# Crainquebille, Putois, Riquet and other profitable tales/A Servant's Theft

A SERVANT'S THEFT
BOUT ten years ago, perhaps more, perhaps less, I visited a prison for women. It was an old chateau, built in the reign of Henry IV; and its high slate roofs frowned down upon a dark little southern town on the banks of a river. The governor of the prison had reached the age of superannuation. He wore a black wig and a white beard. He was an extraordinary governor. He had ideas of his own and kindly feelings. He had no illusions concerning the morals of his three hundred prisoners, but he did not consider them to be greatly inferior to the morals of any three hundred women collected haphazard in a town.
"Here as elsewhere we have all sorts and conditions," his gentle, tired glance seemed to say.
As we crossed the courtyard, a long string of prisoners was returning from a silent walk and going back to the workshops. Many of them were old and ​of hard, sullen aspect. My friend Dr. Cabane, who was with us, pointed out to me that nearly all these women had characteristic physical defects, that squinting was not uncommon among them, that they were degenerates and that nearly all were marked with the stigma of crime or at least of misdemeanour.
The governor slowly shook his head. I saw that he was disinclined to admit the theories of criminologists. He was evidently still convinced that in our social groups the guilty do not greatly differ from the innocent.
He took us to the workshops. We saw the bakers, the laundresses and the needlewomen at their tasks. The atmosphere of work and neatness imparted almost a cheerful air to the place. The governor treated the women kindly. The most stupid and the most perverse failed to exhaust his patience and his benevolence. His opinion was that one should excuse many things in those with whom one lives and that one should not ask too much even from misdemeanants and criminals. Unlike most persons, he did not require thieves and procuresses to be perfect because they were being punished. He had little faith in the moral efficacy of punishment, and he despaired of making his prison a school of virtue. ​Being far from the belief that persons are rendered better by suffering, he spared these unfortunate women as much suffering as possible. I do not know whether he was religious, but for him the idea of expiation had no moral significance.
"I give my own interpretation to the rules," he said," before applying them. I myself explain them to the prisoners. For example, one rule is absolute silence. Now if they were to be absolutely silent they would become mad or imbecile. That such is the object of the rule I cannot think for one moment. I say to them: the rule commands you to keep silent. What does that mean? It means that the wardresses must not hear you speak. If you are heard you will be punished; if you are not heard you will incur no reproach. You have not to give me an account of your thoughts. If your words make no more sound than your thoughts then your words are no affair of mine. Thus admonished, they endeavour to speak without, if one may say so, uttering any sound. They are not driven mad and the rule is kept."
I inquired whether his superiors approved of his interpretation of prison rules. He replied that inspectors frequently reproached him, and that then he conducted them to the outer gate and said: ​"You see this railing; it is of wood. If you confined men here, in a week's time there would not be one left. The idea of escaping never occurs to women. But it is prudent not to make them furious. As it is, prison life conduces neither to physical nor to moral health. I resign my governorship if you subject them to the torture of silence."
The infirmary and the dormitories, which we visited next, were in great white-washed halls which retained nothing of their ancient splendour except monumental mantelpieces in grey stone and black marble surmounted by pompous Virtues in high relief. The figure of Justice the work of some Italianate Flemish artist of about 1600, with bare neck and hip protruding through parted drapery, held suspended from one stout arm its unequally balanced scales, the plates of which clinked against each other like cymbals. This goddess seemed to menace with the point of her sword a little sickly form lying on an iron bedstead, upon which was a mattress as thin as a folded towel. It looked like a child.
"Well! And are you better?" asked Dr. Cabane.
"Oh! yes, sir, much better."
And she smiled. ​"Come then, you must be good and you will get well."
She looked at the doctor with wide eyes full of joy and hope.
"This little girl has been very ill," said Dr. Cabane.
And we passed on.
"What was her offence?"
"It was no mere offence, it was a crime."
"Ah!"
"Infanticide."
At the end of a long corridor, we entered an almost cheerful little room, furnished with cupboards and with windows which, devoid of iron bars, looked on to the country. Here a very pretty young woman was writing at a desk. Standing near her another with a good figure was looking for a key in a bunch hanging from her waist. I might have taken them for the governor's daughters. He informed me that they were two prisoners.
"Did you not notice that they wear prisoner's dress?"
I had not noticed it, doubtless because they did not wear it like the others.
"Their dresses are better made and they wear smaller caps which show their hair."
​"It is very difficult," replied the old governor, "to prevent a woman showing her hair when it is beautiful. These two are subject to the ordinary regulations and compelled to work."
"What are they doing?"
"One is keeper of the records and the other is librarian."
There was no need to ask: their offences were crimes of passion. The governor made no secret that he preferred criminals to misdemeanants.
"I know some criminals," he said, "who are as it were aloof from their crime. It was a flash in their life. They are capable of straightforwardness, courage and generosity. I could not say as much for my thieves. Their mediocre and commonplace wrongdoing is woven into the very tissue of their existence. They are incorrigible. And the baseness which was the cause of their misdemeanour reveals itself over and over again in their conduct. The penalty imposed on them is relatively light, and, as they have little sensibility either physical or moral, they generally bear it easily."
"But it does not follow;' he added quickly," that these unhappy creatures are unworthy of pity and do not deserve to have an interest taken in them. The longer I live the more clearly do I see that ​the so-called criminal is in reality merely unfortunate."
He took us into his room and told a warder to bring him prisoner 503.
"I am going to show you something," he said, "which I entreat you to believe has not been arranged purposely for you; it will inspire you doubtless with some novel reflections on lawbreaking and its punishment. What you are about to see and hear I have seen and heard a hundred times in my life."
A prisoner accompanied by a wardress entered the room. She was a young peasant girl, rather pretty, sweet and simple looking.
"I have some good news for you," said the governor. "The President of the Republic, having been told of your good conduct, remits the remainder of your sentence. You will be liberated on Saturday."
She was listening with her mouth half open, her hands clasped below the waist. But she was not quick to grasp ideas.
"Next Saturday you will leave this place. You will be free."
This time she understood, her hands rose in a gesture of distress, her lips trembled. ​"Is it true that I must go away? Then what will become of me? Here I was fed, clothed and everything. Could you not tell the good gentleman that it is better for me to stay where I am?"
Gently but firmly the governor showed her that she could not refuse the mercy shown her; then he informed her that on her departure she would receive a certain sum, ten or twelve francs.
She went out weeping.
I inquired what she had done.
He turned over a register.
"503. She was servant in a farmhouse.… She stole a petticoat from her mistress.… A theft committed by a servant.… On such offences, you must know, the law is very severe."