The location was originally a community of canonesses regular founded in 1640 by King Louis XIII, named the Priory of Our Lady of Victory of Lepanto, in commemoration of the Christian victory over Ottoman forces in the Battle of Lepanto in 1571.
Its site is on the corner of what is now Boulevard Diderot with Rue de Picpus.
In 1792 the building was confiscated by the French government and the canonesses were forced to disband.
The most notorious prisoner at the Maison Coignard was the Marquis de Sade.
[1] The former convent gardens were seized by the city and used to bury the bodies of those executed at a guillotine set up in the nearby Place du Trône.