Basilique Notre-Dame-des-Victoires description and photos - France: Paris (Topic)

Basilique Notre-Dame-des-Victoires description and photos - France: Paris. Detailed information about the attraction. Description, photographs and a map showing the nearest significant objects. The title in English is Basilique Notre-Dame-des-Victoires.

Photo and description

The Basilica of Notre Dame de Victoire is located on the street of the same name to the north of Pont Neuf and Rivoli. This is one of the five churches of the Paris Archdiocese, which have the honorary status of a minor basilica.

The basilica owes its origin to the military victory of Louis XIII at La Rochelle in 1628. Having defeated the Huguenots (and at the same time over the English who supported the Huguenots), the king decided to immortalize the event by erecting a church dedicated to Our Lady. The temple was planned to be built at the monastery of the barefoot Augustinians near the current street Petit Per ("little fathers", as the Augustinians are called).

The architect Pierre Le Mouet developed the project, choosing the concept of a basilica, a special type of rectangular temple with an odd number of different by the height of the naves. Louis XIII personally laid the foundation stone for the future church - this happened on December 9, 1629. The archbishop of Paris Jean Francois Gondi (the future leader of the Fronde) consecrated the construction.

The construction faced financial difficulties: due to lack of money in the treasury, work stopped until 1656. Since that time, the project has been consistently led by architects Liberal Bruin, Gabriel Le Duc and Jean Sylvain Carteau. The church was fully completed in 1740.

Half a century later, during the revolution, the monastery of the barefoot Augustinians was closed, the church was plundered. The building housed the National Lottery, which, by the decision of the Convention, was involved in the drawing of the property of royalist emigrants who fled from France. For a while, they even traded in securities, but in 1802, Napoleon issued a decree on the construction of a new Paris Stock Exchange (Bronyard Palace), and the building at Petit Per was returned to the church.

The church was located in a business district, it had few parishioners. In 1836 the parish priest, Fr. Charles Eleanor Dufrichet Destenette, dedicated the temple to the Immaculate Heart of the Virgin Mary - from that moment on, pilgrims and believers began to flock here. In 1927, the church received the status of a "minor basilica" of Paris.

In the eastern part of the transept (transverse nave), there is a statue of the Virgin Mary with the Child, to which thousands of people bring their gifts. Here you can also see seven large paintings by Charles-Andre van Loo, the “first artist” of Louis XV, dedicated to the life of St. Augustine and the siege of La Rochelle.

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Topic: Basilique Notre-Dame-des-Victoires description and photos - France: Paris.