Prisoners of ENA
Building a school is to close a prison. The formula e Victor Hugo also applies to the prestigious Ecole Nationale d'Administration, headquartered in Strasbourg is installed on the very site of the former penitentiary Sainte-Marguerite.
November 1983, a delegation from the Ministry of Justice is expected to prison Sainte-Marguerite located on Green Island, a small earth embankment flanked by two arms of the Ill. The administration officials are visiting the prison ordered. The Justice Minister Robert Badinter, asked for a report on the detention center, dating back over two centuries.
Although the guards have ordered inmates to scrub the floors of the "house of correction," the two special envoys of the department discovered a sad spectacle. The corridors of the prison are in a sorry state. The tiled floor literally collapsed in many places, the walls ooze moisture, their paint peeling ... Windows bricked up only a half-light filter. To the point that the neon must be left on all day. Electric light only highlights the poverty of the place. "But the prison!" Exclaims one of two advisors to the minister.
In these cramped cells that stink saltpetre crammed into inhumane conditions two hundred and fifty prisoners sentenced to severe penalties. The administrative offices are not much better. Sixty guards did not fail also to point out to the emissaries of the minister. Return Place Vendome, the two officials signed a final report. In his reading, the Minister of Justice shall immediately take the decision to close the facility. It will still take another five years before the last prisoners of Saint Marguerit e not leave the premises, the time is building a new prison, just outside of town.
What to do when in the buildings? Destroy them? Impossible! The place is a national cultural monument. Five additional years are needed to find a new posting to the site. Edith Cresson's government finally decided to install the seat of the Ecole Nationale d'Administration.
It would have been a shame to demolish the whole. For the excavations between 1989 and 1991, before the redevelopment of buildings, in fact reveal many surprises for archaeologists. In addition to moving inmates graffiti - still visible in several executive offices of the school - a bottle was discovered behind the plastering of a room of the guard: it contained the names of some of the workers who participated in the construction of the building between 1740 and 1747! The foundations of a chapel of the thirteenth century, an impressive network of tunnels and an old stone well in the same period were also unearthed.
Is it the last vestiges of the monastery, founded by Count Werner Hunebourg in 1150, under the invocation of the Trinity? Franciscan Monastery from Rome to combat the heresy of the Brothers and Sisters "Free Spirit" in 1220? Or a Dominican church whose construction related chronic in the area between 1224 and 1230? We can not identify with certainty the origin of this building. What is certain is that he belonged to one of these orders landed in Alsace, between the twelfth and thirteenth century, to regain control of a population quick to get rid of papal authority.
Another certainty: some Rulman Merswin, banker converted to Catholicism 40 years at the most mystical, gave financial support to the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem to acquire these places in the next century. This religious order, founded around 1056 to come in first aid to injured or sick pilgrims on their way to the Holy Land, then heavily involved in the crusades successive hitherto lacked any facility in Alsace. Located in Spain, Italy, Germany and to England, his monk-soldiers are not, at that time present in the south of France. Fortune important amassed in favor of expeditions against the Turks and donations of many loyal seduced by their campaigns from the East, should enable them to acquire very important land in eastern France. The Commandery Saint-Jean-de-l'Ile Green, as it is called at the time, one of them.
Partly transformed into a hospital during the great plague epidemic that ravaged the city in 1439, the premises are occupied throughout the fifteenth century by the monk-soldiers. The front of the hospice, redesigned several times, is still visible. Is that of the entrance building of the ENA, surmounted by a narrow tower. The trompe l'oeil and mullioned windows of the guardhouse to the left of the entrance gate, date, meanwhile, 1548.
Monastery is severely damaged as a result of the Thirty Years War bereaved Alsace between 1618 and 1648. Protestants expelled then Johannites. Where after the Treaty of Nijmegen (1679) and the victory of Louis XIV, Strasbourg became French again (1681), Vauban installed along the St. John Commandery, a dam in case of need to flood neighborhoods south of the city. This lightens the military apparatus. It was not until 1740 to revive the place ... a grim. The municipality then decided to transform the former monastery in prison. A prison nicknamed "Raspelhaus" because the convicts are forced to shave the wood guaiac, which is said to be likely to treat syphilis. In this era, remains, apart from some inscriptions of prisoners, the clock signed Hummeger. Precision Engineering in 1861 and climb as processing sites shall not cease to amaze.
By Baldwin Eschapasse
Sources:
http://www.historia.fr/ content / search / article? id = 6661
photos Sources:
http://www.archi-strasbourg.org/
Facades and roofs of all buildings of the former commander of St. John and current National School of Administration were included in the inventory of Historic Monuments May 18, 1971.
In 2010, construction of an extension to existing buildings is introduced. The works are on the site of the former municipal slaughterhouse, the bridge between the old and the new building is already in place.
Some photographs of the current NAS Starsbourg:
0 comments:
Post a Comment