Fire ravages French monastery dubbed 'Notre-Dame of the Ardennes'

Anne Fraipont, mayor of the nearby village of Tannay-le-Mont-Dieu, lamented the death of a monastery she called the "Notre-Dame of the Ardennes", which gained historic monument status in 1946.

"There was a lot of wood in this building," said Fraipont. "There is no longer a roof, no longer a floor, only the walls remain."

Nearby walkers sounded the alarm after seeing the smoke on Sunday morning, said Fraipont. The causes of the fire remain unknown.

Firefighters rushed to the scene at 10:00 am (0900 GMT), and had managed to get the blaze under control before 4:00 pm, according to the Ardennes fire and rescue service.

Workers were remaining on site to extinguish the last of the flames, the fire brigade said, adding that the damage was such that the monastery "risked collapsing".

No works of art were within the monastery at the time of the blaze, the service said.

Nestled in the dense forests of the northeastern Ardennes region, Mont-Dieu's Carthusian monastery traces its origins back to nearly 900 years ago.

First erected in 1130, it was then rebuilt in the 17th century before the French Revolution forced the monks to flee the site.