Prisons La Roquette
The prisons of La Roquette (Petite and Grande Roquette) are former prisons located in Paris, in the 11th arrondissement, on either side of the rue de la Roquette. Today, the square of La Roquette, the largest of the 11th arrondissement, occupies the old location of the Petite Roquette.
The prisons of La Roquette (Petite and Grande Roquette) are former prisons located in Paris, in the 11th arrondissement, on either side of the rue de la Roquette. Today, the square of La Roquette, the largest of the 11th arrondissement, occupies the old location of the Petite Roquette.
Historical
The birth of prisons
In 1826, under Charles X, a decision was taken to build a prison for juvenile offenders aged 7 to 20 — the age of civil majority in France being then set at 21 years. The location is found not far from the Père-Lachaise cemetery, at 143, rue de la Roquette, on part of the grounds of the former convent of the Hospitalières de la Roquette, built in 1690 and closed to the French Revolution in 1789. It is the architect Hippolyte Lebas, creator of the church of Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, who is chosen to carry out this project. It is inspired by the plans of Jeremy Bentham's panoptic], to erect a prison of hexagonal shape, inaugurated on September 11, 1830. The Parisians quickly called it “la Roquette”. The conditions of detention are particularly difficult and arouse the indignation of some Parisians].[2] The young prisoners were forced to hard labour 14 hours a day and confined to the rest of the time, and designated only by a nut number instead of name. Many Parisians flocked to observe them, taking advantage of the prison’s benthamian plan.
The same year, Louis-Philippe I is alarmed by the increase in the number of prisoners in Paris, and in turn decides to build a prison in Paris (which already has no less than a dozen). The architect François-Christian Gau was then appointed to draw up the plans for the new prison, and submitted his project. It is simple: a wall of enclosure surrounding a square building, itself pierced from a central courtyard. He marks his desire to differentiate himself from the prison for young offenders. The contrast will be all the more glaring as the new prison will be built on land facing the previous prison.
While the construction of the second prison (located at 164-168, rue de la Roquette) was underway, strong protests arose as to the confinement of the condemned to death in these places. Indeed, since 1832, the guillotine has been transferred from the Place de Grève to the Barrier of Arcueil (or Saint-Jacques barrier, on the current location of the Saint-Jacques metro station), south of Paris, and the distance between the Roquette and the Saint-Jacques barrier is about 5 km. The journey is therefore very long between the place of detention and the place of execution.
This second prison was inaugurated on 24 December 1836 and on the same day, forty "salad baskets" carried 187 prisoners, transferred from the prison of Bicêtre.
The exact name of the new penitentiary is the “Filing of Convicts.” It is there, in fact, that the future convicts will wait before their departure for the island of Ré, then for Cayenne or Noumea. But this is also where the prisoners to death will be staying. And to mark the difference between the two prisons so close, the Parisians attribute to them a distinctive name: the rascals are housed in "La Petite Roquette", the assassins at "la Grande Roquette".
The Grande Roquette becomes the new center of the guillotine until it closes
This prison was located on the even side, at 166 and 168 rue de la Roquette in the 11th arrondissement of Paris, opposite the current square de la Roquette. It was not until November 29, 1851 that a new decree changed the location of Parisian executions. We now guillotine at the entrance of the Grande Roquette, in the street, which will be called Place de Roquette. A few days later, masons break the paving of the street and install five strictly flat slabs in the ground. These slabs are intended to accommodate the feet of the guillotine, hence the name of "abbey of five-stones", found by a facetious to designate this place. Three weeks after the decree, on December 16, 1851, the doors of the prison open before an assassin, Joseph Humblot, who has only twenty steps to take to find himself on the rocking of the guillotine. His executioner is Heidenreich. On June 17, 1872, Roche, Heidenreich's successor, executed in front of the Moreux prison, the murderer of a prostitute, but without resorting to the scaffold, thus causing the anger of the crowd which sees little more than the summit of "the Widow". Abduction of grthe bodies of the Archbishop of Paris, Mr. Darboy, and the clergy executed by the Commune on May 24, 1871. Photomontage of Eugène Appert from his series Les Crimes de la Commune.
Sixty-nine prisoners to death (including a woman, Marie-Madeleine Pichon) were finally executed rue de la Roquette. The last, Alfred Peugnez, was beheaded at dawn on February 2, 1899, shortly before the closure of the Grande Roquette.
It is also in these prisons that the rebels of the Commune of 1871 summarily shot hostages, in retaliation for the summary executions of the Versailles[.[5]
Henri Pranzini, convicted of a triple murder committed in Paris on the person of three women, was guillotined there on 31 August [1887.[6]
During the 1890's, intellectuals denounce the unacceptable conditions in which the occupants of the deposit of convicts live. The pressure is getting harder and harder. In 1899, Félix Faure closed the prison, which was disused, and the convicts were transferred to the prison of Health. The following year, the buildings were demolished and in their place, apartment buildings were built.
At the same time, the former director tried to sell the guillotine slabs at the Carnavalet Museum, after having them unsealed. The Museum refused and the director had no other resource than to have the slabs replaced (more badly than good). This means that, from a classical cross, the position of these slabs now forms a cross of Saint Andrew. These are still visible today, at the crossroads of the streets of the Croix-Faubin and the Roquette, housed in the asphalt of the rue de la Croix-Faubin in front of Noo. 16