(Untitled)

[axmxz]

Ok. This is bugging me. I can't find La Force prison. At all. No map from the 18th or 19th century seems to have it. I have browsed dozens upon dozens of maps from 1716 to 1877 on the web. I have scruitinized my own map, which in the eighth plan by N. de Fer dating from 1705. I've found all the streets that bound it, and several old mansions that

Comments

[axmxz]

No no, you don't understand. I've searched high and low. Google, Factiva - the works. There isn't a single page out there, outside of two lines on Wikipedia about a slaughter in La Force during the Revolution and random reference to Dickens' Tale of Two Cities, dedicated to La Force. Nor are there pictures.

The references to it that I managed to pull up are all very by-the-way: "This boutique on 14 Rue Mahler, which borders La Force..."

I have the streets where it's supposed to be located. But so far I've seen only one map that actually labels it as "Maison de la Force" is the a map that shows Dickens' Paris and London. They label as La Force the mansions that in 1705 were still Hotel d'Angoulesme and Hotel St. Paul.

What I really need to do is go to the map section of our uni library, find someone who works there - they always seem to be out to lunch or "out to buy coffee" or "out smoking" or "on break" or something - and actually request to take a look at some of their Paris maps. They actually have a lot of the maps I've been looking at digitally, but I'd actually be able to read them. I want to figure out at what point the two inauspicious mansions became La Force.

[vivelabagatelle]

But that's madness!! How can a Huge great thing like La Force just disapeer from all records?

Having said that, the little vulture-publisher inside me is crying "So much scope for a never-been-done-before secret history!"

Good luck tracking down a member of the library staff! Maybe you could lay a trail of brownie chunks to lure them back into the building!

[axmxz]

>But that's madness!! How can a Huge great thing like La Force just disapeer from all records?

I... don't know. Hell, I'll be overjoyed if you prove me wrong. Find me a photo, an account of someone who'd been there (so far the only "real life" references I've found are soem remarks on the Revolution and Vidocq's memoirs - he spent a good part of his 21 month sentence in 1809-1811 in La Force), a map that shows it exists, for fuck's sake! Because the modern map certainly doesn't, at least not the one I like to use, on http://www.hot-maps.de/europe/france/paris/homeen.html

[vivelabagatelle]

Bloody hell! I have to say I'm stumped by this one!

At the very least, there has to be a story in this . . .