Chaalis Abbey

Daughter monasteries

Monastery of La Merci -Dieu

The Royal Abbey of Chaalis located in Fontaine- Chaalis in the department of Oise, about 40 kilometers northeast of Paris.

History

The first mention of the place, however, dates back to the 7th century. Renaud de Mello founded here after his return from the First Crusade, a Benedictine priory, the. Of King Louis VI was converted into a Cistercian Abbey in memory of his cousin, Count Charles of Flanders ( † 1127 ). Thus was called Chaalis - or - Chaalis his time Caroli locus. The monastery was in a swampy area between the river and the forest of Aunette Ermenonville.

After the founding of the Royal Abbey of Chaalis 1136 1219 by Guérin, Bishop of Senlis and Keeper of the Seals of King Philip II was consecrated. The monastery quickly developed and established at about twenty places farms and wineries. 1202 was a new church in the Gothic style in the building, which was consecrated in 1219. This abbey church measured 82 feet in length and 40 meters in width and was up to his destruction one of the largest Cistercian churches of France.

King Louis IX. came regularly to Chaalis to share the life of the monks. 1378, King Charles V - during a convent crisis, which was widespread in the second half of the 14th century in France - implement, at its own expense, reconstruction work, but the abbey was then also passed to the middle of the 16th century in commendam what the end of the independence of the monastery meant, but also due to lack of income initiated the decline.

In the 18th century that the 9th commendatory, Louis de Bourbon- Condé, comte de Clermont Chaalis to ruin by its extreme financial need. Although started in 1736 by the architect Jean Aubert, the builder of the Grandes Écuries in Chantilly and the Hôtel Biron in Paris, the reconstruction ( the old convent building with its two superimposed galleries was demolished and the Abtspalais built ). Lack of money, however, interrupted the work and led to the closure of the Abbey on the orders of King Louis XVI .. The monks have been distributed to other monasteries.

1793, during the French Revolution, the buildings were sold. The first owner was only the palace and use the other buildings as a quarry. A large part of the abbey was thus demolished, only the chapel of the abbots of the 13th century remained. Until the mid- 19th century, the convent building served as a castle.

Nélie Jacquemart, widow of the banker Édouard André, bought the abbey in 1902, to house her extensive collection of paintings and furniture collection. Before her death in 1912 she bequeathed to the abbey and its collections to the Institut de France.

Pictures

Frescoes by Francesco Primatice

Vaults in the nave - frescoes by Primatice

Ruins of the monastery church

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