17th century buildings

Under the reign of Louis XIV, the desire to restore order in the cities, to control beggars and outcasts and to protect against asocial individuals led to the creation of hospital establishments, called general hospitals, created by a royal edict of 1662, whose aim was neither care nor charity, but the confinement of the poor.

These general hospitals, responsible for taking in beggars, vagrants, foundlings, the insane and the incurable, became the guardians of social order. Discipline was strict, tensions were high, and for able-bodied people who could, work was compulsory.

Thus, the Grand Bureau des Pauvres Valides in Rouen was also set up as a general hospital following an edict by King Louis XIV, registered on 23 June 1681 by the Parliament of Normandy. This text includes 32 very explicit articles which constitute a real code against begging and is entitled: "Edit du Roi portant établissement de l'Hôpital Général pour le Renfermement des pauvres mendians de la Ville et Fauxbourgs de Rouen (sic)".

Following this royal decree, major extensions were made to the site of the new general hospital. According to some sources, the cost of this work, estimated at between 400,000 and 500,000 pounds, was financed by Colbert's decision, thanks to the money earmarked for work on the Chemin Neuf, the area crossing the Pré aux Loups and linking the Porte Martainville to the Route de Paris.

Jacques Gravois, one of a veritable dynasty of Rouen architects, was commissioned to draw up the plans for these new buildings. Thus, between 1687 and 1692, three new U-shaped buildings were erected, one branch of which was later demolished and rebuilt at the end of the 18th century to house the General Management.

All that remains in the present Cour d'Honneur, the former men's court, are two 17th century buildings in the shape of an angle, well representative of the hospital architecture of that period.

The large building, consisting of a ground floor and two upper floors, housed the refectory and the men's dormitories. It is in the Louis XIII style, made of brick and stone with stone quoins and pierced by windows framed with mouldings. The mansard roofs are covered in slate and the building is linked to two beautiful corner pavilions forming a slight forebay. In the centre of the building, a curved pediment in Vernon stone is also slightly projecting with three windows.

The small building in return for a square is in the same style, with a curved pediment in the centre, also in Vernon stone, with a single window. This pediment overhangs a vaulted porch which was to become the "official" entrance to the hospital until very recently. The corner pavilion, at door 5, which connects the two buildings with its horizontal stone bands, houses a very beautiful Louis XIII style baluster staircase, also known as the Legrix staircase, leading to the former directors' meeting.