Second Foundation
George Stanislaus, 3rd Duke de Stacpoole, who had become a priest and a domestic prelate of the pope, and who lived at Fontenelle until his death in 1896, restored the entire property to the French Benedictines (Solesmes congregation), and a colony of monks from Ligugé Abbey settled there in 1893, under Dom Joseph Pothier as superior. Dom Pothier, a scholar who reconstituted the Gregorian chant and one of the most well-known Benedictines of the world, later was elected abbot of Saint-Wandrille, becoming upon his installation on 24 July 1898 its first abbot since the French Revolution and its first regular abbot since the 16th century.
This community was expelled under the "Association Laws" by the French government in 1901, and spent years in Belgium until they were able to return on 26 January 1931, where they have remained until the present. From 1907 until 1914, the abbey was rented by the Belgian writer Maurice Maeterlinck, who lived there during the warmer months of the year with his lover, Georgette Leblanc.
Read more about this topic: Fontenelle Abbey
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