Montreuil

Charterhouse of Notre-Dame-des-Pres, at Montreuil, in the Diocese of Arras, Department of Pas-de-Calais, France, founded by Robert, Count of Boulogne and Auvergne. The charter of foundation is dated from the chateau d'Hardelot on 15 July, 1324; the church was consecrated in 1338. The foundation, being close to Calais, was liable to disturbance in time of war. Thus it was often sacked by the English during the wars of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and was for a time abandoned. The religious returned when peace was restored. In 1542 the monastery was again wrecked by the Imperial troops and in the wars of religion fresh troubles attended the community. Finally the house was rebuilt by Dom Bernard Bruyant in the latter part of the seventeenth century and remained undisturbed until the Revolution. In 1790 the monastery was suppressed and its property sold by auction the following year. Eighty-two years later the Carthusians repurchased a portion of their old estate and the first stone of the new monastery was laid on 2 April, 1872. The work was pushed forward with such energy by the Prior, Dom Eusèbe Bergier, that the whole was finished in three years. The monastery contains twenty-four cells in its cloister. Montreuil has taken a special position among Carthusian houses, owing to the establishment there of a printing press from which has been issued a number of works connected with the order. Dom le Couteulx's "Annales" (in eight vols.) and the edition of Denys the Carthusian may be quoted as examples of the fine printing done by the monks. By the recent "Association Laws" the community of Montreuil has been once more ejected. The monks are now lodged in the Charterhouse of Parkminster, England ; the printing works have been transferred to Tournai in Belgium.