La Trappe Abbey

A few years later Rotrou built a monastery adjoining, which he offered to the monks of Le Breuil-Benoît Abbey near Dreux, a house of the Order of Savigny.

From that time onwards, La Trappe was a Cistercian abbey, immediately subordinate to the abbot of Clairvaux.

[4] The 14th commendatory abbot, installed in 1662, Armand Jean le Bouthillier de Rancé, godson of Cardinal Richelieu, proved to be La Trappe's greatest leader.

The distinguished Benedictine scholar, Dom Jean Mabillon, after his long quarrels with de Rancé,[6] visited him here to make peace.

Others, under the novice master, Dom Augustin de Lestrange, went into exile, initially at La Valsainte Charterhouse in Switzerland.

[7] The buildings, in Neo-Gothic style, are still occupied by the Trappist community, under the leadership of abbot Dom Guerric Reitz-Séjotte, appointed in 2004.

La Trappe Abbey directly supervises four other Trappist houses, at Bellefontaine in Anjou,[8] Timadeuc in Brittany, Échourgnac in Dordogne, and Tre Fontane in Italy.