Locations

The hospital was envisaged as early as 1641 when Sébastien Leblanc, then advisor to King Louis XIII, donated a piece of land with houses to the Brothers of Charity in order to accommodate and care for the poorest and most insane patients. In 1645, a first hospice of 7 beds was opened.
The theories on the treatment of the insane formulated by Jean-Etienne Esquirol, chief physician of the hospital from 1826, allow the architect Emile Gilbert in 1838 to take over the site and the building to design the "Asile de Charenton". It was completed according to his plans by the architect Arthur Diet in 1886.
The building is the prototype of the asylums architecture. The asylums had to have a central building reserved for general services. On each side, isolated masses surrounded by a gallery were planned to house the patients.
The neo-classical style of the building demonstrates the interest of the time for the monumental. It is also strongly influenced by the Italian Renaissance and the great Roman villas of the Augustan period.
The hospital took the name of Esquirol in 1970, and has been protected as a Historic Monument since 1998.

The psychiatric hospital Esquirol merged in 2011 with the National Hospital of Saint-Maurice to become an entity named "Les Hôpitaux de Saint-Maurice".