Bagnes

Bagnes, the convict prisons of France. The name is from the Italian bagno, used originally of a bath in the Seraglio at Constantinople, and then apparently of a prison for slaves in it or adjoining it. The bagnes superseded in 1748 the old punishment of the Galleys (q.v.); but in 1852 they were themselves abolished, the imperial government substituting for them deportation to Guiana. The latest existing bagnes were those at Toulon, Brest, and Rochefort.