The Benedictine community of Valognes was initially founded in Cherbourg in 1623 with the support of the lords of Tourlaville. In 1626, the plague forced the sisters, led by abbess Charlotte de la Vigne, to flee the city to take refuge in Tamerville, then Emondeville and finally Valognes. The congregation finds in the small aristocratic capital of Cotentin an enthusiastic welcome and benefits from numerous donations. In 1629, she obtained land that would serve as a base for the new buildings. The construction of the church, begun in 1635, was completed in 1648. The community, which had about 80 nuns, had made it its mission to «provide for the good education of the ladies» and to give asylum to orphans, it obtained from King Louis XIII his erection as a royal abbey. Its façade is decorated with a surprising baroque portal, decorated with two orders superimposed with pilasters and embellished with an impressive profusion of bosses. The abbess’s home is a beautiful classical building, regularly ordered by harp chains and long horizontal bands. The other convent buildings are organized around a cloister with gallery of arcades. Confiscated during the Revolution, the former Benedictine abbey has been home to the Valognes hospital since 1810.