The convent of the birds

One of the prisons of the Terreur was an Eden of captivity. Nothing missed there that the right to leave there. It was the house of the Birds - an owner had established, in the garden, of immense populated birdcages of exotic birds. Its position with encognure of the Boulevard of the Invalids, the deep and calm garden like a park, gave to the company which was held there an appearance of freedom.

This jail was almost of any rest, so that Jules Michelet could write spiritually that the prison of the Birds, during Terror, was an insurance against the Guillotine. During more than six months, out of 160 people who were contained there, two only had been carried out. This prison was very required and abounded in rich suspects; one them écrouait there by favor and realizing finances; the prices were exorbitant besides. The section drew some from pretty profits. The committee choyait, kept its small herd, made silence around imprisoned and hid their names with the eavesdroppers.

For a long time, the Public prosecutor Fouquier-Tinville sought the Princesse of Chimay in all the jails. One beautiful day, by inadvertency, the Ducret clerk-clerk, while speaking about the beautiful field of the princess, in Issy (become Issy-les-Moulineaux), let escape that the owner was encagée with the Birds. “With the Birds, Fouquier, sitted exclaimed in a corner, and to say that I have sought it for three months!”

The 7 Thermidor, a cart stopped around five hours of the evening in front of the house of the Rue of Sevres. One charged a batch there with his invaluable boarders, who went to pass to the Conciergerie their last night. It was the princess of Chimay, the Comtesse of Plessis-Chatillon of Narbonne-Pellet, his/her niece the widowed countess of Narbonne-Pellet, the Duc of Clermont-Thunder, the Marquis de Crussol d' Amboise, Mgr. of Saint-Simon, bishop of Agde, the Countess of Gramont, lady of atours of Marie-Antoinette, Mrs. of Colbert-Maulevrier, Mrs. D' Armenthières…

One of them, a named chambermaid Lusigny, was vaguely shown “to be left the territory with its mistress to go to Brussels, to have shared with it its feelings counter-revolutionaries and to have been the discrete confidante of all its plots liberticides”. Condemned to dead Thermidor 8, she claimed an interview with Fouquier-Tinville, to declare to him “that she had had a carnal trade with named Boucher, trader, who was held in the same house, and which she would be pregnant of approximately three weeks, waited until its rules did not appear at the time ordinary. ” The Enguchard doctors, Quinquet, and the wise Prioux woman examine her immediately and did not recognize at it any sign of pregnancy. It was led to the scaffold the following day Thermidor 9, on the last cart.

The field of the Birds was sold by the office of the national Field of Paris. It was acquired by the Congregation of Notre-Dame the April 14th 1824, and finished its career following the law of the July 7th 1904 relating to the suppression of teaching congreganist. It was then shaven.

See the study interesting and documented on the old convent of the Birds, located street of Sevres 84, published by Mr. Lucien Scrap in the Official report of the meeting of the Commission of the Old man Paris, the February 27th 1909.

Two prisoners of the Birds wrote their memories:

Renee Caroline Victoire de Froullay, marchioness of Créquy, 1714-1803 (memories apocryphal books).
A.M.F. of Dompierre d' Hornoy, decree the 20-4-1794, released 14-10-1794.

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