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Origin and history

The Toulouse cannon foundry occupies the site of a former convent of the Clarisses, founded in 1352 after the destruction of the suburbs during the Hundred Years War. The nuns, initially settled on the outskirts, get permission to rebuild intramural near the Garonne. The convent, almost entirely rebuilt in 1658, was closed to the Revolution and became well national. Its buildings, seized, are then reassigned to industrial uses by the National Convention.

In 1793, in response to the military needs of the mass lifting, the General Defence Committee transformed the convent into a cannon foundry for the army of the Pyrenees. Initially led by Dupont de Rochefort, nephew of the commissary of the fontes of Paris, the installation uses the canal water of the mill of the castle to operate the machines. After difficult beginnings in other Toulouse sites (churches Saint-Pierre-des-Cuisines and Sainte-Anne), production started under the direction of Dupont and Jean Abadie, who organized foundry and moulding. The first melted cannons, the establishment is entrusted to the entrepreneurs Bertha and Lehodry.

The foundry had its industrial climax at the beginning of the 19th century under Adolphe Mather, which modernized the installations with a horizontal drill designed by Jean Abadie in 1816 and a new one in 1824. Bertha, the only contractor after 1800, diversifys production by creating a copper mill for the navy, operating eight hydraulic engines. Activity declined after 1866, the date of final closure. The buildings were bought in 1879 by the Institut Catholique de Toulouse, which remodeled them into exhibition and teaching rooms, preserving industrial remains and a Gallo-Roman rampart of 70 meters.

The site now houses elements protected by historical monuments: the remains of the foundry (ovens, suction cups, chimneys, ramps for trinqueballs), registered in 1996, and a section of the ancient ramp, classified in 1963. A fresco by Marcel Lenoir, The Coronation of the Virgin (1920–1923), adorns a hall of the Institute, while the entrance preserves an 18th century composition. The building materials, made of brick and concrete, reflect its successive transformations.

The history of the site illustrates the adaptive reuse of religious heritage: from the medieval convent to the revolutionary arsenal, then to the contemporary educational institution. Recent excavations and protections underline its dual interest, both archaeological (gallo-Roman rempart) and technical (pre-industrial metallurgy).

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