The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

1

The History and
Romance of
Crime

FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES
TO THE PRESENT DAY

THE GROLIER SOCIETY
LONDON

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Madame Roland Incarcerated in Sainte Pélagie

From the painting by E. Carpentier

One of the innocent and most distinguished victims of theFrench Revolution, whose memoirs were written in prison,and who will be longest remembered by the exclamation, “Oh,Liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name!” utteredwith her dying breath when facing the guillotine.3

Modern French Prisons

BICÊTRE—ST. PÉLAGIE—ST. LAZARE
LA FORCE—THE CONCIERGERIE
LA GRANDE AND LA PETITE ROQUETTES
MAZAS—LA SANTÉ
by
MAJOR ARTHUR GRIFFITHS
Late Inspector of Prisons in Great Britain
Author of
“The Mysteries of Police and Crime,”
“Fifty Years of Public Service,” etc.
THE GROLIER SOCIETY

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EDITION NATIONALE

Limited to one thousand registered and numbered sets.

NUMBER 307

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INTRODUCTION

The period in French prison practice treated inthis volume is one of transition between the end ofthe Old Régime and the beginning of the New. Itpresents first a view of the prisons of the periodimmediately following the Revolution, and concludeswith the consideration of a great model penitentiary,which may be said to be the “last word”in the purely physical aspects of the whole question,while its very perfection of structure and equipmentgives rise to important moral questions, which mustdominate the future of prison conduct.

Throughout the first half of the nineteenth centurythe combat with the great army of depredators wasunceasingly waged by the champions of law andorder in France, to whom in the long run victorychiefly inclined. As yet none of the new views heldby prison reformers in other countries had madeany progress in France. No ideas of combiningcoercion with persuasion, of going beyond deterrenceby attempting reformation by exhortation; ofcuring the wrong-doer and weaning him from hisevil practices, when once more sent out into theworld, obtained in French penology. At that earlier...