Fontevraud Abbey was founded in the year 1100 by wealthy patrons of the Benedictine order. Uniquely it housed both monks and nuns but the ruler of the Abbey was always an abbess.
Many of the religious occupants came from the Royal houses of Europe and the Plantagenets were amongst the Abbey’s early benefactors. King Henry 11, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Richard 11 and King John’s wife, Isabelle, were buried there as well as other minor royals. Subsequently, during the religious wars, the graves were violated and the bones scattered but the effigy tombs remain.
Napoleon declared the Abbey to be national property and in 1804 turned it into a prison. It remained so for nearly two centuries before the prison was closed and restoration work begun. It is now open to the public and the effigy tombs are on display. The tomb holding Isabelle of Angouleme was originally thought to be that of Berengaria, the wife of King Richard, Coeur de Lyon.
Some of the captured members of the Resistance were kept in the prison at Fontevraud and some were executed there. I have taken a bit of licence and sent my characters there on a visit in 1950 but I have reasoned that Étienne might have known the guard and the guard might have known him. I hope readers will forgive me.
Mary Fitzgerald.