It is one of the most famous prisons in France, with both VIP and maximum security sections. The prison is located on the site of a former coal market and replaced the Madelonnettes Convent in the 3rd Arrondissement, which had been used as a prison since the French Revolution. The cells are 4 metres long, 2. The prison has a total capacity of as many as 2, prisoners, divided into 14 divisions.
The first execution β and the first in Paris for ten years β occurred on 6 August It was for Georges Duchemin, who had been convicted of parricide. On 7 May , Eugene Boyer, a year-old criminal who had been denied a presidential pardon the previous day by President Paul Doumer , was to be executed by guillotine. Doumer was assassinated the day the execution was scheduled: in France, the president could reverse his decision until the last moment and obviously Boyer could not benefit from this potential "ultimate mercy", so the execution was cancelled "in extremis" twenty minutes before the time scheduled.
He was finally pardoned by Albert Lebrun on 13 May β which respected the tradition of pardoning those sentenced to death the first time in the presidential office β and he was sent to prison in Guiana. Nearly forty prisoners ended their lives in this place. It was also at this site that the second-last public execution in France was performed, for burglar and double murderer Max Bloch on 2 June Fifteen days later on 17 June, Eugen Weidmann , guilty of six murders, was guillotined in front of Versailles prison and on 24 June the decision was made to ban public executions.
On 15 March , the Vocoret brothers, who killed three policemen in Issy-les-Moulineaux , were the first criminals to be guillotined inside the prison. During the German Occupation of France , in addition to common law criminals, there were also executions of 18 Resistance fighters and communists. Nine of them were guillotined between August and July The other nine were shot on 30 April After the Liberation of France , only common criminals were executed in the courtyard of the prison except for several FLN activists between and Bill", in They were the authors of an escape attempt with hostage-taking that ended with the death of the hostages in Sentenced to death at Troyes on 29 June , they were executed on the following 28 November.
The last two remaining guillotines in France are now stored in the basement of the National Centre for Guidance in Fresnes prison. The book was a shock to the public and prompted parliamentary evaluation of the situation. The prison features a hub-and-spoke design similar to that which had been implemented previously for the construction of Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US.
