The Prison de l’Abbaye was a

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

prison in use from 1522 to 1854. The final building was built by

Christophe Gamard Christophe Gamard, Gamar or Gamart, was a 17th-century French architect, who worked in Paris and died there in 1649. Biography He was a master mason in 1613, an architect of the old Saint-Sulpice in 1623 (and began its reconstruction after 164 ...

in 1631 and made up of three floors, flanked by two

turret Turret may refer to: * Turret (architecture), a small tower that projects above the wall of a building * Gun turret, a mechanism of a projectile-firing weapon * Objective turret, an indexable holder of multiple lenses in an optical microscope * Mi ...

s (or more exactly, '' échauguettes''). It was the scene of a portion of the

September Massacres The September Massacres were a series of killings of prisoners in Paris that occurred in 1792, from Sunday, 2 September until Thursday, 6 September, during the French Revolution. Between 1,176 and 1,614 people were killed by ''fédérés'', gua ...

, one of the bloodiest episodes of the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...

. Twenty-two priests were given summary trials and then killed by mob outside the church. Favier 1988, p. 102.

Madame Roland Marie-Jeanne 'Manon' Roland de la Platière (Paris, March 17, 1754 – Paris, November 8, 1793), born Marie-Jeanne Phlipon, and best known under the name Madame Roland, was a French revolutionary, salonnière and writer. Initially she led a ...

, wife of the

Girondin The Girondins ( , ), or Girondists, were members of a loosely knit political faction during the French Revolution. From 1791 to 1793, the Girondins were active in the Legislative Assembly and the National Convention. Together with the Montagnard ...

Minister of the Interior

Jean-Marie Roland Jean-Marie is both a given name and a surname. Notable people with the name include: * Jean-Marie Abgrall (born 1950), a French psychiatrist, criminologist, specialist in forensic medicine, cult expert, and graduate in criminal law * Jean-Marie C ...

, was interned here on her first arrest in 1793 before being transferred to Sainte Pélagie.

History

Pre-Revolution

It occupied part of the current site of

Boulevard Saint-Germain Boulevard Saint-Germain () is a major street in Paris on the Rive Gauche of the Seine. It curves in a 3.5-kilometre (2.1 miles) arc from the Pont de Sully in the east (the bridge at the edge of Île Saint-Louis) to the Pont de la Concorde ( ...

in the SE corner of the enclosure of the

Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés An abbey is a type of monastery used by members of a religious order under the governance of an abbot or abbess. Abbeys provide a complex of buildings and land for religious activities, work, and housing of Christian monks and nuns. The conce ...

. The abbey dated to the earliest era of Paris, when

Childebert I Childebert I (c. 496 – 13 December 558) was a Frankish King of the Merovingian dynasty, as third of the four sons of Clovis I who shared the kingdom of the Franks upon their father's death in 511. He was one of the sons of Saint Cl ...

(on the site of a temple to

Isis Isis (; ''Ēse''; ; Meroitic: ''Wos'' 'a''or ''Wusa''; Phoenician: 𐤀𐤎, romanized: ʾs) was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. Isis was first mentioned in the Old Kingd ...

Ceres Ceres most commonly refers to: * Ceres (dwarf planet), the largest asteroid * Ceres (mythology), the Roman goddess of agriculture Ceres may also refer to: Places Brazil * Ceres, Goiás, Brazil * Ceres Microregion, in north-central Goiás ...

, according to legend) founded a monastery dedicated to the Holy Cross and to St

Vincent of Saragossa Vincent of Saragossa (also known as Vincent Martyr, Vincent of Huesca or Vincent the Deacon), the Protomartyr of Spain, was a deacon of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Zaragoza, Church of Saragossa. He is the patron saint of Lisbon and Valenci ...

, which later took the name of its administering bishop

Germain of Paris Germain ( la, Germanus; 496 – 28 May 576) was the bishop of Paris The Archdiocese of Paris (Latin: ''Archidioecesis Parisiensis''; French: ''Archidiocèse de Paris'') is a Latin Church ecclesiastical jurisdiction or archdiocese of the Cat ...

. Its basilica became known as "Saint-Denis of the Merovingians", since it contained the tombs of Childebert I and others of the dynasty.

Massacres

Destruction

The prison de l’Abbaye was later transformed into a military prison and was finally demolished in 1854 for the construction of boulevard Saint-Germain.

References

Bibliography

* Favier, Jean; et al., editors (1988). ''Chronique de la Révolution''. Paris: Larousse; Éditions Jacques Legrand. . {{DEFAULTSORT:Prison De L'Abbaye

Abbaye An abbey is a type of monastery used by members of a religious order under the governance of an abbot or abbess. Abbeys provide a complex of buildings and land for religious activities, work, and housing of Christians, Christian monks and nuns ...

French Revolution Buildings and structures demolished in 1854