The Spectator - February 08, 2018

BOULOGNE-SUR-MER

lovely little flats. Great for trysts,

shopping & French life.

£50 a night, £200 a week.

Full kitchen and linen.

http://www.franglaisflats.com

23 LUXURY PROPERTIES

to rent for one week or more in

south-west France, Provence and the

Côte d'Azur. All sleeping six or more,

all with pools, some with tennis courts.

Staff; plus cooks and/or babysitters if

required.

Tel: Anglo French Properties:

020 7225 0359.

Email: miles.maskell@

anglofrenchproperties.com

http://www.anglofrenchproperties.com

TUSCANY UMBRIA BORDER

Small family agency has villas with

pools for 2 to 14 people.

http://www.tuscanyumbria.com

0039 3337 376077

UMBRIA. Spacious centuries

old farmhouse villa – our home.

Etruscan/Roman Site. Sleeps 11.

Pool. Magical views. Therapeutic

atmosphere. Brilliant feedback.

http://www.ladogana.co.uk

ROME VILLA.

Sleeps 10, heated pool, tennis,

garden. Brilliant cook available.

Set in 1500 olive trees

http://www.romevilla.co.uk

TUSCAN/UMBRIAN BORDER.

Hilltop house in 11 acres.

Looks amazing on the website.

Even better in real life. Check it out:

http://www.myhomeinumbria.com

Travel

Contact Emma Reid

0033 626 101667 | [email protected]

http://www.cotegrange.eu

Cote Grange, Puyjourdes

Be Inspired

Art holidays in the Lot, France

FRANCE ITALY

http://www.spectator.co.uk/classified

station. At 2.50 p.m. sharp the gates swing

soundlessly open and everyone troops up

the winding driveway to the abbey church

at the top of the hill. A silent monk materia-

lises to unlock the west door and we all file

in and sit down in a pew while a local guide

goes through the history and architecture

of the church.

It was designed in gothic style by French

architect Gabriel-Hippolyte Destailleur

(architect of Waddesdon Manor in Bucking-

hamshire) and sports a renaissance dome in

homage to the Hotel des Invalides in Paris,

where Napoleon I is buried. The walls and

pillars are decorated with Napoleonic sym-

bols of eagles and bees.

The highlight is the Imperial crypt, set

beneath the east end of the church. Here,

entombed in three granite sarcophagi

donated by Queen Victoria, lie Napoleon

III, the Empress Eugénie and Prince Louis

(or, as he will always be known to romantics,

Napoleon IV, the last Emperor of France).

It is a strangely moving and slightly surre-

al experience to be in Hampshire walking

amongst the dust of Imperial France.

From time to time someone comes along

to demand the return of the Imperial rel-

ics to France but, as it is gently pointed out,

there is no need for that. This little corner

of England is, after all, for ever France.

little corner of England which
is for ever France, irreclaimably
French.’ That is how the Catholic
priest Monsignor Ronald Knox described
the Abbaye Saint-Michel (St Michael’s
Abbey) in Farnborough, Hampshire.
It was founded in 1881 by the Empress
Eugénie, widow of the Emperor Napo-
leon III. When they were forced to leave
France following the fall of the Second
French Empire in 1870, the couple, along
with their son Louis-Napoleon, the Prince
Imperial, settled in Chislehurst, Kent. The
Emperor died there in 1873 and in 1879
Louis was killed fighting for the British in
the Anglo-Zulu War, leaving Eugénie bereft.
She moved to Farnborough, bought a large
house (Farnborough Hill, constructed for
the publisher Thomas Longman and now
a girls’ school) and built the Abbaye
Saint-Michel in the grounds to serve as a
monastery and Imperial Mausoleum for her
husband and son and, eventually, for herself.
She invited a group of French Benedic-
tine monks from the Abbaye Saint-Pierre
at Solesmes in northern France to take up
residence at Farnborough. This communi-
ty eventually became depleted and in 1947
was augmented by monks from Prinknash
Abbey in Gloucestershire who, to this day,
maintain the abbey’s tradition for Gregori-

an chant and liturgical publishing and print-

ing. (Point of interest, the prior from 1951 to

1958 was Father Basil Robinson, son of the

cartoonist and inventor Heath Robinson.)

Free tours of the abbey and mausoleum

take place every Saturday at 3 p.m. Visitors

gather outside the discreet iron gates off

the A325, a minute’s walk from Farnborough

For ever France: the Abbaye Saint-Michel

NOTES ON ...

Abbaye Saint-Michel

By Christopher Winn

JOHN BRADSHAW / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO