Justine Is Forced to Join Dubois's Gang

Justine Is Forced to Join Dubois's Gang marks a sharp reversal in Justine’s fortunes: after poverty and judicial prejudice help send her to prison for a theft she did not commit, the crime arranged by Dubois becomes the means of her escape. Freedom, however, comes at a price. Dubois’s band turns from Justine’s rescuers into her captors, and she agrees to travel with them only when refusal leaves her facing imminent violence.

Causes and Escape

Du Harpin accuses Justine of stealing a diamond worth a thousand crowns and has it planted in her mattress. Although she tries to explain that the accusation is vengeance for her refusal to participate in his criminal dealings, the authorities accept the apparent evidence and dismiss her defense. The episode presents her conviction as part of a wider injustice: poverty and lack of influence make the accusation seem self-evident, while Du Harpin’s reputation protects him from suspicion.

Imprisoned in the Conciergerie and facing execution, Justine encounters Dubois, a criminal who is also awaiting the death penalty. Two days before the scheduled executions, Dubois tells her that the prison will catch fire and that her accomplices will help them escape. The fire does break out; twenty-one people die, while Justine and Dubois make their escape. Their flight takes them to a poacher’s cottage in the Forest of Bondy, where Dubois presents the escape as proof that crime, rather than virtue, has protected Justine.

The Demand to Join

At the cottage, Dubois urges Justine to abandon virtue and promises that she could help lead her to a fortune. Justine refuses, saying that she remains committed to her religious principles and would rather endure the dangers of virtue than accept the perilous rewards of crime. Her answer establishes that escape has not changed her convictions, even though it has placed her in circumstances where those convictions are difficult to maintain.

Dubois’s four companions, drinking with the poacher, respond to Justine’s refusal by deciding to make her their victim. They threaten to force her to submit to them and then kill her to conceal what they have done. Justine falls to her knees and asks Dubois to protect her. Dubois will intervene only if Justine joins the band and agrees to take part in its crimes. Faced with an immediate threat and no safe means of escape, Justine accepts the condition, promising to accompany Dubois if she prevents the men from harming her.

Coerced Membership and Its Limits

Dubois announces that Justine is now one of the company, arguing that her youth and appearance may serve the band’s interests. The men do not accept this declaration as a reason to leave her alone, and Justine is subjected to further abuse before the group resumes its journey. The episode makes clear that her nominal admission to the band offers no reliable protection: Dubois has compelled her agreement, but cannot or does not shield her from the men’s violence.

The next night, near Louvres, Justine seeks Dubois’s support because she fears another attack. Instead, Dubois spends the night with three of the thieves. The captain, Coeur-de-fer, approaches Justine and tells her that the band expects her to help ensnare victims when they settle in towns. He offers to spare her that role if she becomes his mistress, framing her poverty as the force that imposes the band’s control over her. Justine says she would prefer death to these conditions and asks why the band prevents her from escaping. His answer confirms that the group intends to bind her either to its pleasures or to its criminal interests.

Narrative Significance

The episode links two forms of coercion: the court condemns Justine on false evidence, and the band exploits the vulnerability that follows her escape. The fire saves her from the scaffold, but it does not restore her freedom. Instead, survival requires a coerced promise to join the very criminal world she rejects. Justine’s decision is therefore a constrained response to immediate danger, not a conversion to Dubois’s outlook; her continued resistance and wish to escape preserve the conflict between her principles and the conditions imposed on her.

The contrast also complicates the language of rescue. Dubois has saved Justine’s life, yet treats that act as grounds to demand her complicity, while the judicial system gives Du Harpin’s accusation more weight than Justine’s account. The band’s violence and the court’s prejudice differ in form, but both leave her exposed because she lacks the power or protection to make her own testimony prevail.