Operated by the Ministry of Justice, La Sante is situated in the Montpamasse district of the 14th Arrondissement in Paris, France.
It was designed by the architect Joseph Auguste Emile Vaudremer, and officially opened in August 1867 as a replacement for the Madelonnettes Convent in the 3rd Arrondissement.
The prison was initially built with 500 cells, each at 4 metres long, 2.5 metres wide and 3 metres high. A further 500 cells were added in 1899 when the Grande Roquette prison was closed, creating a prisoner capacity of 2,000 prisoners. The closure of the Grande Roquette meant that La Sante was responsible for holding additional inmates and performing executions.
The La Sante prison guillotine was placed at the corner of the Rue de la Sante and the Boulevard Arago, and Georges Duchemin was the first man to be executed in 1909. It was the first execution in Paris for a decade.
During the occupation of France during the Second World War, a wider range of criminals were executed within the walls of La Sante Prison. In addition to the executions of common law criminals, resistance fighters and communists were also applicable, and were either guillotined or shot.
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