The Changing Face of Hospital Care in 18th-Century Upper Normandy: The Hospital of Caudebec and the Arrival of “Paying Inmates” (1693–1789)

This article questions the view that hospitals in early modern France were static and inflexible institutions. The small-town hospital of Caudebec in present-day Upper Normandy underwent three major transformations during the course of the 18th century. Founded in 1693 as a “local” hospital, the institution was designated as an hôpital général in 1724 and began incarcerating beggars and vagrants. Later, with the influx of sick and wounded soldiers brought on by the Seven Years' War, the hospital took on the functions of a small military hospital. On the eve of the French Revolution, the hospital's "civilian" population contained a growing number of individuals who offered to pay for the cost of their care. The arrival of these groups of “paying inmates” shows that the Caudebec hospital was capable of adapting to changing circumstances and was able to respond to the new priorities of the State.