The abbey also provided rooms for ladies of good standing who were in search of rest, including Joséphine de Beauharnais when the case of her separation from her first husband was heard.

Pope Gregory IX issued a bull from the Lateran Palace on the 8 June 1230 which sanctioned the new abbey and declared the funds raised for its endowment protected.

A competition for plans for a reconstruction attracted multiple proposals including one from the royal architect, François II Franque, which drew praise from Denis Diderot in the Encyclopédie for its combination of grandeur and simplicity.

The future first lady Abigail Adams was shocked that Jefferson would send his girls to a Catholic school but he assured her that there were many Protestants at the abbey.

Conditions were austere for the students, despite the presence of three princesses, with no fires until the water froze and a prohibition on speaking outside of class and recreation.

Her time at the school led Martha, nicknamed Patsy, to write a letter to her father expressing her desire to become a nun.

The ladies were free to come and go as they liked, with constraints on the hours allowed outside the convent, often had their children and servants with them, and spent their evenings socializing and commiserating in the abbey's salons.

Under the Second Empire the abbey served as the barracks of the Cent-gardes Squadron, an elite cavalry unit that provided personal protection for Napoleon III and the Tuileries Palace.

In 1937, a bunker was constructed underneath the Court of Honor including two stationary bicycles intended to provide electricity in case of power loss due to enemy bombardment.

The actual opening of the former abbey as a Reformed congregation was delayed by decades of bureaucratic obstacles as well as opposition during the Bourbon Restoration to turning over a former Catholic building to Protestant use.

He isolated the chapel from the rest of the building, added new doors in place of two of the previous windows, and converted the former choir to a nave.

[29] The church itself underwent restoration from 2005-2007 commissioned by the City of Paris and accomplished by Benjamin Mouton, the chief architect of historic monuments, and the firm Aubert-Labansat.