Abbaye de Foigny

La Bouteille (Foigny)

It was Saint Bernard of Clairvaux in person, accompanied by Barthélemy de Jur, bishop of Laon, who founded the abbey of Foigny in 1121, in the heart of the Thiérache. True to the Cistercian spirit of faithfully reproducing its monasteries, the abbey church was built on the exact plan of Clairvaux itself — a fact confirmed by the archaeological excavations of 1959, which uncovered foundations modelled on those of the mother house. The abbey then enjoyed a spectacular rise: at its height, it counted up to a hundred monks and two hundred lay brothers, working no fewer than twelve thousand hectares of land, woods and farms scattered across the whole region. Among the great lords who found their last rest here was Raoul I of Coucy, the powerful castellan of the region between 1149 and 1191. But of this glorious past, almost nothing remains today: wars, revolutionary plundering and time have got the better of the monastic buildings. Only a chapel, raised at the end of the 19th century on the site of the abbey church's choir, still recalls the presence of the monks, while a former 12th-century mill, converted into a hydroelectric plant in 1982, strangely goes on turning its machinery on the waters that saw so many generations of Cistercians pass by.

Getting there : Hamlet of Foigny, commune of La Bouteille, in the Thiérache (Aisne)

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

Ambient sound