The Chapelle Expiatoire: A Commemorative Monument

The Chapelle Expiatoire (Expiatory Chapel) was built in the early 19th century by King Louis XVIII in honor of his brother, Louis XVI and his queen,  Marie-Antoinette, who had been buried in a mass grave in the Église de la Madeleine Cemetery in 1793. During the Reign of Terror, this cemetery was the burial place of those executed between 1792 and 1794. The remains of the royals were exhumed in January of 1815 and reinterred in the Basilique Saint-Denis. 

There is speculation on whether or not the bones taken to Saint-Denis were really those of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette. Both Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette were buried in coffins, unlike the other victims of the guillotine, so the true believers feel sure the remains were authentic. In addition, the writer Chateaubriand attended the exhumations and said, “Amidst the bones, I recognized the Queen’s head from the smile she had given me in Versailles.”  Louis XVIII also searched for his sister Élisabeth, but to no avail. 

Square Louis XVI marker

The garden has replaced the former Madeleine cemetery, where Manon Roland, a member of the Girondin political party, was buried, guillotined on November 8.* The Expiatory Chapel was built by Louis XVIII to memorialize the place where the remains of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette resided until they were reburied in the basilica of Saint- Denis.

(*The odd date on the marker, le 18 brumaire An II, was because revolutionaries renamed months and also counted years beginning with the first year of the French Republic, 1792.)

The person named on the park marker was Manon Roland (1754 – 1793.) She was, together with her husband, Jean-Marie Roland, a supporter of the French Revolution and influential member of the Girondist faction. She fell out of favor with the radical new government during the Reign of Terror because she and her husband failed to support the increasingly violent measures for exercising political control following the French Revolution. She died on the guillotine.

The small park which surrounds the Chapelle Expiatoire is planted with white flowering shrubs and perennials, including roses, viburnum and lilacs. The flowers grow beneath horse chestnuts, sycamores, cherries, maples, hawthorns, and clipped yews  There are also lots of benches and a small toddlers’ playground.

The complex consists of  two buildings separated by a courtyard. The chapel itself cannot be fully seen from the entrance on Rue Pasquier because it is surrounded by an open colonnade. These arched side galleries isolate the chapel from the outside world, giving the impression of a peaceful burial place.

The little park around the Chapelle Expiatoire is traditionally planted with white flowers, in memory of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette.

The Expiatory Chapel was built on the place where King Louis XVI and Queen Marie- Antoinette remained for 21 years.

The façade is a bare wall with a monumental door. It is topped by a replica of a huge sarcophagus with pediment (triangular section under the roof.) The inscription above the door reads:

King Louis XVIII raised this monument to consecrate the place where the mortal remains of King Louis XVI and Queen Marie-Antoinette, transferred on 21 January 1815 to the royal tomb of Saint-Denis, reposed for 21 years. It was finished during the second year of the reign of Charles X, year of grace 1826.

You go in through the stark exterior façade of the entrance building and go up a flight of steps that leads from the vestibule to the inner garden of the courtyard.

The chapel

The chapel itself is entered through a portico with Doric columns topped by a pediment.  The architecture of the chapel is neoclassical, or "new" classical architecture, which describes buildings inspired by the architecture of ancient Greece and Rome. 

The Campo Santo (Cemetery, literally holy ground)

A view of hallowed ground from the chapel back toward the entrance building. In this raised garden are the remains from the former revolutionary mass graveyard. The remains of 3,000 people who died during the French Revolution are buried here.

Symbolic gravestones of the Swiss Guard

On August 10, 1792, more than three hundred Swiss Guards were slaughtered while making a heroic stand to protect the Tuileries Palace from attack. When the revolutionaries called on the Swiss Guard to surrender, “We should think ourselves dishonored!" was the reply. “We are Swiss, the Swiss do not part with their arms but with their lives. We think that we do not merit such an insult. If the regiment is no longer wanted, let it be legally discharged. But we will not leave our post, nor will we let our arms be taken from us.” Out of the nine hundred, only three hundred survived. Their stand against superior numbers allowed the King and Queen to escape capture, at least for the moment. The bodies of the guards were buried in this cemetery, of what was to become the grounds of Chapelle Expiatoire.

The nine arches of the colonnade on each side of the inner garden hold the symbolic gravestones of the Swiss guards who died trying to protect the king when he was under siege at the Tuileries in 1792. 

Atop the peak of each memorial is a winged hourglass, indicating the fleetness of life or mortality. The décor on the v-shaped lintel includes poppy heads (eternal life) with cypress and oak branches to indicate that the victims of the Revolution came from all classes of society

The main cupola of the chapel

The chapel itself is in the form of a Greek cross, with arms of equal length. There is a main dome at the center of the chapel and three half-domes with circular openings which allow natural light to enter the chapel. 

The altar below the dome

The altar flanked by candelabra

The gilt bronze candelabras in the recesses were done by the sculptor for the king,  Jean- Baptiste-Louis Plantar, and by the caster,  Auguste-Maximilien Delafontaine, whose bronze factory produced high quality decorative works of art.

A candelabra above the portrait of Marie-Antoinette

The sculpture of Marie-Antoinette below the dome

The inscription on the base of the sculpture is the last letter written to the sister of Louis XVI, Madame Élizabeth, who was also guillotined in 1794, just for being his sister. 

To the left of this sculpture are stairs going down to the crypt.

The white marble sculpture of the queen, Supported by Religion by Jean-Pierre Cortot, shows Marie-Antoinette kneeling in front of “Religion,” into whose hands she puts herself. Both this sculpture and that of Louis XVI were meant to convey the idea that the king and queen had received Christian mercy and forgiven their enemies, beliefs promoting national conciliation. 

The candelabra above the picture of Louis XVI

The sculpture of Louis XVI below the dome

The sculpture with inscription

The will of Louis XVI is written on the black marble plaque on the pedestal of the statue.
Just to the right of the sculpture, you can see the top of the railing for the steps down to the crypt.

King Louis XVI, Called to Immortality by an Angel, by Francois Joseph Bosio

The white marble sculpture of the king in coronation robes shows Louis XVI supported by an angel. The angel points to heaven, signaling the king’s salvation. 

The crypt is accessible by stairs on either side of the chapel. It contains a black and white marble altar in the form of an ancient tomb. It is intended to mark the place where the royal remains were found.

The outer corridor of arched side galleries

The open colonnade with a view of the Swiss guards’ cenotaphs from the outside

The open colonnade with a view toward the inner garden