Atonement by dgt by dgt

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The Royal Abbey of Our Lady of Fontevraud, is a complex of religious buildings hosting a cultural centre since 1975, the Centre Culturel de l’Ouest, in the village of Fontevraud-l’Abbaye, near Chinon, in Anjou, France. It was founded in 1101 by the itinerant preacher Robert of Arbrissel. The foundation flourished and became the center of a new monastic Order, the Order of Fontevrault. This order was composed of double monasteries, in which the community consisted of both men and women–in separate quarters of the abbey–all of which were subject to the authority of the Abbess of Fontevraud. The Abbey of Fontevraud itself consisted of four separate communities, all completely managed by the same abbess.

The Order was dispersed during the French Revolution. In November 1789, all property of the Catholic Church was declared to be the property of the nation. On On 17 August 1792, a Revolutionary decree ordered evacuation of all monasteries, to be completed by 1 October 1792. At that time, there were still some 200 nuns and a small community of monks in residence at Fontevraud. The last abbess, Julie Sophie Charlotte de Pardaillan d’Antin, is said to have died in poverty in Paris in 1797. The abbey later became a prison from 1804 to 1963, when it was given to the French Ministry of Culture.

The projected prison in the former abbey was planned to hold 1,000 prisoners, and required major changes, including new barracks in addition to the transformation of monastic buildings into dormitories, workshops, and common areas. Prisoners–-men, women and children-–began arriving in 1814. Eventually, it held some 2,000 prisoners, earning the prison the “toughest in France after Clairvaux”. Political prisoners experienced the harshest conditions: some French Resistance prisoners were shot there under the Vichy Government

Following the closing of the prison came a major restoration, and opening to the public in 1985, with completion of the abbey church’s restoration in 2006 under architect Lucien Magne

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