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What were prisons like during the French Revolution?

The prisons of Paris, map found in Terror: the French Revolution and its Demons (2021) by Marisa Linton and Mitchell Biard

I have been unable to find much in terms of offical documents, such as formal prison regulations or reports made by prison inspectors, that could tell us more about how life was like in the revolutionary detention centers. This leaves us with testimonies from the prisoners themselves. Immediately we run into a few source critical problems here, because the most detailed accounts we have are written after the fact, by people who due to political motivations have very few reasons to say anything good about their imprisonment. The source used the most here below — the pamphlet l’Almanach des prisons and its sequel Tableau des prisons, both of them released shortly after thermidor, and both filled with testimonies from ”patriots who groaned for several months in chains” — were for example according to the publishers released with the hope that ”exposing to the eyes of the citizens the horrible picture of all the cruelties that were inflicted in the prisons […] would reinforce the hatred of the republicans for all kinds of despotism.” (l’Almanach des prisons, page 4). I have therefore tried to find testimonies written prior to the thermidorian reaction as well. With all that said, here are descriptions of some of the Paris prisons during 1793-1794:

The Abbaye prison Originally a monastery, the building was made a prison in 1631 and remained so up until its destruction in 1854.

Manon Roland was imprisoned here from June 1 to 24 1793. In a letter to Buzot dated June 22, she writes that she has a room ”about ten feet square” and a bed all for herself, that were both previously used by a woman who got transferred to a different prison the same day Manon arrived. It would appear Manon’s meant to be held in isolation, but she writes her guards are compassionate and do their best to make her captivity easier. Every day after dinner they let her into a different room with better air, and they also let her receive visits from a man who was previously appointed by her husband ”to go into the prisons to find out what is happening there, to spy on abuses, to receive complaints and to bring everything to the Minister of the Interior.” Manon has some books with her, and writes she would have had an instrument brought over as well ”if I didn’t fear a scandal.” All in all, she concludes she’s treated rather well — ”here I live the life I lived in my office back home, it’s not a big difference.”

The Sainte-Pélagie prison Built in the 1660s, the house was originally a detention center for "debauched women and girls." In 1790, it got turned into a regular prison, and remained so up until 1899, when the building was demolished.

Manon Roland was imprisoned here from 24 June to October 31 1793. In a memorandum written August 20 1793, she recalls that upon arrival, her entry was recorded. A man then opened and searched her luggage, which greatly annoyed her since such a procedure should only be inflicted on people to be placed in solitary confinement. Manon was then asked whether she wanted one or two beds, to which she responded she was alone and didn’t want a roommate. There are however no rooms of the type she requested, so she instead gets one that’s 6 X 12 feet with with two beds, two small tables and two chairs. She has to pay rent for the cell: 15 livres per month for one bed, 30 livres for two. But since Manon only plans to use one of the beds, she pays the latter sum. She also pays for a water jug, a writing desk, paper, and pens, and is given a female prisoner to run small errands for her in the prison. Later the same day, the concierge’s wife, Madame Bouchot, comes over and tells Manon the prisoners get one portion of beans and a pound and a half of bread a day. Manon’s stomach is unable to bear this prison food, and she therefore has to recourse to the kitchen of Madame Bouchot instead, ordering chop and a few spoonfuls of vegetables for dinner and bread and water for lunch (she writes this is the same diet she had at the Abbaye prison). Manon explains that women and men are seperated from each other, with the main building for men having windows opposite and very close to the main building for women. People are therefore able to make signs to each other through the windows, which ”serve as a theater for the most shameful scenes of an infamous libertinage.” The building for women is divided into long, very narrow corridors, on one side of which are cells closed by a large bolt and key, housing anything from prostitutes to murderers. Manon writes she’s able to hear her neighbors talk through the cell walls. Every morning a guard comes and opens the cell doors to, in Manon’s words, ”see if you are standing or lying down.” After that, the prisoners are allowed to gather ”in the corridors, on the stairs, in a small courtyard or in a damp and stinking room, a worthy receptacle for this scum of the world.” Manon on the other hand stays in her cell, but by July, is has become too hot in there. The concierge's wife therefore invites her to spend the days in her apartment, eventually going so far as arranging for her to move cells completely and instead lodge ”in a pretty room with a fireplace located on the ground floor, below her own room.” Manon also has her piano from home brought over. She appreciates the concierge’s wife so much that ”I look upon myself as her boarder and I forget my captivity.” After a while, an administrator does however notice the favored treatment Manon gets, and on August 10 she gets sent back to her old cell. Manon also attests to the conditions for prisoners who aren’t as fortunate as her: she sees people getting lumped together in the same cell regardless of age and what their crime is, such a student who has badmouthed Marat together with a group of robbers. Manon does however not want to place any blame on the concierge, but rather the organization apparatus itself.

Suzanne Pétion and her ten year old son were held here from August 9 1793 to the fall of 1794, when they got transferred to the Maison Desnos. Through a CGS decree from August 19 1793, we learn Suzanne got the furniture from her apartment brought over to her. In a letter dated September 28 1793 Manon Roland reports that she and Suzanne are able to pass the time together — ”we eat together, and she likes to spend most of the day near me. I work less, but I am useful.”

According to Almanach des prisons (p. 157-167), the prison was ”damp and unhealthy” and held as many as 350 prisoners. Its cells were six feet square and contained a narrow window with iron bars, a bed with a hard mattress and half-worn blanket. Prisoners were not allowed to go outside the cell in order to go to the bathroom. Like Manon Roland, the author behind the account claims that prisoners had to pay for such things as bowls, water pitchers and plates, with money if they had any, and otherwise with their belongings. Also like Manon, he notes that male and female prisoners were able to communicate via signs through the windows, doing such things as blowing kisses. As for the food situation, the author states that those with money were able to pay for better food, but those who couldn’t were stuck with a pound and a half of bad bread and a plate of very hard beans, with bad fat or suet. At the beginning of Messidor (middle of June 1794), the police administration did however establish a kitchen in each prison on the orders of the CGS. The prisoners were then all fed in a uniform manner, each receiving a bowl of soup, half a boureille of wine, and three courses of different foods per day. The soup was usually passable, while the wine and stews were almost always detestable.

The Luxembourg prison Built 1615–1645, this was a palace that for a long time was housed by members of the Orléans family, before being given to the Count of Provence in 1778. After he fled the country in June 1791, the palace was declared ”national property.” It got turned into a prison in the summer of 1793. Two years later, in late 1795, it was made the meeting hall for the Directory.

According to Almanach des prisons (p. 59-130) the Luxembourg palace first served as prison only for people accused of federalism, but on October 11 1793 it opened its door for other suspects as well. The concierge at the time was a man by the name of Benoît, a man in the 70s who had a humane attitude towards those he was charged with guarding. Prisoners were divided mostly by which section they came from, but also according to profession, character and age, all with the intention of providing the most ”pleasant society” possible. The cells could fit ten to twelve people each. Eventually, men and women are seperated from each other. At first, the prisoners enjoy a relative liberty — they get to receive newspapers and visitors, are able to talk to each other through the windows and are allowed to possess alcohol. Watchmakers, tailors, shoemakers and engravers also get to keep the tools necessary for their work. To pass the time, the prisoners play trictrac as well as la galoche, a game where they put coins on a cork stopper and try to knock it down with other coins. By February-March, prisoners also get to go out into the palace’s courtyard. This relative freedom does however come to an end on April 4 1794, when the prisoner Alexandre Laflotte informs the authorities of an alleged conspiracy being hatched inside the prison. After this incident, ”all prisoners were locked in their cells, all interior and exterior communication was cut off, the circulation of journals intercepted, and everyone awaited in silence and terror to hear the reasons for such a rigorous order.” Shortly thereafter, Benoît gets arrested (in number 383 (April 29 1794) of the journal Les Annales patriotiques et littéraires de la France, et affaires politiques de l'Europe, we can read that this incident happened shortly after April 24, due to Benoît not having handed over 75 gold pieces given to him by a by now dead prisoner in due time) and police administrators come to the prison to inform its inhabitants that they from now on are forbidden from communicating with each other. They also confiscate money, rings, assignats, silverware, jewelry, buckles, razors, knives, penknives, scissors, forks, nails, hairspray, etc. Prisoners are also stopped from both receiving and returning linen or provisions. In June 1794 Benoît is acquitted by the Revolutionary Tribunal, without being returned to his former post. He is instead replaced by a man by the name of Guyard. Guyard forbids standing by the windows, after two prisoners managed to jump to their death. The prisoners also start receiving nighly visits from guards armed with with iron bars and sabers and accompanied by two or three enormous dogs. They drag the prisoners from their beds, count and insult them, and rip apart ”any note that contained a few words of consolation.” Prisoners only received one meal per day, rotten meat and died vegetables full of hair, mud and worms. This caused disease to spread through the prison, and it could take days to get a doctor there, since this had to be endorsed by the police administration. The prisoners also had to pay for the medicine themselves. Thermidor did however quickly make the prisoners’ condition more humane once again, now they got to go out into the courtyard, write to their families, and get fruit and wine brought into the prison, while the nighly visits become fewer and less harch — ”In a word, one could sleep, drink, eat, get some fresh air and receive from the outside the tender consolations of love and friendship. What a happy change for the physical and the moral!”

On April 10 1794, when Arthur Dillon was asked by the Revolutionary Tribunal about the prison conspiracy Alexandre Laflotte had accused him of having told him about a week earlier, he responded that the claim was false and that Laflotte had been drunk the day they talked (Bulletin du tribunal révolutionnaire, number 30, page 118), corraborating the claim above that prisoners were allowed to drink alcohol (interestingly, the author of that account claims Dillon himself was drunk most of the time during his prison stay).

Member of the Paris Commune Pierre-François Réal, who was imprisoned in Luxembourg on March 30 1794 and released shortly after thermidor, declared in a speech to the jacobins held August 15 1794that the prison was ”an iron regime, a state of death […] which was deeply imprinted in the souls of the prisoners, because of the spies spread among them whose occupation was to make lists and provide food for the revolutionary tribunal.” Réal too drew a distinction between the first concierge Benoît who was ”compassionate for misfortune,” and his ”tiger” successor — ”Neither women, children or elders whose weakness and situation could awaken in him any mark of sensibility, he struck and insulted with cannibalistic barbarism.” Réal also said the prisoners ”at every moment hesitated to know if they should kill themselves or not” and mentioned an incident where a prisoner had committed suicide by jumping out a window.

Camille Desmoulins, who was held in isolation in the Luxembourg from March 30 to April 2 1794, wrote three letters to his wife during his stay. In the first letter he asks her to send him a water jug, a glass, a chamber pot, a pair of sheets, a book, a candlestick and candles, as well as something to eat since he can’t see a commission agent anywhere. In the second letter, (March 31) he confirms he still hasn’t been given any food by the prison staff — ”I am sick, I have eaten nothing but your soup since yesterday.” He also asks for a stove (since his cell doesn’t have a fireplace), some fuel, bellows, a coffee pot, some cooling herbs, a closet, a cornet, a bowl and a pitcher of water. In the final letter (April 1 1794) Desmoulins reveals that he was able to talk to Fabre d’Églantine, whose cell was next to his, through a crack in the wall. He mentions that Fabre’s cell had a fireplace, while his own ”would be a fair chamber if a dungeon could ever be called fair.” In the first letter he similarily writes that his cell ”is fairly comfortable except that the windows are at my feet.”

François Chabot, who was thrown into the Luxembourg prison on November 17 1793 and held in isolation there, tried to kill himself on March 17 1794. When concierge Benoît was interviewed about the affair, he explained that Chabot two or three days earlier had seemed troubled, and that he therefore had confiscated his razors, meaning such sharp objects weren’t taken from the prisoners right on their arrival. (Cited in La liberté ou la mort, mourir en député, 1792-1795 (201) by Michel Biard, page 97).

The Conciergerie A building which has its roots all the way back to the Middle Ages, the Conciergerie was made a prison in the 14th century and remained so until 1934, when it was definitely closed. Besides serving as a regular prison, it was to the Conciergerie all suspects were transferred right before being brought in front of the Revolutionary Tribunal, and from where, were they sentenced to death, they got driven to the scaffold.

In the pamphlet Mémoires d'un détenu, pour servir à l'histoire de la tyrannie de Robespierre (1795), Honoré Jean Riouffe, who was imprisoned in the Conciergerie from 16 October 1793 to somewhere after thermidor, claims he was first thrown in a twelve square feet cell, very filthy and completely devoid of any light, which he shared with three other men — one murderer and two counterfeiters (Riouffe himself had been arrested suspected of girondin sympathies). He remains in this cell for thirteen days, having to sleep on straw, before being brought to interrogation by the concierge Lebeau and a child of his, who upon seeing the state of the cell exclaims: ”Dad, how dreadful this dungeon is!” After being interrogated, Riouffe gets to change cell, claiming he got placed in the same one as the girondins who a few days later would be executed, and that it was Ducos, whom he had met one time previously, he had to thank for this (something which, along with his further claims to have seen/interacted nearly every other famous prisoner as well, is probably to be taken with a grain of salt). This, along with his claim men and women were kept in two different parts of the building, separated by a grille, which they nevertheless were able to talk with one another through, is about the only information Riouffe gives regarding the prisoners’ conditions.

In Almanach des prisons (p. 7-50), a prisoner who spent six months at the Conciergerie provides a detailed picture over the interior of the prison. The first room you see when entering its doors is the so-called guichet, where the governor of the prison, concierge Richard, sits behind a desk and issues orders for the policing of the house. To the left of the guichet is the registry, a room divided into two halves by bars. One of the halves is the place where men condemned to death by the Revolutionary Tribunal are deposited, sometimes for as long as 36 hours, while being made to undergo ”the fearsome preparations for their torture.” From the registry, one enters directly into a set of dungeons called ”la Sourcière.” The author does however note that ”la Ratière” would be a more fitting name, given the fact rats were abundant there, and brings up the story of a man named Beauregard, who was forced to cover his face with his hands all night to save it from the rats, who had already eaten parts of his culotte. The stench in ”la Sourcière” is also terrible. Prisoners can spend months here, sleeping on straw. Opposite the entrance door in the guichet is a door that reads to a room with two cubicles where gatekeepers on duty sleep during the night and where women who have been sentenced to death are placed while waiting to be taken to the scaffold. From there, you walk though four wickets to get to the women’s courtyard (préau) — ”the most recommendable side of this prison and the one best suited to fixing the observer's gaze.” On the way, you pass two cells, one of which belonged to Marie-Antoinette, as well as an infirmary, where the sick got piled two by two on shabby pallets and treated by much ”disdain and arrogance” by the two people in charge of them. Prisoners in the Conciergerie are divided into three categories, depending on what type of cell they’re in — those à la pistolle, those à la pailleand those in dungeons. Those in dungeons are at all times confined to their cell, whose doors only open in order to give the prisoner food or empty their chamber pots. There is no air, and the prisoners, which can amount to 50 per cell, sleep on only straw and spread disease between each other. The cells à la paille, so called because its inmates sleep on straw as well, differ from the dungeons only in that prisoners are made to go outside between eight to nine in the morning and let back in one hour before sunset. During the day, the doors to their cells are closed, and they must instead pile up in the courtyard, or, if it’s raining, in the urine smelling galleries surrounding it. The cells à la pistolle are however so called because the prisoners in them were able to pay for real beds. They do however still get crammed up — in the authors own words, ”there were as many beds in a cell as it could possibly hold.” The prison administration also doesn’t make any kind of distinction between the different type of offences that have gotten a person thrown in jail, so political prisoners may very well be locked up in the same cell as thieves and murderers. For recreation, prisoners play cards, checkers, and backgammon, read and sing. All kind of musical instruments were however prohibited. There was also a room where prisoners could see their loved ones. Communication with the outside world does however get prohibited after a while.

Saint-Lazare prison A prison since the 17th century. Demolished in the 1820s.

In Almanach des prisons (page 167-170) we can read that those imprisoned in the Saint-Lazare prison at first didn’t have much to complain about either when it cane to the prison regime nor the prison agents. That is until the arrival of the officer Vernet, who gave the prisoners ”food as unhealthy as it was disgusting, abominable bread, salsified and embezzled wine caused a host of dangerous diseases.”

Port-Libre prison An abbey founded under the name Port-Royal in 1626, it was closed in 1790 and served as a prison from 1793 to 1795 under the new name Port-Libre.

In Tableau des prisons (page 77-138) we find work by the name ”Journal over the events that happened in the Port-Libre prison since my arrival there,” whose entries stretch from December 17 1793 to July 24 1794. According to Bibliographie de l'histoire de Paris pendant la Révolution française(1890), the author behind this journal is most likely one Philippe-Edme Coittant, a 45-year old man who was kept in the Port-Libre prison between those exact two dates. Already in his very first entry, Coittant reports that the air in the prison is healthy, the rooms locked with simple latches and the windows unbarred — ”the only way to know you were in a prison was through the clerk's office and the large lock on the front door of the building in which we had been placed.” The prisoners do however have to provide themselves with beds, leading to some being forced to sleep on the floor. Coittant is also happy with the prison staff — they give him information regarding his friends who have been transferred to other prisons, look over which inmates can contribute to the costs of the prison and which ones cannot, let prisoners who argue get away with a reprimand, and give the cells names in order to make it easier to deliver letters and packages to them. Some days they give the inmates permission to go out into the courtyard, formerly a nun cemetery. On December 23 1793 the prison also receives a visit from secretary to the Minister of the Interior Grandpré and police administrator Brichet, who both want to ensure the prisoners are housed in a healthy manner and have warmth, ordering for more stoves to be brought in and broken panes of glass to be replaced. Men and women are also not seperated but can hang out together in what Coittant calls ”the salon,” where they amuse themselves with playing music, singing, writing verses and reading journals. As 1794 drags on, more and more prohibitions do however come into existence. On March 16, prisoners no longer get to receive journals or letters. From May 6 to 11 they get locked in their cells while commissioners go for inspection rounds, confiscating knives, razors, money and jewels and forcing some prisoners to strip naked in the process (once they’ve undergone inspection, prisoners do however get go out in the courtyard and open their windows once more). On May 22, Cuittant finds out novels are the only type of book allowed, books on morality, philosophy and so-called ”devotional books” are all prohibited. Three days later, a Committee of General Security poster put up in the prison announces that prisoners will no longer have any kind of communication with the outside world, including no letters. On July 4, they no longer get to play music, and finally, on July 22, the concierge confiscates all but one knife while they’re eating. The prisoners do however still get to celebrate the Festival of the Supreme Being on June 8, the fall of the Bastille on July 14, as well as two other ”patriotic feasts” on June 18 and July 8.

Magdelonnettes prison Built in 1718, this was originally a convent that got closed in 1790. In 1793 it got converted into a prison, and remained so well into the 19th century.

The same Coittant who in a diary documenetd his experiences in the Port-Libre prison, did before that spend three months in the Magdelonnettes, and left an account of it in Tableau des prisons (page 24-64). Coittant recalls that the cells, shared by 12 prisoners, ”were rooms of eight square feet, nine feet high, overlooking the rear, each having two windows of six small panes and adorned with very solid grilles.” The concierge Vaubertrand did however do his best to make life bearable at least for the people who have been arrested simply as ”suspects.” The first night they sleep on straw, the day after that they get matresses, and a few days after that ”our rooms were decorated with tablets and small, very comfortable pieces of furniture,” even including beds. Since these take up more space, the number of prisoners per cell is reduced to eight. The prisoners also get to receive visits from loved ones. The massive inflow of detainees does however soon lead to overcrowding, to the point that the building that can’t hold more than 200 people instead almost houses 300. This causes some prisoners to have to sleep in the corridors instead of the cells. At the end of these corridors are filthy latrines, which spread such an unbearable odor that it is impossible to keep the doors to the cells open. Soon, a smallpox epidemic starts to spread through the prison. Whenever a police administrator comes for a visit, prisoners immediadely surround him to describe their frightful situation, asking for an infirmery and for a yard. They never get the first, and have to wait until December 8 to get the second. In October, prisoners are also forbidden from having any contact whatsoever with the outside world, Coittant recalling an episode where a father was even stopped from talking to his four year old daughter through his window. He does however underline a great unity between the prisoners themselves, to the point that many of them cried when a big transfer happened in December. Coittant also has no complaints to issue against either the concierge, his wife or their four year old son, who all three held sympathy for the prisoners, the wife sometimes joining them when playing music and the child declaring they were all innocent.

La Force prison Turned into a prison in 1780, it remained so until its demolision in 1845.

Philippe Le Bas got imprisoned here for a few hours on July 27, before getting liberated and going to the Hôtel de Ville. In her memoirs, his wife Élisabeth recalls that Philippe sent a commissary to tell her to send him a folding bed, a mattress and a blanket, implying the prisoners did not get those on arrival.

In Les souvenirs d'un jeune prisonnier, ou Mémoires sur les prisons de la Force et du Plessis, pour servir à l'histoire de la révolution (1794-1795), page 17-49, an anonymous prisoner who was detained in the La Force in the fall of 1793, writes that he upon arrival was thrown in the so-called ”mousetrap,” which he describes as ”a dark and uncomfortable dungeon, where prisoners are placed while waiting to appear before the concierge” that contained only a tub, a pot and straw to sleep on. Eventually, he gets to change cell, but the new one is hardly better. He instead recalls ”four very black walls, on which boredom and pain engraved severe maxims, and ineptitude disgusting images. A barred and grilled window, eight pallets, a tub to receive all the needs of the night, and a chair.” He shares the room with six other prisoners. During the day, they are however let out of the cells, to do, as the author puts it, ”household chores” — ”make our beds, sweep, attend the various roll calls, obey these ferocious jailers.” They can also go out into the courtyard to catch some air, write letters to their loved ones and even meet them in an ”iron cage” in the prison. That is until the Committee of Public Safety issues an order forbidding all prisoners from seeing relatives or friends. Finally, the author also underlines the big role guard dogs played in the prison.

Talaru prison Élisabeth Le Bas sat imprisoned here with her infant son Philippe and older sister Éléonore from July 31 to sometime before December 8 1794. In her memoirs, she recalls a less than tolerable existence — ”the cell could barely hold two folding beds, two chairs, and a tiny table. […] I could see out only by a skylight, and quite a small one; we could barely breathe.” When Élisabeth got ill she requested to be placed in a more healthful and aerated cell but was refused. She also recalls that she needed permission from the jailor to wash her son’s clothes in a watering trough in the courtyard, going down there ten o’clock in the evening when all other prisoners had retired. In order to dry the clothes, she put them between her and Éléonore’s mattresses. When they after a while were made to change prisons, they were driven there in an uncovered tumbril alongside four other prisoners.

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