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Heritage classified

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Origin and history

The Bonaparte school of Autun found its origins in a Jesuit college founded in 1618 thanks to the legacy of Antoine de la Croix, a resident of Autun. The Jesuits, authorized to settle by letters patent of Louis XIII in 1613, first occupied medieval buildings on Rue Saint-Christophe before building a new college between 1709 and 1731. The architect Jean-Baptiste Caristie designed the Notre-Dame church of the college, whose first stone was laid in 1757, but the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1763 interrupted the work.

After the Jesuits left, the college was entrusted to diocesan priests, then to the Oratorians in 1786 under the impulse of the bishop of Autun. The latter remained there until 1792, when the Revolution abolished the teaching congregations. The buildings then became an administrative place and a departmental central school under the Republic, before being returned to the city in 1803 to establish a secondary school there.

The former college welcomed historical figures like Napoleon Bonaparte and his brothers Joseph and Lucien, as well as Lazare Carnot, all students between 1767 and 1784. The church of Notre-Dame, which was not completed at the Revolution, was classified as a historical monument in 1943, while the wrought iron gate of the court of honour, an 18th-century masterpiece, was classified in 2021. Today, the site combines architectural heritage and educational function.

The successive transformations reflect the political and religious upheavals of France: passage from Jesuits to Oratorians, revolutionary secularization, and then restoration of public education under Napoleon. The chapel, which became Saint-Pancrace parish church in 1802, illustrates this permanent adaptation. The facades and roofs, registered in 2014, demonstrate the architectural importance of the site.

The high school preserves remarkable elements such as the fence gate, ordered from the locksmith Moine de Beaune, or the paintings of Stephen-Guy Charton in the chapel. These artistic details, combined with the educational history of the site, make it an emblematic monument of Autun, linked to both education and the Burgundian religious heritage.

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