In this case no charges had been preferred against the women; they were
voluntary prisoners, who had preferred to freedom this living in
proximity to their husbands. Many of them had children; some babies. In
addition there were certain _femmes honnettes_ whose nationality, as in
the case of the men, had cost them their liberty; Marguerite the
washerwoman, for example, was a German.
La Ferte Mace was not properly speaking a prison, but a Porte or
Detention Camp: that is to say, persons sent to it were held for a
Commission, composed of an official, a lawyer, and a captain of
_gendarmes_, which inspected the Camp and passed upon each case in turn
for the purpose of determining the guiltiness of the suspected party. If
the latter were found guilty by the Commission, he or she was sent off to
a regular prison camp for the duration of the war; if not guilty, he or
she was (in theory) set free. The Commission came to La Ferte once every
three months. It should be added that there were prisoners who had passed
the Commission, two, three, four, and even five times, without any
appreciable result; there were _prisonieres_ who had remained in La Ferte
a year, and even eighteen months.
The authorities at La Ferte consisted of the _Directeur_, or general
overlord, the _Surveillant_, who had the _plantons_ (orderlies) under him
and was responsible to the _Directeur_ for the administration of the
camp, and the _Gestionnaire_ (who kept the accounts).
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