Musée des Ursulines de Trois-Rivières, Religious heritage museum in Trois-Rivières, Canada.
The Musée des Ursulines occupies a former monastery and displays objects and artworks that reveal how the Sisters lived and worked in this community. The collection includes prayer books, religious objects, garments, and paintings that document their daily activities and spiritual practices.
The Ursuline Sisters founded the first school for girls and a hospital in Trois-Rivières in 1697, serving the community for over 300 years from this location. Their work became central to education and healthcare in the region during that long period.
The Ursulines arrived by brigantine on 10 October 1697 and taught both Indigenous and French girls from families such as Hertel, Leneuf and Boucher. The museum's name recalls this teaching mission; a guided tour of the chapel built in 1714-1715 shows where the sisters prayed. Since 2019 no nuns live in the monastery, but the collection of over 15,000 objects keeps their school and hospital work visible.
The museum occupies the oldest part of the monastery, the 18th-century former Hôtel-Dieu, and visits cover three spaces: the historic chapel, the temporary exhibition room and the permanent exhibition room in the former refectory. A guided tour of the chapel is offered. The monastery itself has not been lived in by the nuns since 2019, but the museum stays open.
The chapel was built in 1714–1715, rebuilt in 1752–1753 and 1806–1808, then enlarged in 1896–1897 to plans by Damien Bellemare and Georges and Joseph Héroux of Yamachiche for the community's bicentenary. Its facade is of rough-faced stone trimmed with cut stone.
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