The Saint-Sulpice Seminary was established in 1641 in the village of Vaugirard (now part of Paris) by Jean-Jacques Olier, the founder of the Society of the Priests of Saint Sulpice.

He recruited several priests to teach with him, and adopted a new model for seminaries, in which adults from different areas were brought together for preparation for the priesthood, instead of adolescents who lived nearby.

[5] The property was then owned by the family of Alexandre Le Ragois de Bretonvilliers, who inherited it and bequeathed it to the Society upon his death in 1676.

[4] Jean-Jacques Olier, appointed priest of the Saint-Sulpice parish in 1642, bought in 1645 from a relative a garden and 3 buildings on rue du Vieux-Colombier where he had a building built from 1649 to 1651 by the architect Jacques Lemercier in which he transferred his training house for priests founded in 1641 to Vaugirard at a time when the education of the clergy was very neglected.

Jean-Jacques Olier decided to rebuild the Saint-Sulpice church based on plans by Christophe Gamard, the first stone of which was laid in 1646 and the construction work lasted more than 140 years.