Abbaye de Saint-Michel-en-Thiérache

Saint-Michel

On the far edge of the Thiérache, where the bocage closes in on the great frontier forest, a Benedictine abbey has kept watch for more than a thousand years. Tradition holds that it was built in 945 on an older place of worship, at the instigation of monks from Ireland, those tireless travellers for God who scattered monasteries across Europe. Placed under the protection of the archangel Saint Michael, commander of the heavenly hosts, the house lived through a millennium of vicissitudes: border wars, fires, plundering. Each time, the monks rebuilt on the same plan, around the cloister and its quadrangle. The result is an astonishing palimpsest in stone: a Gothic choir preserving a Romanesque triforium, a nave rebuilt in the classical manner, and above all a spectacular 17th-century baroque facade inspired by the church of the Gesù in Rome — an unexpected apparition at the bottom of this northern valley. In the cloister, six frescoes retracing the life of Saint Benedict, rediscovered in 1987, recall the Rule that ordered life here. The abbey church also houses a treasure in sound: the organ built by Jean Boizard in 1714, whose intact voice draws the greatest performers; every summer, one of France's leading festivals of early and baroque music sets its pipes ringing. Within the walls, the monastic silence still seems to inhabit the stone, and the edge of the forest of Saint-Michel extends the visit into a wandering meditation.

Getting there : East of the village of Saint-Michel, at the edge of the state forest. Open April to October, Wednesday to Sunday afternoons (admission from €5). Coordinates given for the village of Saint-Michel as the point of approach: the abbey is signposted from the village.

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

Ambient sound