Église Saint-Eustache

Église Saint-Eustache, built upon the foundations of a chapel consecrated to Saint Agnes in the 1200s, took more than a century to build due to lack of funding and religious wars. It is located in the 1er arrondissement and is considered a masterpiece of late Gothic architecture. The name of the church refers to Saint Eustace, formerly Placidus, a Roman general of the second century AD. After a vision of a shining cross between a stag's antlers that he was hunting, he became a Christian and changed his name to Eustatius, meaning "good fortune." He was burned, along with his family, for converting to Christianity. 

Construction of the present-day church began in 1532, and it was finally consecrated in 1637. Located close to the Louvre  and the Palais Royale, the church was known as the “royal” church from the 17th century up until the Revolution. A young Louis XIV  received communion here. Mozart chose the sanctuary as the location for his mother’s funeral. Among those baptised here were Richelieu, Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson (the future Madame de Pompadour) and Moliere, who was also married here in the 17th century. The last rites for Anne of Austria (mother of Louis XIV), Marshall Turenne and Mirabeau (a nobleman and early leader of the French revolution)  were pronounced within its walls. Marie de Gournay (1565-1645) is buried here (She was a writer ahead of her time, who anticipated modern feminist concepts in an era when the term “feminist” was unknown.)

Les Halles, presently under construction

Église Saint-Eustache is situated at the entrance to Paris’s ancient marketplace, Les Halles. Emile Zola wrote about Les Halles in his 1873 novel, Le Ventre de Paris (The Belly of Paris), which is set in the busy marketplace of the 19th century. For 800 years, this market was the hub of all food distribution in the city. The main market area sold vegetables during the day, but tons of meat and fish were bought and sold in the middle of the night. 

The volume of traffic to and from the market increasingly caused traffic jams in the city center. In the 1960s, it was considered cramped, unsanitary and dangerous. In spite of nostalgia for the old market, it was moved to Rungis in southern Paris. The plan was to replace it with a shopping mall. The 1970s shopping center fell short of expectations among Parisians, so the city embarked on its long-awaited redevelopment plan. Presently there is a large underground shopping mall as well as a major metro and train station, Chatelet-les-Halles, but construction continues aboveground. The scheduled completion is in 2016.

Approaching Saint-Eustache from rue Rambuteau

The garden right across from Saint Eustache was the Jardin des Halles, but after the death of Nelson Mandela in December, 2013,  the mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë proposed that the former Jardin des Halles be renamed the “Jardin Nelson Mandela.” The name became official on December 19, 2013.

Façade of Saint-Eustache

Note the sculpture in the lower right hand corner of the photo.

The sculpture called "Écoute," created by Henri de Miller in 1986, is an enormous, seventy-ton sculpture made of sandstone. It consists of a head resting on a hand.

The square on which the sculpture is located is "Place René Cassin," named in honor of the French politician and Nobel Peace Laureate on April 2, 1985.

The sculpture from another angle

The sheer size of the church is awe-inspiring. It is 328 feet (100 meters) long by 141 feet (43 meters) wide by 108 feet (33 meters) high. The height is especially impressive--if a building were that tall, it would be ten stories high.  

The altar

A closer view of the altar and chandeliers

Stained glass windows of the transept (arm of a cross-shaped church)

The organ, which was built in 1854, has 8000 pipes and is said to be the largest pipe organ in France.

The chapel of the Blessed Virgin was consecrated by Pope Pius VII on December 28, 1804, during his visit to Paris on the occasion of the coronation of Napoleon I.

Thomas Couture (1815-1879) painted three frescoes which represent the power of intercession of the Virgin. In the center fresco, the Virgin is adored by angels; to the left is the Virgin, star of sailors; and to the right is the Virgin comforting the afflicted.

A closer look at the sculpture, “La Vierge à l'Enfant” by Jean-Baptiste Pigalle (1714-1785).

The Colbert Family Chapel 

The tomb of Jean-Baptiste Colbert by Antoine Coysevox (1640-1720). The sarcophagus is black marble with the kneeling figure of Colbert in white marble  Fidelity is the sculpture on the left, and Piety is on the right.

Pope Alexander I establishing the use of holy water in the church  by Eugène Bion (1834). 

David Roi Prophete, King David of Israel

Saint Joan of Arc

The Pieta

Le banc d'œuvre of Saint-Eustache dates from 1720. 

Le banc d’oeuvre is an ornate bench, comfortably furnished, situated facing the pulpit. It was reserved for church government officials and important parishioners.   In the form of a Greek portico, it was sculpted in wood by Pierre Lepautre (1660-1758). At the top of the arch is the figure of Saint Agnes surrounded by angels, “The Triumph of Saint Agnes.”

Central sculpture of the banc d'œuvre

A close-up of the opposite side of this fascinating sculpture. 

Even from the back, the sculpture was eye-catching.

Chapelle de la Crucifixion 

This is one of the largest crucifixes I’ve ever seen.

A close-up of the crucifix

The base of the crucifix with votive candles

Chapelle Saint-Louis 

The stained glass window depicts the education of Louis IX, future king of France and saint of the Catholic church.

 Chapelle des Reliques 

The reliquary of Saint Eustache and his companions

Saint Anne

Reliquary of Saint Cécile 

Reliquary of Saint Agnes

The martyrdom of Saint Agnes 

"As a sheep led away to the slaughter-house, the lamb that stands dumb while it is shorn; no word from him." (Isaiah)

Saint Agnes was a virgin-martyr at the age of thirteen. The patron saint of religious purity, she suffered martyrdom rather than renounce her devotion to Christ.

Chapelle Sainte-Madeleine
“The Rapture of Saint Madeleine” by Rutilio Manetti (1571-1636)

“L'Adoration des Magi,” a copy of a painting by Rubens

“Saint Jean-Baptiste” by François Lemoyne (1688-1737)

John the Baptist is represented in a rather casual posture, in the image of the god Bacchus. This lighthearted treatment of a religious subject heralds the rococo art of Natoire and Boucher in the middle of the 18th century.

"The Departure of Fruits and Vegetables from the Heart of Paris”
February 28, 1969

In a corner of the church of Saint-Eustache, this sculpture, done in a whimsical, cartoon style by Raymond Mason, pays homage to all the vendors of the Les Halles fruit and vegetable market which was exiled to the suburbs of Paris in 1969. In the words of the artist, “Art should be a means of intercepting thought in its flight, of merging it with matter, giving it weight and body precisely in order to stop time, to hold out against the centuries. I wish that my little procession from Les Halles did not ever have to leave for good.”

Detail of the tableau

Detail of the tableau

Detail of the tableau

If you are asking, "What is this sculpture doing in a church, much less in a church of the loftiness of Saint-Eustache?" I've wondered that myself.

View of Saint-Eustache from the Jardin Nelson Mandela

Syndicat generale de la Bourse de Commerce de Paris 

The Bourse, the Paris stock market, is adjacent to the Jardin Nelson Mandela.
To the left of theBourse in the photo is la Colonne Médicis.

FYI: The Colonne Médicis is a 100-feet-tall (31-meter) column that is the only remaining vestige of a royal palace. The palace was built for Catherine de Médicis in 1572, with the column added three years later as an astrological observatory. Her astrologist had a workshop at the top of the tower. When the palace was sold, the tower was sold separately, which may be why the tower alone has survived. The tower has a spiral staircase, but the doorway is now closed to the public.

Les Invalides

The Hôtel des Invalides was built in the 1670s by Louis XIV to house disabled war veterans. In 1674, the first residents moved into what was a veritable town, with a veterans’ home, barracks, a convent, a hospital and a workshop. By the end of the 17th century, it housed around 4,000 residents. By 1905, there were fewer and fewer veterans who had the twenty or more years of military service required to enter the Hôpital des Invalides, so these veterans were placed in smaller centers outside of Paris. Many historic buildings outlive their original purpose, as Les Invalides has, but veterans’ services still included in the complex are a retirement home, a medical and surgical center, and  a center for external medical consultations.

Better-known today as a popular tourist destination, with more than 1.4 million visitors a year, the complex of buildings also contains museums and monuments, all relating to the military history of France. The buildings house the Musée de l’Armée, the military museum of the Army of France; the Musee des Plans-Reliefs, a collection of scale models of towns, fortresses and châteaux across France, used for military strategy; and the Musee d’Histoire Contemporaine, a museum of contemporary history. The burial site for some of France's war heroes, the most famous one being Napoleon Bonaparte, is also located within the complex in the Église du Dôme, the Church of the Dome.

The Esplanade des Invalides is a 1,650-feet-long, open walkway that leads to the south entrance of Les Invalides and the Cour d’Honneur. At its far end, the walkway extends to the Seine River and the Pont Alexandre. (Across the Pont Alexandre are the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais.) 

Pont Alexandre III

Pont Alexandre and the Church of the Dome in the background

Pont Alexandre and Les Invalides

The Esplanade des Invalides

You can see the dome of the Grand Palais in the background on the left, the four columns of the Pont Alexandre in the middle, and the dome of the Petit Palais on the right. The distance to both of these buildings is greatly foreshortened in the photo. It is quite a grand, open space right in the heart of Paris.

Entry to the Cour d’Honneur 

A Latin inscription above the entrance says, “Louis the Great, by his royal generosity for his men for the continuation of times, founded this building in 1675.”

The main courtyard and the gilded dome of the Church of the Dome in the background 

The Cour d’Honneur holds over two hundred years-worth of field artillery.

The opposite end of the courtyard 

Two-storey arcades ring the courtyard; dormer windows above the arcades are sculpted to look like suits of armor.

The French classical cannons were developed in 1666 and used in sieges against fortified towns during the wars of Louis XIV.

A canon of the Gribeauval system

From 1764 on, the cannons of the Gribeauval system replaced French classical cannons. The new artillery was easier to handle and was put to use in campaigns by Napoleon Bonaparte, who trained as an artilleryman. 

Smooth bore howitzer 

A howitzer could fire shells from a distance of more than 3 ½ miles, an unprecedented feat at the time.

A French army officer crosses the courtyard

Entrance to the Antique Armor Wing of the Musée de l’Armée

Armor and weapons from the 13th - 17th century are on display in this area. The Musée de l’Armée  houses the third largest collection of antique armor and arms in the world. Few military museums offer such a large collection of works and cover such a wide range of historical eras.

Knight in full armor jousting at the museum entrance 

Knight in full armor jousting at the museum entrance

A Black Knight in armor from the time of Francois 1er 

His horse has “barding,” which is armor for horses. As armor for knights became more effective, their horses became targets. Archers shot horses, and armed infantry killed the knights after they dismounted. Thus, horse armor came as a response to this tactic.

Medieval tournament armor

Ceremonial armor for a child

Japanese armor

A chain mail shirt

Armor and painting of Henry IV

Henry IV (1553-1610) brought unity and prosperity to France after the 16th-century Wars of Religion.  Henry IV was one of the first monarchs to elevate national unity above religion in terms of importance for a government. He was also notorious for his sexual exploits, taking on many lovers and earning the nickname, “Le Vert Galant.” (The Forever-young Lady’s Man)

Equestrian portrait of Henry IV in armor by Marin Le Bourgeoys 

As a military leader, Henry was known for his courage and gallantry. 

The length of the antique armor room

Battle of Cassel, April 11, 1677,  by Joseph Parrocel, in 1680  

This painting (15 feet x 18 feet) belongs to a series of battles featuring the conquests of Louis XIV between 1676 and 1678. The King is pictured in the foreground (he has a white plume in his hat), leading his troops against the Dutch enemy.

Armor from the time of Francois 1er

Elaborate dragon-crested parade helmet 

Medieval knights in armor

Medieval saddle

Armored German knight, Otto Heinrich 

Cathédral Saint-Louis des Invalides

Jules Hardouin Mansart designed a building which combined a royal chapel, the Église du Dôme, and a veterans' chapel, Cathédral Saint-Louis des Invalides. This way, the King and his soldiers could attend mass simultaneously, while entering the place of worship though different entrances, as prescribed by etiquette. There are two separate altars and a glass wall between the two chapels.  

The long central aisle of the church is hung with flags captured from enemy troops.

If you look closely in the photo, you can see the back of the crucifix, the baldachin and marble pillars in the altar area of the adjoining Church of the Dome.

Close-up of the altar with French flags

The pulpit in white marble with bronze reliefs is placed against the 4th pillar of the nave. The sound-board over it is topped by a royal crown.

The original organ was built during the year 1686, but has throughout the years received many restorations. It is supported by telamones (male sculptural supports) in gilt bronze on the corners.

Army of the Loire Monument

This is a sized-down replica of the monument in Le Mans, which commemorates the Army of the Loire during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871.

Detail of the monument 

Detail of the monument

To draw attention to his half-track vehicles launched in 1922, André Citroën organized a trans-Saharan expedition Touggourt to Timbuctoo and back again. (A half-track vehicle has wheels in the front and continuous tracks in the back, like a tank.) Subsequent expeditions included an expedition which crossed the African continent from north to south, and an expedition which crossed Asia, from Beirut to Beijing.

The Jardin de l'Intendant, the Garden of the Steward, is located on the grounds in front and to the south-west of the Église du Dôme. 

On the grounds of this complex full of militaria, even the yews are bullet-shaped.

Grounds of the garden

Church of the Dome 

The two marble statues on either side of the entrance to the church are Saint Louis on the left and Charlemagne on the right. The Église du Dôme was erected under Louis XIV and was inspired by  Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome, the original for all Baroque domes. The church dome was the inspiration for our own United States Capitol building. 

Looking up at the dome 

Charles de la Fosse's circular painting (1692) on the ceiling shows the Glory of Paradise, with Saint Louis presenting his sword to Christ.

The round, raised wall encircles the Tomb of Napoleon in a gallery on the floor below.

Tombeau de Napoléon 

Napoleon (1769-1678) was initially buried on Saint Helena, but King Louis-Philippe arranged for his remains to be brought to France in 1840, an event known as le retour des cendres. His final resting place, a tomb made of red  quartzite and resting on a green granite base, was finished in 1861.Napoleon’s tomb comprises six coffins fitting into one another like a Russian doll: one of tin-plate, one of mahogany, two of lead, one of ebony, and the other of oak. On the ground, a multi-colored mosaic recounts the names of the Emperor's principal victories, each of which is also commemorated by the twelve Amazon-like figures surrounding the tomb.

A baldachin supported by marble pillars is above the altar with a crucifix mounted in front of the glass wall.

Also buried at Les Invalides are several members of Napoleon's family as well as a number of prominent French military leaders and war heroes. The dome is actually more of a military mausoleum than a religious chapel.

Sébastien le Prestre, Seigneur de Vauban (1633-1707) was the foremost military engineer of his age. He was a  marshal of King Louis XIV's army, and his memorial was installed here in 1808 at Napoleon's request. The monument contains an urn with the ashes of Vauban. The memorial is surmounted by a reclining Vauban, mourned by Science and War.

Henri de la Tour d'Auvergne (1611-1675), better known by his title Vicomte de Turenne, was one of the greatest French military commanders. The memorial depicts Turenne dying in the arms of mortality.

Marshall Louis Hubert Lyautey was a French general, the first Resident-General in Morocco from 1912 to 1925 and Marshal of France from 1921. He was placed in the Dome in 1963.

The tomb of Joseph Napoleon (Napoleon's older brother and King of Naples, Sicily and Spain). During his reign in Spain, he ended the Spanish inquisition because Napoleon was at odds with Pope Pius VII at the time, and saw Venezuela declare its independence, the first nation to do so. Never accepted as legitimate by the people, he eventually abdicated his throne and returned to France. 

A large funeral monument in Church of the Dome is the bronze tomb of Marshal Ferdinand Foch, a World War I Allied commander. Foch was chosen as supreme commander of the allied armies, a position that he held until November 11, 1918, when he accepted the German Surrender.

Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)

“I want my ashes to rest on the banks of the Seine in the midst of the French people, 

whom I love so much.”