Notable inmates of Mazas—Dr. de la Pommerais, the poisoner—Execution—Strange story of execution—Troppmann—Massacre of the Kinck family—Father suspected—Found to be Troppmann—His motives and measures—Troppmann’s trial and conviction—The theft of the Duke of Brunswick’s diamonds—La SantÉ Prison similar to Mazas—Its interior described—Labor on “contract” system—Objections—Variety of products—Mild rule—Religious tolerance—Prison library—Dietaries—No canteen and extras.

The great prison of Mazas received criminals of all sorts and of all degrees of atrocity in its day; and we may here review the cases of several of the most notable of these. The crimes of the French poisoner De la Pommerais followed so closely on those of Palmer, the English doctor who ruthlessly dealt death to so many of his friends and relations, that it is quite possible that the first named owed something of his inspiration to the example of the latter. The facilities offered to medical practitioners for the administration of lethal drugs have often tempted doctors to commit murder when greedy for gain. This Frenchman came to Paris from Orleans in 1839, when four and twenty years of age, and set up in practice as a homoeopathist. He gave lessons in that branch of science, opened a dispensary, and gave medical advice for small fees to the poorer classes. He was a pretentious youth, who sought to pass as a man of title, and called himself the Count de la Pommerais. He also craved the decoration of St. Sylvester from Pope Pius IX and the cross of the Legion of Honor, but obtained neither, as may well be imagined.

His fictitious rank, however, brought him a wife; the orphan child of a military doctor, whom he married much against the wish of her mother, a lady of some private means. Madame Dubrizy as she was named, lived only a couple months, and died in horrible suffering after having dined with La Pommerais. She had retained her fortune in her own hands, for she distrusted as well as disliked her son-in-law. He had produced securities as his contribution to the marriage contract, which she found were only borrowed for the occasion: by her death he came into her money.

Strong suspicion of foul play was aroused when a second sudden death occurred among his acquaintances. A Madame de Pauw, widow of one of his patients, died suddenly, although she did not appear to have suffered from any previous illness. The police had kept an eye on La Pommerais for some time past. His dossier, “social character,” was recorded at the Prefecture, and spoke of him as a dangerous intriguer, who was in the habit of visiting this Madame de Pauw frequently, although they were in very different stations in life. He made a great show, and was well received in society, but she was reputed a mere pauper. On this same dossier it was stated that he had probably poisoned his deceased mother-in-law, although there was no direct proof that he had done so.

Now the police ordered a post mortem on Madame de Pauw, which was entrusted to the eminent toxicologist Doctor Tardieu, who expressed his belief that she had been poisoned, but could find no trace of the drug. The cause of death had been certified as a fall down-stairs. Then the deceased’s sister informed against La Pommerais, stating that he had effected a large insurance upon her life. Here the influence of Palmer’s evil example was obvious. Next the criminal himself gave ground for fresh suspicion by his greediness in seeking payment of the policies which he held. They had been effected in eight different offices, and for a total amount of 550,000 francs. The guilty intention was clear, for the woman was in great indigence, and the first premium of 18,840 francs had been produced by La Pommerais. Further evidence was abundantly forthcoming when the doctor was presently arrested. A great quantity of different poisons was found in his surgery, especially digitaline, a preparation from the common foxglove, well known for its baleful effect upon the heart.

The actual arrest was made by the then head of police, M. Claude, who has told the story in his “Memoirs.” They were acquaintances, and La Pommerais had so far presumed upon it as to ask M. Claude to back him in soliciting the appointment of medical officer at Mazas prison. When the law was to be set in motion Claude kindly thought to break the blow to the man at whose table he had dined, and went in person to serve the warrant. He found the two, man and wife, at breakfast. “Good news,” he began, “you are to have Mazas. I want you to come there with me now.” The criminal changed countenance for a moment, but the police officer reassured him. “The fact is,” he went on, “the director of Mazas has never been favorably disposed towards you, and he may object, still, to your appointment. You must let me bring you together, and we will talk him over.” La Pommerais yielded with rather a bad grace, and, on reaching the cab at the door in which two policemen were already seated, he knew his fate. This miscreant had one redeeming quality; he was devotedly attached to his wife, and it is said that when about to kneel down at the scaffold under the fatal knife he gave a last kiss to the priest in attendance, “pour Clothilde.”

A very curious story was communicated to the press immediately after his execution, which has since been definitely contradicted. It was to the effect that a certain Doctor Velpeau had obtained a promise from La Pommerais that he would make him some sign after he had passed the threshold of the grave. Velpeau is reported to have said to La Pommerais: “When the knife falls I shall be there, just in front of the scaffold, and I shall arrange that your head, when decapitated, comes at once into my hands. I propose to whisper into your ear, ‘Monsieur, as we have agreed, will you now, on hearing my voice, lower your right eyelid three times, keeping the left eye open?’” Velpeau declared that he carried out his part of the compact, and was prepared to swear that the severed head had twice made the sign as arranged; but the eyelid would not lift a third time, and, although Velpeau again and again asked for the sign, none came, and the head assumed a fixed rigidity. Death had put an end to the convulsive spasms by which possibly the previous signs had been produced. The story is extravagant and apocryphal, for the AbbÉ Crozes, when invited to give his opinion, settled the matter by declaring that Velpeau had never had any conversation with the dead man, and as a matter of fact was not present at the execution at all.

France contains in her criminal records one of the worst murders ever committed in any civilised country. The Crime of Pantin, as it was called at the time, was the wholesale massacre of a family—father, mother and six children—with the sole idea of becoming possessed of property to which no survivor could lay claim. Troppmann, who perpetrated it, laid the plan with such devilish ingenuity that for a long time the guilt was attributed to the father, Jean Kinck, assisted by his eldest son, and the first inquiries were centred upon them.

On the morning of the twentieth of September, 1869, at an early hour a workman, in crossing the plain of Pantin beyond the Buttes-Chaumont, to the northeast of Paris, noticed the traces of much blood spilt upon the ground, and near them a blood-stained handkerchief. Further on he saw protruding above the ground a human arm imperfectly buried, and using a spade he dug up, first one body and afterwards five more,—the body of a woman and those of five children. Some of the clothes carried buttons with the address of a tailor in Roubaix, who recognised them as having been ordered by a fellow townsman, by name Jean Kinck. This Kinck was absent from home. He had summoned his wife and children to join him in Paris on the nineteenth of September. They had duly arrived and taken rooms at a hotel near the Northern Railway Station, where the husband was already staying, having registered himself the week before under the name, Jean Kinck of Roubaix. He did not meet his wife on arrival, and she seemed much upset, but went out almost immediately with all her children, and never returned. Next morning, however, Jean Kinck came in, went up to his room, changed his clothes and again left, but before the discovery of the corpses was generally known.

Suspicion was soon drawn to this supposed Kinck, and it was found that some one like him had bought a pick and shovel at a toolmaker’s shop, which, later in the evening, he had carried off in the direction of Pantin. No doubt he was bent on digging the graves of his victims. Full details of his appearance, his condition and ways of life presently arrived from Roubaix. He was fifty years of age, gray haired, short of stature and well built, an industrious, enterprising brush maker, anxious to extend his business; for which purpose he had left Roubaix five weeks previously for Alsace, where he already owned a house. He meant to sell it and buy a larger one, in which he could live, and, at the same time, carry on his trade. Madame Kinck, a native of Turcoing, did not favor this project. She did not want to move to Germany, as she did not speak the language, and differences had arisen between the pair, supplying some motive for the murder. Three days passed before any satisfactory information came to hand. Nothing had been heard of the father, Jean Kinck, nothing of the son, but the father had left Roubaix in the beginning of September, the son Gustav eight or ten days later: it was generally believed that the Kinck who appeared at the hotel of the Northern Railway Station was Gustav, as the personal description tallied with him better than with the father.

Now, as so often happens in mysterious criminal cases, a bolt came from the blue. Jean Kinck, or some one passing for him, was suddenly arrested at Havre. Chance had strangely intervened in the interests of justice, and detection followed in an entirely unexpected manner. News was telegraphed to Paris that Jean Kinck had been arrested at Havre under peculiar circumstances. On the morning of the twenty-third of September a young man entered a cafÉ on the sea front at Havre, and became engaged in conversation with a sailor, whom he met there. He was anxious to know what steps to take to secure a passage for America. “Your papers must be in order,” was the first answer he received, and it came, not from his friend, but from an officious gendarme, who was loafing about the place, and inspired by the restless spirit of interference which so constantly disturbs the official mind. “You have your papers of course?” He received a negative reply. “No? Then you must come with me to the police office.” There was nothing for it but to obey, and they started off together, chatting pleasantly, but the stranger was manifestly uneasy, and when there was a sudden stoppage in the traffic he slipped aside and ran towards one of the basins of the dock. The gendarme followed close in his tracks, shouting, “Stop him, stop him! He is a murderer,” and there was little hope for the fugitive amidst the gathering crowd. But with one bound he sprang into the water, caught a floating buoy, and hung on there between life and death until he was fished out by some of the sailors with ropes and boat-hooks, and brought to shore half drowned. He was carried to the hospital, where he was put to bed and interviewed at once by the Commissary, to whom he would make no reply. He was a young man of about twenty, short, dark, with black eyes, a long beaky nose and close cut hair, a description which answered in many respects, save that of youth, to the missing Jean Kinck. His identity was established, however, beyond all doubt by the papers found on him. All of them were documents connected with the Kinck family. There was a contract for the sale of a house in Roubaix; notes of hand signed by Kinck in favor of people of the town; the contract of a house from another proprietor, and a number of private papers and letters in a pocketbook with a morocco purse, trimmed with copper, containing several coins; a silk handkerchief and some five-franc pieces; a valuable gold watch, a second watch, a small ring, a medallion and a pocket knife. Doubts were still expressed as to the identity of Jean Kinck, and it was generally supposed that he was Gustav. But then other letters were found in his possession, addressed to a certain Troppmann, and eventually it was proved that this was really his name.

The police paid an immediate visit to Roubaix to make further inquiries, and found that this Troppmann was a personal friend of Jean Kinck. In the house were a number of letters purporting to be from the husband, but, as was explained in one of them, written by another hand because Kinck had injured his wrist. These were the letters that had persuaded Madame Kinck to come to Paris. When the judges undertook the interrogation it was proved beyond doubt that these were from a mechanical engineer, an Alsacian by birth, who had long been intimate with Kinck, and constantly visited him at the drinking shop of the “Re-union of Friends,” of which Kinck was proprietor. Troppmann, when questioned, freely admitted these facts, and it was soon plainly seen that he bore the marks of a recent struggle with some enraged female. His cheeks were torn and scratched with many wounds; there were marks of nails that had gone deep into his flesh. Troppmann, who was brought without delay to Paris and confronted with the corpses in the Morgue, made no difficulty of recognising and identifying them; and he went so far as to confess that the murder had been organised by the Kincks, father and son, with his knowledge, although he had taken no active part in it. He refused to throw any light upon the whereabouts of the Kincks. As the inquiry proceeded, witnesses came forward who recognised Troppmann as the person who had bought the pick and shovel at the tool shop, and all that was now needed was to prove a motive for the crime. His possession of Kinck’s watch and valuables was prima facie evidence, and there were those who spoke as to the close relations that had existed between them. Troppmann was greedy for money, and was continually proposing schemes, promising great profit to Kinck if he would go into them. He was for ever begging him to advance capital, but Kinck was cautious, and would not risk a sou. Not less did Troppmann devise plans, by which he might bleed Jean Kinck, and the last seemed likely to succeed. He declared that he had discovered in the Alsacian mountains a plentiful supply of precious metals, gold, silver and mercury in large quantities, ready to be extracted by any enterprising hand.

Jean Kinck’s movements were at last traced. He had left Roubaix on the twenty-fourth of August, three or four weeks before the discovery of the bodies at Pantin, saying he would return in a few days. He went into Alsace, and was met by Troppmann, with whom he travelled by diligence to Soultz. This was the last heard of him, although letters not in his own hand reached Madame Kinck at Roubaix. A search had been made, however, in the neighborhood where he had last been seen, and his body was at last found, not far from Wattwiller, in a forest at the foot of the ruins of the ancient stronghold of Henenflung. It had been buried beneath a heap of stones raised high above the grave. The cause of death was not immediately apparent, but doctors presently reported that he had been poisoned with Prussic acid administered probably from a flask. No doubt he had been inveigled to this spot by fictitious reports of the presence of gold. Thus the last victim was accounted for, Gustav Kinck, the eldest son, having been disinterred some days before at no great distance from the other bodies in the plain of Pantin. The chain of damning evidence was complete. Link by link it wound round the accused, and definitely secured conviction upon trial. But every point had first been elicited beyond all doubt by the “instructing” or interrogating judge at Mazas, although Troppmann long took refuge in persistent denial of every fact or in obstinate silence. At last came the confrontation. The prisoner, who was examined throughout at Mazas in a large cell in the infirmary, was taken down to the Morgue, and suddenly brought into the presence of the corpse of Gustav Kinck, but then just discovered. He was seized with violent emotion, hid his face in a handkerchief, and refused to look at his murderous handiwork. “Come now,” insisted the magistrate, “confess that you struck the blow.” “No, no, it wasn’t I.” And he repeatedly asserted that the elder Kinck had taken his son’s life. This was his line of defence in court, greatly elaborated by his counsel, Maitre Lachaud, perhaps the most famous and eloquent advocate who has practised at the French bar; but he also asserted that Troppmann had accomplices, who should have been arraigned with him, and he insisted that it was wickedly unfair to allow one culprit to bear the whole brunt of the crime. The jury, however, remained unmoved by his impassioned appeal, and almost immediately found Troppmann guilty on all counts, on which the judge, never having accepted the theory of accomplices and satisfied that the law had laid its hand upon the real perpetrator of the crime, sentenced him to death. He was sent to the Conciergerie to await removal to the Grand Roquette.

Troppmann spent his last hours in a vain combat with the authorities, but after maintaining it for some days he fell into a state of prostration, and, when he came out to die, was already a broken-down, worn-out, old man of fifty, more than double his years. When they came to warn him for execution, he essayed to appear unconcerned, and, throughout the remainder of the painful scene, fought hard, but of course fruitlessly, for his life. Although subjected to the “toilette” and secured by straps and cords, he managed to break loose when on the scaffold, and strenuously resisted as they led him to the block. When his neck was laid under the axe of the guillotine, he pushed it so far forward that the axe on falling would have struck his shoulder, but the executioner held him in his place and deftly touched the spring which released the knife, and all was over. But the dying man in his frantic resistance had managed to get the executioner’s hand into his mouth and bit it fiercely.

The trial of Troppmann was in its way a public scandal. The court was crammed with curious spectators, whose morbid minds drew them to stare at the hero of this horrible tragedy as though he were a wild beast in a menagerie, about to be subjected to physical torture. People of the highest rank and fashion demeaned themselves to gain places in the audience by any means; by social intrigues, by using private influence with the judges and officers of the court. Troppmann was the centre of attraction, the cynosure of every eye. His features and demeanor were closely scanned, his dress was commented upon critically. It was noted, also, that he was clean shaved. This was on the demand of his counsel, who hoped that his small, youthful face, which when smooth and hairless looked like that of a lad of fifteen, would impress the jury with the idea that he could not possess the strength to handle a knife with such deadly effect as had been exhibited in the cruel wounds of his victims. Before the barber, however, was permitted to use the razor, Troppmann was put into a strait-waistcoat (camisole de force); he was tied down in a chair, with one warder on either hand, ready to seize him and check any attempt at self-destruction. Troppmann laughed at these precautions, and plainly hinted that he had means of suicide at his disposal, of which they had no idea. It was known that Troppmann had himself manufactured the prussic acid he gave to Kinck. But he disdained to use them or to bring discredit on his family, a rather far-fetched nicety in a miscreant who had been guilty of such crimes.

They were not all murderers who passed through Mazas, although some were top-sawyers in the criminal business, such as Shaw, the Englishman who stole the Duke of Brunswick’s diamonds. It will be remembered that one of the most marked features in the eccentric character of the late Duke of Brunswick was his passion for precious stones. He long made Paris his principal home, and resided in a quaint old mansion in the Beaujour quarter, a house with red walls, massive gateways and innumerable bolts and bars. The Duke, a worn-out voluptuary, a faded old beau, who, on the rare occasions when he showed himself in public, came out painted, made up and bewigged, lived here quite secluded among his treasures, which he kept in an enormous iron safe. These jewels were valued at £600,000, a splendid collection, accumulated at great cost, and carried off by him when he fled from his principality. They served no purpose but to gratify his greedy passion for possession. Except when he had taken them out to gloat over them, these priceless gems never saw the light. He took the most painful care of them. They were lodged in an inner apartment, to reach which it was necessary to pass through the Duke’s study and bedroom. There were electric wires communicating with many bells to give warning of the approach of any unauthorised person; other bells were attached to the triggers of revolvers to fire them off automatically at any intruder. It was the Duke’s craze, not altogether unfounded, that thieves were always aiming at him. He thought that all the world wanted to rob him. At his particular request two police officers watched constantly over him, seldom letting him out of their sight, and keeping a careful eye upon his treasure house. The fact that the Duke of Brunswick’s house was full of rich booty was known to every depredator in Europe, and a thousand plans were devised to break in and rifle it. At last England acquired the questionable credit of overcoming all obstacles, and carrying off the Duke’s diamonds.

In 1863 the Duke had an English valet, a very confidential personage named Shaw, a native of Newcastle-on-Tyne. He had got the place in the ordinary way through a registry office, supported by first-class references, all forged; he proved himself to be a very excellent servant, quiet, attentive, much liked by both his master and his fellows. He was really the agent and confederate of a gang of thieves who had especially selected him for the job they had in view. It was his business to become familiar with the safe and its surroundings, taking the first opportunity to “lift” its contents when he could do so without danger to himself. The safe stood in a receptacle behind an iron door in the wall at the head of the Duke’s bed, and a silk curtain hung in front of this door, which was secured with special locks. These might be picked some day, but in behind was the great safe with its alarm bells and automatic batteries of firearms. There was infinite danger in interfering with these. Only the practised hand of some one in the secret of the machinery would dare to risk it. Shaw was patient and bided his time.

One day (December 17, 1863) the Duke sent for a working jeweller he employed, meaning to have certain changes made in the setting of some of his stones. In anticipation he opened the inner safe and, contrary to his custom, left it open. This did not escape Shaw, who was in attendance, but he hoped little from it until he saw his royal master, wearied of waiting for the jeweller, go out without relocking his safe. The Duke was satisfied to secure the external door at the head of the bed.

This was Shaw’s opportunity. He had a picklock, and soon used it with good effect on this the first obstacle. There was no second or inner defence, and the safe door being ajar the machinery did not work. He was, in fact, master of the situation, and with all haste made the most of it. The Duke’s treasures lay at his mercy, jewel-cases, diamond stars, bags of gold. He soon filled his pockets and hurried out, being careful to close the outer door and pull the curtain across, hoping that the abstraction might not be immediately observed. Having packed a small valise with a few effects he told a fellow-servant to take up his service with the Duke, on the ground that he was unwell, and then slipped out of the house.

The theft was, however, quickly discovered, and the French police were put on the alert. Shaw immediately betrayed himself by addressing an anonymous letter to a royal personage in London, in which the writer offered to restore to their rightful owners, the English royal family, certain jewels wrongfully detained by the Duke of Brunswick, on receiving a reward of 100,000 francs. This letter was at once handed over to the authorities in Scotland Yard, who passed it on to Paris. A postscript was added to the letter, stating that the writer would meet any messenger sent with the money at Boulogne. Acting at once on this clue, the French detectives hastened to Boulogne, and, visiting every hotel, soon found a young man answering the description, who was arrested and taken back to Paris. The diamonds were found in his possession. This Shaw, a tall, very thin young man, with a pale, intelligent face, and very bold, prominent eyes, was soon recognised by the police as a professional thief of English extraction, who had worked much abroad, and was indeed a cosmopolitan rogue, having committed many great robberies in the capitals of Europe, generally by the same means. He was sentenced to twenty years (travaux forcÉs), although the Duke, dreading the publicity of the Assize court, would not appear to prosecute.

The prison known as La SantÉ was situated in the rue de la SantÉ close to the Boulevard Arago, upon the left bank of the Seine. Founded and completed in the palmiest days of the French Empire, it was the newest and certainly long the best prison in Paris. Enthusiastic Frenchmen have, indeed, declared that it was the best and most beautiful building of the kind in Europe, but the statement is rather far-fetched. Coming twenty years later than Mazas, it was a marked advance upon that penitentiary, which it resembled in many respects. It consisted of two distinct divisions, or “sides,” and the inmates of each were subjected to different systems of imprisonment. In one, unbroken cellular confinement was the rule, in the other, prisoners occupied separate sleeping cells at night, but took their food and exercise, and worked together during the day. The former rÉgime was applied to all sentenced for the first time, the latter to rÉcidivistes, or habitual offenders, who fell into trouble again and again. The cellular division, that first reached when the threshold of the prison, with its sleepy gatekeepers and punctilious greffier, was passed, was cleaner and tidier than Mazas as I saw it, and altogether better kept. There were the same radiating wings, extending like the spokes of a wheel round a central nave, the rond point; in which was the same glass house or observatory, with an altar on top, towards which all the cell doors, as to their Mecca, religiously turned for the Mass. The cells were warmed and ventilated by an arrangement of hot water pipes and fresh air flues, just as is seen in every modern prison since the days of Sir Joshua Jebb. The cells at La SantÉ were spacious and fairly clean; their furniture and fittings of more modern design than those of Mazas. The hammock was replaced by an iron bedstead, the table was a flap, fastened on hinges to the wall, and a three-legged stool replaced the rush-bottomed chair chained by the leg. The floor was boarded, not paved with bricks, and no small pains were taken to polish the oak planks, which were rubbed vigorously till they shone like parquetry. All parts of the cells were not so entirely above reproach, and a severely critical eye would detect a certain want of neatness in the interior economy of many. Here and there rubbish was suffered to accumulate and lie untouched. Upon a shelf in one cell was a quantity of broken bread; in another several clay pipes and a half empty wine carafe; the walls of a third, occupied by a prison bookbinder, were hung with scraps of tawdry decoration, crucifixes, hearts, monograms shaped out of the gold leaf and colored paper which he used in his trade. Prisoners were permitted, too, to deface their cells with impunity by scribbling on the notice boards and writing on the walls. Remarks upon the articles supplied from the canteen appeared upon the price list. Expressions of regret, vows of vengeance, even, were recorded upon the boards of rules. The prison almanac, prepared by the good chaplain for the special behoof of prisoners, with appropriate texts and maxims, served really as a calendar, such as school boys keep, to mark off the days as they slowly dragged along towards release.

Behind and beyond the cellular quarter of the prison was the “associated” prison, consisting of two spacious quadrangles, in which were the exercising yards and the lavatories, while around it were arrayed the ateliers, or workshops, and the dining halls. Upon an upper floor were the sleeping cells, each containing a bedstead, and nothing more, each lighted by means of a large barred opening above the cell doors, through which shone the light of gas lamps in the corridors. The crowded ateliers of La SantÉ, instinct with busy life, were an interesting and instructive sight, and from them a fairly good idea could be obtained of the peculiar conditions under which prison labor is utilised in France. This is everywhere accomplished through the intervention of a contractor or employer from outside, who provides tools, materials and instructors, and takes in return half the earnings of the prisoners. The other half, known as the pÉcule, goes to the prisoner himself, and this is again sub-divided into the pÉcule disponible and the pÉcule reservÉ, the former of which can be drawn upon and expended by the prisoner in adding to his creature comforts whilst incarcerated; the latter, accumulating from day to day, to be handed over to him upon his release to provide means of support during those early days of freedom, when a man is hesitating between honesty and the temptation to relapse into fresh crime.

The contract system appears open to many grave objections; for instance, that it introduces “lay” or outside influences, erecting in the prison a second authority, to which prisoners look for praise or blame rather than to the constituted chiefs of the place. At times a certain antagonism might arise between the two; the one looks naturally to profits, the other to maintenance of effective discipline, and where the first was affected, the latter would no doubt sensibly suffer. As an instance of this may be quoted the case of prisoners sentenced to very short terms, who, if they are not already acquainted with some trade, do absolutely nothing at all whilst in prison. To teach them a metier would be to waste time and materials, and there is in France no “penal labor,”—as it is commonly understood in England,—no sharp, correctional employment, such as the treadwheel, stone breaking, or oakum picking, the execution of which requires no special previous knowledge or skill. As a matter of fact, therefore, prison has but few horrors for the offender committed for less than a week, except in the temporary loss of liberty; and in all that relates to physical comfort, indeed, in food, shelter and clothing, he is often far better off inside than out. His confinement may be irksome and monotonous, time may hang rather heavily on his hands; still he manages to get pretty comfortably through his days, lounging lazily about the refectories, or ranging up and down in the exercising yards, pipe in mouth, and gossiping with any one he meets.

These idlers, it must be confessed, were, at La SantÉ, the exception and not the rule. There was no little stir and bustle in the workrooms; the occupations were many and varied; the prisoners were industrious and often exhibited no mean skill. Parisians are naturally a quick-witted and nimble-fingered race, whose talents, when in durance, prison contractors know well how to turn to the best account. At La SantÉ we found tailors at work upon clothes for the slop shops, shoemakers and cobblers making excellent slippers and shoes. Here a cabinet-maker completed a drawing-room chair; there, by his side, an upholsterer covered another in damask or silk. Long rows of prisoners, seated upon benches, manufactured feather brushes for dusting furniture, or dolls and children’s toys, or paper boxes for bonbons and patent medicines, or frills of the same material for the cooks and confectioners. Some were staining and coloring sheets of paper for the bookbinders, to be subsequently varnished and polished; others, in large numbers, were employed upon the manufacture of papier-mÂchÉ boot buttons through all the various stages of inserting the eyelet holes in rows upon the pasteboard, stamping out the buttons, trimming them, hardening them and varnishing them. A certain air of contentment, if not of actual good humor, was visible on every side. Prisoners met my eye, and did not immediately hang their heads and look down. Silence was the general rule, but they talked sotto voce to one another, and to me if I cared to address them. One man, proud of his English, told me of “another English gentleman,” who recently came to La SantÉ. “As a visitor?” “Oh, no, as a detenu (prisoner).” Others, if I appeared interested in the work in hand, would explain all its intricacies, and return my salutation with the bow of a finished courtier when I took leave. All the while the warders in charge exercised an easy-going surveillance, and were evidently neither hard taskmasters nor severe disciplinarians.

In the workshops, as elsewhere, it was obvious that the prison rule did not err on the side of severity. Every care was taken to assure the moral and physical comfort of the prisoners. There were chaplains of all persuasions, and intolerance was unknown. For Roman Catholics, naturally the largest number, there were the regular services in the rond point, with which a large associated chapel communicated. There was a special chapel for Protestants, and a synagogue for Jews. A well-stocked library, annually replenished, provided literature of nearly every kind for all who cared to read. The books were carefully selected, but included works of fiction, which are often forbidden in the prisons of some countries. The only novels permitted however at La SantÉ,—and the choice implies a high compliment to English literature,—were translations of Dickens, Fenimore Cooper, Bulwer-Lytton, Marryat and Scott, which were admitted confessedly on account of their morality and purity of tone. These, it was said, were the books in most constant demand.

The hospital arrangements at La SantÉ, which was long a central depot for all male prisoners requiring prolonged treatment, were also excellent of their kind. The wards were large and lofty, and were well warmed by a clever contrivance, consisting of two concentric iron cylinders, one within the other, between which hot water circulated, while fresh external air was passed in at the base and diffused from the centre and top after being warmed. The clothing of all prisoners was good and sufficient, although custom had nicknamed the prison shirt la limace because it had all the rasping roughness of a file. As to food, the inmates of La SantÉ certainly could not complain. The diet of English prisoners of similar category may have been more varied, but it was scarcely more replete. There were two regular meals at La SantÉ, one about eight o’clock in the morning, the other at three. Both consisted of a pint, or more exactly, two-thirds of a litre, of thin soup, not unlike a poor Julienne, but tasty and carefully made by officer cooks, who winked pleasantly when I praised it, and agreed with me that it was pas mauvais, “not so bad,” after all. Twice a week, on Sundays and Thursdays, four ounces of cooked meat, without bone, were added, and on these days the prisoner got about twenty-seven ounces of bread. When there was no meat the bread ration was nearly thirty ounces. But the foregoing did not comprise all that the prisoner had to eat. Those who were in funds, whether from private sources or from the pÉcule disponible already referred to, were permitted to sweeten prison life and eke out prison fare by various articles of food on sale at the canteen. The list was long, and the prices were not extravagant. For a few centimes smoked herrings could be bought, or a slice of cheese, fresh and salt butter, sausages, cooked ham, liquorice, boiled potatoes and a fair allowance of red wine. Tobacco unlimited could also be purchased, a privilege often peremptorily forbidden elsewhere in many prisons, as are indeed all such toothsome additions as those just enumerated.

But La SantÉ passed away, absorbed into the new and extensive establishment at Fresnes on the outskirts of Paris, designed to remodel the entire penal system of the French government. La SantÉ was a long step forward in penology; and Fresnes, the next and a still longer step, has now to be described.