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Origin and history

The School of Providence is an educational institution located in Laon, Hauts-de-France. It consists of three main buildings: the former hotel of Rue Clergeot, the urban shelter hotel of the Chartreux du Val-Saint-Pierre (40, rue Vinchon), and the former house of Chantrut (42, rue Vinchon). These buildings, partly built in the 16th and 17th centuries, were listed as historical monuments in 2001. Their architecture mixes stone, brick and limestone, with a vaulted chapel built in the 19th century.

The school started in 1685, when Françoise Marquette founded a community of sisters to educate girls free of charge, inspired by the Brothers of Christian Schools. She devoted her property to this work, settling the school in her home at Champ Saint-Martin. The sisters, known as "marquet sisters", live in community under simple vows, but are dispersed in the eighteenth century under the episcopate of Stephen-Joseph de La Fare, accused of Jansenism. The congregation disappeared at the Revolution.

In 1805, Armand Mignot, archdeacon of the cathedral of Laon, revived the educational project by founding the Sisters of Laon Providence. The latter merged in 1952 with the sisters of Providence de la Pommeraye. The current chapel dates from the installation of the sisters in 1844, while the north wing, built in a coherent style, could date from the same period. The portal, dated 1686, and the facades on courtyard, redesigned in the eighteenth century, testify to the architectural evolutions of the site.

The medieval refuge of the Hospitallers of Boncourt, formerly present on the site, has disappeared. Only elements of private hotels, such as a 1574 cartridge and consoles on the south façade, remain. The ensemble thus illustrates centuries of educational and religious history in Laon, marked by architectural adaptations and community recompositions.

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