Jean Keff escaped Le Bagne de Toulon! (…sort of)

I wondered whether Retronews.fr (the BnF’s old newspaper site) might have anything to say on the subject of Jean Keff and Pierre Keff. To my surprise and pleasure, it did…

Escape From Le Bagne de Toulon

I quickly found two short news articles from 1872 concerning Jean Keff’s escape from Le Bagne de Toulon, in the same year that he and his brother were imprisoned there:

L’Événement, 20 Octobre 1872, p.2

Toulon, 18 octobre. – On a constaté, il y a deux jours, l’évasion de deux forçats, Fireil et Keff, condamnés, le premier à 15 ans de travaux forcés, et le second à perpétuité. Keff est né à Strasbourg, et c’est l’idée de devenir Prussien qui l’a déterminé, dit-on, à s’évader.

La Gironde, 19 Octobre 1872, p.2

On a constaté le 14 de ce mois deux évasions du bagne de Toulon, celles du nommé Jean Foreit, condamné à quinze ans de travaux forcés, et de Jean Keff, condamné à perpétuité, le premier pour vol qualifié, et le second pour viol. Keff est né à Strasbourg. Il est probable que l’idée de s’affranchir en devenant Prussien l’aurait déterminé à s’évader. Mais tout donne à croire que, pas plus que son camarade, il ne réussira à se soustraire aux recherches de la justice, leur signalement ayant été immédiatement envoyé à toutes les autorités.

Because these are so similar, here’s my translation for the second (and slightly longer) of the two (which seems to have first appeared in the Petit Marseillais, 17 Oct 1872, p.2, but which I had to find by hand because Retronews hadn’t indexed it, bah):

On the 14th of this month, two men escaped from Toulon prison: Jean Foreit (serving fifteen years forced labour for robbery) and Jean Keff (serving life imprisonment for rape). Keff was born in Strasbourg, so it is likely that the idea of freeing himself in order to become a Prussian would have been his motivation to escape. But everything suggests that, no more than his comrade, he will not succeed in evading justice, details of their escape having immediately been sent to all the authorities.

Errm… That Didn’t Go To Plan

A little bit of follow-on Googling handily revealed that the two Jeans’ escape indeed failed to go to plan. Here’s what Le Petit Marseillais, 25 Oct 1872, reported (which I found online here):

Voici quelques nouveaux détails assez curieux sur l’arrestation des deux forçats évadés du bagne de Toulon.
On les croyait d’abord cachés dans les magasins généraux de l’arsenal et supposant les avoir là bloqués on espérait les prendre par la famine.
Pendant, ce temps les deux forçats avaient réussi à prendre la clef des champs, ils ne marchaient que pendant la nuit et se dirigeaient, par la montagne, vers la frontière. Arrivés dans le canton de Trets sur la route d’Aix à St-Maximin ils avisèrent une maison isolée et s’y présentèrent hardiment pour demander l’hospitalité. Mal leur en prit, car ils venaient de tomber en pleine caserne de gendarmerie du Rousset. On divine bien l’accueil qui leur fut fait. Le lendemain ils furent conduits sous bonne escorte à Aix, et delà à Toulon, où les portes de bagne s’ouvrirent de nouveau pour eux.

My translation (note that even though the article doesn’t specifically mention Keff’s name, it was published less than a fortnight after the previous story, so I think it extremely likely both are connected):

Here are some new and rather curious details about the arrest of the two convicts who recently escaped from the Toulon penal colony.
It had initially been thought that the two had hidden in the general stores of the arsenal and, assuming they had been stranded there, the hope was to starve them out.
However, while all that was going on, the two convicts succeeded in scarpering via the back door, and, walking only at night, headed via the mountain road towards the border. When they arrived in the canton of Trets on the road from Aix to St-Maximin, they noticed an isolated house and confidently presented themselves there to ask for hospitality. This, however, worked out badly for them, because the house was in fact right in the middle of the Rousset gendarmerie barracks. It really isn’t hard to imagine the welcome they received there. The next day the two were securely escorted to Aix, and from there to Toulon, where the prison doors opened once more for them.

(The story had previously been briefly reported in Le Petit Marseillais, 24 Oct 1872, p.2: “Les deux forçats dont nous avons annoncé l’évasion du bagne de Toulon ont été arrêtés par un gendarme dans la commune de Rousset. Ils avaient encore au pied l’anneau du bagne.“)

Escaping from Le Bagne de Toulon

As an aside, anyone living in Toulon was incentivized to capture prison escapees: according to the Petit Marseillais 24 May 1873 p.3, you’d get 100 francs for an arrest outside the city walls, 50 francs inside the city walls, or 25 francs inside the port itself.

Searching Le Petit Marseillais for 1872-1873 revealed only two actual escapees from Le Bagne de Toulon in those years: Jean Canot and Francois Truchet on 28 Sep 1872. The final report (before the Bagne was close down) of an attempted escape was on 5th Apr 1873:

Hier, après-midi, cinq forçats se sont évadés du l’arsenal ; ils ont exécuté leur opération en plein jour, en franchissant le mur d’enceinte.

Le premier qui s’est évadé a failli, en sautant, tomber sur les épaules d’une femme qui passait sur le chemin de ronde.

Afin de dissimuler la coupe des cheveux, qui aurait pu les compromettre, ils s’etaient munis de couffins qui leur servaient de parasol et de coiffure à la fois ; puis, comme ils n’avaient pas de temps à perdre ils filaient lestement en ayant encore les fers aux pieds. Tout à coup ils se trouvèrent en présence d’un obstable imprévu. C’était un factionnaire intelligent qui, étonné de voir circuler des condamnés sans l’assistance d’un garde chiourme, leur barra résolument le passage.

Pendant que I’on essayait do parlementer, la gendarmerie maritime, qui était lancée à leur poursuite, vint mettre un terme aux explications.

Les cinq forçats ont été ramenés au bagne, avec une note qui leur donne droit au prochain départ pour la Nouvelle-Calédonie.

A quicky translation:

Yesterday afternoon, five convicts attempted to escape from the arsenal in broad daylight, clambering over the perimeter wall.

The first to escape almost fell on the shoulders of a woman walking on the rampart while jumping.

In order to conceal their haircuts, which could have given them away, they had brought along baskets which served as both parasols and head wear; then, as they had no time to waste, they sped nimbly off, though still wearing irons on their feet. Suddenly they found themselves in the presence of an unforeseen obstacle. This was an intelligent sentry who, astonished to see convicts circulating without the assistance of a guard, resolutely barred their passage.

While trying to talk their way past him, the maritime gendarmerie, which had been in hot pursuit, quickly appeared, putting a rapid end to their discussion.

The five convicts were hauled back to the penal colony, and given a note entitling them to the next departure for New Caledonia. [Which held the Pacific prison that many of the Toulon bagnards would soon be moved to.]

The Nouvelle Caledonie Prisons

As an aside, you might think that escaping from France’s maritime prisons on New Caledonia (in the Pacific!) would be completely impossible. Yet a number of convicts did manage to escape and make the crossing to Queensland. Arguably the most famous was Henri, Marquis of Rochefort (editor of “La Lanterne”), who made it across along with a number of his fellow Communard political prisoners in March 1874.

This 1955 paper claims that in the decade to 1884, “no fewer than 247 escaped convicts from New Caledonia had landed in Australia”, though the figures given to Queensland’s Attorney General in 1883 (quoted in the much more recent paper here, p.563) was significantly lower.

But technology killed that whole route stone dead: when an undersea telegraph cable was established between New Caledonia and Australia in the 1890s, any final hope of escape by sea dwindled to nothing.

French Prison Tattoos – Fleurs de Bagne

One last thing: on a French tattoo-themed fashion brand’s website, I learnt a little about “Fleurs de Bagne” – prison tattoos. Perhaps more importantly, the page included a reading list for books about Fleurs de Bagne:

• Les Tatouages du milieu by Jacques Delarue and Robert Giraud
• Au Bagne by Albert Londres
• Une Histoire Du Milieu by Jérôme Pierrat
• Dry Guillotine by René Belbenoit
• L’Argot du Milieu by Jean Lacassagne
• Le Travailleur de la Nuit, a comic book about Alexandre Jacob
• Les Pegriots by Auguste Le Breton

I’m hoping that one of these might possibly fleetingly mention French prison ciphers but… that’s just the kind of lucky dumb stuff I tend to hope for, without really believing it will come true. I guess that’s why I sit here surrounded by unbelievably niche books. 😉