After liftoff, Ariane rockets leave the Guiana coast and travel over three small islands known as the Islands of Salvation. These lie some 15 km off Kourou. For several hours after a launch, the only person allowed on the islands, now owned by the CNES, is one man who operates the cinetelescope. That instrument records the rocket's trajectory using infrared tracking. Holidaymakers and the 20 or so residents who live and work at the hotel on the largest island have to decamp temporarily.

In the distant past, the opposite was true. Over 70,000 of France's convicted criminals were transported to penal settlements in Guiana, and the islands were an integral part of that system. Leaving was hardly an option. Royale, the largest of the settlements at 21 hectares, was an administrative center and housed the largest numbers. St. Joseph's, at 14 hectares, was where recalcitrant prisoners were sent to serve sentences in solitary confinement. Silence was strictly enforced and insanity was a common result. It was the third island, however, slightly smaller than St. Joseph's, that achieved the most notoriety, even though few actually spent time there, because, after 1894, it was reserved for political prisoners. Its name is apt though -- Devil's Island.

Originally the whole island group was named Devil's Islands, after the fierce currents that bedeviled early explorers and would later claim the lives of most prisoners who tried to escape. The name change was due to the succor that those islands provided one group of early settlers.