Henri Charrière: Difference between revisions

| birth_place = [[Saint-Étienne-de-Lugdarès]], [[French Third Republic|France]]

| death_place = [[Madrid]], Spain[[Spanish state]]

'''Henri Charrière''' ({{IPA-|fr|ɑ̃ʁi ʃaʁjɛʁ}}; 16 November 1906  – 29 July 1973) was a French writer, convicted inof 1931murder asin a murderer1931 by the French courts and pardoned in 1970. He wrote the novel ''[[Papillon (book)|Papillon]]'', a memoir of his incarceration in and escape from a [[penal colony]] in [[French Guiana]]. While Charrière claimed that ''Papillon'' was largely true, modern researchers believe that much of the book’s material came from other inmates, rather than Charrière himself. Charrière denied committing the murder, although he freely admitted to having committed various other petty crimes (notably when he was a procurer) prior to his incarceration.

Charrière was born on 16 November 1906 at [[Saint-Étienne-de-Lugdarès]], [[Ardèche]], France. He had two older sisters. His mother died when he was ten. In 1923 at seventeen, he enlisted in the [[French Navy]] and served for two years. After that, he became a member of the Paris [[Organized crime|underworld]]. He later married and had a daughter.{{Cn|date=November 2024}}

The version of his life presented in his semi-biographical novel, ''Papillon'', claimed that Charrière was convicted on 26 October 1931 of the murder of a [[pimp]] named Roland Le Petit, a charge that he strongly denied. He was sentenced to life in prison and ten years of [[hard labour]]. He had married Georgette Fourel at the town hall of the 1st arrondissement of Paris, on December 22, 1929. (They divorced on 8 July 1930 by decision of the Paris High Court.) After a brief imprisonment at the transit prison of Beaulieu in [[Caen]], France, he was transported in 1933 to the [[prison of St-Laurent-du-Maroni]] on the [[Maroni River]], in the penal settlement of mainland [[French Guiana]].{{Cn|date=November 2024}}

According to the book, he made his first escape on 28 November 1933<ref>{{cite book |first=Henri |last=Charrière |title=Papillon |location=London |publisher=[[Rupert Hart-Davis|Hart-Davis]] |date=1970 |isbn=978-0-24663-987-5}}</ref> and was joined by fellow prisoners [[André Maturette]] and Joanes Clousiot, who would accompany him throughout much of his time on the run. 37 days later, the trio were captured by Colombian police near the village of [[Riohacha]], northern Caribbean Region of [[Colombia]], and were imprisoned. Charrière subsequently escaped during a rainy night and fled to the [[La Guajira Peninsula]], where he was adopted by an indigenous tribe. He spent several months living with the natives, but felt that he had to move on, which was a decision he would ultimately regret. After leaving, he was quickly recaptured and sent back to French Guiana to be put into [[solitary confinement]] for the next two years.{{Cn|date=November 2024}}

After his release from solitary confinement, he spent another seven years in prison. During this period he attempted to escape several more times, resulting in increasingly brutal responses from his captors. He stated that he was then confined to [[Devil's Island]], a labour camp (Devil's Island was not a labour camp so much as an internment camp) that, at the time, was notorious for being inescapable. French authorities later released penal colony records that contradicted this; amongst other details, Charrière had never been imprisoned on Devil's Island. However, he finally achieved his permanent liberation in 1941 by using a bag of coconuts as a makeshift raft and, riding the tide out from the island, he escaped with another convict. However, his companion drowned in [[quicksand]] when they reached the shore of French Guiana.{{Cn|date=November 2024}}

French records of his life from 1933–1944 present a different account: He left the citadel of [[Saint-Martin-de-Ré]] on 29 September 1933 aboard the Martinière and landed on 14 October with the status of "transported" to [[Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni]]. There was little time left in the transportation camp, as he was assigned as a nursing assistant to the [[André-Bouron Hospital|André-Bouron Colonial Hospital]], where he saw many inmates returning from the run who told him their escape stories, from which he drew inspiration. This place spared him from the work of logging sites or agricultural concessions that annihilated convicts in a few months. He escaped for the first time on September 5, 1934, but failed in Colombia, a country that returned escaped convicts to France. Judged by the Special Maritime Court, he spent two years in the cells of the St. Joseph's Island Seclusion. Several times transferred, he ended up as chief nurse in an Indochinese camp on the Guyanese mainland, the Cascades forest camp, from which he escaped on the night of March 18–19, 1944, along with four companions.{{Cn|date=November 2024}}

After Charrière had served a year's probationary freedom, he was given his total liberty in 1945. He remained in [[Venezuela]] and became a naturalized citizen. He married a Venezuelan woman identified as Rita Bensimon. He opened restaurants in [[Caracas]] and [[Maracaibo]]. He was subsequently treated as a minor celebrity, even being invited frequently to appear on local television programmes. He finally returned to France, visiting Paris in conjunction with the publication of his memoir ''Papillon'' (1969). The book sold over 1.5 million copies in France,<ref>{{cite magazine |title=Travels with Papi |last=Foote |first=Timothy |date=14 September 1979 |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|TIME]] |volume=96 |issue=11 |page=92}}</ref> prompting a French minister to attribute "the moral decline of France" to [[miniskirt]]s and ''Papillon''.<ref>{{cite book |last=Charrière |first=Henri |translator-last=O'Brian |translator-first=Patrick |translator-link=Patrick O'Brian |chapter=Introduction |title=Papillon |location=London |publisher=[[Harper Perennial]] |date=2005 |isbn=0-00-717996-0}}</ref> ''Papillon'' was first published in the United Kingdom in 1970, in a translation by the novelist [[Patrick O'Brian]]. Charrière played the part of a jewel thief in a 1970 film called ''[[The Butterfly Affair|Popsy Pop]]'' directed by the French director [[Jean Vautrin]], and released internationally in English as ''The Butterfly Affair''. He also wrote a sequel to ''Papillon'' entitled ''[[Banco (novel)|Banco]]'', in which he describes his life after being released from prison.{{Cn|date=November 2024}}

In 1970, the French Justicejustice Systemsystem issued a pardon to Charrière for his 1931 murder conviction.<ref>{{cite news|title={{'}}''Papillon''{{'}} Author Pardoned|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1970/10/29/archives/papillon-author-pardoned.html|date=29 October 1970|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|access-date=29 August 2018}}</ref>

On 29 July 1973, Charrière died of [[Head and neck cancer|throat cancer]] in [[Madrid, Spain]].<ref>{{cite news|url=http://archive.timesonline.co.uk/tol/viewArticle.arc?articleId=ARCHIVE-The_Times-1973-07-31-14-021&pageId=ARCHIVE-The_Times-1973-07-31-14|title=Obituary: Henri Charrière|last=Hoyle|first=Ben|date=31 July 1973|newspaper=[[The Times]]|page=14|access-date=13 March 2011|url-access=subscription}}{{dead link|date=September 2024|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}</ref>

He wrote two autobiographical novels in the ''Papillon'' series: ''[[Papillon (book)|Papillon]]'' (1969) and ''[[Banco (novel)|Banco]]'' (1973).{{Cn|date=November 2024}}

Critics tend to agree that Charrière's depictions included events that happened to others and that Brunier was at the prison at the same time. Critics claim that the heroic rescue of a guard's young daughter from sharks, which Charrière describes graphically in his book, was in fact carried out by another convict named Alfred Steffen who lost both legs and subsequently died.<ref>{{cite magazine|title=The Fabulous Escapes of Papillon: An ex-con from Devil's Island strikes it rich with a great yarn – but how true is it?|last=Wreen|first=Marie-Claude|date=13 November 1970|magazine=[[Life (magazine)|LIFE]]|page=[https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_4FMEAAAAMBAJ/page/n67 52]|url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_4FMEAAAAMBAJ|access-date=2018-09-15}}</ref> When some critics questioned the veracity of his story and said he erred on some of the dates, Charrière replied: "I didn't have a typewriter with me."<ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1310&dat=19730730&id=Y-VVAAAAIBAJ&pg=5848,6968491|title=Devil's Isle author dies after surgery|date=30 July 1973|newspaper=[[Eugene Register-Guard]]|access-date=2018-09-15}}</ref> French journalist [[Gerard de Villiers]], author of ''Papillon Épinglé'' ("Butterfly Pinned"), maintains: "Only about 10 percent of Charrière's book represents the truth."<ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=IPVTAAAAIBAJ&pg=7049,429304&dq=|title=Small-time Paris thief writes a bestseller|date=5 November 1970|newspaper=[[Boca Raton News]]|access-date=2018-09-15}}</ref>

* [https://www.chavade.fr/FR/prestataire--la-maison-natale-de-henri-charriere-dit-papillon--331615.html Henri Charrière website] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210122114418/https://www.chavade.fr/FR/prestataire--la-maison-natale-de-henri-charriere-dit-papillon--331615.html |date=2021-01-22 }}