While looking for lists of people “condamne a mort” in the tumult of 1871 France, I stumbled upon a list of 34 convicts who had escaped from France’s Pacific prisons in Nouvelle-Caledonie prior to 1876. (Which was what I had actually hoped to find, but hadn’t believed my archival luck was strong enough to do so.)

Anyway, the table I found in the Journal officiel de la Republique francaise, 17 Janvier 1876, p.19 (thanks to retronews.fr) was a pretty good starting point. However, according to this 2010 article by Pierre-Henri Zaidman, it was incomplete. For example, in January 1872, the minister for overseas affairs wrote that “jusqu’à présent trois évasions seulement ont été accomplies avec succès“, and Zaidman has no names for those three. (Though I’m guessing these were Villin, Patras, and Marsay.)

Even though I started by using (paywalled) filae.com to find individual bagnard’s records, I also subsequently found a (free) online database (courtesy of the Archive Nationales d’outre-mer) that allows you to search the same records (e.g. by searching the ‘Notes’ field for “evade”). This was very helpful, and allowed me to extend the search backwards by a few years.

Finally, I also found “L’ Archipel des forçats: Histoire du bagne de Nouvelle-Calédonie (1863-1931)” by Louis-José Barbançon, which is an excellent resource.

The List of Escaped Convicts

Barbançon says (p.202) that 25 convicts were thought to have escaped during 1866-1870, and 184 during 1871-1880, though I believe these figures includes les disparus.

All the same, I should point out that the length of the list below is perhaps slightly deceptive. For example, it seems certain that the entire group with Dr Paul Rastoul on 12 Mar 1875 drowned when their boat hit the reefs off l’île d’Ouen. So, while they did technically escape, it can hardly be said that they got away. 🙁

Barbançon discusses this at some length: had these convicts escaped or merely, ummm, disappeared? The reaction of the prison authorities seems to have been little more than a collective Gallic shrug: either way, such people were no longer their responsibility.

  • 07 Jan 1866
  • Louis Charles Benoni Villin (no prison record, but he seems to have subsequently married Marie Damariste Phalenie Bouguignon on 06 Mar 1883 in Freniches)
  • 12 May 1867
  • Etienne Lonjarret (b. 19 Jul 1833)
  • Auguste Alexandre Gence (b. 29 Sep 1837) (but appears to have died in Paris in 1887?)
  • Francois Manipoud (b. 1829), fratricide
  • Francois Marion (Marion’s body was the only one of the four that was found)
  • 17 Jul 1867
  • Joseph Patras (b. 19 Jul 1843), murder
  • 27 Aug 1869
  • Pierre Marsay (b. 22 Aug 1829)
  • 6 May 1873
  • Isidore Petit (b. 12 Oct 1840)
  • 9 Nov 1873
  • Jules Deslandes, 29 years old, “tourneur-repousseur” (and Communard)
  • 3 Jan 1874
  • Edmond Moriceau (b. 25 Mar 1837), the notes say he was supposed to have “parti pour Sydney”, but also that he died 4 May 1879?
  • 7 Jan 1874
  • Paul Robin 1837-1912
  • 27 Jan 1874
  • Two (unnamed?) convicts escaped (according to Zaidman)
  • 20 Mar 1874
  • Paschal Jean Francois Grousset 1844-1909 [politician, journalist, translator and science fiction writer] wrote “Les condamnés politiques en Nouvelle-Calédonie” (1876) with Francois Jourde
  • Olivier Pain 1845-1884 [journalist]
  • Victor Henri Rochefort de Lucay 1831-1913 [Marquis de Rochefort-Luçay, see “Henri Rochefort : déportation et évasion d’un polémiste” (2004) Joël Dauphiné]
  • Francois Jourde 1843-1893 (wrote “Souvenirs D’Un Membre de La Commune“)
  • Achille Ballière 1840-1905 (architect, wrote “La Déportation de 1871: Souvenirs d’un Évadé de Nouméa“)
  • Charles Bastien
  • Charles Grantille (perhaps Grandthille?)
  • 23 May 1874
  • Francois Coutouby, 37 years old, “agent d’affaires et marchand de vin”
  • 20 Jan 1875
  • Ernest Harenger, 37 years old, “cordonnier, ancien militaire” (believed drowned during an attempted escape)
  • 12 Mar 1875
  • Eugène Barthélemy (b. 17 Sep 1847)
  • Martin Louis Berger (b. 12 Oct 1841)
  • François Palma (b. 02 Jun 1840)
  • Michel Eugene Galut (b. 09 Mar 1841)
  • Vincent Guigue (FR ANOM COL H 84)
  • Alexandre Eugene Gilbert (FR ANOM COL H 82)
  • Charles Auguste Emile Demoulin (b. 30 Aug 1851)
  • Pierre-Marie Alexandre Masson (b. 31 Jan 1847)
  • Mathieu Chabrouty (b. 13 May 1853)
  • Marcel Julien Roussel (b. 01 Apr 1850)
  • Louis Auguste Leblant (b. 30 Jan 1838)
  • Henri Gaston Edat (b. 21 Feb 1854)
  • Louis Garnier [no mention of an escapee by this name in the prison files, though convict Louis Hubert Garnier died in hospital in 1875?]
  • Jean Savy (b. 15 Sep 1838)
  • Dr Paul Emile Bethelemy Philemon Rastoul (b. 01 Oct 1835)
  • Auguste Ledru (b. 22 Jun 1829)
  • Jean Antoine Auguste Saurel (b. 06 Dec 1842)
  • HippoIyte Jules Sauvé (b. 07 Sep 1839)
  • Prosper Gaspard Ephege Adam (b. 16 Jan 1848)
  • Edouard Duchesne (b. 06 Dec 1842)
  • 20 Jun 1875 — (group landed at Wide Bay near Maryborough, all given an amnesty in 1879)
  • Emile Charles Paty (b. 16 Nov 1842)
  • François Décombes (b. 11 Mar 1833)
  • Laurent Brissard (b. 09 Jul 1845)
  • Pierre Graillot (b. 08 Jan 1851)
  • Alexandre Joseph Rousseau (b. 02 Jul 1841)
  • 4 Jul 1875
  • Louis Jean Baptiste Merchez (b. 04 Mar 1842) [Note that he appears to have had a son Paul Henri Merchez in 1886 with his wife Zaire Irma Hennion (b.1846)]
  • Eugene Sellier (Aged 37 in 1874)
  • 10 Jul 1875
  • Gilles Etienne Excoffier (b. 13 Nov 1843), journalier, house-breaker [Appears to have died in 1917]
  • 27 Oct 1875
  • Claude Faury (b. Jan 1843)
  • 9 Nov 1875
  • Adolphe Eugene Fabret (aged 41 in 1874)
  • Jevin (?)
  • Denis Louis Roch Siblanc (aged 29 in 1873))
  • Martin (?)
  • Barrely (?)

More for your Manet…

Finally, just because I like to spoil you, here’s Manet’s painting of Henri Rochefort and his five fellow Communard escapees rowing from Nouvelle-Caledonie to Australia.

15 thoughts on “Convicts escaped from Nouvelle-Caledonie…

  1. john sanders on May 12, 2021 at 10:51 pm said:

    All those bad ass Frogs on the lam puts me in mind of two later scoundrels Henry Charriere (Papillon-Banco) and Charlie Sobhraj le serpent who spent his formative years in my neck of the woods. I once stayed in the room where he was trapped I believe at Malaysia Hotel in Thailand. All rather ho hum, I know!….

  2. misca on May 14, 2021 at 3:41 am said:

    “Frogs”

  3. D.N.O'Donovan on May 14, 2021 at 8:18 am said:

    Distance from New Caledonia to nearest eastern shore of Australia – specifically, to Brisbane – is 794.51 nautical miles. Or, if you prefer, 1471.43 km or 914.30 miles.
    Now, on nice, quiet river a racing crew can ideally do a maximum of
    6:40min for a 2000m race. That’s roughly 5mins for 2 kilometers. So if the sea were glassy calm, and you could keep up a racing pace (and if your boat were a racing shell, not a normally heavy rowboat), you might cover the distance in 730 hours – a month of 30 days.
    At the end of which, even if that were possible, you’d arrive dead of exhaustion.

    More reasonable would be to suppose that unless they had an outrigger with sails, rowing that distance would take at least 3-4 times as long.

    How much food and water do three men need for 3 months? Not to mention the seasonal cyclones in the hot season and storms and exposure in the cool season.

    I’m more inclined to think these chaps managed to get passage on some ship, or were rescued half-dead at sea.

    They weren’t exactly like Lieutenant William Bligh, a trained captain, who was set in the ship’s launch with maps and navigational instruments.

    Never mind Manet, it’s still a fine painting.

  4. D.N.O'Donovan on May 14, 2021 at 8:21 am said:

    Forgot to document the rowing metrics. My source was online for this one.
    https://docs.rowinginmotion.com/en/metrics.html

  5. john sanders on May 14, 2021 at 11:07 am said:

    Yep Frogs, as in honest to goodness Frenchmen who aren’t ashamed of the label. As opposed to Quebecois who choke if accused of being Canucks, so pissed that they can’t get away with calling themselves “Frogs” like the French do. Oui misca na?

  6. John Sanders: have you really nothing better to do than this kind of thing?

  7. john sanders on May 14, 2021 at 12:18 pm said:

    Nick Pelling: Merely shoring up defences to determined snide platitudes on two fronts. I’ll discontinue like barbs in the interests of fair arbitration if it offends the status quo. Peaceful discourse has always been my habit unless subjected to taunts…

  8. john sanders on May 14, 2021 at 2:47 pm said:

    D.N. O’Donovan: Seems you were spot in with your assessment of a more likely option than rowing all the way to Australia vis a vis V. H. Rocheforte’s escape by row boat in 1874 as depected with some perceived licence by Monet some years after the fact. My understanding is that Henri and his shipmates got passage to San Francisco in a freighter and shortly thereafter he could be seen pushing his contraband thoughts on the Continent. So no need to worry about prevailing winds or ocean currents afterall.

  9. john sanders on May 14, 2021 at 10:54 pm said:

    Edouard Manet should never be confused with Claude Monet like I just did. Nice picture of the men in the boat though and personally I thought he was a pretty talented fellow despite some bad press and a short artistic career. In 1880, the time of the painting, there were ten thousand plus French prisoners in New Caledonia alone, more than any of their other places of incarceration except in France. Con dao Island was one such hell hole from the same period where I once played the part of a prison guard in a film set there in the 30’s about patriot Tan Duc Thanh. The original barracks with it’s non cusodial cemetery are beautifuly preserved ready for French tourists who are not expected any time soon sadly.

  10. Byron Deveson on May 15, 2021 at 11:03 am said:

    JS, you are 100% wrong about Misca.

  11. john sanders on May 15, 2021 at 2:42 pm said:

    BD, I’ll bow to your better knowledge; could have sworn misca was Canuck.

  12. Byron Deveson on May 15, 2021 at 10:44 pm said:

    Many Canadians don’t have French heritage.

  13. D.N.O'Donovan on May 15, 2021 at 11:01 pm said:

    John,
    Thanks for the rumour about a freighter. Checking the facts, and doing even the roughest feasibiity studies (even with sloppy math) is now an engrained habit with me whenever someone presents their personal flight of imagination (or in this case an imaginative vision of flight) as a ‘theory’ about historical objects and events.

    The ‘rowing to Australia’ notion though evidently circulating in Manet’s day struck me as worthy of at least the basics of a feasibility test.

    Actually, the comment I expected from some one or other was a nitty-gritty criticism of the maths. So thanks.

  14. Pas une grenouille, pas du Québec. on May 16, 2021 at 2:28 am said:

    Merci beaucoup à Byron pour sa gentillesse se porter garante de moi. Bien que je sois descendu des terriers dans mes recherches, je n’ai jamais essayé de tromper ou de créer une “ruse”.

  15. john sanders on May 16, 2021 at 8:44 am said:

    Byron Deveson & Co. Well sacre bleu mon amis. I was worried that if by chance I ever made it to the Calgary Stampede or Montreal frog hop, I might not be able to deal with Quebcois as she is spoke in my schoolboy French (1 term), assuming that les Canadiennes de Canuck used it exclusively and effluently. Merci beaucoups to you both and bon chance with your candidates in the big Somerton Cup coming soon. PS – Does anyone still read William Service. I understand he lived in Regina.

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