Mettray, Delinquent Youth and the Cult of Religious Honour

Abstract

The Agricultural Colony and Penitentiary of Mettray, an institution for wayward boys and youths, was founded near Tours in 1840 and closed down in 1937 by the Popular Front Government It functioned for ninety-eight years as a national but privately controlled reformatory for male juveniles who had fallen foul of the French justice system and had been brought there from adult prisons to be rehabilitated through a strictly organised regime of religious education and political indoctrination, elementary schooling, hard physical work, and agricultural and military training. The co-founders of Mettray and its governing philanthropic body, the Société Paternelle, were Frédéric-Auguste Demetz and the Vicomte Brétignières de Courteilles, both religious laymen with mystical beliefs influenced by Pestalozzi They agreed with Tocqueville that no “human power is comparable to religion to reform criminals, and on this rests the future of penitentiary reform”.This paper focuses on the religious ideology created by the founders that underpinned development of Mettray as a correctional institution. The religious significance of rustic architectural design of Mettray is also analysed in some detail As well, the religio-mystical qualities of the private Société Paternelle as a philanthropic organisation is given attention. As an association it developed as a layman's order of charity of three grades symbolised by the wearing of three distinctive types of rings made of silver, gold and silver, and finally pure gold—which was reserved for the founders themselves. Demetz was the grand master and God, Honour, Remembrance and Alliance were the four words that symbolically embodied the association and were engraved on the rings themselves. The Société as well as governing the Colony, also provided charitable and religious support for ex-inmates throughout their lives.While Mettray in one sense was a manifestation of clerical conservatism and religious fervour and enthusiasm, its military and carceral character cannot be denied, especially during its decline. It represented, nevertheless, an important innovation and a solution to the problems of the society of the time.