The Minimes convent is located in the commune of Roussillon, in the department of Isère, 9 km north of Chanas.
It was founded in 1608 on the initiative of Just-Louis de Tournon, also at the origin of the Minimes community which included other establishments in the region. It symbolizes the activism of the Catholic counter-reformation at the end of the Wars of Religion.
The classical style buildings form a quadrilateral whose center is occupied by the cloister. As for the chapel, it is the old parish church mentioned from the 12th century on the site of which the convent was erected.
Seized and then sold during the Revolution, the establishment regained a religious vocation in 1834 when a boarding school for young girls belonging to the Congregation of the Nativity of Our Lord was established there. The boarding school was active until 1950, with an interruption taking place from 1905 to 1933 after the law separating church and state.
The Rhône-Poulenc company then acquired the site to house employees and then retirees and in the 1990s, the former convent was restored by the municipality and an organization with the aim of developing social housing there.
Old paintings, some dating from the Middle Ages, decorate the chapel. This should eventually turn into an exhibition room.
The entire convent is listed in the Inventory and can be observed (exteriors and cloister) during a walk in the locality.
Information on +33 4 74 29 01 00.
