Abbaye-aux-Bois

The Abbey of the Woods (French: Abbaye-aux-Bois) was a Bernardine (i.e., Cistercian) convent in Paris, with buildings at 16 rue de Sèvres and at 11 rue de la Chaise in the 7th arrondissement. The buildings used by the convent were repurposed several times before their destruction in 1907.

The abbey was founded in Ognolles in the Diocese of Noyon by Jean II, Lord of Nesle, in 1202, before his departure for the Fourth Crusade. The abbey was at that time named Notre-Dame-aux-Bois ("Our Lady of the Woods"). It was probably Cistercian since its foundation.

With support from French nobility and the local bourgeoisie, the convent grew rapidly. For generations it was protected by popes and kings; in the 14th century, a shift in the Hundred Years' War obliged the nuns to relocate. When later wars threatened the convent, it moved several times before settling in Paris in 1654. There, Anne of Austria installed the nuns in their new site: buildings formerly tenanted by the Sisters of the Annunciation of Mary. The convent adopted its present name in 1667. In 1718, the nuns rebuilt the church under the invocation of Notre-Dame and of Saint Anthony. It is for these nuns that Marc-Antoine Charpentier composed his Leçons de ténèbres in 1680. Wealthy, aristocratic families paid up to 400 livres a year for their daughters to be educated at the convent.

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