Roland’s counterfeiting gang

Roland’s counterfeiting gang is an illicit enterprise hidden in a remote château near Grenoble, where the production of counterfeit money rests on the confinement and forced labor of women. Its organization changes sharply when Roland departs: a more lenient successor releases the women from their harshest work, yet the gang remains exposed to arrest. Through its contrasting leaders and outcomes, the gang illustrates the novel’s repeated distinction between criminal power and the vulnerability of those trapped within it.

Base and Organization

The gang is led by Roland, who takes Therese to a mountain stronghold on the border of Dauphiné, within the bishopric of Grenoble. The approach is remote, with habitations and traveled roads left behind; Roland dismisses the guide who brought them, removing the last immediate link to the outside. Once they cross the drawbridge, he identifies himself as chief of the counterfeiters and makes clear that the château is not a refuge but an enclosed criminal workplace.

The organization’s operation extends beyond the production of false coin. Roland assigns Therese to work a wheel for ten hours a day alongside four women who are manacled, and subjects the women to his caprices. He sets their daily food at six ounces of black bread and a plate of kidney beans, denies them any prospect of freedom, and says that women who die from overwork will be discarded in a pit beside the well. His account of the gang’s system makes coercion part of its labor structure: the women are held, worked, and replaceable.

Leadership and the Women’s Conditions

Roland’s rule treats confinement and mistreatment as ordinary instruments of control. Therese has previously saved him, but he responds to that assistance by bringing her into the château and compelling her to join the other women. Her appeal to his sense of gratitude does not change the conditions he has announced. The episode turns an apparent offer of safety into a betrayal, showing how completely Roland’s authority overrides any obligation he might owe her.

After Roland leaves, his successor, Dalville, immediately releases the women from operating the wheel. He calls that work unsuitable for women and says animals should be used for it; although he continues the counterfeit trade, he relocates the women to the château and gives them better food and lodging. They are assigned to cut counterfeit coins, a less exhausting task. The change is real but limited: Dalville moderates their treatment without ending their involvement in the gang’s criminal work.

Raid, Arrest, and Unequal Justice

Dalville’s comparatively humane management does not protect the organization. Two months after he takes charge, he tells the women that Roland has reached Venice, established himself there, and secured the fortune he sought. Dalville’s own outcome is different. While work at the château continues, sixty constables storm the stronghold, bridge the moats, and overwhelm its occupants before they can mount a defense. The gang members are shackled, attached to horses, and marched to Grenoble.

At the resulting trial, the counterfeiters are sentenced to the gallows. Therese is almost swept into the same punishment: because she bears a brand, the court scarcely questions her before preparing to condemn her alongside the gang. A magistrate listens to her account, however, and her testimony, together with the depositions of the other counterfeiters, establishes that she was an unwilling participant. She is acquitted and freed. The episode distinguishes her coerced presence from the gang’s criminal activity while showing how little protection that distinction receives until a magistrate intervenes.

Significance

The gang’s successive leaders embody sharply different uses of power within the same criminal structure. Roland turns the château into a site of forced labor and threatens to treat the women as disposable; Dalville improves their immediate circumstances but keeps counterfeit production in operation. Neither change alters the enterprise’s basic illegality, and the raid brings the group before the law regardless of the conditions under which its members worked.

The gang’s aftermath also reinforces the novel’s critique of unequal exposure to punishment. The women are captured with the counterfeiters, while Roland has already escaped to Venice and enjoys the fortune he made. Therese’s near-execution further connects this episode to her earlier wrongful conviction: poverty, vulnerability, and the mark on her body make her readily punishable, while escape and influence help others avoid the same consequences. Her eventual acquittal depends not on the court’s initial presumption but on a powerful advocate’s decision to hear her.