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Origin and history

The Château de Clavières, located in the commune of Bignon-du-Maine (Mayenne, Pays de la Loire), was built in 1833 by Louis Guays des Touches, judge at Laval, after his acquisition of the estate. He also erected a chapel there. This magistrate, married to Queen Blanche Bucher de Chauvigné in 1827, left the castle by will in 1874 at the seminary of Laval, subject to daily masses in the family chapel where his parents and himself rest.

In 1875, the brothers of Saint-Laurent-sur-Sèvre installed a novitiate, transformed into a juvenat in 1882 and then a scholasticate in 1896. Two new buildings, capable of accommodating 120 people, were added between 1891 and 1893. The old chapel becomes the chorus of the new, integrating the burials of the Guays des Touches family.

During the First World War, the castle was converted into an auxiliary hospital n°19 to treat TB soldiers. After 1918, he welcomed civilians with the same disease as Clavières sanatorium. In 1975, he became the medical center of La Fontaine-au-Bac, before its final closure in 2008.

The archives mention previous owners, including Jean Verger (a meteor accused of caulian sympathies during the Revolution) and the sisters Lefèvre de La Corbinière before 1833. The estate then moved to the seminary of Laval and then to the hospital administration of Laval in 1975, marking its evolution from a religious place to a medical institution.

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