Prisons of the Rocket

The prisons of the Rocket (plural is more exact) were penal establishments located at Paris, in the 11 {{E}} district, on both sides of the Rue of the Rocket.

In 1826, under Charles X, decision is taken to make build a Prison intended for the young prisoners. The site is found not far from the Cimetière of the Father-Lachaise, with 143, rue de la Roquette, on part of the grounds of the old convent of the Hospitalières of the Rocket, closed with the French revolution. The architect Lebas, also creator of the church Our-Lady-to-Lorette, took as a starting point the plans of a strong Château. Of hexagonal form, the prison is inaugurated the September 11th 1830 and the Parisian ones baptize it quickly “the Rocket”.

The same year, Louis-Philippe 1 {{er}} is alarmed at the increase in the number of prisoners in Paris, and decides in its turn to make build a prison in Paris (which already does not count of it less than one dozen). The architect Gau is appointed to establish the plans of the new prison, and submits his project. It is simple: an enclosing wall encircling a square building, itself bored of a central court. It shows its desire there to be different from the prison for young delinquents. Contrast will be all the more obvious as the new prison will be built on a ground facing the preceding prison!

Work starts at once, and the December 24th 1836, the new house is inaugurated. It occupies the site of 164-168, rue de la Roquette. The same day, not less than forty " baskets with salade" there transport 187 prisoners, transferred since the prison from Bicêtre.

The exact name of the new penitentiary is " Deposit of condamnés". They is indeed there that the futures convicts will wait before their departure for the Ile de Ré, then for Cayenne or Noumea… But also, and especially, it is there that the condemned to dead will remain. And to mark the difference between the two twin prisons, the Parisian ones allot to them nicknames compared to the gravity of the acts made by their respective occupants: the good-for-nothings are placed with “the Small Rocket”, the assassins with “the Large Rocket”.

Quickly, of sharp protests rise as for enfermement condemned to died in these places. Indeed, since 1832, the Guillotine was transferred from the Place from Strike to the barrier of Arcueil (or Barrière St-Jacques, on the current site of the subway station St-Jacques), in the south of Paris, and outdistances it between the Rocket and the Saint-Jacob barrier is of approximately 5 kilometers. Can one decently inflict such a way with condemned at the time of their last morning?

It is only the November 29th 1851 which a new decree modifies the site of the Parisian executions. One will guillotinera from now on at the entry of the Large Rocket, in the street. A few days later, of the masons break the paving of the street, and install five flagstones rigorously punts in the ground. These flagstones are intended to accommodate the feet of the scaffold, from where the name d'" abbey of cinq-pierres" , found by facetious to indicate this place. Three weeks after the decree, on December 16th, 1851, the doors of the prison open in front of an assassin, Humblot, which does not have that twenty step to make to find itself on the rocker of the guillotine. Its Bourreau names Heidenreich. June 17th, 1872, Roch, successor of Heidenreich, carries out in front of the prison, Moreux, assassin of a prostitute, but without having recourse to the échaufaud, thus provocant the anger of the crowd which hardly sees but the top of the Widow !

69 condemned to dead (whose woman, Marie-madeleine Pichon) will be finally carried out street of the Rocket. The last, Peugnez, were decapitated at the dawn of the February 2nd 1899, little before the closing of the Large Rocket! The history will also retain that it is in these prisons that one shot summarily revolted during the Commune in 1870.

During Years 1890, the intellectuals denounce the inadmissible conditions under which live the occupants of the deposit of condemned. The pressure is done increasingly hard. Then, the president Faure makes a decision: as of 1899, the prison will be closed down and condemned transferred to the Prison from Health. The following year, the buildings are demolished and in their place, one builds residential buildings.

At the same period, the former director tried to sell the flagstones of the guillotine with the Musée Carnavalet, after having made them loosen. The Museum refused and the director had of another resource to only make replace (more badly than well) the flagstones. With the result that, of a traditional cross, the position of these flagstones forms from now on a Cross of Saint-Andrew. Those are always visible nowadays, with the crossroads of the streets of the Cross-Faubin and the Rocket.

The Small Rocket, remained in activity, will also know its share of changes. At the end of the Years 1920, the prison for women of Saint-Lazare has just closed, one transfers the young prisoners towards other “hearths”, and one locks up from now on the women with the Small Rocket. This policy of imprisonment will not change until closing, effective in 1974.

To conclude, it is also necessary to note a serious modification, caused by the law of 1939, prohibiting the capital executions as a public. This law instituted a list of prisons likely to accommodate the guillotine: the Small Rocket was thus indicated for the execution of the women in Paris. The law was applied twice, the February 6th 1942, for the mother child murder Georgette Monneron, and the July 30th 1943, for the clandestine abortionist Marie-Louise Giraud. The rumor would like that Mrs. Giraud had been the last woman guillotinée in France, but it of it is nothing, because, after her, two women having assassinated their husband were carried out, the first in 1947 with Melun, the second in 1949 with Angers.

Instead of the Small Rocket, demolished in 1975, one finds from now on a public garden and a theater in basement. Only vestige of the past, both guérites of access to the garden are the old gate of entry of the prison, which did not move since its construction, 175 years ago.

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