Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The Bethlehem asylum was a private Catholic charity founded in the 4th quarter of the 19th century in Saint Peter, Martinique. Located at the corner of the streets of the Refinery and Abbé-Gosse, in the Moulage district, he occupied the site of an old refinery and a convent of the Ursulines (1653), then Dominican fathers. The institution, headed by the Sisters of Saint Paul de Chartres and later by Laure Duchamp de Chastaigné, welcomed old men and children in two separate pavilions, with a chapel, a pharmacy and a garden.

In 1866, the conference of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul established seventy residents, supported by local donations. After the departure of the nuns in 1874, Laure Duchamp, nicknamed "La Madone", continued the work with Abbé Gosse, parish priest of the Mouillage. Asylum operated without restriction of entry, providing care and medicine to external patients. Father Gosse, buried in the chapel in 1887, still rests there today under a funeral slab.

On May 8, 1902, the eruption of the Pelee mountain completely destroyed the asylum, killing Laure Duchamp and all his residents. Only remains the ruins of the chapel, including the slab of Abbé Gosse and fragments of stone walls. These remains, registered as historical monuments in 1980, are now managed by an association. The site, partly occupied by a garage, bears witness to this tragedy and the social history of Martinique.

The Bethlehem asylum symbolized the colonial charity of the nineteenth century, combining religious assistance and local solidarity. Its panelled wooden architecture, with ground floor reserved for patients, reflected the hospital standards of the time. The disaster of 1902, which razed Saint Peter, made it a place of memory, where the tombstone of Abbé Gosse remains the last visible vestige of this disappeared institution.

External links