You will no longer find monks and nuns at Abbaye de Royaumont, but you will find space, tranquility and, of course, beautiful Gothic architecture.

The day we visited was a quiet Sunday afternoon.

The Abbaye de Royaumont was built in an amazing seven years — 1228->1235 by Saint-Louis/Louis IX — during the age of the great cathedrals of France. Since its creation, it has moved back and forth between the spiritual and industrial worlds. The abbey now sits somewhere in between the two, cultivating the musical arts through residencies, workshops and performances of the participants in the Foundation’s programs, as well as serving as the home of the Poetic Arts and Translation Centre.

We parked the car on the crunchy gravel lot and entered the grounds through the visitor’s center. We slowly strolled to the abbey. The earth was beginning to be covered by the falling leaves of autumn and the air was moist. The green of the grass was intensified by the graying sky. Small canals laced through the trees, passing by a bench here, a path there. I tried to imagine the historical scene of King Louis XIII prancing around the grounds in a self-proclaimed ballet, while the women of the his court watched and smiled behind their fans…

The abbey itself is really no longer there save for a semicircle of stone columns marking the choir and a standing, lone turret marking its spot on the earth. This is one abbey that did not survive the industrialization of France as the church was taken apart so the stones could be used to build homes for workers when the site was transformed into a cotton mill in 1791.

But the Cloisters and the Refectory remain intact. The Refectory, for being designed as the kitchen and dining rooms, were the most beautiful in their simplicity. Now empty rooms, light streamed into the kitchen through large windows and the arched Gothic ceilings are held up by heavy, arching stone columns. The dining room, with its large open space, gave one the ability to commune with God while eating and now serves as a performance space for many of the musicians that study there.

Royaumont was restored to its Gothic beauty by a group of sisters from the Sainte-Famille de Bordeaux who took over the abbey for awhile before it was bought in 1905 by Jules Edouard Goüin. During World War I it served as a hospital run by a band of Scottish feminists who cared for the wounded. Then the Foundation was formed in 1964 by art patrons Henry and Isabel Goüin. —KK

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