The Conciergerie
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Under the revolution:
The Conciergerie is a building, which flanks Quai de 1'Horloge. It was constructed in the Philip the Fair's time. It receives its name to the "concierge", an important character who, in the Middle Ages, was in charge of administrating the palace. When in the 14th century the palace became the seat of the Parliament, the Conciergerie was gradually transformed into a prison, the first one in Paris. During the revolution it was arranged to contain the maximum number of prisoners. So, for example, between January 1793 and July 1794, 2500 prisoners get out of here to be beheaded in a square of Paris.
The ghost of Queen Marie Antoniette haunts those places: she was imprisoned alone in August 1793, and got out on the following 16th of October to go to the scaffold. Her prison can be visited, but is not recognizable because transformed into a chapel. A corridor divides the prison into two parts: to the north was the "men's department)), to the south the "women's department", in whose courtyard the female prisoners washed their cloths. The torture or "question" was performed in the Bonbec tower, from which the name comes.
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