The walls of the Abbaye des Vaux-de-Cernay echo with 900 years of history. Founded in 1118 by a handful of monks, the Abbey grew to become a Cistercian Abbey in 1147, with a community of 200 monks. Continuing its activity over the centuries despite wars and epidemics, the Abbey was emptied of its occupants in 1790, when the National Assembly divided it up and it was transformed into a simple stone quarry, thus doomed to oblivion. This was without counting on the obstinacy of an avant-garde and passionate woman, Baroness Charlotte de Rothschild, who, almost a century later, brought the place back from the ashes. A lover of the arts, painter and musician (her piano teacher was a certain Chopin), she scrupulously rebuilt each building and added new constructions, shaping the estate as we know it today. The Second World War signalled the end of the Rothschild era with a final coup d’éclat (the statues from the Château de Versailles were sheltered in the woods of the Abbey, under the noses of the German occupiers). Since then, the Abbey has passed through several hands, and in 2023 it begins a new page in its history, ready to shine throughout the world. 🎄