Bagne (penal establishment)
In French history, bagne [baɲ] is a term used to describe a penal establishment where forced labor was enforced.
[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.
[5] 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.
[8][9] 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 convicts' clothing, consisting of a cap and a habit, differed in color according to the nature and reason for their sentence.
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.
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".
Nearby, a ship known as the "Admiral" was moored to guard the channel and fire the morning and evening cannons.
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.
[1] 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.
This policy of transportation began with the military prisons (disciplinary companies) set up in Algeria at the start of the colonial conquest.
[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.
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.
Many famous convicts spent time here, including Vidocq in 1799, Marie Lafarge in 1840, and the impostor Pierre Coignard.
[22] On September 4, 1891, the implementing decree on prison disciplinary regulations prohibited convicts from receiving any remuneration for their work.
Following the 1810 penal code's separation of adults and children, some experiments were made on juvenile delinquents.
Following this, the law of August 5, 1850, generalized this type of establishment, and some fifty private agricultural colonies were set up throughout France.
[30][31][32] On January 8, 1861, on Île du Levant, the Sainte-Anne agricultural penal colony was officially authorized to open.
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.
Jean Genet recounts his journey from the Mettray penal colony to the Fontevrault power station in Miracle de la Rose.
This former children's penitentiary on îlet à Guillaume was founded in 1864 and run by the Missionary Congregation of the Holy Spirit.
[48] 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.
Victor Hugo, in Les Misérables, Jean Valjean and the chain gang to the Toulon penal colony.
