History

18th CENTURY: CONVENT SAINTE MARIE DES CHAÎNES

Wedged between the hills of Croix-Rousse and Fourvière, the area of Serin enjoys a strategic position.Easy to defend, it signals the Northern entrance to the city. In order to block access to the city at night, customs officers used to hang a chain up the river over the river Saône, and another one blocking access from the South, around St-Georges. The river was the source of many fantastical tales which sometimes were transmitted for centuries, like the tale of the infamous Machecroute. This aquatic beast was supposedly at the source of the many floods the town experienced at various times in history: the creature was so big that a single flick of its tail was enough to make the waters rise. A stone slab at the entrance of the restaurant, on the street side, marks the 1840 flood.

In 1640, the nuns from the Order of the Visitation bought the land and ordered the construction of a small cloister, which stood where the restaurant is now, and a church along the fence that nowadays separates the site from the river embankment. The whole site formed the convent Sainte-Marie des Chaînes. The vast hired land around and the vineyards and orchards that surrounded the cloister gave the nuns a comfortable life. It was a prosperous convent, which could host up to 70 people, including a majority of young girls from wealthy families. After 1700, the convent started to experience financial difficulties. Young girls from good families however continued to flock to the convent. Faced with the lack of space, the Mother Superior, Sister Sépharique d’Honoraty, decided to build a bigger convent. According to legend, before the beginning of the construction, she said: ”In order to reduce expenses, we shall not employ an architect. I will draw the plans myself, and may the Lord help us if we cannot do it!” The new building soon crumbled and was then rebuilt at great expense. A quarter of the project had been achieved when the convent was declared national property in 1789 following the Revolution. In 1791, the nuns were driven out by the Revolution and the arrival of the guillotine in Lyon, and left the site for ever.