The Hotel Val-Vignes is far from an ordinary hotel; it is a building steeped in history, witness to the transformations of the region over the years. Discover the extraordinary history of the place below.
A Benedictine priory was founded at Saint-Hippolyte by Mr Fulrad, Abbot of Saint-Denis.
Saint-Hippolyte priory, which declined rapidly, became an outbuilding of the Saint Alexandre de Lièpvre priory.
Saint-Hippolyte priory was placed under Lorraine protection.
Saint-Hippolyte became a town with ramparts.
The Duke of Lorraine asserted his power by building two large towers inside the town in the Northwest corner of the ramparts.
A cannon tower was built.
The Lepois family represented the Duke of Lorraine at Saint-Hippolyte. Provost François Lepois was the brother of Charles Lepois, doctor of the Duke, first Dean of the Jesuit faculty of medicine at Pont-à-Mousson.
The Treaty of Paris handed Saint-Hippolyte back to the Lorrains. Duke Léopold (1679-1729) sent the Chevalier de Gircourt to receive the sworn allegiance of the population, mark out his property and set up a new administration system.
Birth of Guillaume-Joseph Chaminade, founder of the Society of Mary, on 8 April in Périgueux.
Guillaume-Joseph Chaminade was ordained as a priest and worked at Mussidan college as a teacher and bursar.
After the Revolution, Guillaume-Joseph Chaminade refused to take an oath to the Civil Constitution of Clergymen.
On 2 October in Bordeaux, creation of the Society of Mary to which Marianist monks belong.
Guillaume-Joseph Chaminade, Bordeaux priest and founder of the Society of Mary, took possession of the Château de Saint-Hippolyte following a donation. He undertook transformation works there to build a Novitiate. Soon the building was to accommodate around a hundred pupils and it was then called a “college”.
Father Léo Meyer left for the USA.
Death of Guillaume-Joseph Chaminade in Bordeaux, on 22 January, at the age of 89.
Arrival of Messrs. Séraphin Ansel, Sibus, Louis Rusch and Joseph Vollmar in Tunis (Tunisia).
Arrival of the five Founders of the Society of Mary, including three Alsatians, in Japan. Today, three schools and one university are still active.
Birth of Jakob Gapp on 26 July.
Wanted by the Nazis, Father Jakob Gapp was arrested at Hendaye and taken as a prisoner to Berlin where he was decapitated on 13 August in Plötzensee prison.
Opening of an Ecole Normale in Brazzaville (Congo).
Some parents wanted their sons to remain as boarders at the College beyond fifth grade. These boys formed the “Foyer”: boarders at Saint-Hippolyte, they attended the classes of College Saint-André in Colmar, which was also run by Marianists.
At the start of the new school year, the pupils no longer went to the Institution Saint-Marie. What the people of Saint-Hippolyte still call the College des Frères became a rest home for elderly monks from the Province of France. Father Hasler became the parish priest of Saint-Hippolyte.
Val-Vignes took over from the College.
The Marianist Foundation was recognised as being in the public interest.
Today the Society of Mary represents 10 schools and 11,500 pupils in France, and 102 schools and around a thousand monks across the world.
