On 28 October 1855 Emperor Franz Joseph I signed the decree that turned the emptied fortress into an imperial and royal prison, and Johan Groller von Mildensee was appointed its first director. The timing is not an accident. The revolution of 1848–49 had been crushed barely six years earlier, the empire was being run by police and army, and it needed places to put people. A ring of nine-metre walls with a single gate, already built and already paid for, was exactly the right building. Leopoldov has been a prison every year since — which is why it is the one great Slovak fortress you cannot walk into.28. októbra 1855 podpísal cisár František Jozef I. rozhodnutie, ktorým sa z vyprázdnenej pevnosti stala c. k. trestnica; prvým riaditeľom sa stal Johan Groller von Mildensee. Ten čas nie je náhoda. Revolúciu rokov 1848 – 1849 potlačili sotva šesť rokov predtým, monarchiu riadili polícia a armáda a potrebovala, kam ľudí zavrieť. Deväťmetrový múr s jedinou bránou, dávno postavený a dávno zaplatený, bol presne to, čo hľadala. Leopoldov je väznicou odvtedy bez prerušenia — a preto je to jediná veľká slovenská pevnosť, do ktorej sa nedá vojsť.
