This celebrated abbey of the Order of Reformed Cistercians is
built in a solitary valley surrounded by forests, and watered by
numerous streams which form, in the vicinity, a number of
beautiful lakes. The location is eighty-four miles from Paris,
and nine miles from the little town of Mortagne in the
Department of Orne and the Diocese of Séez, within the ancient
Province of Normandy. At its beginning it was only a small
chapel, built in 1122 in pursuance of a vow made by Rotrou II,
Count of Perche, who, a few years afterwards, constructed a
monastery adjoining, to which he invited the religious of
Breuil-Benoit, an abbey belonging to the Order of Savigny, then
in great renown for fervour and holiness; and in 1140 the
monastery of La Trappe was erected into an abbey. In 1147
Savigny, with all its affiliated monasteries, was united to the
Order of Cîteaux, and from this time forth La Trappe was a
Cistercian abbey, immediately depending on the Abbot of
Clairvaux. During several centuries La Trappe remained in o