Musée d'art et d'histoire de Saint-Denis

About

The Paul-Éluard Museum of Art and History is the municipal museum of Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis). Founded in 1901, it was established in 1981 in the old Carmel listed as a historical monument in 1978, located between rue Gabriel-Péri and rue de la Légion d'honneur. The museum won the European Prize for Museums of the Council of Europe on 7 April 1983.

The Carmel of Saint-Denis, created by Cardinal Pierre de Bérulle, is the 37th foundation in France of the order of Notre-Dame du Mont-Carmel. "Seven nuns of the Carmelite convent of Amiens formed the new establishment in September 1625 [...]. The convent of Saint-Denis is the thirty-seventh of their order since Pope Clement VIII, at the request of Mademoiselle de Longueville, founded the congregation of Carmelite nuns of France according to the reform of Sainte-Thérèse, on the thirteenth of November 1603. » Louis XV's daughter, Louise of France, took the habit there in 1770 and made her vows there on 12 September 1771. Louise of France was the prioress of the convent from 1773 to 1779, then from 1785 to his death in 1787. Having found the Carmel very delabricated, it will be at the origin of the restoration of the convent buildings,...