Couvent des Ursulines de Paris, 17th-century convent in 5th arrondissement, France.
The Couvent des Ursulines de Paris is a 17th-century convent complex in the Latin Quarter, built in 1620 with architectural features typical of that period. The compound consists of several interconnected building wings organized around inner courtyards.
In 1607 Madeleine Luillier de Sainte-Beuve, widow of Claude Le Roux, sieur de Sainte-Beuve, founded an Ursuline convent in the hôtel Saint-André in the faubourg Saint-Jacques. The community moved nearby in 1610; Anne of Austria laid the church's first stone in 1620, and it was completed in 1627. The house became the order's mother house, counting 310 convents in France by 1668. Closed in 1790, it was suppressed in 1792 and its grounds sold in 1798.
The Ursulines followed the Rule of Saint Augustine and added to the three usual vows the mission of educating girls. The convent housed a boarding school for daughters of the nobility and bourgeoisie and also gave lessons to poor children of the neighbourhood. The order's mother house was here, and by 1668 it counted 310 convents in France.
The convent stood on the site of today's Rue des Ursulines, laid out after the grounds were sold in 1798; the street's creation destroyed part of the buildings. The chapel survived until the cutting of Rue Gay-Lussac in 1864 removed the last remains, so nothing of the complex is left to visit. A Ursuline community with a student residence now occupies 9 impasse Royer-Collard, nearby.
The convent's grounds once stretched as far as today's Rue d'Ulm; the land was sold in 1798. The chapel survived the street's creation but was lost when Rue Gay-Lussac was cut through in 1864. A Ursuline community with a student residence now sits at 9 impasse Royer-Collard, close to the old site.
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