Longchamp Abbey

The stone ruins of Longchamp Abbey stand as fragments of a place once governed by Isabella of France, the sister of King Saint Louis. In the mid-thirteenth century, she rejected royal marriage proposals to establish this house for Franciscan nuns. A windmill now occupies the site where the abbey church once held a relic of the True Cross, attracting pilgrims for centuries. The original stone walls collapsed long ago, leaving only the gatehouse to mark the boundary of her former religious retreat.