The abbey Fervaques
(Fonsommes)

Fonsommes, small village erected close to the sources of the somme (literally, the bottom of the sommes, from which his name Fonsommes). The farm Fervaques, depends on Fonsommes.

In 1060, Sohier le Roux gave the 5 manses manses earth Fervaques to the church Saint-Quentin.
In 1140, Réné ou Reinier, duke, sénéchal and dapifer, lord of Fonsomme, and Elisabeth, his woman, let construct a church to the extremity of parishes St-Prix and of Fonsomme and gave the altar to the abbey of the Benedictine Montreuil.
The abbot of St-Prix allow an abbess Bernardine, to consecrate this frank church. A community of brothers and sisters, under the rule of girls order St-Bernard, was established in this year 1140, in this place, desert by then.

This community persisted a long time, since in 1320, one counted there 50 sisters, novices and schollgirls, 20 monks, and 20 sisters converses, the community of men was eliminated few years later.
This religious house suffered a lot during the wars:
Destroyed a first time at first of the 16th century, it was again devastated by the duke d'Anjou at the time of the hold Cambrai as well as in 1395.
The abbey Fervaques was destroyed and razed in 1557, the Spaniards drove away the religious that took refuge first in Paris, then came to establish definitively in 1648 in Saint-Quentin.

Abbey Fervaques
(Saint-Quentin )
The works for the construction of the abbey Fervaques begun on the 14 March 1642.
The house of the Bernardines, begun on a small land, enlarged there with the years, it was also decorated, and, under the administration of these wise abbesses, become in 1770, one of the more beautiful abbeys France.
Abandoned at the revolution 1793, (religious bougth a land looking onto the Suzannes street, where they established a house that took tha name of Small-Fervaques) the abbey was converted in military hospital, then, evacuated of its patients, it served as stores and as offices, etc. and then to the military genius, then as special lodgings, as filature, and at last as palaces for justice. Nevertheless, the range of its buildings allowed again to join there a very beautiful room dance in the superior part of the church, as well as the library of the city, the school of drawings, the school for superior primary teaching, a museum being born, a local fate to the meetings of the academic Corporation, and the gendarmerie.
The last abbesse Fervaques was Madam Amalia Duperriez-Dumouriez, sister of the general Dumouriez.. The church Fervaques has used as sepulture place to several counts of Vermandois.
Towards, 1880 the word " Palaces" has often been employed by the Holy-Quentinois with irony, seen the dilapidated state of the building.
In 1889 the abbey Fervaques was razed for too deteriorated by lack maintenances, it was impossible to repair it.

(Origin of information: http://perso.wanadoo.fr/jean-claude.gallochat)