Abbaye aux Dames (Sainte-Trinité)

Unlike William the Conqueror's remains at the nearby Abbaye aux Hommes (where only a single femur survives after Protestant forces scattered his bones in 1562), Queen Matilda's skeleton remained remarkably intact. During the same Wars of Religion attack, the quick-thinking Abbess Anne de Montmorency gathered Matilda's bones and hid them, preserving them for posterity. A soldier who had stolen Matilda's sapphire ring was so moved by remorse in the abbess's presence that he knelt and returned the precious jewel.

Charlotte Corday, famous for assassinating the revolutionary leader Jean-Paul Marat in his bathtub in 1793, spent part of her youth as a boarder at the Abbaye aux Dames. She received her education here before the French Revolution, during which the Benedictine nuns were forced to flee in August 1792 and the abbey was converted into a barracks.

Every abbess of the Abbaye aux Dames inherited the prestigious title "Madame de Caen" and wielded significant regional influence. On the Feast of the Holy Innocents each year, a peculiar tradition was observed: the youngest nun would symbolically occupy the abbess's seat for one day, and the abbess would ceremonially hand her the crozier, the pastoral staff symbolizing her authority.