Quartier des Cordeliers

Nothing remains of the feudal castle during built by the Counts the 11th century at the north-west corner of the Gallo-Roman city. The place de la Tour evokes the prison built there in the Middle Ages in its dungeon, which collapsed in 1525. The rue de la Tour and rue Boucherat form the old Roman cardo, perpendicular to the via Agrippa (rue de la Cité). In the Middle Ages, the intersection of the two streets was called the crossroad of the unfortunates because it was where death sentences were read out.

In 1259, a Franciscan convent (at the time, people called it Cordeliers) was built between the rue Hennequin and the rue des Cordeliers. Starting in the 15th century, and until the completion of the Hôtel de ville in 1673, the bourgeois held their assemblies there.

The Cordeliers convent also housed the first library open to the public in Troyes, one of the oldest in France. In 1651, the canon Jacques Hennequin (1575-1661) bequeathed his library of 4,700 volumes, on the condition that they would be made available to “all those who wished to enter… on Monday, Wednesday andFriday throughout the year”. Hennequin was buried in the Cordeliers chapel. His monumental headstone, can be seen in the permanent exhibition entitled (a thousand yearsof books at Troyes) at the Médiathèque de l'agglomération troyenne.

Today, the site is occupied by a prison.

Last updated on 31/08/2022 - Troyes La Champagne Tourisme