Abbaye royale de Chaalis

Fontaine-Chaalis

Chaalis was born of a murder: in 1137, Louis VI founded this Cistercian abbey in memory of his cousin Charles the Good, Count of Flanders, assassinated in a church in Bruges while at prayer. Around 1202 the white monks raised here a Gothic abbey church 82 metres long — one of the largest Cistercian churches in the kingdom, deep in the forest. Saint Louis, for whom Chaalis was one of his best-loved monasteries, stayed here regularly and in 1245 founded the chapel of Sainte-Marie, still standing: in the 16th century, the commendatory abbot Hippolyte d'Este, the sumptuous Cardinal of Ferrara, had it covered with frescoes by Primaticcio, the Italian master of Fontainebleau — a Renaissance heaven set upon a Capetian chapel. Prosperous in the 15th century with its ten ponds, its mills, its fisheries and an extraordinarily rich library, the abbey collapsed after the Revolution: of the great church there remain only romantic ruins standing in the park, which already fascinated walkers from neighbouring Ermenonville, where Jean-Jacques Rousseau lived out his last days. In 1902, Nélie Jacquemart-André, a collector on a grand scale, bought the estate, installed her treasures in the abbot's palace and bequeathed the whole to the Institut de France: Chaalis today is at once a Cistercian ruin, a museum of a thousand works, a rose garden and a forest — eight centuries distilled, an hour from Paris.

Getting there : Domaine de Chaalis, on the edge of the forest of Ermenonville, 45 km from Paris on the N330. Open to the public (ticket office, park, Jacquemart-André museum, rose garden); access by car recommended.

Opening times and access details are given as a guide only: check before you set out.

Ambient sound