The incredible prison where prisoners clocked in the guards

It was a private prison. There were all kinds of inhabitants in it, but most were petty criminals. Chicken thievesdrunks and the occasional criminal with a little more imagination who had become a scammer.

His crimes were sad and Life in prison was sad. Until one day, in that lost place in France, something changed. By work and grace of the arrival of a new director to the garrison.

It was May 1946 when Fernand Billaa bureaucratic prison official, arrived in Pont-l’Eveque, a small town in Normandy. The man would be mayor of the best-known thing in town: the prison.

The front of the craziest prison in the world (Pont-l’Eveque Prison).

But Don Billa had a small problem: he was an insatiable drinker. And the man, before even knowing the prison, already demonstrated his weakness by visiting all the bars in Pont-l’Eveque to have a glass of calvadosthe double-distilled cider spirit, typical of the area.

The mayor never realized that he was in charge of the prison because of his alcoholic naps and the 50 prisoners There they were detained at the mercy of some pious soul.

For the prisoners everything changed one day with the arrival of his savior. It was a bald man, with glasses and always with a smile on his mouth: René Grainville. He had a history of adventures behind him: he was an accountant, journalist, hero of the resistance, poet and philosopher. Was he coming to replace Billa as mayor? No and yes. No, because he was arrested for forgery and embezzlement and had to serve a two-year sentence. Yeah, so we will read below.

One of the cells of the old jail (Wikipedia).

A while after entering prison and having learned of Billa’s weakness, the intelligent Grainville went to the mayor’s office with a gift: two bottles of pastis (a very diffuse alcoholic drink among the French). And along the way he asked the mayor for a favor: since he was an intellectual, I wanted to be the librarian from prison.

Billa did not hesitate. Grainville’s oratorical skills had captivated him.

But the reality was that Grainville I didn’t want to be a librarian. He wanted to be the owner of the prison. And a couple of days later he took the first step in that direction.

Prisoners could receive wives, girlfriends and lovers (Pont-l’Eveque Prison).

Being in the mayor’s office and seeing that the correspondence was piling up and Billa was not answering it, Grainville sat down next to him and said: «give me the pen». And before Billa’s gaze he began to imitate his signature on a piece of paper. After three attempts already faked perfectly the mayor’s signature.

«Mr. Mayor, you cannot waste time on these simple things. I will take care of the correspondence. You have much more important things than answering letters,» Grainville told him. AND Billa happily accepted.

The mayor began to visit the village bars without the weight of the responsibilities of an official. He wouldn’t even have to worry about paperwork anymore. Meanwhile, Grainville read the Penitentiary Regulations. After three days he finished reading. And he threw it in a trash can.

He decided that he would write another regulation. He began by choosing as assistants the prisoners who They had money and a profession.

In charge of the kitchen was a butcher who was also car thief At the head of an office created by Grainville, that of «wines and spirits», He hired a barkeeper who specialized in reducing stolen goods.

A former hotelier known to everyone as «Jorge the Shark», and convicted of assault and robbery, was given a peculiar task: order food and groceries from local merchants in exchange for «security.» He was in charge of the Supply department.

The prison doors always remained open (Pont-l’Eveque Prison).

Grainville decided that the bans on play cards, smoke and drinkwere harmful to the detainee. AND he abolished them.

But he was still missing a couple of designations. A tailor who was there as a pickpocket was entrusted with the «Clothes» and a telephone expert took the position bookmaker of horse racing in the neighboring town of Deauville, a small Las Vegas in the region.

And to fulfill everyone’s aspirations, it was inaugurated inside the prison a movie theater which was better and bigger than some in Paris.

The door of one of the cells (Wikipedia).

The Pont-l’Eveque prison was almost transformed into a luxury hotel. Lobster was eaten, branded wines were drunk, in the morning, along with breakfast, the newspapers arrived. Everything was a delirium of luxury. and the prisoners They could receive wives, girlfriends and lovers.

Sure, the word of such a life of luxury spread. And prisoners from other prisons began to ask for their transfer to Pont-l’Eveque. To the point that in March 1949 a well-known assailant came to her and leak expertRené Girier.

The man, who was free, confessed to a crime he did not commit in Normandy in order to be transferred from a huge prison in Paris to that prison lost in nothingness.

The prison guards often did not go to work and the prisoners themselves signed their cards (Pont-l’Eveque Prison).

But as in the fable of the scorpion and the turtle, Girier could not handle his DNA and a month after arriving escaped from prison. But he did class. He did not escape through the front door, which remained openbut instead he filed down the bars of the window and climbed down to the street with sheets. There was a code of honor: not to make Mayor Billa look bad.

The thing is that the prisoners took care of him with all possible precautions. Every night they went to look for it with a wheelbarrow in the bar where he had fallen asleep drunk. The prison guards, who were part of the good life that Grainville had established, often did not go to work and the prisoners themselves signed their cards. They were all a family.

To the point that one of the prisoners repaired the alarms in the prison and another restored the electricity to the gendarmerie barracks from a neighboring town.

The French Ministry of Justice conducted an investigation and closed the prison (now a museum) in January 1950 (Pont-l’Eveque Prison).

But one day things changed. Everything exploded when a lawyer came to town to see his client, he went to the jail and when asking for him, he received an unusual response: «At this moment he is not…»

The happy life had lasted four years. Even the town’s inhabitants wanted him to continue and loved Billa, the mayor «incapable of killing a fly.» They had kept the prison secret because almost all merchants supplied the prison with goods, fuel, and luxury goods, and was the main source of income of all of them.

The French Ministry of Justice conducted an investigation and closed the prison (which is now a museum) in January 1950. Mayor Billa was prosecuted and sentenced to three years due to negligence.

And Grainville? When the jury accused him of having forged Billa’s signature more than 300 times, he said in his defense: «I have always strived to satisfy my employers.» A crack of the pain.

GML