Saint-Germain and the Faubourg Saint-Germain

West of the Latin Quarter, on the Left Bank, the sixth arrondissement takes in the old abbey church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, and the seventh reaches across the Faubourg Saint-Germain to the Invalides and the quai Branly. Thirteen churches in the record stand in these two arrondissements.

Their building spans about a thousand years. The bell tower of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, begun in 990, is the oldest in Paris. Marie de Médicis laid the first stone of Saint-Joseph-des-Carmes in 1613. Saint-Sulpice, built to plans by Daniel Gittard and fronted by Servandoni’s façade, is among the largest churches in the city, and Jules Hardouin-Mansart took over the soldiers’ church at the Invalides in 1676. Sainte-Clotilde was the first neo-Gothic church built in Paris; the Russian Orthodox cathedral on the quai Branly was consecrated in 2016.

Saint-Sulpice has eleven recorded visits, more than any other church in the book, and Saint-Germain-des-Prés seven; Sainte-Clotilde has four and the Chapelle Notre-Dame-de-la-Médaille-Miraculeuse three. Five of the thirteen were first visited on 26 and 27 March 2019. Saint-Sulpice was the first church in the record, on 1 October 2018, and Saint-Germain-des-Prés followed the next day.