Remnants of the Paris Guillotine

Blissfully unaware of the history of Paris, one might simply trip over these five indents in the street without realizing they were once the foundation for a guillotine that carried out executions for the entire city of Paris.

Built at the entrance to the now closed and destroyed Prison de la Roquette, the five indents mark the place of five slabs that held together the foundation of the Paris guillotine. From 1851, when the guillotine was opened at the prison, until 1899 when the prison was shut down, 69 public beheadings took place on these Paris streets.

Today, a nearby historic sign and the five small rectangular support stones are all that remain from the gruesome death machine that once carried out a form of justice for all of France.