so all other
religious communities, were suppressed, untill 1820, the house of
Saint-Yon, became successivly a revolutionary prison, a barrack, a
_grenier d'abondance_, or corn store house, a house of detention for
spanish prisoners, an hospital for wounded soldiers in 1814, and a poor
house. This last establishment was one of the most considerable of this
description; but, it was suppressed in 1820, by royal ordonance.

Already in the preceding year, the _Conseil general_ of the departement
of the Seine-Inferieure had taken into consideration the deplorable
state, to which the unfortunate insane were reduced, and they resolved
to alleviate their wretched condition. It had been represented to them
that these unfortunate people could not receive in the hospitals of
Rouen, Havre or Dieppe, where there were great numbers of them shut up,
the great attention, which their position required, or not even those
which humanity demanded.

The _conseil general_ on a proposition from Mr Malouet, then prefect
of the departement, voted the establishment of a special asylum for the
insane belonging to the departement. The buildings and dependencies of
the ancient monastery of Saint-Yon were designated as being fit for that
purpose. The situation of the place at the extremity of the suburb, and
in a healthy situation, and the numerous plantations which it would be
easy to make in the large gardens which surround the establishment,
appeared as many favourable circumstances, to fix the choice of the
administration.

Therefore, in 1821, they entered into a contract for the building of
five different courts for the treatement of insane persons.

On the 25th August 1822, on the feast of Saint-Louis, the prefect Mr
de Vanssay laid the first stone of the establishement.

From that time the works were carried on with activity. Already in July
1825, fifty seven patients had been admitted. This asylum contains at
this time, 390 boarders and 150 poors at the charge of the departement.

It occupies a superficies of nine or ten hectares. The inmates are taken
care of by the sisters of Saint-Joseph of Cluny.

The admirable order which reigns in the establishment, the internal
management to which the insane are subjected, have already attracted the
attention of foreign medical men, who are charged with the treatement of
the same malady in the hospitals of their own countries. It may be said
that this asylum has, for several years served as a m