3.2 | Prisons and capital punishment: Paris 1793-1794

Paris became filled with prisons. Over a period of a year and a half, one in every two defendants was sentenced to death. Among the most prominent figures to suffer this fate were the deposed queen Marie-Antoinette, the deputies Danton and Desmoulins, and the Grenoble lawyer Antoine Barnave. 

In 1789, the Revolution had begun with the release of numerous prisoners, who were considered victims of despotism. Four years later, prisons were once again overflowing. In the cells of the Abbaye, Saint-Lazare, Sainte-Pélagie, Luxembourg and Conciergerie jails, distress and indignation inspired a vast body of literature and imagery. Some sites, particularly the Temple – in which Louis-Charles, the young Dauphin of France, was left to die – made a lasting impression on the minds of citizens. However, it was the guillotine and its executioners, the Sansons, that most haunted people’s imaginations. This new machine became the symbol of the Revolution’s betrayal of its own principles.