Vincennes and Villejuif

Cross the city limit and the record thins to three churches in two towns. Vincennes borders the twelfth arrondissement and its wood; to the south, beyond Le Kremlin-Bicêtre, lies Villejuif.

The three show three ways to build a parish church. Saint-Cyr-Sainte-Julitte at Villejuif is medieval in origin and was largely rebuilt in the sixteenth century. Notre-Dame de Vincennes was built from 1829 to 1832 on the model of an antique temple. Saint-Louis de Vincennes, begun in 1914, stands on great arches of reinforced concrete, with frescoes by artists of the Ateliers d’art sacré, a group devoted to religious art. A village church kept and rebuilt, a temple front, a frame of concrete: three answers, from the sixteenth to the twentieth century, to the same need.

Saint-Louis has two recorded visits, in September 2025 and September 2026; Villejuif has one, in March 2024, and Notre-Dame one, in September 2026.