Saint-Louis Cathedral
Discover a beautiful baroque church with original works of art, preserved between paintings, sculptures and historical organ !
It was after the return of the Court to Versailles in 1722, the regency having ended with the minority of the young Louis XV, that the Saint-Louis quarter was built, to establish a symmetry with the Notre-Dame quarter. A provisional church was built next to the site planned for the final church. The latter was built between 1743 and 1754 to the plans of Jacques Hardouin-Mansart de Sagonne, grandson of the famous architect of Louis XIV. In a very baroque style, dominated by curves (bulbs on the roof, curves on the organ loft, etc.), this sumptuous church was soon considered out of fashion, as neoclassicism became the norm in architecture. The catechism chapel, built on its side by Louis-François Trouard in 1764, shows the evolution of taste at the time...
At the same time, a considerable number of paintings were commissioned from the king's painters to decorate the new church: most of them can still be seen there, by the famous François Boucher, Jean Restout, Jean-Baptiste Pierre, François Lemoyne... The historic organ also dates from the beginning, by the famous Louis-Alexandre Clicquot, whose instrument is still partly preserved today.
In 1789, the opening mass of the Estates-General was celebrated in the Saint-Louis church, in the presence of King Louis XVI, Queen Marie-Antoinette and the deputies. Shortly afterwards, the Constituent Assembly having decided to redraw the ecclesiastical map of the kingdom, Versailles became the centre of a diocese and the church of Notre-Dame was initially chosen as the cathedral. This function was transferred to Saint-Louis under the Concordat of 1801, which re-established worship after the period of the Terror when churches had been stripped and closed.
After the French Revolution, the restoration of the monument led to the installation of coloured glass windows in place of the white ones: the most remarkable ones are in the chapel of the Virgin. Based on models given by the painter Achille Devéria, the stained glass windows of the Annunciation and the Assumption were made in 1848 by the famous Sèvres factory, which was then diversifying its production.
Solemnly consecrated in 1843, the Saint-Louis de Versailles cathedral has been classified as a historic monument since 1906.
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