Abbaye aux Dames de Saintes

Saintes

On 2 November 1047, Geoffrey Martel, Count of Anjou, and his wife Agnes of Burgundy had the first convent of women in Saintonge consecrated on the right bank of the Charente. For seven and a half centuries, a line of abbesses of the high nobility reigned there under a title that says it all: "Madame de Saintes". These powerful women, who shared with the bishop the right to carry the crozier, governed estates, priories and souls — in the 12th century, Abbess Agnès de Barbezieux obtained from Eleanor of Aquitaine the funds to rebuild the abbey church, whose facade carved with angels and the Elders of the Apocalypse, and whose conical scaled bell tower, the famous "pine cone", still guide the eyes of pilgrims passing through Saintes. The ladies also educated the daughters of the nobility: among their boarders was a certain Françoise-Athénaïs de Rochechouart, the future Marquise de Montespan and favourite of Louis XIV. Burnt in 1608 and 1648 and rebuilt, the abbey was confiscated at the Revolution: the nuns' choir became a prison, then the buildings served as barracks until 1924, the church even being used as a stable. It took the Festival of Early Music, created in 1972, for the monument to come back to life; since 1988 the former "city of the Ladies" has become a city of music, where voices have replaced the offices in an acoustic that music lovers come from far away to seek.

Getting there : 11 place de l'Abbaye, on the right bank of the Charente, 10 minutes' walk from the Pont Bernard-Palissy and the centre of Saintes. Car parks nearby; free admission to the abbey church, admission charge for the visitor areas.

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

Ambient sound