Abbaye Notre-Dame des Gardes, Trappist Cistercian abbey in Chemillé-en-Anjou, France

Abbaye Notre-Dame des Gardes is a Cistercian (Trappistine) abbey at Saint-Georges-des-Gardes, in Chemillé-en-Anjou, Maine-et-Loire. Its church has a tall square tower with louvered openings, a clock face and a crenellated top, and a gabled facade with a rose window in a pointed arch above three arched doorways, flanked by small battlemented octagonal turrets. The grey stone is streaked with darker weathering.

The monastery was established in 1818 when ten religious women from Forges settled on the ruins of a former Augustinian convent. This founding occurred during the period following the French Revolution, when many religious communities were being rebuilt.

The Trappistine community, about thirty nuns, is the guardian of the sanctuary of Notre-Dame des Gardes, an ancient Marian pilgrimage site. On 26 February 1875 Mgr Freppel obtained from Pius IX a brief authorising the crowning of the statue of Notre-Dame des Gardes, inaugurated on 26 July 1838. The monastery also founded the Trappistine abbey of Étoile Notre-Dame in Parakou, Benin, in 1960.

The abbey stands in Saint-Georges-des-Gardes, now part of Chemillé-en-Anjou, near Cholet and close to Bellefontaine Abbey. The Trappistine community, about thirty nuns, keeps the sanctuary of Notre-Dame des Gardes, an old Marian pilgrimage site. Visitors come for the pilgrimage and the crowned statue; the church facade shows a rose window, three arched doorways and a statue on the gable peak.

The abbey founded daughter houses: the Trappistine abbey Étoile Notre-Dame in Parakou, Benin, in 1960, and the Cabanoule monastery in Anduze, Gard department, in 1960s-1970s. Its abbesses are recorded by name, from prioress Thérèse Malatesta in 1818 to Béatrice Blanloeil, abbess since 2008.