Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The Carmes church of the Pont-de-Beauvoisin, originally a convent for a community from Aix-en-Provence in 1419, was marked by regional and religious conflicts. Fired in 1454 and rebuilt by Jacques de Clermont and Anne de Varax, it was looted (1565) and destroyed repeatedly. Donors, like Guillaume Oysellet (portal of 1497), financed its gradual restoration in the 16th and 17th centuries.

It became a parish church under the name Our Lady of the Assumption in 1803 after the concordat, and was reworked with a bell tower and decorated in 1844 with 2,800 m2 of frescoes by the Avondo brothers (copies of Gaudenzio Ferrari) and biblical stained glass windows. Emmanuel Crétet, Napoleon's minister and native of the city, protected the building with his brother Henry, mayor. Today, the capital hall serves as a municipal hall.

Its architecture, typical of beggars (a single-collateral nave), is home to curiosities such as a tombstone with pistols (Jean Louis) or a source arranged under the choir, a place of pilgrimage until the First World War. Ranked Historic Monument in 1992, it also preserves 45 tumular stones and portraits of benefactors, including the Clermonts.

The frescoes (classified in 1987) and the 19th-century stained glass windows, such as the Assumption of the Virgin or Saint Simon Stock, illustrate its transformation into a parish worship site. Historical conflicts (Dauphiné-Savoie wars, Revolution) and the weak religious community (8 to 15 monks) marked its evolution, until its abandonment after the Carmes massacre in Paris (1792).

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