Closing Down Local Hospitals in Seventeenth-Century France:
The Mount Carmel and St Lazare Reform Movement
Authors
Daniel Hickey
Abstract
By the beginning of the seventeenth century, small hospitals in France were seen by
royal and city officials as inefficient, redundant and frequently duplicating services
already available. In 1672, acting upon this perception, Louis XIV authorized the Order
of Notre Dame of Mount Carmel and of St Lazare to undertake a vast enquiry into the
operation of these institutions, to shut down those which were corrupt or were not fulfilling
the obligations specified in their charters, and to confiscate their holdings and revenues.
This article examines the results of this experiment by looking at the operation of the
Mount Carmel and St Lazare "reform" and by examining the grass-roots functioning of
three small hospitals in southeastern France.
