A Forger Reflects

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30206, 10 August 1963, Page 3

A Forger Reflects

Flag on Devil’s Island. By Francis Lagrange with William Murray. (Peter Davies.) 238 pp. A liking will almost surely be taken to this delightful French rogue, Francis Lagrange looking back proudly (on his short but brilliant career as a forger, and philosophically on a longer I period paying" the penalty Son of an engraver, he was ' an aspiring art st and an obsessed lover when circumstances. mainly his joyful mode of life and the expen(sive tastes of his women | friends, led him to turn his | considerable talents in illicit (directions. He began with postage stamps —"My Mauritiuses were particularly good”—old coins, broken stai tuettes and then canvases i He treated it quite mor(ally "It was all very amusi ing and profitable . I was i happiest with Gauguin. I (think . Quite apart from ' the monetary profit 1 would ( derive. I was happy to think i there would be more Gau- ! gums in the world ” i According to a chapter : title “Crime never pays enough" so Flag turned inevitably to money He found ( the manufacture of the pound ; sterling and the United ; States dollar “child’s play” but his downfall came when I he decided to leave the big(time operator for whom had ■ worked and branch out on his own: when he began to 1 make French francs; and (through the jealously of a ; woman “Ihe French Govern- , ment doesn’t really mind I counterfeit foreign money but it has no sense of humour at all about its own legal tender “ If the first part of this book is the entertaining confession of • meeter forger, tbs MOOBd part Mttltf tea « valu-

able social study of the notorious French penal settlements of French Guiana for that is where Flag spent ihe 15 years of his life sentence from 1931 and where he still ' lives as a free man Devil's j Island, first brought to world! notice by the Dreyfus case, was the name associated with i the whole penal colony but in fact was the smallest of all) [the penal settlements of the three islands around the; coast The great value lies in the moderation and fairness with ; which the prisons and their life are treated, modifying some of the fallacious impressions gained from the "great I many lies and exaggerations I that have been written about the bagne " Flag saw atrocities. cruelty, injustice and violence, but he says these were the exception and “the bagne of French Guiana was no worse than most prisons and in some important respects considerably better." At the same time he paints a vivid picture of the lives of the prisoners, guards and administrators, thieving, cori ruption and escapes—he made two himself—with a j glorious sense of humour The demand for Flag's skills in the penal colony helped to ease his own burden considerably and may have coloured his outlook a little His painting kept him less discontented He remains incorrigible. ”D> I regret what 1 have done? No Would I do it al’ again? Most certainly, though I would wish to remain truer to myself as an artist than I have been" This could be a textbook for al) potential forgers In it they may be told of the satisfaction and wealth to be gained; they may alao ba warned of the puniehmea* tor being auL