Saint-Vincent-de-Paul church, Paris
Encyclopedia
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
dedicated to Saint Vincent de Paul
Vincent de Paul
Vincent de Paul was a priest of the Catholic Church who became dedicated to serving the poor. He is venerated as a saint in the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion. He was canonized in 1737....
. It gives its name to the Quartier Saint-Vincent-de-Paul around it.
History
The church was built during 1824-1844, on the site of the ancient Saint-Lazare prison enclosurePrison Saint-Lazare
The Prison Saint-Lazare was a prison in the Xe arrondissement of Paris, France.-History:Originally a leper hospital founded on the road from Paris to Saint-Denis at the boundary of the marshy area of former Seine river bank in the 12th century, it was ceded on 7 January 1632 to Vincent de Paul and...
. In that enclosure had been sited the Maison Saint-Lazare, occupied by Vincent de Paul— it was here that he lived and worked— and afterwards by the Congrégation de la Mission
Lazarists
Congregation of the Mission is a vowed order of priests and brothers associated with the Vincentian Family, a loose federation of organizations who claim St. Vincent de Paul as their founder or Patron...
, from 1632 to 1793.
The church's design and the initial phases of its construction were entrusted to Jean-Baptiste Lepère
Jean-Baptiste Lepère
Jean-Baptiste Lepère was a French architect, father-in-law of the architect Jacques Hittorff. He was the designer of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul church, Paris, largely revised by Hittorf during its protracted execution, and one of the architects who worked on raising the colonne Vendôme.Lepère was one...
, a French architect of modest reputation. The first stone was laid in August 1824 in the presence of the préfet de la Seine Gaspard de Chabrol
Gaspard de Chabrol
Comte Gilbert Joseph Gaspard de Chabrol de Volvic was a French official. Graduating from an École Polytechnique in 1794, he was named prefect of the Seine by Napoleon in 1812, an office he held until 1833...
and the archbishop of Paris
Archbishop of Paris
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Paris is one of twenty-three archdioceses of the Roman Catholic Church in France. The original diocese is traditionally thought to have been created in the 3rd century by St. Denis and corresponded with the Civitas Parisiorum; it was elevated to an archdiocese on...
Mgr de Quélen
Hyacinthe-Louis De Quelen
Hyacinthe-Louis De Quelen was Archbishop of Paris.-Biography:Born in Paris, he was educated at the College of Navarre. Ordained in 1807, he served a year as Vicar-General of Saint-Brieuc and then became secretary to Cardinal Fesch. When the latter was sent back to his diocese, de Quelen exercised...
. Work proceeded slowly, and was repeatedly abandoned, being especially delayed thanks to a lack of credit as a result of the 1830 Revolution. Thus it was Lepère's son-in-law, Jacques Hittorff, who finally followed the project through from 1831 to 1844. The building opened for worship on 25 October 1844.
Hittorff massively modified the initial plans (which did not plan for even one tower), with his church opening onto the Place Franz-Liszt, giving the building a church square. He also added a system of ramps, laid out today in gardens, to aid access by horse-drawn carriages.
The church's basilica
Basilica
The Latin word basilica , was originally used to describe a Roman public building, usually located in the forum of a Roman town. Public basilicas began to appear in Hellenistic cities in the 2nd century BC.The term was also applied to buildings used for religious purposes...
l plan evokes several grand schemes of religious architecture without specifically copying one in particular. Above the portico
Portico
A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls...
(borrowed from those of Greek temples) is a pediment sculpted by Charles-François Lebœuf-Nanteuil on the subject of "The Apotheosis
Apotheosis
Apotheosis is the glorification of a subject to divine level. The term has meanings in theology, where it refers to a belief, and in art, where it refers to a genre.In theology, the term apotheosis refers to the idea that an individual has been raised to godlike stature...
of Saint Vincent-de-Paul": the saint is glorified, surrounded by figures symbolising his saintly actions— a missionary, a galley slave
Galley slave
A galley slave was a slave rowing in a galley. The expression has two distinct meanings: it can refer either to a convicted criminal sentenced to work at the oar , or to a kind of human chattel, often a prisoner of war, assigned to his duty of rowing.-Antiquity:Contrary to the popular image of the...
, and some Daughters of Charity devoting themselves to children or to healing the sick. Inside, the painted frieze of 1848-53 around the nave (between the two levels of columns) is by Hippolyte Flandrin, and shows 160 male and female saints advancing towards the sanctuary. The decoration of the Lady Chapel, in the apse added later at the back, is by William-Adolphe Bouguereau
William-Adolphe Bouguereau
William-Adolphe Bouguereau was a French academic painter. William Bouguereau was a traditionalist; in his realistic genre paintings he used mythological themes, making modern interpretations of Classical subjects, with an emphasis on the female human body.-Life and career :William-Adolphe...
(1885-89). The Calvary
Calvary (sculpture)
A calvary is a type of monumental public crucifix, sometimes encased in an open shrine, most commonly found across northern France from Brittany east and through Belgium and equally familiar as wayside structures provided with minimal sheltering roofs in Italy and Spain...
shown on the main altar is by François Rude
François Rude
François Rude was a French sculptor. He was the stepfather of Paul Cabet, a sculptor.Born in Dijon, he worked at his father's trade as a stovemaker till the age of sixteen, but received training in drawing from François Devosges, where he learned that a strong, simple contour was an invaluable...
.
The building suffered during the Paris Commune
Paris Commune
The Paris Commune was a government that briefly ruled Paris from March 18 to May 28, 1871. It existed before the split between anarchists and Marxists had taken place, and it is hailed by both groups as the first assumption of power by the working class during the Industrial Revolution...
: the bell towers were hit by seven shells, and the terrace and ramps by more than twenty, all fired from the Père Lachaise Cemetery
Père Lachaise Cemetery
Père Lachaise Cemetery is the largest cemetery in the city of Paris, France , though there are larger cemeteries in the city's suburbs.Père Lachaise is in the 20th arrondissement, and is reputed to be the world's most-visited cemetery, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors annually to the...
.
The Church of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul is close to the Eurostar and mainline station Gare du Nord
Gare du Nord
Paris Nord is one of the six large terminus railway stations of the SNCF mainline network for Paris, France. It offers connections with several urban transportation lines, including Paris Métro and RER...
, and so is twinned with St Pancras Old Church
St Pancras Old Church
St Pancras Old Church is a Church of England parish church in central London. It is believed to be one of the oldest sites of Christian worship in England, and is dedicated to the Roman martyr Saint Pancras, although the building itself is largely Victorian...
(a church in London close to the new St Pancras International station). This twinning was inaugurated on 11 December 2007 with a bilingual service at St Pancras Old Church.
Organ
The church has two organs: a great organ and a nave organ. The church's titular organists have included Louis BrailleLouis Braille
Louis Braille was the inventor of braille, a system of reading and writing used by people who are blind or visually impaired...
, better known for the Braille
Braille
The Braille system is a method that is widely used by blind people to read and write, and was the first digital form of writing.Braille was devised in 1825 by Louis Braille, a blind Frenchman. Each Braille character, or cell, is made up of six dot positions, arranged in a rectangle containing two...
tactile writing system for the blind, Léon Boëllmann
Léon Boëllmann
Léon Boëllmann was a French composer of Alsatian origin, known for a small number of compositions for organ. His best-known composition is Suite Gothique , still very much a staple of the organ repertoire, especially its dramatic concluding Toccata.-Biography:The son of a pharmacist, Boëllmann was...
and Jean Costa. The current organist is Pierre Cambourian.
The church's great organ is made up of:
- 4 manual and pedal keyboardsMusical keyboardA musical keyboard is the set of adjacent depressible levers or keys on a musical instrument, particularly the piano. Keyboards typically contain keys for playing the twelve notes of the Western musical scale, with a combination of larger, longer keys and smaller, shorter keys that repeats at the...
- 66 stops
- 4,949 pipes
- Electric operation of the keyboards and stops
It was made in 1852 by the renowned organ builder Aristide Cavaillé-Coll
Aristide Cavaillé-Coll
Aristide Cavaillé-Coll was a French organ builder. He is considered by many to be the greatest organ builder of the 19th century because he combined both science and art to make his instruments...
, after whom the square behind the church is named. Originally it was only made up of 47 stops over 3 keyboards and 2,669 pipes.
External links
- This page is a translation of Église Saint-Vincent-de-Paul de Paris on French Wikipedia.
- The Cambridge History of Christianity, p105 L'Internaute Magazine: Diaporama Structurae ; see in particular a view of the church's interior. Organs of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul