Châtelet (Paris)

Le grand Châtelet, reconstruction drawing 1897

The two Châtelets in Paris were the castles that secured the bridges over the Seine in the Middle Ages . The name comes from the Latin word castrum , fort, castle.

Until the 9th century, Paris only had a wooden city fortification on the Île de la Cité . The two bridges that connected the island to the mainland were secured by towers from ancient times.

When after the end of the Norman raids (end of the 9th century) the Roman stone bridge (today Pont Notre-Dame ) was replaced by a new bridge 150 meters downstream, the Grand Pont (today Pont au Change ), this new building got a fort that Grand Châtelet - in contrast to the Petit Châtelet, which was responsible for the security of the Petit Pont .

Three centuries later, at the end of the 12th century, King Philip August had his city wall built, which eliminated the security task of the Châtelets. The king had the Grand Châtelet renovated and assigned it to the Prévôt de Paris , the royal city vogt , and its judicial administration as the official residence. Both buildings served as a prison in the following years.

While the Petit Châtelet was actually just a gate flanked by two towers (it was demolished in 1780 and replaced as a prison by the Prison de la Force ), the Grand Châtelet was almost a square structure, had a courtyard in the middle and two towers Direction suburb.

The Grand Châtelet as a prison

"The Grand-Châtelet was the spookiest building in Paris after the gallows of Montfaucon , both because of its physiognomy and purpose and because of its neighborhood, which made it the most malodorous area in the capital."

In May 1783 there were 305 prisoners in the Grand Châtelet, and in May 1790 350 who were considered dangerous criminals - when the prisons were stormed on July 13, 1789, the Châtelet was avoided.

On August 25, 1790, the Châtelet Court was dissolved and its work ended on January 24, 1791. The prison remained, however. During the September murders in 1792 there were 269 prisoners in the Châtelet, of whom 215 to 220 were killed - all undoubtedly criminals who had nothing to do with the aristocratic conspiracies of the time.

The Grand Châtelet was demolished in 1802 on the orders of Napoleon Bonaparte . The vacant lot left by the demolition was used to create the Place du Châtelet .

The prison cells (La géôle)

The prison cells in the eastern part of the Châtelet were divided into three categories: the common rooms on the upper floor, which were designated as "secret", and the pits in the cellars. During the occupation of Paris by the English, a decree of Henry VI lists of England from May 1425 on the cells. The first ten were the least terrible, their names were: Les Chaînes, Beauvoir, Motte, Salle, Boucheries, Beaumont, Grièche, Beauvais, Barbarie and Gloriette . The following were much more hideous, their names speak for themselves: Le Puits, les Oubliettes, l'Entre-deux-huis, la Gourdaine, le Cerceau (the well shaft, the dungeon, that between door and hinge, the boat, the arch) . Finally, the last two that were particularly cruel:

The pit , also called Chausse hypocras ( Hippocrates' pants ), into which the prisoners were lowered with a pulley. It appears to have been in the shape of an upside-down cone: the prisoners had their feet permanently in the water and could neither stand nor lie down; they usually died there within two weeks.
Fin d'aise (end of comfort) that was filled with trash and reptiles. In 1377 Honoré Paulard, a Parisian citizen who was accused of poisoning his parents, sisters, and three other people in order to obtain their inheritance, was lowered here; he died within a month.

There was a tariff for imprisonment here. Prisoners had to z. B. Pay for their imprisonment per night, as well as a supplement to get a bed. The tariff varied depending on the status: "Count, banner man , knight, squire, Lombarde (Italian moneylender), Jew and others".

The morgue (La morgue)

In the 16th century "morgue" meant face in the sense of expression, expression: the prisoners who were brought to the lower cells of the Châtelet were "haunted" by their prison guards; that is, they were persistently stared at in order to identify them in the event of an escape or a repeated crime. The name "morgue" was assigned to these cells by extension. The deposit of a corpse in Châtelet is mentioned for the first time in a judgment of the Prévôt de Paris of December 23, 1371. Another judgment of the Paris Prévôt of September 1, 1734 connects La Géôle with the identification of corpses for the first time.

After these cells were moved to another part of the Châtelet, in the 18th century the "morgue" was assigned to the exposure of corpses found on public roads or drowned in the Seine. About fifteen bodies were found every night in the 17th century. The Filles hospitalières de Sainte-Catherine had to wash them and bury them on the Cimetière des Innocents . The prefect of police Louis Nicolas Dubois left the Morgue in connection with the demolition of the Chatelet to the Quai du Marché-Neuf move.

Web links

Commons : Grand Châtelet - collection of images, videos and audio files

Commons : Petit Châtelet - collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

↑ "Le Grand-Châtelet fut, après le gibet de Montfaucon, l'édifice le plus sinistre de Paris, tant par sa physionomie et sa destination que par son voisinage qui faisait de ce quartier l'endroit le plus fétide de la capitale." ( Jacques Hillairet , Connaissance du vieux Paris , Éditions Princesse, 1954, p. 83)
↑ In the reports of the Paris Prévôté "the purchase of a copper roll" is mentioned, "which was used for the prison of the Fosse du Châtelet"
^ Jacques Hillairet, Prisons, piloris et cachots du vieux Paris , Les éditions de minuit, Paris, 1956, p. 163, ISBN 2-7073-1275-4
↑ "Comte, banneret, chevalier, écuyer, lombarde, juif et autres" (Jacques-Antoine Dulaure, "Histoire de Paris", Gabriel Roux, Paris, 1853, p. 257)
↑ What is meant is the Hôpital Sainte-Catherine on Rue Saint-Denis , diagonally across from the Cimetière des Innocents. Jacques Hillairet, Connaissance du vieux Paris , p. 84

[1] "Le Grand-Châtelet fut, après le gibet de Montfaucon, l'édifice le plus sinistre de Paris, tant par sa physionomie et sa destination que par son voisinage qui faisait de ce quartier l'endroit le plus fétide de la capitale." ( Jacques Hillairet , Connaissance du vieux Paris , Éditions Princesse, 1954, p. 83)

[2] In the reports of the Paris Prévôté "the purchase of a copper roll" is mentioned, "which was used for the prison of the Fosse du Châtelet"

[3] Jacques Hillairet, Prisons, piloris et cachots du vieux Paris , Les éditions de minuit, Paris, 1956, p. 163, ISBN 2-7073-1275-4

[4] "Comte, banneret, chevalier, écuyer, lombarde, juif et autres" (Jacques-Antoine Dulaure, "Histoire de Paris", Gabriel Roux, Paris, 1853, p. 257)

[5] What is meant is the Hôpital Sainte-Catherine on Rue Saint-Denis , diagonally across from the Cimetière des Innocents. Jacques Hillairet, Connaissance du vieux Paris , p. 84