From the time when the Frères de Saint-Yon, as also 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 général 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 général 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 model to all the others.