The marker reads:
[French]Le huit Decembre mil six cent vingt-huit des ecoles furent creees dans ce quartier par les soeurs de la congregation de Notre-Dame. Retablies en mil huit cent dix sous la denomination 'Ecoles de Sainte - Sophie' elles ont ete transferees a Luxembourg-Weimershof en Septembre mil neuf cent soixante-douze.
[English translation modified from Google Translate]On December 8, 1628, a school was established in this area by the Sisters of the Congregation of Notre-Dame. The 'School Sainte - Sophie' was transferred to the Luxembourg City suburb of Weimershof in September 1972.
The following additional information is from the Congregation Notre-Dame website (
visit link) :
"The three first Sisters of the Congregation arrived in Luxemburg in1627. The city, at that time under Spanish rule, was a highly fortified army base. St. Peter Fourier had given express permission for the foundation, which was made at the request of Madame de Wiltheim, née Marguerite de Busbach, whose intention was that “the Sisters should establish a monastery of their Order to serve God and teach girls to read and write and become proficient in all other required and befitting subjects, and that without financial reward”. At first hesitant, our holy Founder at length wrote the Sisters a long letter in which he went into great detail and ended up with the words, “where you may become martyrs”.
The beginnings were difficult but, in spite of all the problems, and aided by influential ladies of the town, the Sisters began their apostolate. Madame de Wiltheim herself entered the Congregation as a lay sister. She was followed by seventeen others, two of whom were her own daughters. This all happened in the space of four years.
During this period, at the instigation of the Jesuits, the devotion to Our Lady Consoler of the Afflicted originated. Her statue, objective of many a pilgrimage, has stood since 1794 in the Cathedral of Notre Dame, formerly the Jesuit church.
- 1798 to 1804 the French Revolution and dissolution of the Congregation during which the Sisters found refuge at Metz
- 1940 to 1944 when the Germans occupied the country, closing the school from the moment they arrived.
At this time of crisis, a close link was formed with the Sisters of St. Elizabeth who accepted our sisters, sixty in number, into their Congregation, giving them house room and allowing them to share in the works of their different convents.
The occupation over, our sisters took up their work again in the school (primary and secondary) in the old buildings situated in the centre of the city. In 1972, the school was transferred to a newly constructed and more spacious building in the suburb of Weimershof. Here the sisters carried on their apostolate until 2005."