Abbaye de St Hilaire

A Moment of Peace

If, like me, you need a little beauty and calm, let me take you to the south of France. Abbeye de St. Hilaire was founded in the 8th century by Carmelite monks who came out of Palestine.

Being me, I couldn’t just write what I remembered from my visit; I did some research. Over an hour’s worth in fact, because the best site is in French, which I read slowly with an occasional foray to the dictionary - LOL.

Anyway, I found that the abbey sits close to a Roman road to France (Gaul) in an area annexed by Julius Caesar. King St. Louis IX may have stopped here on his way to the Crusades. Also, papers dated 1531 claim these monks discovered the first sparkling wine in France: blanquette de Limoux.

The buildings suffered during the various wars, the site was closed as a monastery, and for several hundred years it served as a farm producing grapes and cherries. In desperate disrepair—the chapel used as a barn, the refectory as a sheepfold, and the kitchen as a stable—it was bought as a holiday home by a French couple who had a coup de coeur or love at first sight. They restored the buildings, then the Abbeye was designated a national monument (the French allow monuments to be privately owned). Happily they still allow visits. I’m assuming this is their cat!

Do you have a place in memory or pictures that you use for mini-breaks?

And now a short announcement: I love that this monastery existed during Isabelle d’Angoulême’s life in France before her abduction. To find out more about my heroine and novel, Behold the Bird in Flight, A Novel of an Abducted Queen, click here.

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