Ursuline monastery Château-Gontier
The Ursuline monastery Château-Gontier is a former monastery of the Ursuline order in the French commune of Château-Gontier in the Mayenne department , which used to be part of the historic province of Anjou .
history
In 1622 the Ursulines of Laval intended to set up a branch in Château-Gontier. Her request was approved by the city council on September 9, 1622 and confirmed in June 1629 by Claude du Rueil, Bishop of Angers . In a letter to the king, the reason for building the monastery is given as "to get the apostate Protestants back on the right track".
On August 7, 1631, under the direction of Catherine Moreau, the first sisters from Laval moved into the rectory of Saint-Remy outside the city walls, which initially served as temporary accommodation. The following year four more companions from Angers followed . For the construction of the monastery, a farm in the suburb of Azé was purchased in 1634 from René d'Héliand, Seigneur von Touche, for 7,000 livres. The king's procurator laid the foundation stone for the monastery in 1638. A convent building, a cloister and a boarding school for young girls who were to be taught by the Ursulines were built. As in Laval, the sisters turned to the Corbineau family of architects for the planning and implementation. The construction work required for this took up a lot of time, so that Pierre and Gilles Corbineau were not commissioned to build the church until July 26, 1658.
The foundation stone of the church was consecrated on April 5, 1660, and on November 24, 1664, the Angers bishop Henri Arnauld arrived to place it under the protection of the Holy Trinity . The floor plan is very similar to that of the Hôtel-Dieu in Angers. For the altar, the pillars and the cornice was marble from Argentré used. A specialty is the altarpiece , which has a facade made of white stone and is decorated with a front gable .
The monastery and boarding school developed well and had growth from all classes of the population. When in 1790, in the course of the revolution, all clerics and religious were required to take the oath of the civil constitution of the clergy , the Ursulines refused except for two. They had to leave the monastery and were secretly housed four at a time in houses in the area. In 1794 they were betrayed, again refused to take the oath and were arrested in the monastery. Only with luck did they escape execution. In 1807 and 1814 they got the monastery building and the church back and started school operations again. The church, originally a subsidiary chapel of Saint-Jean, became a parish church in the mid-19th century. The Ursuline monastery existed until 1965.
The monastery and the country estate of the noble Touche family from the 15th century have been classified as Monument historique since October 31, 1991 . The Sainte-Trinité church and the outbuildings have been listed as historical monuments since December 9, 1992.
Today the monastery houses the National Theater of the Pays de la Loire .
Web links
- Official website (French)
- History of the Ursulines of Château-Gontier (French)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Odile Halbert: History of the Ursulines of Château-Gontier. In: odile-halbert.com. Retrieved June 12, 2014 (French).
- ↑ balado.fr ( Memento of the original from March 24, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Entry no. PA00109483 in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French)
Coordinates: 47 ° 49 ′ 43 " N , 0 ° 41 ′ 50" W.