The ingenuity of the prisoners was equalled by their industry. The most unpromising materials and the rudest tools served to produce the most artistic pieces. Cocoanut shells, beautifully carved, formed elegant goblets. Old bones were converted into chessmen or paper knives or penholders, the tools by which they were shaped being scraps of iron picked up in the yards. The products of their cleverness were not always avowable or harmless. The _bagne_ was often the home of false money makers, and their audacity must have been something marvellous. That prisoners employed in the workshops should be able to escape observation and manufacture files, keys and other tools to be employed in compassing escape, was not so strange; but it was almost incredible, that, working in the open or under the shelter of a ship’s side, they could cast metal coins, having first made the molds and melted the substances, then polish and perfect them so as to deceive any but the sharpest eye. There were still more marvellous frauds accomplished. Forgery and all kinds of imitation of signatures, the preparation of official documents, even the seals to attach to them, were within the powers of these clever convicts. One case is on record, in which release was all but secured by means of a forged authority, but at the last moment one document was missing, and when search was made for it among the papers in the office, the fraud was discovered. In this instance several signatures had been imitated, including that of the Chancellor and the King himself. On another occasion one of the trade-instructors received a letter, enclosing a note for five hundred francs, but unhappily found, when rejoicing at his good fortune, that the bank-note was false, although it had deceived many expert persons. When a certain tradesman got into money difficulties, and his papers were seized by a sheriff’s officer, one paper was found amongst them, which he had been foolish enough to retain. It was a letter from a convict in the _bagne_ of Rochefort, claiming payment for the fabrication of a receipt at the instance of the bankrupt. “May I remind you,” ran the letter, “that at your request I manufactured a receipt, for which you promised me two louis, if the document served its purpose. As it was exactly what you wanted I now claim the completion of your promise. You can pass the two louis in to me by enclosing them in half a pound of butter, which I can receive at the canteen. I trust that you will not oblige me to apply to you again.” This letter was handed over to the police, with the result that the fraudulent tradesman was arrested and sentenced to ten years for having made use of the false receipt.