Note 61 — Chapter III · Some of the Primary Gothic Cathedrals: Noyon, Senlis, Sens, Laon, Soissons

Congrès Archéologique, 1911, p. 410, Longpont abbatial; Abbé Poquet, Monographie de l’abbaye de Longpont (1869). Longpont, where the bishops of Soissons were buried, was founded by Gerard de Chérisy, who had married Lady Agnes of Longpont. St. Bernard sent twelve Cistercian monks to start the new house in 1131. The splendid Gothic church, which departed from Cîteaux’s rule of church simplicity, was consecrated in 1227 before the queen regent and Louis IX, by the bishop of Soissons, Jacques de Bazoches, who had just anointed Louis as king, at Rheims. Longpont was sacked by the Huguenots in 1567, and wrecked by the Revolution. The picturesque ruins were acquired by the de Montesquieu family in 1850.