Political prisoners in French mental institutions before 1789, during the Revolution, and under Napoleon I.

BEFoRE 1789 mental patients were interned in France in three types of institutions: the state-directed hopital general, the clerical institution (often called charit6), and the small private pension, maison de sante. Hopital general is a misnomer and a euphemism. In Germany at that time these institutions were far more appropriately called Zuchthdiuser, in England "work-houses", and in certain French towns depots de mendicitJ.1 The hOpital general was absolutism's answer to the social problem. The king's edict of 1656, which created this type of institution, was primarily an (ineffective) remedy for the beggar problem. The Pitie in Paris had been transformed before 1656 into a beggars' prison and workhouse. H6pitals generals had been established by decree in Toulouse (1647), Beziers (1654), and Caen (1655). But le grand renfermement des pauvres in Paris in 1656 was to decide the trend.2 Beggars and all other socially undesirable individuals were now interned in these large institutions. As George Rosen says, "A separate socio-psychological life space was created for those who removed themselves from or transgressed the moral order, considered appropriate to their social position, occupation or family relationship."" The population of the Bicetre and SalpetriMre, the main divisions of the Paris general hospital (the former for men and the latter for women), was composed during the 150 years of their existence of a few thousand working "beggars", young and old; a few hundred old and invalid people, unable to work; a few hundred children (orphans or delinquents); a fewhundred mentally ill people; a few hundred sick people (particularly those suffering from venereal and skin diseases), and a few hundred criminals. Therefore it was quite natural that some political prisoners (including "heretics" and some of the so-called libertins) would be found among the hospital's inmates." We must realize that, under the ancient regime, people with political convictions such as Mirabeau, Diderot, Brissot, etc., were rare among the political prisoners. The majority were unknown individuals who owed their captivity (as in all dictatorships) to a few critical remarks, a joke at the king or his mistresses-and a denunciation. The deep sufferings of internment may still be aggravated by the forced company of abnormal and insane persons. Some of the inmates of the hopital general would, by the way, be voluntary patients, a sad reflection on economic conditions outside the prisons.5 Under the circumstances it is understandable that a political prisoner like Latude could be shifted from …