The Benedictine Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés was founded in the 6th century by Childebert I. Under royal patronage the Abbey became one of the richest in France,and remained a center of intellectual life in the French Catholic church until it was disbanded during the French Revolution. An explosion of saltpetre in storage leveled the Abbey and its cloisters, but the church was spared. the statues in the portal were removed and some destroyed, and in a fire in 1794 the library vanished in smoke. The abbey church remains as the Église de Saint-Germain-des-Prés, one of the oldest churches in Paris.
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