A Quiet Courtyard Near Gare de l’Est
The Saint-Lazare Garden is a green space belonging to the François Sagan Media Library. It was designed in the spirit of Mediterranean cloisters. Lush and serene, with beautiful light reflecting off the building’s white façade, It is a great spot for a short meditation.
From Prison to Library
The garden sits on the former grounds of the Saint-Lazare enclosure, a site with a history stretching back to the 12th century, when it served as a leper colony. In 1632, the grounds were taken over by the Congregation of the Mission, founded by Saint Vincent de Paul. During the Revolution, the buildings became a prison, and from 1811 onward, a prison-hospital for women. Its most famous “residents” over the years included the poet André Chénier, the Marquis de Sade, and later Louise Michel and Mata Hari.
The chapel and infirmary still standing today, the same buildings that now frame the garden, were built in 1824 by architect Louis-Pierre Baltard, father of Victor Baltard, the architect behind Paris’s Les Halles pavilions. These structures are the only ones from the old prison complex that have survived, and they were officially listed as historic monuments in 2005.
The site continued to serve as a hospital until 1998, when it was finally decommissioned. In 2015, architects Stéphane Bigoni and Antoine Mortemard transformed the historic buildings into the Médiathèque Françoise Sagan, one of the largest municipal libraries in Paris, with the Mediterranean-style garden built into its inner courtyard.