Old and New Paris: Its History, Its People, and Its Places, v. 2

by H. Sutherland Edwards

Of yet another ingenious escape an Englishman[{142}] named Thomas Jackson, under a sentence of five years, was the hero. He hoisted himself up from the central pavilion by a false window and, by means of a cord provided with a stout hook at the end, gained the roofs, along which he stole to the exterior wall, where, still with the aid of his rope, he managed to let himself down to the ground uninjured and without exciting suspicion, favoured, as he had been, by a dark night and a deluge of rain.

Saint-Lazare, a house of detention and correction for women, is situated in the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis. Before arriving at its ultimate destination, this prison had to pass through sundry historical phases, some of them sufficiently curious. It was at first, as its name indicates, a leper hospital; and already at the beginning of the twelfth century it existed on the road from Paris to Saint-Denis, built, as it had been, upon the ruins of an old basilica dedicated to Saint-Lawrence. Louis le Gros established for its benefit the fair of Saint-Ladre, which was held annually in front of the hospital and lasted eight days. This fair was, under Philip Augustus, replaced by the fair of Saint-Lawrence.

Like most lazarettos, the hospital of Saint-Lazare was composed of an assemblage of little compartments, in which each leper lived isolated. It is recorded by a monk of Saint-Denis, Odéon de Deuil by name, that in 1147 Louis VII., carrying the royal standard to Saint-Denis previously to his departure for the Crusades, visited the lepers in their cells. The bakers of France, who, it appears, were more exposed to leprosy than any other body of men, owing to the action of the fire upon their skin, made it their particular concern to contribute towards the maintenance of Saint-Lazare, and sent large gifts of bread to it. In return, its doors were always open to any baker attacked with the malady.

From 1515 until the seventeenth century Saint-Lazare was managed, or mismanaged, by the canons of Saint-Victor, who established themselves there as in a great abbey, and consumed the rich revenues of the institution. The leprosy was turned out of doors, or at least the canons would only receive certain ecclesiastics afflicted with leprosy. In 1630 the reform of this degenerate establishment was confided to Saint-Vincent de Paul, who installed there, under the name of “congregation of Saint-Lazare,” a regular staff of priests to tend the sick. It was in the convent of Saint-Lazare that Vincent de Paul died. He was interred in the choir at the foot of the high altar. His tomb, bearing a commemorative inscription, was still visible in 1789.

Ten years after the Revolution a portion of Saint-Lazare was employed as a house of correction for men, as well as a depository for persons suddenly and arbitrarily arrested. It was there that, shortly after the famous first representation of the Marriage of Figaro, Beaumarchais was shut up, after having been brutally dragged from his home. This iniquitous arrest, which nothing could excuse or extenuate, caused such a stir in Paris that the brilliant dramatist was set free within three days.

On the 13th of July, 1789, the eve of the taking of the Bastille, the convent of Saint-Lazare was pillaged. Paris was suffering from famine, and the report got abroad that in the immense buildings of the cloister large quantities of wheat and flour were concealed. The popular suspicions proved to be well founded. Enormous supplies of cereals, wines, and victuals of every description were discovered, and the inmates, who had represented themselves as entirely destitute, were ignominiously chased out of doors. Unhappily the famished invaders, once in possession of the booty, abandoned themselves to all kinds of excesses. The barns were set on fire, and the flames for some time threatened the whole quarter with destruction.

Converted into a prison, Saint-Lazare received a great number of suspects. Some of its guests were now sufficiently illustrious: the great poet, André Chenier, for instance. Within its walls Chenier wrote, for a female prisoner, one of his most beautiful elegies, as well as some of his famous iambics. After, the Consulate Saint-Lazare became at once a civil prison, an administrative prison, and a house of correction. Amongst other classes of offenders detained there were women sentenced to less than a year’s imprisonment, or in debt to the State, or convicted of adultery, as well as girls under age whose parents had shut them up for correction.

This vast and sombre prison, with its decrepit walls and its sinister aspect, consists of five great blocks of buildings surrounding three courtyards planted with trees. A road encircles and isolates the whole. The buildings are four-storeyed, sufficiently well ventilated, and capable of accommodating twelve hundred offenders. The women immured at Saint-Lazare are divided into three categories. The first consists of women convicted of crimes or misdemeanours; the[{143}] second of girls under age condemned for indiscreet conduct to remain till their majority in a house of correction, as also of girls whose parents have incarcerated them on a judge’s order, and girls below sixteen, detained for vagabondage or prostitution. The third category is composed of abandoned women administratively detained.