Church
Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis
99, rue Saint-Antoine, 75004 Paris - Metro
: Saint-Paul
This splendid church of le Marais is
perfectly representative of the great style French and Italian
baroque. Since 1580, the Father of the Society of Jesus built in
the street Saint-Antoine a vault dedicated to Saint-Louis, ancestor of
their benefactor, Charles of Bourbon. A few years later, these Jesuits
will be expelled of France. Returned to the country in 1600 with
the benediction of Louis XIII, they will increase the small Saint-Paul
vault and will give rise to this vast church between 1627 and
1641. Four superb paintings devoted to Saint-Louis enameled the
tympanums of the vaults. But after plunderings of the revolution, there
remains about it only three. A Christ with the Garden of the
Olive-trees ordered with Delacroix in 1824 replaced missing work.
The two stoups in the shape of shell laid out with the entry were given
by Victor Hugo, as a neighbor, for the birth of her daughter.
Many celebrities attended this church. The first mass of 1641 was
given in the presence of the royal family by the Cardinal of Richelieu,
which had beforehand baptized the first stone of the frontage in
1634. Marc-Antoine Charpentier and Rameau animated the music, the
hearts of Louis XIII and Louis XIV was a preserved time there.
The frontage preserved one blazing dial of clock crowned of gilded
bronze rays which come from the old close church Saint-Paul, destroyed
in 1799.
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