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Origin and history

Lehospice Beaujon was founded in 1785 by banker Nicolas Beaujon on land acquired at Baron d'Arcy in the current rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré (Paris 8e). Designed by the architect Nicolas-Claude Girardin, this neoclassical quadrilateral of 30x40 meters, centered on a courtyard with arched porch, housed an orphanage for 24 poor children in the neighborhood (12 boys, 12 girls), with a fund of 20,000 pounds of rent. Managed by six grey sisters and two lazarists under the direction of President Chrétien-François II de Lamonion, he also offered free medical consultations. Children, educated between the ages of 7 and 14, received £400 on graduation to finance their apprenticeship. Beaujon, an enlightened patron, created six scholarships for the Free School of Drawing (future School of Decorative Arts).

Turned into a hospital by decree of the Convention in 1795 (80 beds, then 100 in 1805), the establishment — renamed hospital of the West and then hospital of Beaujon in 1803 — was renovated by the architect Clavereau: addition of circular staircases, semicircular pavilions surrounding a garden with walkers genrés (with hexagonal basin and vegetable garden), and annexes rue de Courcelles. When enlarged in the 19th century (700 beds in 1935), he served as a military hospital during the Great War and saw the birth of the poet Claude Roy (1915) and the death of President Paul Doumer (1932), assassinated neary. The entrance gate, classified as Historic Monument in 1927, is the only protected element.

Transferred to Clichy in 1935 for old age, the Parisian site will then house a police station and a police school. After the destruction of the post-XVIII extensions in 1989, the original building — renovated in 2024 — houses a crèche, the conservatory Camille Saint-Saëns, and the Centre Paris Anim' Beaujon (sports halls, show). The Beaujon ZAC (2013) replaced the old back buildings on the site of the historic garden. Girardin's architecture, preserved, bears witness to the philanthropic patronage of the Enlightenment and the evolution of hospital care in Paris.

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