La Madeleine

Louis XV laid the first stone of the Madeleine, but the church took some eighty years to build. Napoleon wanted it to be a temple to the glory of his Grande Armée; Louis XVIII restored its vocation as a church dedicated to Saint Mary Magdalene. Vignon was its architect until his death in 1828, when Jean-Jacques Huvé took over, and it was completed in 1842; at its inauguration King Louis-Philippe gave the church to the City of Paris.

Walk around it before you go in. It was built on the model of an ancient temple, surrounded by fifty-two Corinthian columns twenty meters high. Unlike the Latin-cross church first designed for the site, it has no transept and no aisles, and no bell tower or cross rises above it. The pediment carries a high relief of the Last Judgment, and a monumental flight of steps leads to great bronze doors. Inside, J.-C. Ziegler painted a history of Christianity in the apse, and Marochetti’s Rapture of Mary Magdalene stands in the choir. The great organ is by Cavaillé-Coll. The restored façade was inaugurated on 3 April 2024.