Reference has been made already to the ingenious manufacture of articles for sale, but a less honorable, although more profitable, trade was that of usury, which long flourished in the _bagnes_. The business was started by an ex-banker named Wanglen, who was condemned to _travaux forcés_ in the time of the Empire. He brought with him to the _bagne_ a certain amount of capital, carefully concealed, and with the skill acquired in his business he trafficked in usury, and made advances, like any pawnbroker, upon the goods and valuables secretly possessed by his fellows as well as upon the _pécule_ or monthly pittance accorded as wages to the convicts. He had so large a trade that he created a paper currency to take the place of the specie so generally short in the prison. But his business suffered seriously from the competition that might have been expected in such a place; for after a time his notes were cleverly imitated by forgers, and he had no redress but to return to cash payments. This man Wanglen is said to have made a great deal of money by the time he retired from business, and to have had many successors. When a borrower could offer no tangible security the good word of a convict reputed to be a man of substance was accepted instead; and such men were to be found in the _bagnes_.
A notable one was the celebrated Collet, whose criminal career will be detailed further on. Collet, strange to say, was always in funds. According to M. Sers, who wrote at some length on the _bagnes_, from facts under his own observation, Collet, during the twenty years of his imprisonment, was never known to hold a single centime more, in the hands of the official paymaster, than the regulation allowance, yet he lived luxuriously the whole of these twenty years. He always wore respectable clothing and the finest underlinen, very different from that supplied by the prison; he lived on the fat of the land, despising the mess of pottage, the horrible haricot of beans, that made up the daily ration. He was supplied always with abundant and succulent repasts from the best hotel in the town. The source of his wealth and the means used to bring it to his hand were secrets never divulged during his long term of imprisonment, although inquiries were constantly made, and every effort tried to unravel the mystery. The secret died with him; and even after death nine pieces of gold were found sewn into his waistcoat pocket.