Eugene Boyer, AKA ‘Andre Baillard.’ One of Papillon’s more interesting fables.

It’s been a long time since I looked at the truth (and often fiction) peddled by one Henri Charriere, AKA ‘Papillon.’ Charriere’s best-selling account of life and death in the notorious ‘Penal Administration, French Guyana’ has long been celebrated for its storytelling and became the 1973 film starring Steve Mcqueen and Dustin Hoffman. It’s also often debunked by documented fact and historical record, but sorting fact from fiction can be as entertaining as Charriere’s original work. With that in mind, let’s look at the case of ‘Andre Baillard.’

According to Charriere’s version Andre Baillard and his brother ‘Emile’ had murdered an elderly lady for her money. Then ‘Emile’ had confessed to another prisoner while in jail for a different crime. Charriere’s version has that prisoner then snitching and both brothers being convicted and condemned for the crime. ‘Emile’ was reprieved by President Paul Doumer and ‘Andre’ was not, but he would be by Doumer’s unexpected successor Albert Lebrun.

So far, so accurate. The victim was Parisian pensioner Madame Diemer and the brothers were Eugene and Alexandre Boyer. She was beaten and suffocated by the brothers while they were robbing her home on the Rue Custine. The crime was committed on January 17, 1932 and initially the Boyer brothers went uncaught. That lasted only until Alexandre unwittingly condemned them both.

Arrested in jail, the brothers Boyer soon occupied neighbouring cells on ‘death alley’ in the notorious La Sante prison in Paris. Alexandre’s death sentenc was commuted by Doumer for his having served in the First World War. Eugene, fifteen years younger and with a previous criminal record, had not served and Doumer felt no pity for him. Eugene would die as scheduled outside the gate of La Sante at dawn on May 6, 1932. Except he did not.

According to Charriere’s doubtful version of events, he encountered them while waiting for his own transfer to Guyana which is at best doubtful. The Boyers had been condemned and reprieved in May of 1932. With two transports to Guyana every year, it seems odd that Charriere would have met them and Charriere, convicted in October, 1931, did not leave until September of 1933.

That said, convicts with commuted death sentences were usually sent to Guyana for life and Charriere, convicted in October, 1931, did not leave until September of 1933. Whether Guyana’s ‘Dry Guillotine’ was any kinder than the one at La Sante is another debate entirely.

They would have had to be waiting until Charriere’s own departure which was in September of 1933. It’s certainly possible that he met them in France, but it’s equally questionable. Charriere, convicted of murder in Paris on Octtober 26, 1931, would likely have gone to Guyana after the Boyer brothers. There would have been two transports between their reprieve and Charriere boarding the SS Martiniere never to return to France.

With Alexandre Boyer reprieved, Eugene remained on La Sante Prison’s infamous ‘death alley.’ At their trial both brothers had blamed each other for the murder, each hoping to save themselves at the other’s expense. Eugene also harboured an additional resentment against his brother for talking to the anonymous snitch to begin with. For Alexandre, life was life even if Eugene had to die so that Alexandre could be spared. Hardly surprising if Eugene nursed some ill-feeling.

Eugene would be another date in the diary of Anatole Diebler, chief public executioner. For Deibler the appointment was highly convenient. Since 1870 France’s chief executioner was required by law to live in Paris and Deibler lived on the Villa Dufresne near the Sainte-Cloud Metro station, so not far to travel. If all went to plan he would behead Eugene Boyer at dawn and be home in time for lunch.

In a rare sympathetic moment, prison authorities allowed Alexandre to remain in a neighbouring cell even after his reprieve. Not that Eugene appreciated it very much. President Doumer remained unmoved as Eugene’s date approached. It was lucky for Eugene (and very unlucky for President Doumer) that an unexpected guest star joined the cast, a deranged Russian refugee named Gorguloff.

Paul Gorguloff was a Russian refugee and, like many others, had settled in Paris although ‘Settled’ would be putting it politely. He was a turbulent man with a rather tortured past, some very confused politics and possibly psychiatric problems. Unfortunately for President Doumer, Gorguloff also had a loaded Browning FN Model 1910 pistol and fully intended to use it. At the Hotel Saloman de Rothschild on May 6, 1932, he did so.

Gorguloff had long borne a grudge against Doumer for what he saw as insufficient support for White Russian refugees. A veteran of the White Russian army himself, Gorguloff was also a political extremist whose ideas were a mish-mash of agrarianism, Russian ultranationalism. He was also an arch anti-Semite.

His mental state can best be summed up by his behaviour at his trial. He did everything to antagonise the court, claimed to have kidnapped Charle’s Lindbergh’s baby and that he was also planning to travel to the Moon. If he was hoping for a successful insanity plea he was to be very disappointed. Chief executioner Anatole Deibler might have missed his fee for the Boyer brothers, but not for Gorguloff.

Gorguloff put two slugs into President Doumer, one in the back of Doumer’s head and another into his right armpit. Doumer, though mortally wounded, did not die immediately. His last breath, in fact, coincided almost exactly with Eugene Boyer’s scheduled execution at five o’clock on the morning of May 7. At La Sante Prison, Boyer, already told of his impending execution, was preparing to die. The President who had denied him clemency was slowly dying.

Boyer’s lawyer faced an unenviable fact. President Doumer was dying, unresponsive aand in no position to change his mind about reprieving Boyer. Doumer also had the absolute right to change his mind if he so wished and, if Doumer died in time, a French tradition just might save his client. It was a slim chance, but worth trying under the circumstances.

It was customary for no French President to refuse their first clemency request when they assumed office. If Doumer died in time there would be no Head of State until a successor was appointed. Without a Head of State a delay could be requested until the successor signed the traditional reprieve. For Boyer to live, Doumer had to die. Preferably as soon as possible.

In typical Hollywood fashion, the kind that hardly ever happens in reality it went down to the wire. President Paul Doumer died at around 4:40am. By then the door to Boyer’s cell had already been opened for his execution on the stroke of five. Fortunately for Boyer certain other traditions also had to be observed, giving his lawyer a little more time to make his case.

While his lawyer made a desperate and very brief plea for a stay of execution Boyer was about to be made ready. The traditional ‘toilette du condamne‘ required the prisoner to be offered a priest, a few minutes to scribble a hasty last letter, a glass or two of rum or brandy and perhaps a cigarette or two to help calm the nerves. The collar had to be cut off their shirt to avoid fouling the blade and, with typical French bureaucracy, there was official paperwork to be signed. French law dictated that only freed men could be executed, not prisoners. As such, Eugene Boyer would have to be formally paroled into the very temporary custody of Anatole Diebler.

As it was, Boyer’s lawyer arrived minutes after the cell door was opened. Boyer had already met his would-be nemesis and was steeling himself for his last moments when the lawyer arrived with the hoped-for stay of execution. It was not a reprieve, President Albert LeBrun had not yet formally assumed office, but it stayed Deibler’s hand until LeBrun could be approached. This proved rather embarassing for the newspaper L’Homme Libre, which reported his execution having assumed it would go as scheduled.

Provided nobody got in ahead of his lawyer (always possible with quite a number of La Sante’s prisoners waiting to die) Eugene Boyer’s life would be spared. For the first time in around fifty years La Sante’s guillotine had been assembled, but not claimed another head.

With its ties to Gorguloff’s crime, Boyer’s case attracted more attention than usual. Gorguloff, who may have been insane or just shamming, failed to impress the courts or President LeBrun. He was duly guillotined by Deibler at dawn on September 14, 1932, ironically at La Sante. Unlike its Guyanese cousin, La Sante is still an operational maximum-security prison and not much less unpleasant now than it was when Boyer was there. ‘Death alley’ has long gone, but time at La Sante remains as hard as ever.

Conforming to tradition, President LeBrun duly commuted Boyer’s death sentence. Both brothers drew hard labour for life and transportation, headed for Guyana never to return. Papillon claimed that Eugene later murdered his brother and killed another man years later. Whether this is true remains unconfirmed, but Eugene, who had been mere minutes from the guillotine, survived for another thirty-two years.

By then Anatole Deibler was long dead. He suffered a fatal heart attack at the Sainte-Clloude Metro station in February, 1939 en route to Rennes to execute Maurice Pilorge. Deibler’s deputy successor Jules-Henri Desfourneaux duly stepped in and Pilorge died on February 3 of that year. Desfourneaux died in 1951 after a turbulent career involving alcoholism, and lasting, rancorous disputes with his fellow executioners. Eugene Boyer, on the other hand, outlived his would-be executioners by many years.

Originally sent to Guyana for life, Eugene Boyer was among the last convicts to return from the dreaded Devil’s Island. The French Government had voted to close Guyana’s penal colonies in 1938 when public disapproval became too much to ignore. The war had intervened, delaying the official closure until 1946. After that the jungle camps and prisons were closed one after another.

The last remaining part was the administrative centre and penitentiary at Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni which was finally shut down in 1953, after which the buildings were left to fall into disrepair. Some have since been restored as historical monuments of a penal policy France prefers to forget. Today, tourists walk through the cells and see the stone mounting blocks for Saint-Laurent’s own guillotine. The restaurant there is said to be very pleasant.

Devil’s Island itself, where Papillon falsely claimed to have served time, remains off-limits to visitors. It is currently home to some of the guidance and monioring equipment for the Ariane rocket programme. Despite becoming emblematic of the entire Penal Administration, no more than around fifty convicts out of approximately 70,000 sent to Guyana served time there, mostly political prisoners like Alfred Dreyfus.

The Penal Administration was gone, but that did not mean France wanted its prisoners to return. Around 300 of them chose to stay in Guyana rather than return to France. The Salvation Army had been at the forefront of the campaign to close the Penal Administration. The Penal Administration in turn did nothing to help with repatriation and the Salvation Army had to fund and arrange it over the next few years.

Nor did metropolitan France want them back or help them in any way on their arrival. There was no welfare or support for returning transportees. Of those who did return, some existed on charity. Others took their own lives, unable to adapt to a post-war France they had not seen since 1938 at the most recent. Still more ended up in prisons or asylums, perhaps the only places they could survive in. Approximately one-third of returnees were dead within a year or two of coming back.

Boyer fared a little better than most of them. He lasted until 1964 having served twenty years in Guyana, making him among the last of the returned transportees. He died at a home for ex-convicts in Chateauroux on February 19, 1964. According to one source Boyer’s body was ‘found in suspicious circumstances.’ If he was murdered, nobody was charged.