Patrick Comerford
My main purposes in visiting the Marais during my visit to Paris last week were to stroll through the Jewish district, to visit some of the synagogues, to see the Holocaust Memorial and the Museum of Jewish Art and History, and to stop in some of the Jewish shops and cafés.
As I was walking back to the Left Bank and the hotel where we were staying, I also stopped to visit the Église Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis on rue Saint-Antoine, the Catholic parish church in the Marais. The church gives its name to Rue Saint-Paul Place Saint-Paul and the nearest Metro station, Saint-Paul.
A shrine dedicated to Saint Paul in the Fields, Saint-Paul-des-Champs, was built on this site in 632-642, and served as a chapel for the cemetery of a convent founded by Saint Eloi and Saint Aure on Ile de la Cité during the reign of King Dagobert. Prominent figures buried in the old cemetery included François Rabelais and the architect François Mansart. The monastic cemetery disappeared and the old church was demolished in 1799.
The chapel was replaced by the first church on the site, Saint-Paul-des-Champs, built ca 1125, when the neighbourhood became a parish, and the dedication of the church was changed from Saint Paul the Hermit, a monk in Egypt in the third-fourth century, to Saint Paul the Apostle.
Charles V designated the Hôtel Saint-Pol on Rue Saint-Paul as his royal palace in 1358. Charles VI and Charles VII were baptised at Saint-Paul. The church was rebuilt in the Gothic style in 1431, and remained as the king’s parish up to 1559, when Henry II was mortally wounded in a jousting tournament on rue Saint-Antoine.
Cardinal Charles de Bourbon, uncle of Henry IV, bought the Hôtel de La Rochepot in 1580 and donated it to the Jesuits, who had been brought to Paris the previous year by Saint Ignatius Loyola. The Jesuits established their first house there and built a chapel dedicated to King Louis IX, also known as Saint Louis, close to the present church.
Jean-Jacques Olier, founder of the Prêtres de Saint-Sulpice, was baptised in the old church in 1608, and Madame de Sévigné, a leading figures in 17th century French literature, was baptised there in 1626.
As the city grew, this chapel was too small, and it was replaced with a new church built in 1627-1641 with the financial support of Louis XIII.
This was the first church in Paris to break entirely from the Gothic style and to use the new Baroque style favoured by the Jesuits. It would have an important influence on church architecture in Paris. Next door to the church, the Jesuits also founded the Lycée Charlemagne. A portion of the old wall still remains, next to the Lycée.
The first stone of the new building was laid by Louis XIII in 1627. The new church was given the name of the king’s ancestor, Louis IX, and became the église Saint-Louis de la maison professe des Jésuites, a reference to the Maison Professe des Jésuites beside it.
The first Mass in the new church was celebrated on the feast of the Ascension, 9 May 1641, by Cardinal Richelieu in the presence of Louis XIII.
The new church was designed by the Jesuit architects Étienne Martellange, who drew the initial plans, and François Derand, who was responsible for the design of the façade. The plan is inspired by the Chiesa del Gesù in Rome.
The façade was influenced by the new Italian baroque style, particularly the Church of the Gesù in Rome, the mother church of the Jesuits. It was also influenced by the façade of the église Saint-Gervais-Saint-Protais de Paris (1618) by Salomon de Brosse, which has the same design of three bays with two levels on the side bays and three levels for the central bay, highlighted by a projection and doubled columns. It uses Corinthian columns on the two lower levels and composite order.
The dome which is 55 meters high was an unusual feature for a Jesuit building and was one of the first domes built in Paris. Both the dome and the bell tower are largely hidden from view from the street by the very high façade. The dome served as a model for other domes, including those of Les Invalides and Val-de-Grace.
Another notable influence was the Flemish baroque style, more lavish than the Italian style and seen in the abundance of sculpture and ornament covering the façade.
The interior design was largely inspired by the Church of the Gesù in Rome, with some French additions. The lavish decorations follow the decrees of the Council of Trent (1545-1563), and were intended to contrast with the austerity of Protestant churches. The decoration also had numerous symbols and sculptures of the Virgin Mary.
The plan is a compromise between the Gesù’s single nave flanked by side chapels and the traditional French cruciform plan, as seen in its long transepts. The tall windows in the prominent transepts and the short east apse allow in large amounts of light, and the dome under the crossing also recalls Italian architecture of a slightly earlier period, such as that of Carlo Maderno.
The Jesuit priest Louis Bourdaloue preached some of his best-known sermons for Lent and Advent in the church, between 1669 and 1693. He also preached a funeral sermon for the Grand Condé in the church in 1687. The preacher and author Bishop Esprit Fléchier also preached there, and the preacher Louis Bourdaloue was buried in the crypt in 1704.
The new church soon acquired a reputation for its music. Marc-Antoine Charpentier was master of music in 1688-1698, and other masters of music included Jean-Philippe Rameau, André Campra and Louis Marchand.
The Jesuits were the confessors or ‘directors of conscience’ of the Kings of France. But, after a dispute with the King, they were expelled from France by the Parlement of Paris in 1762. The church was transferred to another religious order, the Congregation of France, or Génofévains, whose headquarters were at the Abbey of Saint Genevieve.
The church retained its close relationship with the royal family. The urns containing the hearts of Louis XIII and Louis XIV were kept in the church. The urns were hidden during the French Revolution, and later they were transferred to the Abbey of Saint Denis, where they remain to this day.
During the French Revolution, the church was closed and used to store works of art and books plundered from other churches in the area. Five priests were killed in the church during the September Massacres on 2 September 1792. They are commemorated with a plaque.
The church was then used as a temple of the Cult of Reason and the Supreme Being. In 1793, Robespierre preached the cult of the goddess Reason in the church against the atheism promoted by Hébert. The chemist Antoine Lavoisier, who was an important patron of the church, was guillotined in 1794.
The old Saint Paul’s Church was demolished in 1798, but a section of the wall of the square tower is still visible on rue Saint-Paul.
Under the Concordat of 1801, the church was restored as a Catholic parish church in 1802, with a new dedication to Saint Paul and Saint Louis, recalling the older church that had been demolished in 1798. A bell from old Saint Paul’s was salvaged as well as the great clock on the façade.
The church was restored by the architect Victor Baltard in 1850, and the white marble high altar was moved and rebuilt under Louis-Philippe I with fragments from Napoleon’s tomb at Les Invalides.
On the right side of the nave, one pillar has an inscription that is almost erased, République française ou la mort (‘French Republic or death’), scrawled during the Paris Commune in 1871.
The façade and the lantern on the dome were restored by the City of Paris in 2012-2015.
Most of the stained glass in the windows was white to bring a maximum of light into the church. Many of the windows were decorated with the coats-of-arms of families that donated the windows.
In addition to the free-standing sculptures on the façades and in the interior, the pendentives of the dome and other features inside have their own lavish sculptures. Indeed, there are very few surfaces inside without some sort of sculpture.
The church has several notable 17th century paintings. A series of three paintings depicts scenes from the life of Louis IX, or Saint Louis, but the fourth in the series has disappeared.
‘Louis XIII offering to Saint Louis a model of the Church Saint-Louis’, attributed to the workshop of Simon Vouet, is in the right transept.
‘The Death of Saint Louis’, by Jacques de Létin (1597-1661), is also in the right transept. It shows Saint Louis stricken with the plague being given the holy sacraments before his death. The figure on the left, whose face is almost hidden by drapery, has the features of the artist.
‘Saint Louis receiving the Crown of Thorns from the hands of Christ’ is by Michel Corneille the Elder (1601-1664), a pupil of Simon Vouet.
Another notable work painted for the church is ‘Christ at Gethsemane’ by Eugène Delacroix (1793-1863). It was commissioned to replace ‘Saint Louis leaking for the Crusades’, destroyed during the Revolution. Until recently, this painting was seen to the left of the altar, but it is on a long-term loan to the Metropolitan Museum in New York.
The church also holds ‘La vierge del Douleur’ by Germain Pilon (1586).
The gallery organ was dismantled during the Revolution and was lost. After the reconsecration of the church, the organ builder Pierre Allery used components from two other instruments to install a three-manual, 30-stop organ in 1805.
Narcisse Martin of Rouen was hired in 1867 to make modifications to the organ case and to restore the organ. This work was completed in 1871 and the organ was approved by César Franck. The case has been designated as an historical monument. The organ was restored again in 1972 and in two stages in 1999 and 2005.
The current instrument has three manuals with a compass of 56 notes, plus a 30-note pedal board, and consists of 40 stops and 46 ranks. The organ in the chancel was built by Krischer in the 19th century.
Before I left the church, I stopped to look at the two clam-shell holy water vessels or stoups at the entrance, donated by the writer Victor Hugo (1802-1885), author of The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (1831) and Les Misérables(1862). They mark the baptism of his daughter Adele in 1830 and in memory of his daughter Léopoldine.
Léopoldine Hugo was 18 when she secretly married Charles Vacquerie, then 25, in the church on 15 February 1843. Seven months later, Léopoldine was pregnant when she drowned after their boat capsized on the Seine in a sudden gust of wind. Her wet, heavy skirts pulled her down, and Charles drowned as he made six attempts to save her. They were buried in the same coffin.
The tragedy had a siginificant and mdeasureable impact on the work and personality of Victor Hugo, and he dedicated numerous poems and a book to the memory of his drowned daughter.
