Explore "Papillon" by Henri Charrière on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Bagnard: A convict serving out his sentence in a bagne.
Bagne: A penal colony, from the Italian bagno because Italian convicts were kept in cellars below sea level. When sails superseded galleys, convicts were given other forms of hard labor instead. Starting in 1854, all French convicts were deported to French Guiana. The penal colonies were suppressed during World War II. All prison sentences are now served in metropolitan France.