Paris in the 18th century were both used for high-ranking political prisoners, and had relatively luxurious conditions. The last three prisoners at the Chateau de Vincennes, the Marquis de Sade and two elderly and insane noblemen, were transferred to the Bastillle in 1784. The Bastille, begun in 1370, never held more than forty inmates; At the time of the Revolution, the Bastille had just seven prisoners; four counterfeiters, the two elderly noblemen, and a man named Tavernier, half-mad, accused of participation in an attempt to kill Louis XV thirty years earlier. Priests and other religious figures who committed crimes or other offenses were tried by
Paris in the 16th century It was moved closer, to Charenton, six miles from the Bastille, in 1606. The Jewish community in Paris in the 16th century consisted of only about a dozen families. The Jews had been formally expelled from the city by Philippe le Belle in 1306, and in 1380 and 1382, the houses of Jews and property of Paris Jews had been seized. The few families remaining were of Italian or central European origin, and kept a very, very low profile. The first migration of about fifty Sephardic Jews from Spain and Portugal did not arrive until 1667, via Bayonne, Bordeaux and