Façade of the Church of the Feuillants, Paris

The royal monastery of Saint-Bernard, better known as the Couvent des Feuillants or Les Feuillants Convent, was a Feuillant nunnery or convent in Paris, behind what is now numbers 229—235 rue Saint-Honor�, near its corner with rue de Castiglione. It was founded in 1587 by Henry III of France. Its church was completed in 1608 and dedicated to Saint Bernard of Clairvaux.

It was not until 1624 that the Saint-Bernard Church was endowed with a real facade. Begun in February 1623, this work was done by the mason Fran�ois Boullet according to the plans of a twenty-five-year-old architect, Fran�ois Mansart, who thus honoured his first major commission. Directly inspired by the two upper levels (Ionic and Corinthian) of the fa�ade of the Saint-Gervais church, completed a few years earlier by Salomon de Brosse, it is distinguished by some original features visible on the upper level.

The nunnery was secularised and nationalised in the decrees of 13 and 16 May 1790 and became notable as the meeting place of the Feuillant Club. Jacques-Louis David used the nave of the convent’s church as a studio for his painting The Tennis Court Oath. Most of the complex was then demolished under the French Consulate, leaving only the guesthouses and the outline of its church’s apse, which can be discerned in the courtyard of one of the guesthouses.

The engraving was made in 1790 by Auguste Blanchard.