cell on return from the court which had sentenced him, was seized with a fit of fury, and, catching up a log of wood as a weapon, rushed at a warder and attempted to murder him. A curious trait in all condemned men is the survival of hope to the very last.

In France, where in capital cases an appeal to the law for the revision of the proceedings is the rule, the convict is always buoyed up by the chance of reprieve, and never finally yields until the officials enter his cell on the last dread morning, and he is awakened to hear the words, “It is for to-day.” This means that death is imminent, and that within a few minutes, half an hour at the outside, the guillotine will have done its work. It is a cruel process, that of postponing all knowledge of the exact day until it has arrived; although in France murderers will exhibit the most ferocious tiger-like attitude when it comes. “Dread anticipation never leaves them,” a French chaplain, l’AbbÉ Crozes, of the Grande Roquette, has recorded. “As the inevitable day approaches they are consumed with the liveliest fears, and are possessed with one single idea, that of escaping death.” Two miscreants, guilty of the most bloodthirsty murders, Abadie and Gilles, who waited for three months before the end came, told the same good priest that every morning at four o’clock they awoke in an agony of terror, and only recovered about six, when the hour for communicating the dread news had passed for the day. A similar story is that of the French noble, lying with the rest of the prisoners in a Revolutionary prison, who, as often as he heard the list for execution each morning and missed his name, cried out with intense relief: “The little man has another day to live.”

The French practice of withholding from the criminal information as to the day of his death until almost the moment for execution has arrived is cruel enough; but this chapter has shown an amelioration in French prison conditions of such extent that the cruelty of that practice may be condoned.