Fontaine-Guérard abbey and Marie de Ferrières' tragic end

This Cistercian abbey of women didn’t change since the Middle-Ages! An authentic place...

Founded in 1135 by count of Meulan, the abbey was raised on the location of a small fountain, on lands belonging to a man called Guérard... so the place was called Fontaine-Guérard ("Guérard's fountain")!

Count of Leceister, White-Hands Robert, gave it lot of money. Until the Revolution, Fontaine was a very prosperous abbey. Well, in the Revolution, it became a spinning mill! Come on, let’s go...

We can see ruins of the abbot church, with lateral chapels. One of those chapels belonged to Marie de Ferrières: her recumbent figure tells us about her sad destiny...

Listen! Her husband, Guillaume de Léon, was cruel and jealous. So she ran away from him and took shelter in a convent.

But he sent henchmen in order to murder her! They killed her... but Guillaume was harassed by the in-laws, and exiled. Here, we can see the dormitory with its wooden ceiling, the nice chapter room with its stony bench... There, the chapel of Saint-Michel and the scriptorium...