Couvent des Récollets de Paris

[1] Henry IV of France granted the Récollets permission to build a friary on land two paces from the church of Saint-Laurent which had been given them by his tapestry maker Jacques Cottard.

They initially built a small church and the foundation stone of the friary; a larger church was established by Marie de Medici on 30 August 1614.

The friary closed in 1790 and the building was turned into a military hospital for incurables in 1802.

In 1861 the incurable cases were moved to the Hospice des Incurables d'Ivry and the former friary became the Saint-Martin military hospital, before being renamed after the military doctor Jean-Antoine Villemin in 1913.

It finally closed as a hospital in 1968 and was long threatened with demolition before being made a historic monument in 1974.