Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The Chartreuse d'Auray, founded in the 15th century after the Battle of Auray (1364), which ended the Brittany War of Succession, was initially a collegiate dedicated to the dead. In 1482 the Chartreux settled there for more than 300 years. The site, confiscated as a national property in 1791, was partially dismantled and abandoned after the expulsion of the monks. In 1795, the Kerzo marsh became the Champ des Martyrs, where 952 royalists and caulians shot after Quiberon landed were summarily buried under General Hoche's command.

In 1808, the parish priest Gabriel Deshayes bought the ruins and in 1812 installed the Congregation of the Daughters of Wisdom, dedicated to the education of the deaf. Under the Restoration, he exhumed the bones of the victims of 1795 and translated them into a crypt of the chartreuse. In 1823, the Duchess of Angoulême, daughter of Louis XVI, laid the first stone of two memorials: the sepulchral chapel (which housed a white marble mausoleum adorned with bas-reliefs) and the expiatory chapel on the Champ des Martyrs, inaugurated in 1829. The architect Auguste Caristie and the sculptor David d'Angers contributed to these achievements.

The 1968 fire, after the 19th century, partially destroyed the site, rebuilt since then. The cloister (17th century), the chapel (circa 1720) and its panelled refectory (circa 1630, decorated in 1750) have been protected as historical monuments since 1928 and 1943. Today owned by the Daughters of Wisdom, the Chartreuse houses an EHPAD and remains a place of memory of the Vendée wars and Breton religious history.

External links