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Origin and history

The convent of the Grand Minimes du Plessis-lès-Tours, located in La Riche en Indre-et-Loire, was founded in 1489 by Saint-François de Paule, founder of the beggar order of the Minimes. Called to France by Louis XI, who hoped his prayers would save him, the saint settled on the royal lands of the Plessis with the financial support of Charles VIII. The convent, composed of a church, a cloister, a refectory, cells and a chapel dedicated to Saint Francis, reached its peak in the 17th century, during which the buildings were enlarged and redecorated. Today, only a 17th-18th-century convent building and an octagonal tower remain.

At the Revolution, the convent was sold as a national good, and its church was destroyed. In 1877, an unfinished neo-Gothic chapel was built by architects Charles and Gustave Guérin on the site of the pit where Saint-François de Paule originally lay, whose body had been burned by the Huguenots in 1662. The site, including the chapel, the convent building, the tower and the grounds of the enclosure, was listed as historical monuments in 2007. There remains a major testimony of the religious history of the Touraine and of devotion to Saint Francis.

The convent retains symbolic importance as a burial place for Saint Francis de Paule, who died there. Its architecture combines elements from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, reflecting the transformations undergone over the centuries. Today owned by a regional public institution, the site attracts pilgrims and heritage lovers, although only part of the original buildings survived the revolutionary destructions and demolitions of the 19th century.

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