Abbatiale Saint-Robert de La Chaise-Dieu, Gothic abbey church in La Chaise-Dieu, France.

The Abbatiale Saint-Robert is a 75-metre-long Gothic church built of local grey granite, with a facade reached by a wide stone stair and flanked by two square towers with paired arched openings. Its pointed portal has multiple recessed archivolts, above which rise a tall traceried window and a small rose window. Inside, the nave vaults are depressed arches and the side aisles reach the same height as the central vessel, with no capitals at the springing of the ribs.

Founded in 1043 by Robert de Turlande, the abbey had about 300 monks by his death in 1068. In 1342 its former monk Pierre Roger de Beaufort became Pope Clement VI, who on 3 May 1344 ordered the Romanesque church rebuilt on a larger scale as his burial place. The shell was finished by 25 September 1350 under Hugues Morel, then Pierre Salciat. Huguenots damaged it in 1562.

The Dance of Death is a 26-metre mural in three panels in the left aisle of the choir, painted between 1425 and 1440, probably during a plague epidemic. Death appears as a decaying transi, not a skeleton, alternating with clergy, nobles, burghers and commoners. The organ has two separate cases: a carved 1683 tribune above the entrance and a plainer 1726 case behind it.

The organ tribune spans the full width of the nave above the main entrance, carried on four atlantes, so the instrument sits at the west end facing the choir. The jubée was lowered by just over a metre to keep the organ sounding through the church. The nave vaults spring from piers without capitals, which shapes how sound carries; the Dance of Death occupies three panels, 26 metres in all, in the left aisle beside the choir.

The abbey retains one of the few rood screens still in its original position in France; it was lowered by just over a metre so that it would not acoustically isolate the organ from the rest of the church. The vaults spring from piers without capitals, a detail that shapes the building's acoustics.