The book of Benoit Vandevelde also tell the intimate of the jails of this prison. In the 18th century, we cross paths with Francois Anneessensaaccused of being the main instigator of the riots in Brussels in 1717, on the way to its execution. We find ourselves in the midst of brigands, beggars and adventurers, such as the famous French delinquent Vidocq, who manages to escape.
Then came August 25, 1830, the day of the Belgian revolution. William I of Orange implements such drastic reforms that the Belgian people will revolt and finally find their total independence.
On the ashes of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands will be born Belgium. Its first monarch was Leopold I and its first government was very liberal. Quickly, Belgium became the second economic power, behind England.
A few years later, in this context of industrialization, Karl Marx will begin to theorize the class struggle thesis. Living in Brussels, when he had already published the communist manifestohe will also know, as well as his family, the jails of the Amigo, before being accompanied back to the French border.
Paul Verlaine will live, in Brussels, a tragic love with Arthur Rimbaud. After a stint at the Amigo, he was locked up in the Carmelite prison for bad morals and the attempted assassination of Rimbaud in 1873. He also recounted, in his text my prisonshis experience at the Amigo prison.
