French Île du Diable
Rocky islet off the Atlantic coast of French Guiana .
The smallest of the three Îles du Salut, it is a narrow strip of land 3,900 ft (1,200 m) long and 1,320 ft (400 m) wide. Part of a penal settlement since 1852, it housed the convicts' leper colony until the islands were made a maximum-security area. It shared the notoriety for cruelty of the mainland French Guiana penal colony. Spies and political prisoners, including Alfred Dreyfus , were held there. The island's use as a penal colony was phased out by the early 1950s.