Jacques MESRINE / Signed autograph letter / Prison / Suicide / Accounts to settle

  

Autographed letter signed "El viejo" to his mistress Jeanne Schneider [Fleury-Mérogis Prison], January 10, [19]77, 2 pp. In-4° A word redacted by Mesrine. Mesrine protests against his conditions of incarceration and those of his fellow inmates at Fleury-Mérogis prison. "It is true that this jail is demoralizing.

Personally, I am not likely to commit suicide one day. I have too many debts to settle. Tonight three letters from you, two of which you would have posted 'Friday morning' at Fleury with the 'URGENT' mark.

They took only 4 days to travel 100 meters. Yes my angel, it’s better to keep to oneself what one thinks.

Another suicide in Fleury, the radio just announced it. It was said that last year there were 41 suicides at Fleury. I am really surprised that guys commit suicide given the very good human contact they can find with the management (sic).

No, I am not surprised by this wave of suicides in Fleury with the misunderstanding that reigns on the management side. I reserve the right to talk about it publicly at my trial. This jail is a man-eater with comfortable cells! Just look at the dialogues I have had to understand the one that poor little guy can have [allusion to the guards]!

The simple refusals of visits with my daughter that were imposed on me at the beginning could have been a motive for a weak mind. If the number '41' is true. I am no longer surprised that there are flowers everywhere here. It’s for the wreaths. If each guy instead of dying had taken some with him. Maybe we would have looked into the problem. It is true that this jail is demoralizing. Personally, I am not likely to commit suicide one day. I have too many debts to settle. You know my dear, at my trial I will pronounce names.

It may be my trial, but also that of the penitentiary and I know how to make myself heard. I will make myself listened to.

I believe I hate this jail a little more each day. Finally, the day will come and it will be wonderful.

] Tomorrow I will see you so I have the sun in my heart. We will talk about everything, okay Nanou. Your pirate places his lips on yours in a sweet caress of love.

Te quiero & good night kitten. Kisses to the little one. Jacques Mesrine met Jeanne Schneider in 1968. She is a call-girl, whose pimps were shot by Mesrine, according to his words. After several thefts committed in Europe, they fled to Quebec and continued their criminal activities.

They spent several years in prison, despite the couple's acquittal following the murder of Évelyne Le Bouthilier (the owner of a motel in Percé where the Mesrine-Schneider couple had stayed the night of the murder). Back in France to serve her sentence at Fleury-Mérogis in early 1973, Jeanne learns that Mesrine has just been arrested in Boulogne-Billancourt and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

The two lovers then maintain a romantic correspondence. Tired of this gangster life, Jeanne Schneider eventually settles down and breaks up while he is still in prison. Mesrine does not stop, relentlessly condemns his detention conditions, and escapes. He falls under the bullets of the BRI after 16 months on the run, on November 2, 1979, at the age of 42.