[1] The next year, in 1136, the first community of a dozen monks settled on the site of the new abbey with Nivard, a younger brother of Bernard de Clairvaux, as their prior.

[2][3] Bernard himself came for the dedication of the new foundation, accompanied by Geoffroy de Lèves, Bishop of Chartres, as they were travelling together on a visit to Parthenay to meet William X, Duke of Aquitaine.

In 1180, Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of Nantes, a son of Henry II of England, Duke of Normandy, and of Eleanor of Aquitaine, assigned to the abbey in perpetuity twenty livres to be paid by the mills of the surrounding parish.

Other survivals are the bells, which were transferred to Chartres cathedral, an Italian marble altar, which was moved to the church of Saint-Louis in Paimbœuf, a pulpit, now in the church of St Peter in Bouguenais, and some other objects, including the oldest crucifix in the Pays de Retz, dating from the fourteenth century, in the chapel of St Anne of Tharon at Saint-Michel-Chef-Chef.

[2] On 25 March 1200, at the request of Constance, Duchess of Brittany, monks were sent for the founding of her new Villeneuve Abbey,[6] on land belonging to Buzay, located on the Ognon, a river flowing into the lake of Grand-Lieu, near the Châtellenie of Touffou and the village of Bignon.