In French history, bagne is a term used to describe a penal establishment where forced labor was enforced. These establishments were typically in penal colonies or galleys where there were the port bagnes (or maritime bagnes). Not all convicts in the penal system were sentenced to forced labor.[1]
The word "bagne" comes from the Italian bagno, name of a prison in Livorno built on the site of a therma, an ancient Roman Bathhouse.[2] [3]
The galleys were originally port bagnes (or maritime bagnes), which explains why part of the vocabulary of bagne and the prison comes from the vocabulary of the galley slaves.
French colonial bagnes were established by a series of decrees in 1852 and 1853, supplemented by the Transportation Act of 1854. They were only abolished in 1938 (transportation to a bagne by deportation), and definitively abolished in 1945 (detention in a bagne). However, the last prisoners had to complete their sentences and were not released until 1953.[4]
At the French Guiana penal colony, doubling the sentence meant that all convicts had to stay on after serving their sentence, for a period equivalent to their initial sentence.
In France, the use of convicts as rowers on the royal galleys dates back to Jacques Cœur in the 15th century. The penalty of the galleys was systematically applied from Louis XIV onwards, under the impetus of Colbert, and particularly after 1685 to eradicate Protestantism following the Edict of Fontainebleau. The Galleys's arsenal was located in Marseille. The galleys were the first penitentiary system to be organized on a kingdom-wide scale. With the September 27, 1748 decree, Louis XV abolished the galley corps.[5] [6]
Disembarked galley slaves, known as chrome, were then assigned to the port bagnes (except galley slaves selected for rowing) and were required to work in the Navy's ports and arsenals. The Toulon bagne, the Brest bagne and the Rochefort bagne were created for this purpose.[7] [8]
The Galères Royales, headed by a galley general independent of the Admiral of France and served by a special corps, was originally based in Marseille where all the prison facilities were located until the middle of the eighteenth century. The rowers generally remained on board when the galleys stayed in Toulon. But in 1748, Louis XV decreed the abolition of the Galères corps and their attachment to the Royal Navy.[9] Toulon became the base for the galleys that left Marseille for good, as its penal colony was abolished. From then on, Toulon had to house the convicts. At first, this was done on the galleys, to which vessels were added, and which came to be known as floating bagnes. By the end of the 18th century, there were some 3,000 convicts in Toulon.[10] They were mainly employed in heavy labor, earthworks, and construction, in the Arsenal and even in town. The convicts' clothing, consisting of a cap and a habit, differed in color according to the nature and reason for their sentence. Under the Ancien régime, convicts were branded with red iron. One foot was encircled by a ring fitted with a chain to immobilize them. The "toughest" were chained two by two; the ball and chain was a disciplinary punishment, along with caning with rope. These punishments gradually eased. Food, which included little meat and a ration of wine for the workers, was mostly based on dried vegetables, hence the name "gourgane" ("beans" in Provençal) given to their guards.[11]
Due to the poor sanitary conditions, in 1777, a hospital was set up in the casemates of the southeast rampart of Darse Vauban, where additional buildings were erected against the rampart. Then, in 1797, the hospital moved to a huge 200-meter-long building, oriented north-south, built-in 1783 along the western quay of the Vieille Darse, called the "Grand Rang". This building had a vast vaulted first floor with three bays; the hospital occupied the first floor. Two square corner towers with pyramidal roofs completed the north and south sides; the convicts' chapel was housed in the northern tower. The rest of the building was used for administrative services. The able-bodied convicts had been housed where the hospital used to be. In 1814, they were moved to a 115-meter-long east-west building, perpendicular to the hospital, built in 1783 on the south-west quay of the Vieille Darse, between the Chaîne Vieille de la passe and the Grand Rang. Nearby, a ship known as the "Admiral" was moored to guard the channel and fire the morning and evening cannons.[12]
Attaching the penal colony to the navy made it easier to organize the workforce. Equipping and fitting out a first-rank vessel (over 100 guns, 3 decks) cost an average of 1million livres tournois, or around 150million euros today.[13] Successive conflicts (the Seven Years' War, the American War of Independence, and then the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars) forced France to try to compete with the British fleet. The development of galleys in the arsenals of Toulon, Cherbourg, Brest, and Rochefort was directly linked to the need for forced labor to build and rebuild the French fleet. Although rare, galleys continued to be used during the Revolution, as demonstrated by the law of August 22, 1790, which imposed the penalty on thieves or carriers ashore of a ship's ammunition worth more than fifty francs. Some prisoners were convicted under the Ancien régime, with the penal code of 1791.
From the time of the Directoire and then the Empire, there was a return to a policy of repression. The number of convicts rose from 4,000 in 1795 to 10,000 in 1812. The 1810 Penal Code transformed the galley sentence into an iron penalty. This sentence did not change the way convict labor was carried out in the arsenals. It wasn't until the transportation policy was introduced in 1850 that the French prison system changed.[14]
From the 1840s onwards, politicians wanted to remove criminals from France. This policy of transportation began with the military prisons (disciplinary companies) set up in Algeria at the start of the colonial conquest. This transfer was justified by promoting the colony's development, which transformed it into a penal colony.
The law of May 27, 1885, introduced relegation for repeat offenders, leading to "perpetual internment on the territory of French colonies or possessions": after their sentence, convicted repeat offenders could not return to metropolitan France. They must serve a double sentence of relegation equivalent to the duration of their hard labor sentence.[15] [16] [17] This is known as "doubling". Convicts refer to each other as "toughs", "those below", "crowbars", or "those above", to distinguish between first-time offenders ("toughs") and repeat offenders ("those above"). The prison administration does not mix them.[18] This would refer to the location of each group in the holds (top or bottom) of the prison ship (the Loire, then the Martinière) making the Atlantic crossing.[19]
The maritime bagnes were then transferred to Cayenne in 1852, and to New Caledonia in 1864, at a time when the Navy was switching from sail to steam, making the need for manpower less important. This transfer was also because convicts from mainland France were taking work away from honest workers and were considered too dangerous to be kept in the country (police reports point to a relaxation of discipline in the maritime convict colonies). It was against this backdrop of European imperialism that Napoleon III instituted colonial penal colonies with the law of May 30, 1854, article 1 of which stipulates that "in future, the penalty of hard labor will be served in establishments created by decree of the Emperor, on the territory of one or more French possessions other than Algeria. Nevertheless, in the event of an impediment to the transfer of convicts, and until such impediment has ceased, the sentence will be temporarily served in France".[20]
In 1836, the Toulon prison had 4,305 inmates, 1,193 of whom were sentenced to life: 174 to over 20 years, 382 to between 16 and 20 years, 387 to between 11 and 15 years, 1,469 to between 5 and 10 years and 700 to less than 5 years. Many famous convicts spent time here, including Vidocq in 1799, Marie Lafarge in 1840, and the impostor Pierre Coignard. As for Jean Valjean, he was Victor Hugo's imagination.[21] The Toulon penal colony ceased to exist in 1873. Its buildings were distributed among various military services involved in coastal defense, including the Centre d'études de la Marine and the Artillerie de côte. They survived until 1944 when they were almost destroyed.
On September 4, 1891, the implementing decree on prison disciplinary regulations prohibited convicts from receiving any remuneration for their work. However, after the publication of the decree, convicts (the lightest sentences and transported prisoners who had completed their sentence) continued to receive a salary when they worked for the prison administration. They can also work on their account.[22]
Under the Second Empire and the Third Republic, deportation was reserved for spies, political activists, and traitors (Alfred Dreyfus, though subsequently found innocent, was sentenced to deportation). As French political prisoners, deportees were not required to work. This was not the case for prisoners from the colonies. Transportation applied to convicts sentenced to forced labor. It was accompanied by doubling the sentence: anyone sentenced to less than 8 years of hard labor had to reside in the colony for a period equal to that of the sentence, under house arrest.
After 1868, the cost of the return journey to France or North Africa remained the responsibility of the convict. However, due to the lack of work in the region, most released convicts were rarely able to pay for their return.[23] For sentences of hard labor exceeding eight years: after serving their sentence, convicts were assigned to reside in the colony for the rest of their lives. Convicts were divided into categories (law of May 1854):
The first three categories could be authorized to work outside penitentiaries and camps for private individuals (family boys) or the administration. They could also receive a concession (land to develop) and, later, an urban concession (bakery or other work of collective interest).
The sentence of relegation did not apply to any particular offense. It was enough to have been convicted several times to be relegated to French Guiana. Relegation was always for life. There were two types of relegués:
The French army also set up colonial military prisons in North Africa, intended for strong-headed convicts and the military service of common-law convicts. The convicted soldiers were derisively called "joyeux" (happy). From 1889 (introduction of compulsory national service for convicts from civil courts), many of the soldiers from the special corps (from Biribi) made their way through the following bagne archipelago: correctional homes for minors (Petite-Roquette and other prisons for minors) and penal colonies (Colonie de Mettray and other colonies), colonial bagnes in North Africa, Bagne de Cayenne.[24] [25] [26]
The agricultural and maritime penal colonies for minors were veritable schools for crime. Following the 1810 penal code's separation of adults and children, some experiments were made on juvenile delinquents. Another agricultural colony experiment began in 1824. Young inmates from the Gaillon Central Prison were sent to work in the fields daily.[27] A colony was set up there in 1847 due to the acquisition of the Douaires farm. This institution closed in 1925. In 1832, Count d'Argout proposed apprenticeships for these children, but this proposal was not accepted, and in 1836, a prison was set up for children: Petite-Roquette in Paris. In 1840, the first private agricultural colony was set up in Mettray, Indre-et-Loire.[28] It was intended for juvenile delinquents who were to be employed in agricultural work. Following this, the law of August 5, 1850, generalized this type of establishment, and some fifty private agricultural colonies were set up throughout France.[29] An agricultural penal colony was also established at Le Luc in the Gard department from 1856 to 1904.[30] [31] [32]
On January 8, 1861, on Île du Levant, the Sainte-Anne agricultural penal colony was officially authorized to open. Its aim was to clear the island's land for cultivation.[33] The first contingent arrived on March 23, 1861. When the Ajaccio children's prison closed, 65 convicts were transferred to Sainte-Anne on September 28, 1866. A revolt broke out on October 2, leading to the deaths of more than a dozen children, before order was restored on the island on October 4 by an army and gendarmerie detachment. A trial followed in January 1867. The colony was finally evacuated on November 23, 1878. A memorial has been erected on the site of the cemetery, consisting of a stone with plaques listing the names of the children who died there.[34]
For insubordinate offenders from the agricultural colonies and for children under 16 sentenced to more than 2 years, the state set up a more repressive structure called "Colonie Correctionnelle". This penal institution for young inmates was set up in Corsica, in the Ajaccio region, in the Saint-Antoine valley, under the name of Colonie correctionnelle de Saint-Antoine.[35] The establishment was a state-run detention center, a veritable children's penal colony. They were abolished, along with the agricultural colonies, with the 1945 Ordinance on delinquent children.
It was the 1934 revolt of the Belle-Île-en-Mer colony[36] [37] that led to the 1945 reform.[38] This revolt inspired Jacques Prévert's poem La chasse à l'enfant. Jean Genet recounts his journey from the Mettray penal colony to the Fontevrault power station in Miracle de la Rose.
In October 2020,[39] an archaeological excavation campaign on Reunion Island studied the island's agricultural penal colony. This former children's penitentiary on îlet à Guillaume was founded in 1864 and run by the Missionary Congregation of the Holy Spirit. Up to 4,000 children were confined here.[40] Its closure was ordered in 1871, but only became effective in 1879. It has been listed as a Historic Monument since 2008.[41] [42]
On the initiative of the Guyanese Gaston Monnerville, undersecretary for the Colonies, a decree-law of June 17, 1938, signed by French President Albert Lebrun abolished deportation, but detention in a penal colony remained in force until 1945. On August 1, 1953, the last convicts and their supervisors returned to France.[43] [44]
There is only one prison in French Guiana, but it is made up of several camps and penitentiaries.[46]
Communards were deported there.
The Nosy Lava penal colony is on the island of Nosy Lava.
There were 11 penitentiaries in this territory. Until 1938, some of the Indochinese convicts were transported to other French prison sites to make up for the shortage of manpower due to losses in living conditions.
During the Napoleonic era, Italy boasted the bagnes of Genoa, Civitavecchia and La Spezia.[48]
The figure of the convict and the penitentiary were to inspire the literature of the 19th and 20th centuries. Victor Hugo, in Les Misérables, Jean Valjean and the chain gang to the Toulon penal colony.