Prosper Guéranger, founder of the Abbey of Solesmes.
Prosper Guéranger was born on April 4, 1805, in Sablé a small town 3 kilometres (2 miles) from the village of Solesmes with its small abandoned Priory. Although he frequently visited the Priory he never imagined himself being a monk: he loved the solitude of the place.
After his high school studies in Angers, Guéranger entered the seminary of Le Mans. There, he  was drawn intensely to the study of Church history, and soon he discovered what the institution of monasticism had been. Contact with the great scholarly works of the Maurist Benedictines soon awoke in him a real desire for the monastic life.
Ordained a priest in 1827 he pursued his work as the bishop’s secretary in Paris and in Le Mans. In 1831, learning that the priory at Solesmes was destined to destruction for lack of a buyer, the idea came to him to find the means to acquire it and to take up the Benedictine life again. With the help of a few friends and encouraged by his bishop, he gathered together – with considerable difficulty – enough money to rent the monastery property, and subsequently moved in with three companions on July 11, 1833.
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Without copying the past in a servile way, he took inspiration from solid monastic traditions, pursuing above all the true spirit of St Benedict while accepting several very necessary material adaptations to modern times. As a result, by his uncommon intuition of the benedictine charism, liturgy and spiritual life, he became a living example to his monks.
Prosper Guéranger was described by Pope Paul VI as the “Father of the Liturgical Movement” and he played an important role in the restoration of the liturgy. The meaning and value of the ceremonies having long been forgotten, the abbot of Solesmes explained them to the faithful in his most famous work, The Liturgical Year, which saw numerous translations and reprints. He taught them to live by and in the Church, to pray with Her and as She does .
Holding the Church’s chant to be the perfect expression of her liturgical prayer, the Abbot of Solesmes undertook, with his monks, the restoration of the Gregorian melodies after centuries of neglect. Thus begun the work on Gregorian Chant for which the Abbey of Solesmes is renowned throughout the world. 
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ABBOT Paul Delatte resigned in 1921, after ruling his community for over thirty years. The monks elected Dom Germain Cozien, a man of Breton stock, whose  intrepid faith and singleness of purpose led him to decide to take his monks back to their real home.
Fortunately, the French government had not been able to confiscate the buildings at Solesmes, since these were legally owned by a friendly neighbour, the Marquis de Juigné, who restored them to the monks. Many of the community were very sorry to leave the Isle of Wight, where they had been able to live the  monastic life unmolested by politicians and in an atmosphere of the peace which their life demands. The English friends of the monks did not wish to see monastic life become extinct at Quarr, or to contemplate the church ceasing to be a house of prayer. In the end it was decided to leave a colony of monks in residence, while the Solesmes community began to return in small groups, quietly avoiding anything resembling a demonstration. By September, 1922, the return was completed,
including the library and the famous musical paleographical documentation.
Twenty-five monks remained at Quarr, with Dom Emile Bouvet as superior, the same monk who had been sent to Quarr AbbeyHouse from Appleducombe to Quarr to prepare the house for the reception of the Solesmes community in 1907. They were a courageous little band, living in a large building.
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 They were, of course, completely dependent on the abbey of Solesmes, being raised to the status of a simple priory in 1925. The community was much aided by support of many English friends, both clergy and lay-folk, and by the visitors who came to stay at the guest-house.
Young Englishmen began to come and look at the way of life at Quarr and thus gave hope that Quarr had a future. The first Englishman to make his monastic profession did so in 1930; the first ordination of an Englishman took place in 1936. It must always be recognized that Quarr could not have continued without the loyal devotion of the brothers who aided the choir-monks to maintain the monastic observance at its proper level, caring for the house, the garden and the farm. In 1937 Dom Emile Bouvet died, worn out after years devoted to his monastic ideal. He had combined a life of study with interests in farm and garden, not omitting a genuine zest for things English and English literature – all kept in proportion by his monastic vocation. He was indeed the right man for the position.
 To replace Dom Bouvet, the abbot of Solesmes nominated his sub-prior, Dom Gabriel Tissot, who had been the first monk of Solesmes to be professed at Quarr in August, 1908, and the first to be ordained priest in the newly erected church in 1913. Although the name was Quarr Abbey, it was only in 1937 that it was raised to the rank of an abbey.
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