At the end of the 1990s, while working on the painters of the penal colony in the archives of the Alexandre-Franconie museum in Cayenne, André Bendjebbar made an intriguing discovery. The historian, at the time head of the cultural department of the Army Museum, discovered the existence of a school notebook entrusted to the Spiritan fathers by a certain Armand Spilers, sentenced to prison in 1925. The text, written belatedly by the person concerned, turns out to constitute the Memoirs of the most misunderstood escapee from Cayenne – and yet one of the most heroic, and a multiple escapee from French prisons.
André Bendjebbar then embarks on a quest for the historical truth of the character, witness to the political, judicial and military history of the 20th century. A journey that takes him from Lille to Pau, via Aix-en-Provence, Caen, French Guiana, Colombia and Spain, to retrace his journey and verify his writings using prison archives, national archives and the press. “I do not believe Armand, I believe the archives of justice”, specifies the author of Armand the convict, the eternal escaped, published by Éditions Le Cherche Midi. “Armand le convict” could have been a character in a novel, so incredible is his life. Yet it did exist.
On his first arrest for ten thefts with concealment, he made himself a master key and fled. He was sentenced at the Assizes of Douai to ten years of hard labor and two years in prison for the offense of escape. “The 1885 law supported by Jules Ferry was extremely harsh on repeat thieves. After four offences, they were relegated. “Married, father of a little girl, he promises to come back… He will keep his word.
The penal colony is not necessarily feared by the convicts, who think escape is easy. They are officially only four or five to have succeeded, including the famous and controversial Henri Charrière aka “Papillon”. But he romanticized many of the details of his story, perhaps inspired by Armand Spilers…
Six of them left on a makeshift raft, Armand and his companions will be only three to land, dying, not in Venezuela as hoped, but in Colombia, among the Wayuu Indians. Feeding on the memoirs of Armand Spilers, stories of escape and press articles, André Bendjebbar tells us about the sea voyage, the storms and the drift as if he were there. Armand would have remained ten hours in the water while a comrade scoops. Arrived in Colombia, he becomes Armando Trilero, but is arrested and detained in the Tunja prison, the toughest in the country, from which he still escapes… by digging a tunnel in his cell.
Under the identity of Jacques Dupuy, he settled in the Paris region, and bought a guinguette on the Marne in the name of his brother. Threatening a cyclist who was riding on his dog’s leash, he was arrested for carrying a weapon. His anthropometric portrait quickly reveals his identity: he is placed in the prison of Health, deemed impassable. Thanks to his skill and his cunning, he escaped on March 17, 1936 without ever swinging a possible accomplice. Inducted “King of the Escape”, he takes over the burglaries. But accused of having killed a policeman after a heist, he was caught in Pau and became the most guarded prisoner in France.
Classified public enemy number 1, he was sentenced to death on February 5, 1937, despite a defense recalling his humanism. “He was a sublime thug,” says André Bendjebbar. In prison, he refuses to prostitute himself and become a pimp, he always tries to see his family again, despite the danger. He even saves a child from drowning. In a magnificent letter, exhumed by the historian, his lawyer asks for his pardon from President Albert Lebrun, who grants it to him. His sentence was commuted to forced labor for life, which would no longer be done in prison but on metropolitan territory.
At the Poissy plant, he obtained reduced sentences for good behavior. An elite worker, he is taken in affection by the prison staff, of which the historian has found testimonies. He will finish his seven-year sentence at Baumettes, in Marseille, under a semi-freedom regime. Released on May 1, 1953, he said, “It’s the first time I’ve come out of a prison through the door, not through the walls. He is 51 years old. Three years later, he commits a theft “in spite of himself”, and begins to write in prison. He died on September 13, 1980.
“Armand the Convict, the Eternal Escaped”, by André Bendjebbar (Le Cherche Midi, 432 p.)
