Papillon

Henri Charrière, nicknamed “Butterfly” (French for Papillon) became a celebrity around the world after his book came out a couple years after he finally was freed from Devil’s Island.

His vindication shined a bright damning light on the corrupt French judiciary and its heavy-handed monarchy that controlled it. A huge sensation, the bestseller caused a stir within France spurring an anti-royal sentiment and backlash closing the dilapidated equatorial hellhole island prison.

Being on the wrong side of a fascist royal state then as it does now means being summarily arrested without cause, tried and wrongfully convicted as Papillon was, as most were if expendable, said or did the wrong thing to the wrong politically indebted person. He wasn’t a criminal let alone a murderer. The crown’s capriciousness was their weapon of choice and sent a clear message to the rich, poor, annoying, educated, shiftless, uppity or just about anybody randomly plucked from her life and family.

Accusation alone was enough. A scandalous story before Papillon was another Devil’s Island victim Alfred Drefus wrongfully accused in 1894. A French Army captain in the French Army, he was falsely accused of treason and dramatized in a the famous Gore Vidal screenplay 1958 movie “I Accuse!”

The dungeons of Devil’s Island had a death rate as high as 75% reported, definitely higher. Thousands of life (death) sentences were handed out like macaroons and sent across the Atlantic to Devil’s Island, a one-way voyage. Preordained guilt, without appeal, and railroaded, the accused whiled away their last years in a cage alone in the world.

The police state shielded the guilty with the untold body-counts of innocent. Going back to 1852 when the ghastly fortress was constructed thousands of miles out of sight and far away from public view, the campaign of intimidation was very public and silently understood, “You’re next.”

Effective propagated rumors and first-hand accounts were the psyops of the age. Political warfare, disinformation and propaganda reinforced the rule of the powerful not the law. Keeping one’s head attached meant living in the shadows while catering to the elite righteous and their pathology of keeping things nice and comfortable, for them. Terrified for their lives and lives of friends and family, one lived and perished toiling in silence.

The Papillon book and movie were monsters hits. The book sold millions worldwide lasting #1 for 21 weeks in France alone. There were 239 editions published in 21 different languages.

Time has not been kind to justice and liberty worldwide since as the beat-down continues to this day as fascism is on the rise around the globe unimpeded.