Explore the real-world places that appear in Papillon by Henri Charrière. Each location on the map shows what happens there in the novel, the real history of the place, and what's there today. Featured locations include Saint-Martin-de-Ré Prison, Port of Cayenne, Camp de la Transportation, Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni, Île Saint-Joseph, Île du Diable (Devil's Island) and 8 more.
Île de Ré, France — Departure point for the convict transports
Before being shipped to French Guiana, Henri Charrière — known as Papillon for the butterfly tattoo on his chest — is processed through Saint-Martin-de-Ré, the notorious holding prison on the Île de Ré. Here condemned men are shaved, shackled, and stripped of their identities before being loaded onto convict transport ships bound for the penal colonies. Papillon witnesses the brutal dehumanization of the prison system even before reaching Cayenne, and it is here that his burning resolve to escape first hardens into a plan.
The Citadelle de Saint-Martin-de-Ré, built under Vauban in the late 17th century, served as France's principal transit prison for convicts destined for the overseas penal colonies from 1873 until the last convoy departed in 1938. Thousands of men passed through its gates on their way to Devil's Island and the Guiana penal system.
The citadel still stands and functions as a prison today, though it now holds short-sentence inmates. Part of the fortifications are open to visitors and the town of Saint-Martin-de-Ré is a UNESCO World Heritage Site as part of the Vauban fortifications ensemble.
Visit: Citadelle de Saint-Martin-de-Ré (historic site)
Cayenne harbor, French Guiana — First landfall in the penal colony
The convict transport ship docks at Cayenne, and Papillon first sets foot on the soil of French Guiana in chains. The oppressive heat, the dense jungle pressing in on all sides, and the sight of broken men who have spent years in the colony strike him immediately. Cayenne serves as the administrative heart of the penal system, and it is from this port that prisoners are distributed to the various camps and islands. Papillon's eyes scan the harbor, already calculating distances and currents.
Cayenne has been the capital of French Guiana since the 17th century and served as the administrative hub of the notorious bagne — the French penal colony system that operated from 1852 to 1953. The port received regular convict transports from metropolitan France for nearly a century.
Cayenne remains the capital and largest city of French Guiana, now an overseas department of France. The port is active with commercial traffic, and the city retains colonial-era architecture including remnants from the bagne period. The Place des Palmistes in the city center is a pleasant public square surrounded by historic buildings.
Visit: Cayenne Historic District (landmark)
Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni — Main intake and processing camp
Saint-Laurent is the main processing center of the bagne where Papillon and thousands of other convicts are registered, assigned, and sent to their respective work camps. The vast compound with its long barracks and brutal guards becomes the scene of early rebellions, covert planning, and the underground economy of the prison world. It is here that Papillon first tests the social hierarchy of the convict population, forges crucial alliances, and begins stockpiling money in his plan — the mysterious internal capsule the prisoners call a plan — to finance his first escape attempt.
Camp de la Transportation at Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni was founded in 1858 and served as the administrative center of the Guiana penal colony for nearly a century. Tens of thousands of French convicts — criminals, political prisoners, and innocent men alike — passed through its wooden barracks and crumbling stone cells.
The former camp is now a preserved historic site and museum known as the Camp de la Transportation. It is one of the best-preserved remnants of the French penal colony system and is open to the public, offering guided tours of the original cells, administrative buildings, and documentation rooms.
Visit: Camp de la Transportation (museum)
Îles du Salut — Site of the dreaded solitary confinement cells
Île Saint-Joseph is where Papillon endures the most psychologically harrowing chapters of his ordeal: years in solitary confinement in the cachots, stone cells so small a man can barely turn around, where prisoners are kept in near-total darkness and forbidden to speak. Papillon spends two years in solitary here, tormented by silence, sickness, and the guards' sadistic enforcement of the no-talking rule. Yet his mind remains ferociously active — he dreams of escape, rehearses plans, and maintains his identity through sheer force of will. Fellow prisoner Louis Dega smuggles coconuts to help him survive.
Île Saint-Joseph was specifically designated as the disciplinary island within the Îles du Salut group. Its underground solitary confinement cells, cut from the island's rock, were among the most feared in the entire penal colony system. The absolute silence rule made many inmates go mad.
Île Saint-Joseph is accessible by boat from Kourou and is part of the Îles du Salut island group. The ruins of the solitary confinement cells, the guards' quarters, and the jungle-reclaimed prison infrastructure can still be explored. The islands are a popular day-trip destination for tourists.
Visit: Île Saint-Joseph — Îles du Salut (historic site)
Îles du Salut — The infamous island, final posting for Papillon
Devil's Island is the most notorious of the three Îles du Salut and the place that gave the entire penal colony system its fearsome reputation worldwide. Papillon is eventually sent here, and it is from Devil's Island's rocky cliffs that he executes his legendary final escape. After studying the waves crashing against the rocks below for weeks, he and a fellow prisoner leap into the sea on a raft made of coconut sacks, timing the surges to carry them away from the island. The act of finally throwing himself into the ocean is the book's great moment of liberation.
Devil's Island became world-famous as the place of imprisonment of Captain Alfred Dreyfus during the Dreyfus Affair from 1895 to 1899. Though its name was applied loosely to the entire penal colony, the actual island held only political prisoners and a small number of convicts. Its shark-infested waters and powerful currents made escape seem impossible.
Devil's Island is the smallest and most atmospheric of the Îles du Salut. Visitors can reach it by boat from Kourou and walk among the ruined buildings, including the stone hut where Dreyfus was held, now restored. The jungle has largely reclaimed the island, giving it an eerie, haunted quality that draws thousands of visitors each year.
Visit: Île du Diable — Îles du Salut (historic site)
Îles du Salut — Administrative headquarters of the island prisons
Île Royale is the largest of the three Îles du Salut and served as the administrative center of the island penal complex. Papillon spends time here among the general prison population and observes the rigid social order of convict life: the trustees, the informers, and the sharks — both literal, circling in the waters below, and figurative, among the prisoners. The island's warden quarters, chapel, and hospital give it a strange semblance of civilization that mocks the suffering taking place within its walls.
Île Royale was the administrative hub of the Îles du Salut penal complex from the mid-19th century. It held the warden's residence, a hospital, a chapel, and the quarters for guards and their families. The island's high ground gave it commanding views of the other two islands and the Atlantic approaches.
Île Royale is the most developed of the three islands for tourism and is accessible by regular ferry from Kourou. It has a small hotel, a restaurant, and a museum dedicated to the history of the penal colony. Many of the original buildings have been preserved or restored, and howler monkeys now roam freely among the ruins.
Visit: Île Royale — Auberge des Îles du Salut (historic site)
Kourou, French Guiana — Departure point for the Îles du Salut
Kourou is the coastal town from which convicts were ferried out to the Îles du Salut in small boats, a short but final-feeling journey across shark-infested waters. For Papillon, the sight of the three islands growing larger on the horizon as the boat pulls away from the Kourou coast represents the near-total extinction of hope. The town itself was a staging point in the penal administration, and the waters between Kourou and the islands are the very waters that Papillon will one day challenge on his desperate coconut-sack raft.
Kourou was a small administrative and agricultural town during the penal colony era, serving primarily as a supply depot and transfer point. After the penal colony closed, the town was transformed dramatically when the Guiana Space Centre was established there in 1968, making it one of the most strategically important launch sites in the world.
Kourou is today home to the Guiana Space Centre (Centre Spatial Guyanais), operated by the European Space Agency and CNES. Rocket launches — including the Ariane series — take place here, and the space center offers guided tours. Ferries to the Îles du Salut depart from Kourou's harbor regularly.
Visit: Guiana Space Centre — Tours & Îles du Salut Ferry (tour)
Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni — Border river, route of early escape attempts
The Maroni River, forming the border between French Guiana and Dutch Suriname, features crucially in the escape narratives woven through the book. Papillon and his confederates use the river as an escape corridor, paddling through its dark jungle-lined waters by night, evading guards and navigating toward what they hope will be freedom across the border. The river's dual nature — a natural highway for the Maroni people and a treacherous barrier watched by prison authorities — makes every crossing a gamble between liberty and recapture.
The Maroni (or Marowijne) River has served as the border between French Guiana and Suriname since the 19th century. Indigenous Maroon communities — descendants of escaped slaves — have inhabited its banks for centuries, developing sophisticated river cultures. During the penal colony era, the river was a key escape route that authorities patrolled with particular vigilance.
The Maroni River remains the international border between French Guiana and Suriname. The town of Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni on the French side faces Albina on the Surinamese side. Dugout canoes and small ferries still cross regularly, and the river banks are home to vibrant Maroon communities whose culture and crafts are celebrated in local markets.
Visit: Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni Waterfront (landmark)
Northwestern Venezuela — Final refuge and freedom
After his extraordinary escape from Devil's Island on the coconut-sack raft, Papillon eventually makes his way to Venezuela, where he finally finds permanent refuge and freedom. Having survived the open sea, shark-infested waters, and numerous setbacks across years of pursuit, Papillon lands on Venezuelan soil and is ultimately allowed to remain. He builds a new life here, and Venezuela becomes the country where Henri Charrière actually lived for the rest of his life — the place where the man and the legend finally came to rest.
Venezuela has a long history of accepting political refugees and fugitives from neighboring countries. During the mid-20th century, its relatively open borders and boom economy driven by oil revenues made it an attractive destination for immigrants from across South America, Europe, and the Caribbean.
Venezuela's Maracaibo region, once one of South America's wealthiest areas due to its vast oil reserves beneath Lake Maracaibo, has suffered greatly from the country's economic and political crisis in recent decades. Henri Charrière became a Venezuelan citizen and spent much of his post-prison life there before achieving worldwide fame with the publication of Papillon in 1969.
Îles du Salut coastal area — Refuge with lepers during early escape
During one of his early escape attempts, Papillon seeks refuge among a community of lepers, who give him shelter, food, and passage despite the horrific stigma attached to their condition. This sequence is among the most morally striking in the book: Papillon, a convicted murderer, is treated with more humanity by society's most outcast members than by any official institution. He eats with them, drinks with them, and accepts their help, and in return treats them with complete dignity — an episode that reveals the deep humanity beneath his outlaw exterior.
Leprosy (Hansen's disease) was endemic in the Caribbean and South American tropics during the 19th and early 20th centuries. French colonial authorities maintained segregated leper colonies in French Guiana as part of the broader effort to isolate the disease. The lepers of the region were among the most socially marginalized people in an already brutal colonial system.
Leprosy has been effectively treated with antibiotics since the 1940s and is now rare in French Guiana. The former leper colony sites on and near the Îles du Salut have been reclaimed by jungle, leaving few visible traces. The islands' overall historic preservation focuses primarily on the penal colony infrastructure.
Northern Colombia — Refuge during an early escape attempt
In one of the book's most vivid episodes, Papillon and his companions make landfall on the Colombian coast after their early escape from Guiana, and spend time among indigenous communities in the remote jungle interior. The Guajiro people — or a tribe depicted similarly — welcome the fugitives and offer them a utopian interlude far removed from European civilization and its cruelty. Papillon lives freely, is given women as companions by the tribe, and is briefly tempted to stay forever, before his obsession with clearing his name in France drives him back into the world.
The Gulf of Darién and Colombia's Caribbean coast have been inhabited by indigenous communities for thousands of years. The Kuna and other peoples of the region maintained strong independence from Spanish and later Colombian colonial authority, and the remote coastlines provided refuge to pirates, smugglers, and fugitives throughout history.
The Darién region remains one of the most remote and biodiverse areas in the Americas. The Darién Gap, the break in the Pan-American Highway, is famous as a dangerous passage for migrants attempting to reach North America. Indigenous communities continue to inhabit the region, though their cultures face increasing pressure from illegal armed groups and deforestation.
Port of Spain, Trinidad — Brief stop during flight north
During the long arc of his escapes and recaptures, Papillon passes through or near Trinidad, the British Caribbean island that represents a tantalizing brushing with the English-speaking world outside the French penal system's reach. The proximity of British territory — and British law — offers a brief psychological respite, a reminder that not all the world is governed by the French penal code that has consumed his life. Trinidad's port represents one of many near-misses on the long road to final freedom.
Trinidad was a Spanish colony until captured by Britain in 1797 and became one of the most prosperous islands in the British Caribbean, driven by sugar plantation agriculture and later petroleum. Port of Spain developed as a significant Caribbean commercial hub through the 19th and 20th centuries.
Trinidad and Tobago is an independent republic and one of the Caribbean's most economically developed nations, with a robust petroleum and natural gas industry. Port of Spain is its vibrant capital, famous for its Carnival celebrations, and is a major hub for regional commerce and culture.
Caracas, Venezuela — Where Papillon ultimately settles
Caracas is the city where Henri Charrière — Papillon — ultimately makes his permanent home after his escape from Devil's Island. The Venezuelan capital accepts him, and over the decades he builds a life there: running a restaurant, assimilating into Venezuelan society, and eventually writing down the extraordinary story that would become one of the best-selling memoirs of the 20th century. The butterfly tattoo that gave him his nickname finally rests in freedom, in a city far from the French courts and penal islands that tried to destroy him.
Caracas was founded by the Spanish in 1567 and became the birthplace of Simón Bolívar, the liberator of South America. By the mid-20th century, Venezuela's oil wealth had transformed Caracas into a modern metropolis attracting immigrants and refugees from across Europe and Latin America.
Caracas remains Venezuela's capital and largest city, though it has been severely affected by the country's political and economic crisis since the early 2010s. Despite its difficulties, the city retains cultural vitality. The memory of Henri Charrière is honored in Venezuela, where Papillon is considered part of the national literary heritage.
More by Henri Charrière: All Henri Charrière books