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Heritage classified

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Origin and history

The church of Saint-Exupère, located in the former district of Saint-Michel in Toulouse, is a baroque building built from 1620 as a chapel for the undressed cartes, a religious order resulting from the reform of Carmel. Inaugurated in 1623 under the name of Saint Joseph by Jean-Louis de Bertier, bishop of Rieux, she was disused during the French Revolution before being returned to worship in 1807. On that date, it was consecrated under the new name of Saint Exupère, a Toulous bishop of the fourth century, and undergoing transformations to adapt to its parish function, notably by the architect Jacques-Pascal Virebent.

The monument is characterized by its design attributed to the architect Didier Sansonnet and its facade decorated with a statue of Saint Joseph and the Child Jesus, carved by Gervais Drouet in 1658. Inside, the choir houses remarkable works, including a Christ in a graded Cross, painted wooden statues by Thibaud Maitrier (first half of the seventeenth century), and paintings by Gaétan Ceroni (1838). The nave, decorated with gypseries and canvases from the 17th and 18th centuries, includes works such as The Transverberation of Saint Thérèse of Avila by Antonio Verrio. The organ, built in 1887 by Théodore Puget, with its baroque buffet carved by Virebent, has been classified since 2011.

Ranked a historical monument in 1974, the church also preserves traces of its conventual past: three galleries of the old cloister remain, partially integrated into the Museum of Natural History of Toulouse since the 19th century. The latter, installed in the convent buildings as early as 1861, underwent several extensions and renovations, including a major restoration in 2008. The cloister, transformed into an atrium, today illustrates the alliance between historical heritage and architectural modernity.

The protected elements include the church itself, as well as the facades and roofs of the galleries of the cloister, inscribed by the same decree of 1974. Among the classified objects are paintings, such as the Eritrean Sibyll by Jean-Baptiste Despax or The Virgin and Child Jesus appearing at a Carmelite religious (17th century), as well as interior decorations and the organ buffet. These protections underline the artistic and historical value of the building, a witness to the religious and urban evolutions of Toulouse.

The history of Saint-Exupère also reflects the political and cultural upheavals of France. Disused during the Revolution, it was reinvested as a place of worship under the Concordat, marking a return to religious practice after revolutionary upheavals. Its partial integration into the Muséum in the 19th century symbolizes the reassignment of the convent buildings to scientific and educational uses, a common trend in Europe at that time. Today, the church remains an active place of worship while being a major heritage site of the city.

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