He was assimilated into a coastal village whose specialty was pearl diving. Papillon entered the Guajira peninsula, a region dominated by Amerindians. Some distance from the prison, the two went their separate ways.

In Colombian prison, Papillon joined with another prisoner to escape. The wind died and they were captured and imprisoned again. Nearing the Colombian coastline, the escapees were sighted. In Trinidad the trio were joined by three other escapees they were aided by a British family, the Dutch bishop of Curaçao, and several others. The Maroni River carried them to the Atlantic Ocean, and they sailed to the northwest, reaching Trinidad. They planned to use a sailboat acquired with the help of the associated leper colony at Pigeon Island (Saint Lucia). There he collaborated with two men, Clousiot and André Maturette, to escape from the prison. Upon arriving at the penal colony, Papillon claimed to be ill and was sent to the infirmary. He agreed to protect Dega from attackers trying to get his charger. Papillon befriended Louis Dega, a former banker convicted of counterfeiting. Men were attacked for many reasons, including money, which most kept in a charger (a hollow metal cylinder concealed in the rectum also known as a plan d'evasion, plan, or 'escape suppository'). Violence and murders were common among the convicts. He eventually escaped from the colony and settled in Venezuela, where he lived and prospered.Īfter a brief stay at a prison in Caen, Papillon was put aboard a vessel bound for South America, where he learned about the brutal life that prisoners endured at the prison colony.

The book is an account of a 14-year period in Papillon's life (Octoto October 18, 1945), beginning when he was wrongly convicted of murder in France and sentenced to a life of hard labor at the Bagne de Cayenne, the penal colony of Cayenne in French Guiana known as Devil's Island.

Papillon torrent soundtrack