Collège des Quatre-Nations

The building you are approaching was constructed on the site of the Tour de Nesle, a medieval defensive tower that once stood at this spot along the Seine. Cardinal Mazarin, the chief minister to Louis the Fourteenth, used his immense private fortune to fund the creation of a college here. He envisioned an institution dedicated to educating sixty young men from four specific provinces that had recently been annexed by France: Alsace, Roussillon, Flanders-Artois, and the region of Pinerolo. This origin explains its historical name, the College of the Four Nations.