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Origin and history

The convent of the Carmelites was established in 1611 in Paris, at the corner of the rue Cassette and the chemin de Vaugirard, thanks to the permission of Marie de Medici and a gift from Nicolas Vivien, the chief accountant. The religious of the Reformed Order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, sent by Pope Paul V, settled there after the assassination of Henry IV. The construction of the convent and its chapel, with the first Parisian dome, began in 1613 to respond to the smallness of the initial premises.

During the French Revolution, the convent became the scene of the massacres of September 1792, where a hundred priests were killed. These events marked the end of his initial religious vocation. After the revolutionary turmoil, the sites were reinvested in 1797, but their use changed radically in the twentieth century.

In 1919, the Carmes seminary was founded on this site by the Catholic Institute of Paris, which has since formed priests for various French dioceses. The Saint-Joseph-des-Carmes church, listed as a historic monument in 1910, remains a major architectural vestige of this turbulent history. The current seminar prepares students for canonical degrees, while perpetuating the memory of the martyrs of 1792.

The convent is also linked to prominent ecclesiastical figures, such as Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger or Blessed Christian de Chergé, monk of Tibhirine. These personalities illustrate the spiritual and intellectual heritage of the place, between Carmelite tradition and theological modernity.

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