Abbaye du Paraclet

Ferreux-Quincey

In 1122, Peter Abelard, a philosopher fallen from grace and mutilated after his scandalous love for Heloise, withdrew as a hermit to the banks of the Ardusson and built an oratory that he dedicated to the Paraclete. In 1129, Heloise and her nuns, driven out of the abbey of Argenteuil, came to settle there; in 1133 Abelard wrote for them the first monastic rule designed for women, and Heloise became abbess in 1135. After Abelard's death in 1142, two years after his condemnation at the Council of Sens, Peter the Venerable had his remains transferred to the Paraclete in 1144; Heloise was buried at his side there in 1164. Raised to the rank of abbey as early as 1147, the monastery became a royal abbey in 1533, but suffered during the Wars of Religion between 1586 and 1605, having already been deserted during the Hundred Years' War in 1359. In 1615, the abbess Marie de la Rochefoucauld had Abelard's manuscripts published; in 1621, the remains of the two lovers were reunited in a double coffin. A persistent tradition, reported right up to the suppression of the monastery in 1790, held that the Pentecost mass was sung there in Greek, a memory of Heloise's linguistic learning. The abbey church was demolished after the Revolution; General Pajol bought the site in 1821 and raised there the obelisk that keeps alive the memory of the founders.

Getting there : South-eastern edge of the hamlet of Saint-Aubin, in the commune of Ferreux-Quincey (Aube), near Nogent-sur-Seine, along the former D442; remains visible from the public road, waymarked walking loop starting from Ferreux-Quincey

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

Ambient sound