Hôpital des Enfants-Trouvés

The Hôpital des Enfants-Trouvés occupies a site near the Square Trousseau where an institution for abandoned children once stood. Founded in sixteen thirty-eight by the priest Vincent de Paul, the hospital provided a refuge for infants left on church steps or street corners. The location in the faubourg Saint-Antoine functioned as one of several houses across the city tasked with their care, as the number of abandoned children in Paris grew into the thousands each year.