Basciano Columbia 0054D 10623 Rites of Power

Architecture and Popular Religion: French Pilgrimage Churches of the Nineteenth
Century
Jessica Ruth Basciano
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the

requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
2012
2012
All rights reserved
ABSTRACT
Architecture and Popular Religion: French Pilgrimage Churches of the Nineteenth
Century
Architecture was essential to the radical transformation of pilgrimage by the

Catholic clergy in nineteenth-century France. To show how pilgrimage churches
clericalized and modernized the devotions centered on sacred sites, this dissertation
analyzes three important examples: Jacques-Eugne Barthlemys Basilica of NotreDame de Bonsecours in Rouen (1840-44), Hippolyte Durands Basilica of the
Immacule-Conception at Lourdes (1862-72), and Victor Lalouxs Basilica of SaintMartin in Tours (1886-1925). In the process, this study reveals the Catholic context of
nineteenth-century French ecclesiastical architecture. Pilgrimage churches were paid for
by the private donations of Catholics and their construction was overseen by priests: they
were less determined by the government architectural bureaucracy than other churches.
Notre-Dame de Bonsecours is a landmark of the beginning of the Gothic and
Marian revivals during the July Monarchy. Influenced by Catholic authors and
architects, the parish priest chose to give the basilica a thirteenth-century style, and a
coordinated decoration that put Bonsecours at the forefront of the regeneration of
religious art. In the midst of rapid industrialization, he and the donors sought to recreate
an ideal medieval social order structured according to Christian principles. The Basilica
of the Immacule-Conception demonstrates the endurance of Catholic theories of the
Gothic in the Second Empire, as well as a new preoccupation with economical church
construction. The basilica evoked both twelfth-century churches and nineteenth-century
mass production, thereby complementing the clergys promotion of the pilgrimage to

Lourdes as a continuation of medieval traditions and a modern spectacle. Erected above
the grotto of the apparitions, the basilica reinforced the dogma of the Immaculate
Conception and its ultramontane and legitimist implications. In contrast, the Basilica of
Saint-Martin is proof of the influence on the clergy of Christian archaeology. A liberal
bishop chose to evoke the fifth-century church that had stood on the site of Martins
tomb, in opposition to an intransigent lay group that wanted to rebuild the eleventhcentury church that had stood there. While the lay project expressed a counterrevolutionary narrative of expiation, the built church connoted early Christianity and
reflected a shift among the faithful towards accepting the Republic. This dissertation
argues that, owing to their distinctive patronage model, pilgrimage churches expressed
more clearly than other churches the evolving politics of French Catholicism.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
iv
Acknowledgements
xvii
Introduction
Chapter 1: The Basilica of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours (1840-44)

i. Introduction
26
26
ii. Deciding to Build

a) Popular Religion, Devotion to Mary, and the
Re-Christianization of Rouen
b) Victor Godefroys Early Career and Negotiations to Build
the Basilica
29
iii. Planning and Building

a) Godefroys Choice of the Gothic Style
b) The Evolution of the Project
c) The Completed Church
c) Barthlemys Later Church-Building Projects
39
39
59
63
68
iv. Funding
a) Godefroys Subscription Campaign and the Domination of
the Notables
b) Clerical Donors and Priests Turn towards the July Monarchy
c) Lay Donors and the Notables Turn towards the Church
71
v. Decorating
a) Exterior Sculpture
b) Mural Paintings
c) Sanctuary Sculpture and High Altar
d) Stained Glass Windows
e) Liturgical Furnishings
95
96
102
110
113
119
vi. Conclusion: The Afterlife of the Pilgrimage Site
125
Chapter 2: The Basilica of the Immacule-Conception in Lourdes (1862-72)

i. Introduction
i
29
34
71
79
88
133
133
ii. Authorizing the Devotion and Deciding to Build

a) The Response of the Clergy
b) The Response of the Government of Napoleon III
145
145
155
iii. Planning
a) Laurences Proposal for a chapelle domestique (1861)
b) Changes to the Grotto, before and after Laurence Declared
the Authenticity of the Apparitions in 1862
c) Durands Salon Exhibitions and Publications
d) Durands Restorations and Building Projects
e) Laurences Choice of Durand
f) The Evolution of the Project
g) Funding
158
158
iv. Building and Decorating

a) Construction
b) The Completed Church
c) Decoration
206
206
212
224
v. The Emergence of Modern Pilgrimage at Lourdes

a) The Rise of National Pilgrimage in the 1870s and the
Modernization of the Shrine
b) The Modernization of the Town
230
vi. Conclusion: The Criticism of the Basilica by mile Zola and

Joris-Karl Huysmans
Chapter 3: The Basilica of Saint-Martin in Tours (1886-1925)

i. Introduction
ii. The Revival of the Cult of Saint Martin in the Nineteenth Century
a) The uvre de Saint-Martin and Catholic Lay Action
b) The Destruction of the Eleventh-Century Basilica of
Saint-Martin during the Revolution
c) The Project of Jacquet-Delahaye-Avrouin to Build on
Martins Tomb (1822)
d) The Progress of the uvre during the Second Empire
e) Pilgrimage Church Projects and the Discourse of Expiation
during and after the Crisis of 1870-1871
f) The Project of the uvre to Build on Martins Tomb
(1872-74)
iii. The Suppression of the Project of the uvre to Build on
Martins Tomb
ii
164
170
181
185
188
197
230
242
246
253
253
256
256
260
262
265
270
283
296
a) The Anticlerical Campaign of the Opportunist Republicans

and the Suppression of the Project of the uvre in 1883
b) Pope Leo XIIIs Policy of Appeasement and the Arrival of
Archbishop Meignan in 1884
c) Meignans Proposal for a chapelle de secours (1884)
d) Cest la rvolution dans lglise: Meignans Struggle for
Catholic Unity
e) The Papal Judgment of 1885: Rome parl, la cause est
finie
iv. The Politics of Christian Archaeology and the Basilica of
Saint-Martin in Tours by Victor Laloux
a) Casimir Chevalier: Lme de lentreprise
b) Meignan and Chevalier: Planning the Basilica of
Saint-Martin before Laloux
c) Returning pensionnaire Victor Laloux
d) Hypothetical Reconstructions of the Fifth-Century Basilica of
Saint-Martin
e) Quicherats Hypothetical Reconstruction (1869) and the
Avant-Projet by Chevalier and Laloux (1885)
f) The Reworked Project by Laloux and the Completed Church
(1886-1925)
g) Conclusion
296
300
302
306
308
310
311
315
320
325
338
345
358
Conclusion
361
Illustrations
377
Bibliography
490
Appendices
Appendix 1: Barthlemys Restorations and New Buildings
Appendix 2: Donors Recognized in the Basilica of Notre-Dame de
Bonsecours
Appendix 3: Durands Salon Exhibitions
Appendix 4: Durands Projects, Restorations, and New Buildings
531
531
iii
535
539
541
Illustrations
1. Church of Saint-Lger-du-Bourg-Denis, near Rouen, 1500s. Photograph by the

author.
2. Alexandre Frdric Pinchon, Maison diocsaine de Bonsecours, 1837, postcard.
Postcard courtesy of M. and Mme Labergre.
3. Alexandre Frdric Pinchon, chapel interior, Maison diocsaine de Bonsecours, 1837,
postcard. Postcard courtesy of M. and Mme Labergre.
4. [Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy], Plan 11, Faade nord: Dessin, Ancienne glise,
[1842], Archives paroissiales de Bonsecours, Plans de Bonsecours.
5. Church of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, 1200s, demolished 1842-43, postcard.
6. Church of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, 1200s, demolished 1842-43, postcard.
7. Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy. Reprinted from Pierre Chirol, J.-E. Barthlmy:
Architecte diocsain, 1799-1882 (Rouen: Lain, 1947), facing p. 1.
8. Abb Charles-Louis-Napolon Robert, Institution ecclsiastique, Yvetot, 1839-41,
destroyed. Photograph courtesy of Emile Canu, mayor, Yvetot.
9. Abb Charles-Louis-Napolon Robert, upper chapel, Institution ecclsiastique,
Yvetot, 1839-41, destroyed. Photograph courtesy of Emile Canu, mayor, Yvetot.
10. Abb Charles-Louis-Napolon Robert, crypt, Institution ecclsiastique, Yvetot,
1839-41, destroyed. Photograph courtesy of Emile Canu, mayor, Yvetot.
11. Arthur Martin, Chapelle Sainte-Genevive, 1853, Saint-tienne-du-Mont, Paris.
Photograph by the author.
12. [Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy], Plan 18, Projet de Plan, undated, [22 January
1840?], Archives paroissiales de Bonsecours, Plans de Bonsecours.
13. Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy, Plan, Eglise de N. D. de Bon Secours, 12 February
1840, Archives municipales de Bonsecours, 2 M 200 1.
14. [Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy], Plan 23, Plan du sol, 11 April 1840, Archives
paroissiales de Bonsecours, Plans de Bonsecours.
iv
15. [Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy], Plan 33, Coupe transversale et coupe longitudinale,

11 April 1840, Archives paroissiales de Bonsecours, Plans de Bonsecours.
16. [Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy], Plan 83, lvation du ct du nord, 11 April 1840,
Archives paroissiales de Bonsecours, Plans de Bonsecours.
17. [Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy], Plan 84, lvation ct, undated, Archives
18. [Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy], Plan 82, lvation faade et plans, undated,
19. Plan, Basilica of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, Conservation rgionale des monuments
historiques de Haute-Normandie, Dossier de Recensement. Plan courtesy of Lionel
Dumarche, Conservation rgionale des monuments historiques.
20. Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy, north elevation, Basilica of Notre-Dame de
Bonsecours, 1840-44. Photograph by the author.
21. Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy, west faade, Basilica of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours,
1840-44. Photograph by the author.
22. Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy, west faade, Basilica of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours,
23. Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy, interior view towards the east end, Basilica of NotreDame de Bonsecours, 1840-44. Photograph by the author.
24. Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy, Chapelle funraire, 1844, Chteau du Plessis, near
Bouquelon. Photograph Eric Lemouton, Service inventaire et patrimoine, Rgion
Haute-Normandie.
25. Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy, Chapelle funraire, 1844, Chteau du Plessis, near
Bouquelon. Photograph Eric Lemouton, Service inventaire et patrimoine, Rgion
Haute-Normandie.
26. Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy, Basilica of Notre-Dame de la Dlivrande, Douvres la
Dlivrande, 1853-78. Photograph courtesy of Florence Muller, Mairie de Douvres la
Dlivrande.
27. Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy, Basilica of Notre-Dame de la Dlivrande, Douvres la
Dlivrande, 1853-78. Photograph courtesy of Florence Muller, Mairie de Douvres la
Dlivrande.
28. Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy, Church of Saint-Denis, Sainte-Adresse, 1874-77.

Reprinted from Jean-Paul Bouland, Les glises de Sainte-Adresse (N. p.: Petite presse, n.
d.), cover.
29. Cover, subscription book, Archives paroissiales de Bonsecours, Carton 16.
30. Caspar Gsell and Arthur Martin, stained glass window in the easternmost bay of the
south aisle, Basilica of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, probably mid to late 1840s.
Photograph courtesy of Philippe Chron, Ingnieur dtudes, Service rgional de
linventaire de Haute-Normandie.
31. [Caspar Gsell], Plan 159, Dessins de vitraux, undated, Archives paroissiales de
Bonsecours, Plans de Bonsecours.
32. Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy, sanctuary and high altar, Basilica of Notre-Dame de
Bonsecours. Photograph by the author.
33. Guillaume Fulconis, tympanum, north side portal, Notre-Dame de Bonsecours.
34. Guillaume Fulconis, tympanum, south side portal, Notre-Dame de Bonsecours.
35. Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy, east end, Basilica of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, 184044, postcard. Postcard courtesy of M. and Mme Labergre.
36. Jean-Bernard Duseigneur and Charles-Claude Fontenelle, left portal, west faade,
Basilica of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, 1851. Photograph by the author.
37. Jean-Bernard Duseigneur and Charles-Claude Fontenelle, right portal, west faade,
Basilica of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours. Photograph by the author.
38. Jean-Bernard Duseigneur and Charles-Claude Fontenelle, tympanum, central portal,
west faade, Basilica of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours. Photograph by the author.
39. Jean-Raimond-Hippolyte Lazerges, nave arcade spandrel angels, Basilica of NotreDame de Bonsecours. Photograph by the author.
40. Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy, south side of sanctuary, Basilica of Notre-Dame de
41. Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy, north side of sanctuary, Basilica of Notre-Dame de
vi
42. [Arthur Martin], Plan 159, Fentre 21, undated, Archives paroissiales de
43. Arthur Martin and Charles Cahier, Monographie de la cathdrale de Bourges / par
les PP. Arthur Martin et Charles Cahier, de la Compagnie de Jsus. Premire partie.
Vitraux du XIIIe sicle (Paris: Poussielgue-Rusand, 1841-44), plate xxix.
44. Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy, Chapelle de la Sainte Vierge, Basilica of Notre-Dame
de Bonsecours. Photograph by the author.
45. Detail of the altar, Chapelle de Saint Joseph, Basilica of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours.
46. Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy, interior view towards the west end, Notre-Dame de
Bonsecours, postcard. Postcard courtesy of M. and Mme Labergre.
47. Guillaume Fulconis, Lavoie, and Kreyenbielt, pulpit, Notre-Dame de Bonsecours,
around 1860, postcard. Postcard courtesy of M. and Mme Labergre.
48. Guillaume Fulconis, north-side stoup relief, Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, 1872,
49. Guillaume Fulconis, south-side stoup relief, Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, 1872,
50. Kreyenbielt and Victor Fulconis, confessional, Basilica of Notre-Dame de
Bonsecours, begun 1875. Photograph by the author.
51. Edmond Bonet and Ferdinand Marrou, baptismal font, Basilica of Notre-Dame de
Bonsecours, completed by 1886. Photograph by the author.
52. The Casino, funicular station, basilica, and Monument Jeanne dArc on the crest of
the plateau des Aigles, postcard. Postcard courtesy of M. and Mme Labergre.
53. Basilica of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours and Monument Jeanne dArc, postcard.
54. Juste Lisch, Monument Jeanne dArc, 1890-94. Photograph by the author.
55. Juste Lisch, Monument Jeanne dArc, 1890-94. Photograph by the author.
56. Juste Lisch, Notre-Dame-des-Soldats, chapel inside the Monument Jeanne dArc,
1890-94. Photograph courtesy of Lionel Dumarche, Charg dtudes documentaires,
Conservation rgionale des monuments historiques.
vii
57. Juste Lisch, detail of the apse, Notre-Dame-des-Soldats, chapel inside the Monument
Jeanne dArc, 1890-94. Photograph courtesy of Lionel Dumarche, Charg dtudes
documentaires, Conservation rgionale des monuments historiques.
58. A ceremony on the parvis in front of the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours,
59. A ceremony on the platform of the Monument de Jeanne dArc, postcard. Postcard
courtesy of M. and Mme Labergre.
60. The grotto of Massabieille at the time of the apparitions. Reprinted from Lonard-J.M. Cros, Histoire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes daprs les documents et les tmoins, 2nd
ed., vol. 1 (Paris: Beauchesne, 1925), facing p. 128.
61. The grotto of Massabieille after the apparitions. Reprinted from E. Bordes and A.
Mialeret, Guide-souvenir des plerins Notre-Dame de Lourdes (Bordeaux: . Crugy,
1892), cover.
62. Joseph-Hugues Fabisch, statue of Notre-Dame de Lourdes in the grotto of
Massabieille, 1864. Photograph by the author.
63. Joseph-Hugues Fabisch, statue of Notre-Dame de Fourvire, Lyon, 1852, on top of
the bell tower of the old Chapel of Notre-Dame de Fourvire, next to the Basilica of
Notre-Dame de Fourvire (1872-96) by Pierre-Marie Bossan. Photograph by the author.
64. Henry Esprandieu, Monument de lImmacule Conception, corner of the boulevard
Voltaire and rue des Hros, Marseille, 1855-57. Photograph by the author.
65. Photograph of Hippolyte Durand. Archives et patrimoine des sanctuaires de NotreDame de Lourdes, I B 3.
66. Eglise de Village.--Plan et lvation. Reprinted from Hippolyte Durand,
Quelques considrations sur lart religieux du XIIIe sicle: Devis dune glise de
village en style du XIIIe sicle, LArt et larchologie en province 9 (1849): n. p.
67. Maitre Autel. Eglise de Village. Reprinted from Hippolyte Durand,
Considrations sur lart religieux. De la dcoration et du mobilier des glises de
villages, LArt et larchologie en province 9 (1849): n. p.
68. Eglise dun chef-lieu de canton.--Elvation principale. Reprinted from Hippolyte
Durand, Projet dglise en style ogival du XIIIe sicle, pour un chef-lieu de canton
dune population de 3500 mes, LArt et larchologie en province 9 (1849): n. p.
69. Hippolyte Durand, Chteau de Monte-Cristo, Le Port Marly, Yvelines, 1844-47.
Reprinted from Alain Decaux, Quand Alexandre Dumas construisait le chteau de
Montecristo, Monuments historiques 1 (1974): 103.
viii
70. Hippolyte Durand, Villa Eugnie, Rsidence Impriale, Biarritz, PyrnesAtlantiques, 1854-55. Reprinted from Genevive Mesuret and Maurice Culot,
Architectures de iarrit et de la c te as ue De la elle po ue au annes trente
(Lige: P. Mardaga, 1990), 40.
71. Hippolyte Durand, exterior, parish church of Saint-Jacques, Tartas, Landes, 1849-54.
Reprinted from Muriel Mauriac, Llan Nogothique de Saint-Jacques, LA uitaine
monumentale (September 2004): 68.
72. Hippolyte Durand, interior, parish church of Saint-Jacques, Tartas, Landes, 1849-54.
Reprinted from Muriel Mauriac, Llan Nogothique de Saint-Jacques, LA uitaine
monumentale (September 2004): 71.
73. Hippolyte Durand, exterior, Church of Saint-Martin, Peyrehorade, Landes, designed
in 1846, built from 1852 to 1857. Reprinted from Catherine Lahonde and Bertrand
Charneau, Peyrehorade, glise paroissiale Saint-Martin, Inventaire gnral du patrimoine
culturel dAquitaine (1995), Rf. Mrime IA40000170, fig. 1.
74. Hippolyte Durand, interior, Church of Saint-Martin, Peyrehorade, Landes, designed
in 1846, built from 1852 to 1857. Reprinted from Catherine Lahonde and Bertrand
Charneau, Peyrehorade, glise paroissiale Saint-Martin, Inventaire gnral du patrimoine
culturel dAquitaine (1995), Rf. Mrime IA40000170, doc. 13.
75. Hippolyte Durand, east faade and south elevation, Basilica of the ImmaculeConception, Lourdes, 1862-72. Photograph by the author.
76. Hippolyte Durand, plan, Basilica of the Immacule-Conception, Lourdes. Reprinted
from J. O., Chapelle Lourdes, Le Moniteur des architectes (1869): plate 17.
77. Hippolyte Durand, interior view towards the apse at the west end, Basilica of the
Immacule-Conception, Lourdes, 1862-72. Photograph by the author.
78. [Hippolyte Durand], Inv. 300.5, Plan gnral projet non-ralis faades latrales
nord, undated, 40.5 x 75 cm, Archives et patrimoine des sanctuaires de Notre-Dame de
Lourdes, Plans.
79. [Hippolyte Durand], Inv. 10, Plan au sol, 1er projet, undated, 35 x 63 cm, Archives
et patrimoine des sanctuaires de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, Plans.
80. Henry Esprandieu, Basilica of Notre-Dame de la Garde, Marseille, 1853-64.
81. Hippolyte Durand, Inv. 103, Plan Chapelle Notre-Dame de Lourdes, coupe au sol,
1 May 1864, 45.5 x 79 cm, Archives et patrimoine des sanctuaires de Notre-Dame de
Lourdes, Plans.
ix
82. Hippolyte Durand, Inv. 300.2, Plan gnral projet non-ralis, undated, 32 x 70
cm, Archives et patrimoine des sanctuaires de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, Plans.
83. Hippolyte Durand, Inv. 4, Faade latrale, 1 May 1864, 52 x 68 cm, Archives et
patrimoine des sanctuaires de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, Plans.
84. Hippolyte Durand, Inv. 3, Faade principale, 1 May 1864, 44 x 78 cm, Archives et
patrimoine des sanctuaires de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, Plans.
85. Hippolyte Durand, Inv. 1, Coupe longitudinale, 1 May 1864, 51 x 68 cm, Archives
86. Hippolyte Durand, Inv. 2, Coupes transversales, ct du clocher et ct de labside,
1 May 1864, 49 x 65 cm, Archives et patrimoine des sanctuaires de Notre-Dame de
Lourdes, Plans.
87. The retaining wall above the grotto around 1864, painted photograph, undated, 21 x
27 cm, Archives et patrimoine des sanctuaires de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, Iconographie
Archives, Cote (ic) D 01, Casier 4.
88. Hippolyte Durand, exterior view of the grotto, crypt, and lower part of the basilica
from the far bank of the Gave de Pau, Basilica of the Immacule-Conception, Lourdes,
89. Hippolyte Durand, north elevation, Basilica of the Immacule-Conception, Lourdes,
90. Hippolyte Durand, south elevation, Basilica of the Immacule-Conception, Lourdes,
91. Hippolyte Durand, east faade, Basilica of the Immacule-Conception, Lourdes,
92. Upper church pulpit and south side chapels after the execution of the pulpit in 1873,
Basilica of the Immacule-Conception, sepia photograph, undated, 5 x 15.5 cm, Archives
et patrimoine des sanctuaires de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, Iconographie Archives, Cote
(ic) D 22/01, Casier 4.
93. Hippolyte Durand, interior view of the easternmost side chapel on the north side of
the basilica, looking west, Basilica of the Immacule-Conception, Lourdes, 1862-72.
94. Hippolyte Durand, interior view of the choir, ambulatory, and radiating chapels,
Basilica of the Immacule-Conception, Lourdes, 1862-72. Photograph by the author.
95. Hippolyte Durand, crypt, Basilica of the Immacule-Conception, Lourdes, 1862-72.

96. Hippolyte Durand, view of the north side corridor of the crypt, looking east, Basilica
of the Immacule-Conception, Lourdes, 1862-72. Photograph by the author.
97. [Hippolyte Durand], Inv. 89, Plan de lElvation dune chapelle de la Crypte no. 7,
undated, 27 x 51 cm, Archives et patrimoine des sanctuaires de Notre-Dame de Lourdes,
Plans.
98. Hippolyte Durand, Chapelle de Saint-Jean lEvangliste, crypt, Basilica of the
Immacule-Conception, Lourdes, 1862-66. Photograph by the author.
99. Hippolyte Durand, Inv. 75, Autel du Sacr Cur, Tombeau[,] Retable et statue
(projet), undated, 35.5 x 23 cm, Archives et patrimoine des sanctuaires de Notre-Dame
de Lourdes, Plans.
100. [Hippolyte Durand], Inv. 83, Autel Saint Joseph, undated, 40 x 27.5 cm, Archives
101. Hippolyte Durand, north wall of choir, Basilica of the Immacule-Conception,
Lourdes, 1862-66. Photograph by the author.
102. Hippolyte Durand, north arcades, Basilica of the Immacule-Conception, Lourdes,
103. Hippolyte Durand, east wall and organ, Basilica of the Immacule-Conception,
104. Hippolyte Durand, nave after the execution of the pulpit in 1873, Basilica of the
Immacule-Conception, sepia photograph, undated, 33.5 x 42 cm, Archives et patrimoine
des sanctuaires de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, Iconographie Archives, Cote (ic) D 06/01,
Casier 4.
105. Hippolyte Durand, the Basilica of the Immacule-Conception after its completion in
1872 and before work began on the Basilica of Notre-Dame du Rosaire in 1883, sepia
photograph, undated, 34 x 44 cm, Archives et patrimoine des sanctuaires de Notre-Dame
de Lourdes, Iconographie Archives, Cote (ic) D 08/01, Casier 4.
106. [Hippolyte Durand], Inv. 301.1, Escaliers daccs au parvis de la Crypte (projet en
partie ralis), undated, 36 x 25 cm, Archives et patrimoine des sanctuaires de NotreDame de Lourdes, Plans.
107. [Hippolyte Durand], lvation de la faade principale du Rosaire (maquette),
sepia photograph, 1880, 55 x 72.5 cm, Archives et patrimoine des sanctuaires de NotreDame de Lourdes, Iconographie Archives, Cote (ic) E 06/01, Casier 5.
xi
108. [Hippolyte Durand], Plan de lglise du Rosaire, sepia photograph, 1880, 20 x

24.5 cm, Archives et patrimoine des sanctuaires de Notre-Dame de Lourdes,
Iconographie Archives, Cote (ic) E 01/10, Casier 5.
109. Maquette of the Basilica of the Immacule-Conception and the Basilica of NotreDame du Rosaire, sepia photograph, 1880, 43 x 34.5 cm, Archives et patrimoine des
sanctuaires de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, Iconographie Archives, Cote (ic) E 08, Casier 5.
110. Lopold-Amde Hardy, Basilica of Notre-Dame du Rosaire, Lourdes, 1883-89.
111. Lopold-Amde Hardy, crossing and apse, Basilica of Notre-Dame du Rosaire,
112. Pierre Vago, exterior view looking west from the fortress, Basilica of Pie X,
113. Pierre Vago, interior, Basilica of Pie X, Lourdes, 1956-58. Photograph by the
author.
114. Delbarre de Bay, Church of the Sacr-Cur, Lourdes, 1875-1903. Photograph by
the author.
115. Map of Lourdes, by J. Metteix. Reprinted from Joseph Camoreyt, Histoire des trois
belles glises de Lourdes, 2nd ed. (Tarbes: Orphelins-Apprentis, 1939), 208.
116. Basilica of Saint-Martin, Tours, begun 1000s, postcard, Archives dpartementales
dIndre-et-Loire, 10 Fi 261 8.
117. Jules-Jean-Baptiste de Joly, plan for a circular church. Reprinted from L. V. M. J.
Jacquet-Delahaye-Avrouin, Du rta lissement des glises en France, loccasion de la
rdification projete de celle de Saint-Martin de Tours: Ddi au Roi (Paris: Egron,
1822), plate 6.
118. Jules-Jean-Baptiste de Joly, plan for a basilican church. Reprinted from L. V. M. J.
Jacquet-Delahaye-Avrouin, Du rta lissement des glises en France, loccasion de la
rdification projete de celle de Saint-Martin de Tours: Ddi au Roi (Paris: Egron,
1822), plate 7.
119. Illustration of the vestiges of the former basilica. Commission primitive de la
basilique de St Martin, Album de dessins de la basilique, 1902, plate 5, Archives de la
Basilique Saint-Martin.
120. Antoine-Marie Chenavard, Projet dglise de Notre-Dame de Fourvire Lyon:
Abside, 1830, Archives de la Fondation de Fourvire.
xii
121. Pierre-Marie Bossan, Eglise de Fourvire, labside, 18 May 1858, Archives de la

Fondation de Fourvire.
122. Pierre-Marie Bossan, Notre-Dame de Fourvire, Lyon, 1872-96. Photograph by the
author.
123. Paul Abadie, Basilica of the Sacr-Cur, Paris, 1874-1919. Photograph by the
author.
124. Alphonse-Jules Baillarg, faade view, maquette of a church proposed for the
Oratoire de la Sainte-Face, Tours, photograph, [1880], Archives de lOratoire de la
Sainte-Face.
125. Alphonse-Jules Baillarg, apse view, maquette of a church proposed for the
Sainte-Face.
126. [Alphonse-Jules Baillarg], Basilique de St Martin de Tours aux XIe et XVIIIe
Sicles. Plan gnral de la basilique et de ses abords, 11 November 1872, Archives de
la Basilique Saint-Martin, Portefeuille F, no. 6.
127. [Alphonse-Jules Baillarg], Basilique de St Martin de Tours aux XIe et XIIe
Sicles. Plan: Esquisse dun projet de rdification sur les Fondations anciennes, 11
November 1872, Archives de la Basilique Saint-Martin, Portefeuille F, no. 7.
128. [Alphonse-Jules Baillarg], Basilique de St Martin de Tours aux XIe et XIIe
Sicles. Coupe longitudinale: Esquisse dun projet de rdification sur les Fondations
anciennes, 11 November 1872, Archives de la Basilique Saint-Martin, Portefeuille F, no.
8.
129. Alphonse-Jules Baillarg, Basilique de St-Martin de Tours restitue sur ses
fondations du XIme sicle. Plan gnral, 11 November 1874, photograph of the original
plan, Archives de la Basilique Saint-Martin, Album 2.
130. Alphonse-Jules Baillarg, Basilique de St-Martin de Tours restitue sur ses
fondations du XIme sicle. Plan de lglise souterraine, 11 November 1874, photograph
of the original plan, Archives de la Basilique Saint-Martin, Album 2.
131. [Alphonse-Jules Baillarg], Basilique de St-Martin de Tours restitue sur ses
fondations du XIe sicle. Elvation longitudinale, [11 November 1874], photograph of
the original plan, Archives de la Basilique Saint-Martin, Album 2.
132. Alphonse-Jules Baillarg, Tours: Vue perspective du quartier des marchs aprs la
reconstruction de la basilique de Saint-Martin, 11 November 1874, Archives de la
Basilique Saint-Martin, Portefeuille F.
xiii
133. Exterior view of the apse, Basilica of Saint-Sernin, Toulouse, ca. 1070, photograph,
Archives de la Basilique Saint-Martin, Portefeuille D, no. 1.
fondations du XIe sicle. Elvation principale, [11 November 1874], photograph of the
original plan, Archives de la Basilique Saint-Martin, Album 2.
135. Paul Abadie, Eglise du Vu national au Sacr-Cur. Projet pour le concours.
Vue perspective depuis le sud-est, 1 July 1874, photograph of the original plan,
Archives de la Basilique Saint-Martin, Album 1.
136. [Alphonse-Jules Baillarg], Porte principale: Etude, [11 November 1874],
Archives de la Basilique Saint-Martin, Portefeuille F, no. 26.
fondations du XI sicle. Coupe transversale, [11 November 1874], photograph of the
138. [Alphonse-Jules Baillarg], Basilique de St Martin de Tours restitue sur ses
fondations du XI sicle: Eglise souterraine. Dveloppement des Arcades de lAbside.
(Confession de St Martin), [11 November 1874], Archives de la Basilique Saint-Martin,
Portefeuille F, no. 21.
139. Plan of the church proposed by Msgr. Meignan. Reprinted from Stanislas Ratel,
Note sur la cession dune maison provenant de la succession du Comte Pdre Moisant
(Poitiers: Oudin, 1887), 1, Archives diocsaines de Tours.
140. Projet de Basilique, Archives diocsaines de Tours, bote 2953.
141. 1878. Laloux--Une Cathdrale. Reprinted from cole nationale des Beaux-Arts,
Les Grands pri de Rome darchitecture de 1850 1900, vol. 2 (Paris: Armand
Gurinet, 1904), plate 192.
142. 1878.--Laloux.--Une Cathdrale. Reprinted from cole nationale des BeauxArts, Les Grands pri de Rome darchitecture de 1850 1900, vol. 2 (Paris: Armand
143. 1878.--Laloux.--Une Cathdrale. Reprinted from cole nationale des BeauxArts, Les Grands pri de Rome darchitecture de 1850 1900, vol. 2 (Paris: Armand
Gurinet, 1904), plates 190-191.
144. Detail of Faade gnrale de lAltis (restauration). Reprinted from Victor Laloux
and Paul Monceaux, Restauration dOlympie (Paris: Quantin, 1889), 157.
xiv
145. Fig. 6 et 7. Basilique de Saint-Martin Tours; plan et coupe transversale

composs daprs la description dtaille que Grgoire de Tours nous a laisse de ce
monument (Hist. Franc., lib. II, cap. 14). Reprinted from Heinrich Hbsch, Monuments
de larchitecture chrtienne depuis Constantine jus u Charlemagne, trans. Abb V.
Guerber (Paris: A. Morel, 1866), plate XLVIII.
146. Plan and section of the fifth-century Basilica of Saint-Martin, by Albert Lenoir.
Reprinted from Charles Lenormant, claircissemens [sic] sur la restitution de lglise
mrovingienne de Saint-Martin de Tours, in Histoire cclesiastique des Francs, by
Gregory of Tours, trans. J. Guadet and N. R. Taranne, Socit de lhistoire de France
(Paris: J. Renouard, 1836), 1: 381.
147. Basilique de St. Martin de Tours: Plan. Reprinted from Jules Quicherat,
Restitution de la basilique Saint-Martin, Revue archologique 20 (1869), plate XIII.
148. Basilique de Saint Martin: Coupe longitudinale de la nef restitue. Reprinted
from Jules Quicherat, Restitution de la basilique Saint-Martin, Revue archologique 19
(1869), plate IX.
149. Basilique de St. Martin de Tours: Coupe longitudinale du sanctuaire restitu.
Reprinted from Jules Quicherat, Restitution de la basilique Saint-Martin, Revue
archologique 19 (1869), plate XII.
150. Victor Laloux, Chapelle de St Martin de Tours: Plan au niveau du sol de la nef,
21 January 1885, Archives nationales, F 19 3779, Mense archipiscopale de Tours.
151. Basilique de St. Martin de Tours: Plan des dpendances de lglise. Reprinted
from Jules Quicherat, Restitution de la basilique Saint-Martin, Revue archologique 20
(1869), plate 14.
152. Victor Laloux, glise de Saint Martin, Chapelle de secours de St. Julien: Plan
gnral, 5 February 1886, Archives dpartementales dIndre-et-Loire, V 9.2.6.
153. Victor Laloux, glise de Saint Martin, Chapelle de secours de St. Julien, Tours:
Coupe longitudinale, 5 February 1886, Archives dpartementales dIndre-et-Loire, V
9.2.9.
154. Victor Laloux, glise de Saint Martin, Chapelle de Secours de St. Julien, Tours:
Coupe transversale, 5 February 1886, Archives dpartementales dIndre-et-Loire, V
9.2.10.
155. The excavations of the Basilica of Saint-Martin at the end of July 1886. Reprinted
from Casimir Chevalier, Les Fouilles de Saint-Martin de Tours: Recherches sur les six
basiliques successives leves autour du tombeau de saint Martin (Tours: Pricat, 1888),
fig. 1.
xv
156. Victor Laloux, south faade, Basilica of Saint Martin, 1886-1925. Photograph by
the author.
157. Victor Laloux, north end, Basilica of Saint-Martin, 1886-1925, postcard, Archives
dpartementales dIndre-et-Loire, 10 Fi 261/1010.
158. [Victor Laloux], Chapelle de Secours de [S]aint Martin Tours: Faade sur la rue
Baleschoux, undated, Archives diocsaines de Tours.
159. Maurice Boille, calvary in the parvis, 1928, Basilica of Saint-Martin. Photograph
by the author.
160. Victor Laloux, interior view towards the apse at the north end, Basilica of SaintMartin, 1886-1925. Photograph by the author.
161. Victor Laloux, interior view towards the south end, Basilica of Saint-Martin, 18861925. Photograph by the author.
162. Victor Laloux, crossing and dome, Basilica of Saint-Martin, 1886-1925.
163. Victor Laloux, crossing, Basilica of Saint-Martin, 1886-1925. Photograph by the
author.
164. Victor Laloux, crypt, view looking west, Basilica of Saint-Martin, 1886-1925.
165. Victor Laloux, tomb of Saint Martin, Basilica of Saint-Martin, 1886-1925.
166. Victor Laloux, tomb monument of Archibishop Meignan, crypt, Basilica of Saint
Martin, 1886-1925. Photograph by the author.
167. Victor Laloux, Chapelle Saint-Grgoire, crypt, Basilica of Saint-Martin, 1886-1925.
168. Louis Cordonnier, exterior view from the base of the campanile, Basilica of SainteThrse, Lisieux, 1929-54. Photograph by the author.
169. Le Corbusier, exterior view of the east side, Chapel of Notre-Dame du Haut,
Ronchamp, 1950-55. Photograph by the author.
xvi
Acknowledgements
I would like thank the organizations that funded my dissertation research and
writing: the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, for a Doctoral
Fellowship (2002-05); Columbia University, for a Reid Hall Fellowship (2004-05), a
Summer Travel Grant (2005), and a Summer at Reid Hall Fellowship (2007); the Lurcy
Charitable Trust, for a Georges Lurcy Fellowship for Study in France (2005-06); the C.V.
Starr Foundation, for a C.V. Starr Departmental Dissertation Fellowship (2006-07); and
the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation, for a Whiting Foundation Fellowship (2007-08).
This dissertation could not have been written without the funding of these
organizations, nor could it have been realized without the help of many people
responsible for archives in France. I am grateful to them for their warm welcome and
generous assistance. My thanks go to Mlle Aurlie Groult de Beaufort, M. and Mme
Labergre, and Mme Catherine Paruite of the Mairie de Bonsecours; the Abb JackyMarie Lhermitte, formerly the cur of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours; M. Emmanuel Houis
and Mme Nadine Reguer of the Direction du Plerinage Sainte-Thrse, Lisieux; the
Carmel de Lisieux; Mlle Thrse Franque, formerly the Conservateur des Archives of the
Archives et patrimoine des sanctuaires de Notre-Dame de Lourdes; the Surs
Bndictines du Sacr-Cur de Montmartre of the Basilica of Saint-Martin, Tours; the
Pre Stphane Jeanson, formerly the rector of Saint-Martin; M. Jean-Michel Gorry, Mme
Vronique Lavirotte, Mme Franoise Raux, and M. Gatien Troupeau, diacre, of the
Maison diocsaine and Archives diocsaines, Tours; and Mme Florence Favreau and
Sur Anne-Christophe of the Oratoire de la Sainte-Face, Tours. I would also like to
thank the staff and volunteers of the Archives dpartementales du Rhne, Commission de
xvii
Fourvire, and Archives diocsaines in Lyon; the Archives dpartementales des Bouchesdu-Rhne, Archives diocsaines, and Archives municipales in Marseille; the Archives
nationales in Paris; the Archives dpartementales de la Seine-Maritime in Rouen; and the
Archives dpartementales dIndre-et-Loire in Tours.
Several architectural historians in France gave me help and advice during the
research phase of this project, particularly the Pre Jacques Benoist, Professor Claude
Jasmin and the late Professor Denise Jasmin, M. Claude Laroche, and Professor JeanMichel Leniaud. I received timely information and photographs from M. Lionel
Dumarche of the Conservation rgionale des monuments historiques, Rouen; M. Philippe
Chron of the Service de lInventaire gnral du patrimoine de la rgion HauteNormandie, Rouen; M. Emile Canu, mayor of Yvetot; and Mme Florence Muller of the
Mairie de Douvres la Dlivrande. In the United States and Canada I benefitted from the
research assistance of Kitty Chibnik and Claudia Funke at the Avery Library, Columbia
University, and from Nina Boyd and Rozan Roberts at Stauffer Library, Queens
University.
I wish to pay tribute to Vojtech Jirat-Wasiutynski (1947-2006) for encouraging
my interest in the politics of nineteenth-century French art when I was an undergraduate
at Queens University, Canada. My thanks go to Kathryn Brush for introducing me to the
study of nineteenth-century French architecture and writing about medieval architecture
as my M.A. thesis supervisor at the University of Western Ontario, Canada, and for her
continued mentorship. I am grateful to my dissertation advisors, Robin Middleton and
Barry Bergdoll, for their confidence in me, as well as their guidance and much-needed
encouragement. Their generous comments on multiple drafts have been invaluable.
xviii
My thanks go to the friends and scholars who have contributed to this project. I
would like to thank in particular Joseph Alchermes, for sharing with me his knowledge of
early Christian archaeology, and to thank him and my other colleagues at Connecticut
College, where I taught as a Visiting Instructor in spring 2011, for their feedback on my
interpretation of Lourdes. I would like to thank M. Guy du Chazaud and Professor JeanMichel Leniaud, for the opportunity to present my research on Saint-Martin in Tours; M.
Jean-Michel Gorry, for enabling me to present and publish my research on Casimir
Chevaliers role in planning Saint-Martin; and M. and Mme Jean-Michel and Raymonde
Gorry, for their hospitality in Tours. My thanks go to Mark Beldan, for patiently
accompanying me to churches in France; Martin Bressani, for his insightful criticism of a
chapter draft; Mme Rgine Dobigny, for her kind assistance at the Villa de la Fort in
Lourdes; M. Franois Sand, for sharing with me his knowledge of mosaics; and M. and
Mme Benot and Magali Van Reeth, for their hospitality in Lyon. For their
encouragement and advice I would also like to thank Christopher Drew Armstrong, Thea
Burns, Anne Higonnet, Nomi Claire Lazar, Pierre du Prey, Katherine Romba, and Alena
Williams. I am especially grateful to Teri Harris, for her helpful comments on part of my
draft, and her support and understanding throughout the dissertation process.
Finally, I would like to express my appreciation for my family. My parents
George and Janet Marshall, and my brother Peter Marshall, have steadfastly encouraged
me in pursuing my career. My grandmother Dorothy Hertz Marshall (1918-2010), who
went on pilgrimage to Lourdes twice, was a guiding inspiration. Above all, I am grateful
to my husband John Basciano, and our son Franco, for their love and support. I dedicate
this dissertation to them.
xix
1
Introduction
In nineteenth-century France, pilgrimage was dramatically reinvigorated by the

Catholic clergy. The resurgence of pilgrimage was the result of the Church hierarchys
channeling of popular religion, a part of their effort to re-Christianize the country
following the Revolution. Under the Ancien Rgime, obedience to religious duties was
more or less general, and the clergy had suppressed or merely tolerated pilgrimage.
Informed by Enlightenment skepticism and the rigorism that was the legacy of the
Council of Trent (1545-63), they were apprehensive of superstition and the mixing of
religious rituals with secular amusements. However, the Revolutions reduction of the
clergy, interruption of Catholic education, and destruction of ecclesiastical buildings put
an end to the automatic Catholicism of French men and women. The clergy remained
weakened by the revolutionary caesura in the periods of the Empire and Bourbon
Restoration, but with the July Monarchy of 1830 to 1848, a new generation of priests
sought to re-establish Catholicism. Encouraged by the Romantic movements celebration
of the Middle Ages and folklore, priests began to promote pilgrimage actively, and to
orient the practice in an orthodox direction.
Architecture was integral to the clericalization of pilgrimage. New pilgrimage
churches provided the practical facilities necessary for priests to direct devotions to the
sacraments. Placed at sacred sites, pilgrimage churches symbolized the clergys control
of the cults that were centered there. As pilgrimage churches dominated their
surrounding areas, they also symbolized the imposition of the Church onto postRevolutionary society, onto society not organized by Catholicism. Furthermore, as
pilgrimage churches were designed in historical styles, they symbolized the clergys
2
interpretation of the cults as reactions to modernity. Threatened by the relativization of
the Church by the Concordat and confronted with the transformation of society by
industrialization, priests turned to the past to identify norms that they wished to restore in
the present. The Concordat was the document that governed church-state relations in
France from the time it was signed by Napoleon and Pope Pius VII in 1801 until the
separation of church and state in 1905. Under the Ancien Rgime (and again under the
Restoration Monarchy), Catholicism was the state religion with unique privileges. In
contrast, the Concordat acknowledged Catholicism merely as the religion de la majorit
des franais, as one public service among many.1 Priests were also confronted with the
social consequences of industrialization. In the 1830s, the social hierarchy of the Ancien
Rgime remained intact. However, beginning in the 1840s, industrialization and the
railroads began to erode Frances old rural, agrarian order. Workers who came from the
country to labor at factories in cities were uprooted from their traditional customs and
religious practices and absorbed into a new urban, industrial society characterized by
mobility and materialism.2 Against the backdrop of the Concordat and industrialization,
designing pilgrimage churches in early Christian and medieval idioms tied shrines and
devotions to priests wishes for the reordering of society in keeping with Christian
tradition. Forty-six churches with the title of honorific basilica, an honor that the pope
Ralph Gibson, A Social History of French Catholicism (London: Routledge, 1989), 47-49; Romuald
Szramkiewicz and Jacques Bouineau, Histoire des institutions, 1750-1914 Droit et socit en France de
la in de lancien rgime la premire guerre mondiale, 4th ed. (Paris: Litec, 1998), 284-295; Jean-Michel
Leniaud, LAdministration des cultes pendant la priode concordataire (Paris: Nouvelles ditions latines,
1988), 9.
2
David H. Pinkney, Decisive Years in France, 1840-1847 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), 3,
69, 105; Nadine-Josette Chaline, Pratique et vie religieuse en Haute-Normandie aux XIXe et XXe
sicles, in Mentalits religieuses dans la France de lOuest au XIXe et XXe siecles tudes dhistoire
srielle (Caen: Annales de Normandie, 1976), 56-57.
3
conferred on pilgrimage churches, were built in nineteenth-century France.3 This
dissertation examines three pilgrimage churches in order to address the clergys use of
architecture in communicating their visions of the role of the Church in modern society.
The three pilgrimage churches that I have focused on are: Jacques-Eugne Barthlemys
Basilica of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours in Rouen (1840-44), Hippolyte Durands Basilica
of the Immacule-Conception at Lourdes (1862-72), and Victor Lalouxs Basilica of
Saint-Martin in Tours (1886-1925).
Despite the resurgence of pilgrimage, little attention has been paid to pilgrimage
churches. Architectural historians have emphasized the secular context of church
architecture in nineteenth-century France.4 They have concentrated on the government
3
Drawing from a list of French honorific basilicas by Jean-Claude Tarrin, those built in the nineteenth
century are: Notre-Dame de lAssomption, Nice; Saint-Jean-Franois Rgis, Lalouvesc; Notre-Dame de
Bon-Secours, Lablachre; Sainte-Marie Majeure, Marseille; Notre-Dame de la Garde, Marseille;
Immacule-Conception, Tarascon; Notre-Dame, Douvres-la-Dlivrande; Notre-Dame des Enfants,
Chteauneuf-sur-Cher; Notre-Dame dEsprance, Saint Brieuc; Notre-Dame de la Dlivrance, Quintin;
Saints-Ferrol et Ferjeux, Besanon; Saint-Aubin, Rennes; Notre-Dame du Sacr-Cur, Issoudun; SaintMartin, Tours; Notre-Dame, La Salette-Fallavaux; Notre-Dame (de Buglose), Saint-Vincent de Paul; SaintNicolas, Nantes; Saints-Donatien et Rogatien, Nantes; Notre-Dame, Bon-Encontre; Sainte-Madeleine,
Angers; Saint-Gervais Saint-Protais, Avranches; Sainte-Clotilde, Reims; Notre-Dame, Pontmain; SaintEpvre, Nancy; Sainte-Anne, Sainte-Anne-dAuray; Notre-Dame de la Treille, Lille; Notre-Dame du SaintCordon, Valenciennes; Sainte-Maxellende, Caudry; Chapelle de lImmacule-Conception, Ses; NotreDame, La Chapelle-Montligeon; Notre-Dame, Boulogne-sur-Mer; Immacule-Conception, Lourdes; NotreDame du Rosaire, Lourdes; Notre-Dame, Marienthal; Notre-Dame de Fourvire, Lyon; Notre-Dame-duChne, Vion; Sainte-Clotilde, Paris; Sacr-Cur, Paris; Notre-Dame du Perptuel Secours, Paris; SacrCur, Rouen; Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, Rouen; Notre-Dame de Brebires, Albert; Saint-Pierre Fourier,
Mattaincourt; Sainte-Jeanne-dArc, Domrmy; Saint-Denys, Argenteuil; Saint-Sixte, Ars-sur-Formans.
This is by no means a definitive list of nineteenth-century pilgrimage churches, especially since many do
not in fact have the title of honorific basilica. To qualify as an honorific basilica under canon law, a
church must be a center of liturgical and pastoral activity; be big enough to hold dignified and exemplary
celebrations; have a religious, historical, and artistic importance; and have enough priests to celebrate the
liturgical year with dignity. The title gives a church special privileges, such as the rights to form a chapter
of canons, to grant indulgences, to receive the pope, and to display the popes insignia. In France, the
naming of honorific basilicas was closely connected to the Vaticans attempts at reconciliation with postRevolutionary France. Pope Pius VII named Notre-Dame de Paris the first honorific basilica outside Italy
in 1805, three months after crowning Napoleon in the cathedral. See Jean-Claude Tarrin, Les Basiliques
daujourdhui LHistoire--Le Titre--LHonneur (Paris: Letouzey et An, 1998), 42-43, 65, 68, and 186219.
4
Barry Bergdoll has used the term secular context to refer to the environment in which the theory of the
French Gothic Revival was developed. See Barry Bergdoll, The Ideal of the Gothic Cathedral in 1852, in
A. W. N. Pugin: Master of the Gothic Revival (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), 110.
4
administration of cathedrals and parish churches5 and on secular theories of historical
styles, particularly the Gothic. Eugne-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, the leading exponent
of the secular theories, considered French medieval churches to be expressions of rational
structural principles, the national spirit, and a liberal, anticlerical narrative of French
history. However, pilgrimage churches were planned mostly in a Catholic setting.
Projects to build pilgrimage churches were less determined by the government
architectural bureaucracy than those to restore and build cathedrals and parish churches,
and were controlled by the clergy. They received negligible government financial
support, and were paid for by private fund-raising efforts overseen by priests. Thus, in
examining pilgrimage churches, I have attempted to shed light on the Catholic context of
church architecture.
The reason that pilgrimage churches were less determined by the government is
that they were ignored by the Concordat. The Concordat permitted churches that
corresponded with ecclesiastical jurisdictions: cathedrals for dioceses, and parish
churches for parishes. It also allowed certain churches without territories: annexes,
public oratories or auxiliary chapels (chapelles de secours), private oratories, and
domestic chapels.6 However, the Concordat failed to acknowledge the function of
churches as centers of pilgrimage. This presented a conundrum for priests who wished to
build pilgrimage churches, because all new churches required government authorization.
Priests coped with the problem in different ways. One was to try to avoid altogether the
scrutiny of the government. This was the approach of the cur of Bonsecours, who
5
See especially Jean-Michel Leniaud, Les Cathdrales au XIXe sicle: tude du service des difices
diocsains (Paris: Economica, 1993).
6
Adrien Dubief and Victor Gottofrey, Trait de ladministration des cultes, vol. 1 (Paris: Paul Dupont,
1891), 627-701; Leniaud, LAdministration des cultes, 48-50, 54-61.
5
planned to build a new church that would serve a pilgrimage as well as a parish, but
asked for permission only to rebuild partially the existing parish church. Another method
was to negotiate permission to build a church belonging to a category approved by the
Concordat, even if this category was mismatched with a church whose primary purpose
was to fulfill the needs of a pilgrimage. This was the strategy of the bishops responsible
for the pilgrimage churches at Lourdes and Tours. In Lourdes, the bishop asked for
permission to build a domestic chapel; in Tours, his counterpart proposed the
construction of an auxiliary chapel. Owing to priests methods of dealing with the legal
status of pilgrimage churches, such churches received less supervision and funding from
the government than other churches. As a result, they cannot be considered as
manifestations of the government administration of architecture.
Instead, this dissertation examines pilgrimage churches to ask questions about the
impact of Catholic aesthetic, religious, and political thinking on architectural practice,
questions such as: What was the influence of the archaeology and architectural history of
Christianity on the clergy? What was the influence of Catholic theories of the Gothic on
the clergy? How did priests bring the analysis of the architectural past to bear on current
building? What were the political motives of the priests who planned churches and the
lay and clerical donors who funded them? How did priests make use of architecture to
express their attitudes towards the confrontation of the Church with modernity?
Trying to answer these questions, and thereby establish the Catholic context of
church architecture, has required looking beyond the public archives of the government
administration of church buildings, to the private archives of the Catholic Church.
Sources examined in these archives include architects plans and estimates, the
6
correspondence of architects and clerical patrons, the minutes of parish vestry meetings,
subscription records, and sermons and pastoral letters. Investigating the effect of
Catholic ideas on church architecture has entailed uncovering the working methods of
builder-priests, including the processes by which they decided to build in the first place,
obtained approval from the government and the pope, and raised the funds necessary to
build. It has involved revealing the influence of Christian archaeology and architectural
history on builder-priests selection of architects and artists, historical styles, and
decorative and iconographical programs. The discipline of archologie sacr was
taught in seminaries beginning in 1839 and studied by priests around the country. In
Rome, Pope Pius IX supported the exploration of the catacombs and restoration of early
Christian basilicas. And Catholic authors who concentrated on the Gothic as the
expression of Catholicism, such as Franois-Ren de Chateaubriand, Charles de
Montalembert, Jean-Philippe Schmit, Louis-Alexandre Piel, and Adolphe-Napolon
Didron, had a strong effect on the clergys revival of the Gothic. Churches built by
priests embodied their interpretations of historical Christian architecture; they also
embodied their political positions. Therefore, in setting up the Catholic context of church
architecture, this study exposes the range of builder-priests attitudes towards churchstate relations under successive post-Revolutionary governments. Catholic thinking
influenced the planning of pilgrimage churches more than other churches, because of
their independence from the government architectural bureaucracy.
France was not the only country in Europe where pilgrimage took off in the
nineteenth century. Priests promoted pilgrimage to large shrines of the Virgin in
Germany, and they revived the Marian sanctuaries at Einsiedeln, Switzerland and Loreto,
7
Italy, among many others.7 In addition, priests accompanied groups of pilgrims across
Europe to Rome and Jerusalem.8 Yet the resurgence of pilgrimage in France was
different because of the conflict between Catholics and republicans that permeated
political life from the Revolution until the beginning of the twentieth century.9
Pilgrimage in France was an expression of Catholic collective memories that clashed with
republican ones. Drawing from the theories of the sociologist Maurice Halbwachs and
the historian Robert Gildea, this study argues that there is no single French vision of the
past, but competing collective memories that communities have constructed to serve their
political claims.10 The dominant Catholic account of history was that France had a divine
mission as a special instrument of Catholicism, as the fille ane de lglise.11 Frances
mission was inaugurated by the baptism of Clovis in Reims in 496, before any other
European kingdom had embraced Christianity. Since the monarchy was legitimized by
the Frankish kings baptism, and by its connection to Catholicism more generally,
Frances mission was not only to defend the Church, but also the monarchy. This vision
of the past was shaped by the counter-revolutionary writer Joseph de Maistre (17531821). Though he died in 1821, Maistre exerted a strong influence on Catholic thinking
throughout the nineteenth century. In Maistres view, France had betrayed its mission
with the Revolution. The Revolution, culminating in the regicide, was a collective sin,
7
Jonathan Sperber, Popular Catholicism in Nineteenth-Century Germany (Princeton: Princeton University

Press, 1984), 64-65; Jean Chlini and Henry Branthomme, Les Chemins de Dieu: Histoire des plerinages
chrtiens (Paris: Hachette, 1982), 295-296.
8
Chlini and Branthomme, Les Chemins de Dieu, 298-299, 313-316.
Gibson, A Social History of French Catholicism, 51-53.
10
Maurice Halbwachs, La Mmoire collective (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1968); Robert
Gildea, The Past in French History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), 10-12.
11
The main source of this discussion is Ren Rmond, La Fille ane de lglise, in Les Lieux de
mmoire, ed. Pierre Nora, vol. 3, bk. 3 (Paris: Gallimard, 1992), 540-581.
8
and it was also a punishment for the decadence of the eighteenth century.12 Maistres
view of history resonated profoundly with Catholics in the aftermath of the crisis of
1870-1871. Catholics interpreted the events of the anne terrible--the fall of the Second
Empire, the invasion of France by the Prussian army, the Paris Commune, and the fall of
papal Rome--as punishments for the regicide and for the Second Empires hedonism and
failure to protect the papal territories.13 Republicans, of course, rejected this narrative
and constructed competing collective memories. Instead of Clovis, they celebrated
Vercingtorix, the leader of the Gauls, thereby disconnecting Frances origins from
Christianity and the monarchy.14 And rather than understanding the French Revolution
as a break in the continuity of a stable Catholic and monarchist tradition, liberal
historians interpreted the Revolution as an inevitable consequence of a struggle for
freedom, with precedents dating as early as the Gallo-Roman and medieval periods.15
Pilgrimage and building pilgrimage churches were acts of commemoration that
contributed to the construction of Catholic collective memory.16 In the words of historian
Eric Hobsbawm, they were invented traditions, attempts to establish continuity with a
suitable historic past.17 That is not to say that Catholics who organized and participated
12
Fernand Baldensperger, Le Mouvement des ides dans lmigration ranaise (1789-1815) (Paris: Plon,
1924), 2: 90; Jesse Goldhammer, The Headless Republic: Sacrificial Violence in Modern French Thought
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005), 71-75.
13
Raymond Anthony Jonas, Monument as Ex-Voto, Monument as Historiosophy: The Basilica of SacrCur, French Historical Studies 18, no. 2 (fall 1993): 490-491.
14
Christian Amalvi, Le Got du moyen ge (Paris: Plon, 1996), 128.
15
Ernest Breisach, Historiography: Ancient, Medieval and Modern, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1994), 242-243.
16
17
Gildea, The Past in French History, 10.
Eric Hobsbawm, introduction to The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: University of Cambridge,

1983), 1.
9
in pilgrimage lacked religious motives, or even secular desires for travel and sociability,
but rather to emphasize that their religious motives were indissociable from the political
claims of the Church.18 For Catholics, pilgrimage and pilgrimage churches confirmed
Frances status as the fille ane de lglise and the persisting relevance of its mission.
Within the framework of Maistres counter-revolutionary narrative, they also atoned for
Frances sins. The appeal of this interpretation reached a climax in the 1870s, when
Catholics hoped that salvation through collective expiation, including pilgrimage and
pilgrimage church construction, would mean the restoration of the monarchy and the
papal territories. Furthermore, by evoking medieval religious practices and architecture,
pilgrimage and pilgrimage churches established continuity with an ideal of the Ancien
Rgime that was characterized by stability, hierarchy, and the union of throne and altar.
Because pilgrimage challenged republican collective memory, it was controversial: in
the 1870s, the association of pilgrimage with legitimist and ultramontane political claims
provoked demonstrations.19 Pilgrims, whose refrain was Sauvez Rome et la France,
were met by protesters with shouts of Vive la Rpublique.20 Pilgrimage churches were
also controversial. The planning of the Basilica of Saint-Martin, for example, became an
affaire. Opposition to the church was the top campaign issue for Republicans running in
18
Stphane Rials, Plerinages et politique au XIXe sicle, in Rvolution et contre-rvolution au XIXe

sicle (Paris: Albatros and DUC, 1987), 248.
19
Ultramontanes, as Austin Gough explained, believed that the challenges of post-Revolutionary society
could be met only by a centralized Church, uniform in doctrine, style, and discipline, controlled by an
infallible Pope and a vigilant Roman administration. In the nineteenth century, ultramontanism became
gradually aligned with legitimism, that is, with support for the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy. See
Austin Gough, Paris and Rome: The Gallican Church and the Ultramontane Campaign (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1986), vi, 67.
20
Jacques Gadille, La Pense et laction politi ue des v ues ranais au d ut de la IIIe rpu li ue
(Paris: Hachette, 1967), 1: 235-236; Michel Cinquin, Paray-le-Monial, in Deux plerinages au XIXe
sicle: Ars et Paray-le-Monial, by Philippe Boutry and Michel Cinquin (Paris: Beauchesne, 1980), 230231.
10
municipal elections in Tours in 1874.21 And in 1885, the Radical, anticlerical
municipality voted to resist a new project, even though it was formed in consultation with
the Republican government.22 Pilgrimage churches roused such hostility owing to the
success with which they instilled the political assumptions of Catholics through their
construction of the past.
This dissertation borrows the term clericalization from the historian Ralph
Gibson,23 and it is indebted to his reflections on the clerical channeling of popular
religion along with those of other historians, sociologists, and anthropologists.
Clericalization is the process by which priests took control of devotions initiated outside
of the Church and directed them towards orthodoxy.24 The process highlights the
ambiguity of the concept of popular religion, undermining its definition as religion that is
lived as opposed to doctrinal and practiced by the masses rather than the elite, by lay
people rather than the clergy.25 It draws attention to the distribution of religious forms on
a continuum between two extremes, identified by the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu as
autoconsommation religieuse on the one hand and the monopolisation complte de la
21
Dom Jean Martial Lon Besse, Le Tombeau de Saint Martin de Tours: Notes et documents sur la
dcouverte du tombeau, le rtablissement du culte de Saint Martin et la reconstruction de la basilique,
1854-1893 (Paris: E. Champion, 1922), 167.
22
Chapelle Saint-Martin: Reconstruction, enqute, avis, rapport de M. Ducrot, Bulletin municipal de la

ville de Tours 2, no. 9 (28 August 1885): 541-545, Archives diocsaines de Tours, bote 1096, dossier
XXV.
23
Gibson, A Social History of French Catholicism, 145.
24
Grard Cholvy, Ralits de la religion populaire dans la France contemporaine (XIXe-dbut XXe
sicles), in La Religion populaire dans loccident chrtien Approches histori ues, ed. Bernard Plongeron
(Paris: Beauchesne, 1976), 150.
25
Marie-Hlne Froeschle-Chopard, Une Dfinition de la religion populaire travers les visites pastorales
dancien rgime, in La Religion populaire: Paris, 17-19 octobre 1977 (Paris: Centre national de la
recherche scientifique, 1979), 185.
11
production religieuse par des spcialistes on the other.26 Indeed, this study uses the
concept of popular religion to denote beliefs and worship that were initiated by lay
people, but that priests tolerated and even encouraged rather than rejected as
superstition.27 Such beliefs and worship moved along the continuum between selfservice religion and clerical monopoly.
The attitude of the clergy towards popular religion changed dramatically in the
nineteenth century. In the eighteenth century, priests were wealthy and educated in
relation to their pastoral charges, and they tended to dislike popular culture.28 Their
aversion to popular religion in particular was informed by the rationalism of the
Enlightenment and by the sixteenth-century Council of Trents legacy of disciplinary
reform against practices initiated outside of the Church.29 At the beginning of the
nineteenth century, priests continued to battle spontaneous religious practices, which had
grown unchecked during the Revolution.30 Owing to the destruction of churches and
persecution of the clergy, the generation born during the Revolution came of age with
26
Pierre Bourdieu, Gense et structure du champ religieux, Revue franaise de sociologie 12 (1971):
305.
27
Grard Cholvy, Expressions et volution du sentiment religieux populaire dans la France du XIXe sicle
au temps de la restauration catholique (1801-60), in La Pit populaire de 1610 nos jours: Actes du 99e
Congrs national des socits savantes, esanon 1974, Section dhistoire moderne et contemporaine
(Paris: Bibliothque nationale, 1976), 1: 291.
28
29
Robert Mandrou, Clerg tridentin et pit populaire: Thse et hypothse, in La Pit populaire de
1610 nos jours: Actes du 99e Congrs national des socits savantes, esanon 1974, Section dhistoire
moderne et contemporaine (Paris: Bibliothque nationale, 1976), 1: 107.
30
Michel Lagre, Religion populaire et populisme religieux au XIXe sicle, in Histoire vcue du peuple
chrtien, ed. J. Delumeau (Toulouse: Privat, 1979), 2: 160; Yves-Marie Hilaire, Notes sur la religion
populaire au XIXe sicle, in La Religion populaire: Paris, 17-19 octobre 1977 (Paris: Centre national de
la recherche scientifique, 1979), 195.
12
little knowledge of religious doctrine.31 However, by the 1830s the institutional Church
began to manifest a profound shift in attitude towards forms of popular religion such as
cults of saints, belief in miracles, cults of relics, and pilgrimage.32
There are multiple explanations for this shift. One is the change in priests social
backgrounds. While priests of the eighteenth and early nineteenth century generally had
urban and bourgeois origins, from the period of the July Monarchy onward the
composition of the clergy was less educated, less wealthy, and more rural. Priests were
more open to popular religion because they were culturally closer to their
congregations.33 The new openness to popular religion can also be interpreted as part of
the clergys effort to recover their influence after the Revolution put an end to quasiuniversal religious participation, particularly the almost obligatory reception of the
sacraments.34 Other reasons for the willingness of the Church to absorb some marginal
practices were: the competition it faced from secular ideologies like rationalism and
socialism, the rediscovery of popular culture by Chateaubriand and the Romantic
movement, and the clergys perception that industrialization and change in the social
order were threats to religion.35
31
Bernard Plongeron, propos des mutations du populaire pendant la Rvolution et lEmpire, in La

Religion populaire dans loccident chrtien Approches histori ues, ed. Bernard Plongeron (Paris:
Beauchesne, 1976), 132; Cholvy, Ralits de la religion populaire, 154-155.
32
33
The reasons for this change are not altogether clear, but they involve the collapse of urban recruitment.
Claude Langlois, Permanence, renouveau et affrontements (1830-1880), in Histoire des catholiques en
France du XVe sicle nos jours, ed. Franois Lebrun (Toulouse: Edouard Privat, 1980), 305-306;
Cholvy, Ralits de la religion populaire, 157; Lagre, Religion populaire et populisme religieux, 2:
171-172.
34
Lagre, Religion populaire et populisme religieux, 2: 158; Gibson, A Social History of French
Catholicism, 54-55.
35
Lagre, Religion populaire et populisme religieux, 2: 170-171; Grard Cholvy and Y.-M. Hilaire,
13
Pilgrimage is one of the core practices of popular religion.36 All pilgrimage
involves travel, outside of normal routines, and extraordinary contact with the sacred.
This contact can be visual, tactile, or in the form of an offering.37 At Bonsecours contact
with the sacred was the sight of the statue of Our Lady of Bonsecours, at Lourdes it was
immersion in the water from the spring in the grotto where Mary appeared to Bernadette
Soubirous, and at Tours it was the sight of Saint Martins tomb and relics. The
anthropologists Victor and Edith Turner have proposed that what pilgrimage sites share is
that they are believed to be places where miracles once happened, still happen, and may
happen again.38
While the fundamental characteristics of pilgrimage are constant, in the
nineteenth century many other aspects of pilgrimage were radically transformed through
the process of clericalization. The High Middle Ages are generally considered the golden
age of pilgrimage.39 Medieval pilgrimage differed from that of the nineteenth century in
that it occurred in a society integrated by belief. In contrast to modern pilgrimage,
medieval pilgrimage to the major shrines of Rome, Jerusalem, and Santiago de
Compostela required great determination, because, to quote Horton and Marie-Hlne
Histoire religieuse de la France contemporaine, 1800-1880 (Toulouse: Privat, 1985), 165; Gibson, A
Social History of French Catholicism, 141.
36
Claude Langlois, Sociologie religieuse historique et religion populaire, in La Religion populaire:

Paris, 17-19 octobre 1977 (Paris: Centre national de la recherche scientifique, 1979), 332.
37
This definition comes from Michael R. Marrus, Cultures on the Move: Pilgrims and Pilgrimages in
Nineteenth-Century France, Stanford French Review 1, no. 2 (1977): 207.
38
Victor Turner and Edith Turner, Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture: Anthropological
Perspectives (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978), 6.
39
Turner and Turner, Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture, 172; Mary Lee Nolan and Sydney Nolan,
Christian Pilgrimage in Modern Western Europe (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989),
95.
14
Davies, it was long, inconvenient, and hazardous.40 And while modern pilgrims
traveled in priest-led expeditions, medieval pilgrims usually traveled alone or in ad hoc
groups, except when they went on processions to nearby shrines.41 Victor and Edith
Turner have asserted that after the Reformation, pilgrimage was terminated in most of
northern Europe and was markedly curtailed in southern Europe.42 However, the more
recent research of the anthropologists Mary Lee and Sidney Nolan shows that their
contention is exaggerated and the situation varied from country to country.43
International pilgrimage to Rome, Jerusalem, and Santiago de Compostela continued, as
did pilgrimage within France.44 But, as previously mentioned, priests in eighteenthcentury France were opposed to popular religion. They tried to suppress local
pilgrimages, which were ubiquitous and usually involved the procession of a whole
parish. These pilgrimages incorporated practices the clergy rejected as superstitious, and
festive elements they condemned as improper, such as drinking and dancing.45
In nineteenth-century France, the clergy were willing to support pilgrimage, but
on the condition that they were in charge.46 This left few pilgrimages that the clergy
40
Horton Davies and Marie-Hlne Davies, Holy Days and Holidays: The Medieval Pilgrimage to
Compostela (Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 1982), 20.
41
Diana Webb, Pilgrim Groups, in Encyclopedia of Medieval Pilgrimage, ed. Larissa J. Taylor et al.
(Leiden: Brille, 2010), 531-534.
42
Turner and Turner, Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture, 49.
43
Nolan and Nolan, Christian Pilgrimage in Modern Western Europe, 111-113.
44
F. Lebrun, LEnracinement (1670-1770), in Histoire des catholiques en France du XVe sicle nos
jours, ed. Franois Lebrun (Toulouse: Edouard Privat, 1980), 196.
45
Marrus, Cultures on the Move, 207-209; John McManners, Church and Society in Eighteenth-Century
France (Oxford: Clarendon, 1998), 2: 152-155.
46
Turner and Turner, Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture, 32; Gibson, A Social History of French
Catholicism, 142.
15
considered superstitious: pilgrimages were either suppressed, or purified and absorbed.47
The process of clericalization transformed the beliefs associated with pilgrimage. Priests
homogenized devotions, in the sense of cults accorded to sacred figures.48 They
emphasized devotions with general appeal, like those of Saint Martin, the Sacred Heart of
Jesus, and especially Mary, the symbol of the universal Church. This detracted from
local, ancestral cults of saints.49 Priests also made devotions more theologically rigorous
by turning them towards spiritual concerns about individual salvation, away from
problems in the physical world like epidemics and droughts.50 To eliminate any
resemblance between devotions to saints and polytheism, they insisted on saints limited
roles as intercessors.51
Clericalization also transformed pilgrimage practices. In an influential 1977
article, the historian Michael Marrus drew a link between the success of new regional and
national pilgrimages and the decline of traditional, local ones.52 He attributed the waning
of local pilgrimages to the hostility of clerical and municipal officials, and to the
competition of purely recreational activities.53 Pilgrimage no longer gathered whole
parishes, but assembled crowds of Catholics of different social backgrounds from all over
47
Cholvy, Expressions et volution du sentiment religieux populaire, 303.
48
William A. Christian, Jr., Person and God in a Spanish Valley (New York: Seminar, 1972), 47.
49
Cholvy, Expressions et volution du sentiment religieux populaire, 2: 301; Alphonse Dupront,

Formes de la culture des masses: De la dolance au plerinage panique, du XVIIIe au XXe sicle, in
Niveaux de culture et groupes sociaux (Paris: Mouton, 1967), 165; Marrus, Cultures on the Move, 217.
50
Marrus, Cultures on the Move, 217; Gibson, A Social History of French Catholicism, 144.
51
Marrus, Cultures on the Move, 217; Gibson, A Social History of French Catholicism, 137.
52
Marrus, Cultures on the Move, 205-206.
53
Marrus, Cultures on the Move, 212-215.
16
France.54 Superstitious practices yielded to the celebration of mass and participation in
the sacraments of confession and communion.55 And the festive elements of pilgrimage,
which often degenerated into scandal, gave way to orderly ceremonies led by priests,
such as processions with banners, coronations of statues of the Virgin, night-time
illuminations, and church benedictions and consecrations.56
Pilgrimage was altered by the forces of the Church, and of modernity. Indeed, the
history of the Catholic Church in the nineteenth century is the history of its confrontation
with modernity. To borrow a paradigm from the historian Kenneth Scott Latourette, the
Church responded to modernity as a challenge, and as an opportunity.57 The Church
rejected democratization and the social consequences of industrialization, because it
perceived them as threats to clerical authority. However, it embraced modern technology
for its own ends. Pope Pius IX famously concluded his Syllabus of Errors of 1864 with a
blanket condemnation of progress, liberalism, and modern civilization.58 But he also
authorized the construction of railroads in the papal states and commissioned a private
train for himself, complete with a chapel.59 Like Catholicism as a whole, the resurgence
of pilgrimage in the nineteenth century manifested an ambivalence towards modernity.
While priests promoted pilgrimage as an offensive against modern political principles
54
Marrus, Cultures on the Move, 215-216, 219-220.
55
Dupront, Formes de la culture des masses, 161; Gibson, A Social History of French Catholicism, 142.
56
Cholvy, Ralits de la religion populaire, 156; Gibson, A Social History of French Catholicism, 142143.
57
Kenneth Scott Latourette, The Nineteenth Century in Europe: Background and the Roman Catholic
Phase, vol. 2 of Christianity in a Revolutionary Age (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1959), 233.
58
59
Quoted in Latourette, The Nineteenth Century in Europe, 278.
Michel Lagre, La Bndiction de Promthe: Religion et technologie, XIXe-XXe sicle (Paris: Fayard,
1999), 224. The ceiling of the chapel carriage was painted by Jean-Lon Grme.
17
and social mobility, they did so by exploiting modern modes of mass organization,
transportation, and communication. Thus, the clericalization of pilgrimage was
inextricably entwined with its modernization.
As a result of the Concordat, ecclesiastical activity became centralized and
systematically organized under the authority of bishops.60 The bureaucratic structuring of
pilgrimage was an extension of this process. The efforts of the missionary order of the
Augustinian Fathers of the Assumption, also known as the Assumptionists, were critical
for the involvement of large numbers of Catholics in regional and national pilgrimage. In
1872 they founded the Conseil gnral des plerinages to coordinate pilgrimage at the
national level.61 That year, they also initiated an annual cycle of pilgrimages to shrines
around the country.62 Directing the impulse of repentance that many Catholics felt
following the crisis of 1870-1871, they associated pilgrimage with collective atonement,
and salvation with the causes of legitimism and ultramontanism.63
The Assumptionists and other clergy were able to overcome the logistical
problems posed by the mass mobilization of Catholics through their exploitation of
modern technology. They used the railroad to their advantage, coordinating train
pilgrimages that enabled them to control pilgrims activities to and from shrines. Train
pilgrimages favored regional and national shrines and detracted from isolated local
60
Roger Aubert et al., The Church in the Age of Liberalism, trans. Peter Becker, vol. 8 of History of the
Church (New York: Crossroad, 1981), 14.
61
Claude Soetens, Le Pre dAlzon, les Assomptionnistes et les plerinages, in Emmanuel dAl on dans
la socit et lglise du XIXe sicle Collo ue dhistoire (dcem re 1980), ed. Ren Rmond and mile
Poulat (Paris: Centurion, 1982), 310-311. See also the first issue of Le Plerin 1 (12 July 1873).
62
Gadille, La Pense et laction politi ue des v ues, 1: 234.
63
Ruth Harris, Lourdes: Body and Spirit in the Secular Age (London: Penguin, 1999), 211.
18
ones.64 Priests also used the mass press to promote pilgrimage and shape its meaning. A
range of written and visual media enticed Catholics to visit shrines. These included the
periodicals of specific shrines, diocesan bulletins, and national Catholic periodicals such
as LUnivers, edited by the reactionary firebrand Louis Veuillot, as well as the
Assumptionists Le Plerin (founded in 1873) and La Croix (founded in 1880). As
Suzanne Kaufman has shown with regards to Lourdes, postcards and guidebooks were
also adopted to encourage pilgrimage.65 Promotional literature communicated both
practical information and didactic messages that mediated pilgrims experience of
shrines. Le Plerin, for example, announced upcoming events and explained the
Assumptionists conception of pilgrimage as repentance.66 These uses of modern
technology to promote pilgrimage prove that the industrial revolution affected popular
religion no less than society and culture in general.67
What this dissertation contributes to the analysis by historians of pilgrimages
transformation in the nineteenth century is an exploration of the vital role played by
architecture in the process. Pilgrimage churches were essential to the clericalization of
popular religion; they were also essential to its modernization. By the fact of building
churches, the Church hierarchy demonstrated its authority at a time when this was
vulnerable to political challenge.68 Construction on sites of spontaneous devotions
64
Lagre, La Bndiction de Promthe, 234-235.
65
Suzanne K. Kaufman, Consuming Visions: Mass Culture and the Lourdes Shrine (Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press, 2005), 32-40.
66
Elizabeth Emery and Laura Morowitz, Consuming the Past: The Medieval Revival in Fin de Sicle
France (Aldershot, U.K.: Ashgate, 2003), 145-148.
67
Turner and Turner, Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture, 172.
68
Sheridan Gilley, introduction to World Christianities, c. 1815-c. 1914, ed. Sheridan Gilley and Brian
19
initiated outside of the Church showed that priests approved of the devotions, and were in
charge of them. They conveyed the absorption of the cults into orthodoxy. Pilgrimage
churches physically dominated their surrounding areas, owing either to the height of their
crowning features, or their siting on hilltops. They thus symbolically dominated their
environments, expressing the clergys wish to re-Christianize the public realm.69 Shrines
throughout France asserted themselves in modern urban compositions. Owing to the
importance of the railroad for nineteenth-century pilgrimage, views of some shrines, such
as at Lourdes, were aligned with train stations. Pilgrimage churches became the focus of
modern religious resorts, with amenities such as tramways, funiculars, religious souvenir
stores, restaurants, and hotels.
Aspects of the design of pilgrimage churches, both practical and symbolic,
advanced the clergys program for modern popular religion. The layouts of pilgrimage
churches gave prominence to the ceremony of the mass and subordinated parasacramental rituals. Their elaborate liturgical furnishings emphasized the reception of the
sacraments of confession and communion by groups of pilgrims led by priests. Other
features of pilgrimage churches and their surroundings furthered the bureaucratization of
devotions: at Bonsecours, visiting bishops availed themselves of an oversized sacristy
and choir; at Lourdes, missionary priests used a complex infrastructure to operate the
pilgrimage, including a medical bureau, baths, a printing shop, and an electrical plant.
An atrium with a catechism chapel and rooms for a chaplain and concierge were planned
for Saint-Martin in Tours, but never built. Moreover, the design of pilgrimage churches
Stanley (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 6.

69
Raymond Jonas, France and the Cult of the Sacred Heart (Berkeley: University of California Press,
2000), 220.
20
based on historical architectural models expressed the clergys desire for the nineteenth
century to resemble their interpretations of past epochs as religious and political ideals.
Priests chose the Gothic style for Notre-Dame de Bonsecours and the Basilica of the
Immacule-Conception in Lourdes to evoke an understanding of the Middle Ages as the
apex of Christian theocracy. They thereby associated the devotions they promoted with
the fostering of a stable, hierarchical social order founded on Christian principles. The
archbishop of Tours chose an early Christian prototype for Saint-Martin to conjure the
Church of late antiquity. In doing so, he associated Martins cult with the
Christianization of late Roman Gaul, and by extension, the re-Christianization of postRevolutionary France. The iconography of pilgrimage churches reinforced the clergys
efforts to shape popular religion. Images in the churches connected particular devotions
to the sacraments, to universal Catholic dogma, and to the political claims of the Church.
The clergy advanced their agenda for modern popular religion through the design of
pilgrimage churches, as well as through their approach to funding the churches. Priests
persuaded large numbers of Catholics to give donations. As a result, pilgrimage churches
represented broad appreciation for popular cults and support for their concomitant
political demands.70 Although the historical styles of pilgrimage churches projected the
clergys antipathy towards democracy and industrial society, architecture also took part in
the clericalization and modernization of popular religion by facilitating priests mass
mobilization of Catholics, in conjunction with new urban forms and innovative
technology.
In locating pilgrimage churches within the culture of nineteenth-century French
Catholicism, my approach has been influenced by the work of Barry Bergdoll on
70
Jonas, France and the Cult of the Sacred Heart, 206-207.
21
Marseille cathedral and of the historian Raymond Jonas on the Sacr-Cur on
Montmartre in Paris. Bergdoll related the architectural program of Bishop Eugne de
Mazenod, including his project for the cathedral, to the bishops religious and political
program. He argued that Mazenod initiated new church buildings, designed in historical
architectural idioms, to evoke the origins of Christianity in Marseille, and to promote the
revival of Catholicism in the diocese and its expansion in Frances colonies across the
Mediterranean.71 In his work on the Sacr-Cur, Jonas connected the basilica to the cult
of the Sacred Heart and to counter-revolutionary politics. He fitted the Sacr-Cur into
the Catholic, monarchist narrative that explained Frances past, present, and future in
terms of decadence, punishment, and atonement through pilgrimage and pilgrimage
church construction.72 In the process, he shattered the myth that the basilica was inspired
by Catholic condemnation of the Paris Commune, while acknowledging that this
judgment later motivated the completion of the project.73 Although the vow to build the
Sacr-Cur was formulated by lay people, Jonas emphasized that it was the Church
hierarchy that exploited innovative marketing techniques to mobilize Catholics to come
on pilgrimage, and to make contributions to the project.74 Like these studies, my
dissertation explores the clergys implication of architecture in their effort to reChristianize the country and to inculcate their political assumptions.
71
Barry Bergdoll, Lon Vaudoyer: Historicism in the Age of Industry (New York: Architectural History
Foundation, 1994), 210-215.
72
Jonas, Monument as Ex-Voto, Monument as Historiosophy, 490-491.
73
Jonas, Monument as Ex-Voto, Monument as Historiosophy, 485; Jonas, France and the Cult of the
Sacred Heart, 241-242. The misconception that the Sacr-Cur was founded on the condemnation of the
Commune is perpetuated notably by David Harvey, Monument and Myth: The Building of the Basilica of
the Sacred Heart, in The Urban Experience (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989), 200-228.
See also chapter 3, Pilgrimage Church Projects and the Discourse of Expiation during and after the Crisis
of 1870-1871.
74
Jonas, France and the Cult of the Sacred Heart, 5.
22
Each of the three chapters of this dissertation addresses a single pilgrimage
church. The three shrines were chosen to illuminate important national developments in
popular religion, church architecture, and Catholic political culture, from around 1830 to
1900. I had originally planned to write chapters about three additional shrines, NotreDame de la Garde in Marseille (1853-63), Notre-Dame de Fourvire in Lyon (1872-96),
and the Basilica of Sainte-Thrse in Lisieux (1929-54), and conducted research in their
archives. However, I became overwhelmed by the size of the project and dropped these
churches from my list. I dropped the shrines in Marseille and Lyon because historians
and architectural historians have already analyzed them in recent books. The Sacr-Cur
on Montmartre (1874-1919) was passed over as a chapter subject for the same reason.75 I
set aside the church in Lisieux because of its comparatively late date. Nevertheless,
discussions of the shrines in Marseille, Lyon, Lisieux, and Paris figure in this
dissertation, enhanced by my broader research.
Chapter 1 considers Notre-Dame de Bonsecours as a landmark in the emergence
of both the Marian and Gothic revivals. The cur who built the church from 1840 to
1844 belonged to the new generation of priests who came to appreciate popular religion,
particularly devotion to the Virgin, during the July Monarchy. He was persuaded to
choose the Gothic style for the church, when the Neoclassical was the norm, by
pioneering Catholic architects and writers active in Normandy and Paris in the late 1830s.
This chapter argues that Notre-Dame de Bonsecours represented an alliance of notables
75
On the Sacr-Cur see Claude Laroche, ed., Paul Abadie: Architecte, 1812-1884 (Paris: Runion des
muses nationaux, 1988); Jacques Benoist, Le Sacr-Cur de Montmartre De 1870 nos jours, 2 vols.
(Paris: Editions ouvrires, 1992); and Jonas, France and the Cult of the Sacred Heart. On Notre-Dame de
Fourvire see Elisabeth Hardouin-Fugier, Voir, revoir Fourvire (Hauteville-Lompnes: Lardant, 1988);
and Nathalie Mathian, Fourvire: Eclats de foi (Lyon: dition originale, 1996). And on Notre-Dame de la
Garde see Denise Jasmin, Isabelle Langlade, and Bruno Wuillequey, Henry Esprandieu: Architecte de
Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde (Aix-en-Provence: Edisud, 1997); and Denise Jasmin, Henry Esprandieu,
1829-1874 La Truelle et la lyre (Arles: Actes Sud, 2003).
23
in order to conjure a medieval Utopia characterized by order and stability, at a time when
the notables were threatened by the social upheaval caused by an influx of workers to
urban factories.
Chapter 2 considers the Basilica of the Immacule-Conception, built from 1862
until 1872, in connection with the clergys expansion of the pilgrimage to Lourdes by
modern means during the Second Empire and early years of the Third Republic. In
particular, this chapter analyzes the relationship between the neo-Gothic church, whose
economical design evoked mass production, and the clergys harnessing of technologies
of mass production and industrialization to promote and organize the pilgrimage. The
design reflected interests in model churches, and in building churches cheaply and
efficiently, that preoccupied Gothic Revival theorists and practitioners beginning in the
mid-1840s. This chapter also shows the links between the church and legitimist support
for the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy, as well as ultramontane support for the
spiritual and temporal authority of the pope.
Chapter 3 examines the debate over the construction of the Basilica of SaintMartin in Tours, focusing on two projects, conveying two Catholic positions on the
standing of the Church in the nineteenth century. The first project, commissioned by a
lay charitable society and developed in 1872, expressed the narrative of expiation and
moral reconstruction that was embraced by counter-revolutionary Catholics, especially
during the era of Moral Order that followed the crisis of 1870-1871. A reconstruction of
the eleventh-century church that had stood on Martins tomb until it was dismantled
during the French Revolution, the project was a metaphor for the expiation of the regicide
and the reconstruction of an ideal of the Ancien Rgime. The project shared much with
24
that of the Sacr-Cur on Montmartre: both were initiated by lay groups, gained
momentum from the spike in pilgrimage that followed the anne terrible, and were
designed to resemble Romanesque churches in south-western France. The second project
for Saint-Martin, commissioned by the archbishop of Tours and built from 1886 until
1925 instead of the lay project, reflected a shift among Catholics, beginning in the late
1870s, towards liberalism, towards accepting the democratic order that grew out of the
Revolution.76 Based on the archaeology of the fifth-century church that had stood on the
site, the built church drew a parallel between the missionary status of the Church in late
antiquity and in the late nineteenth century. Furthermore, the Basilica of Saint-Martin
reinforced the archbishops association of the pilgrimage to Martins tomb with Catholic
unity and episcopal authority.
Although the three shrines are treated differently because they were built in
different times and places, and because of the variety of materials that I uncovered in the
archives, the chapters are nevertheless interwoven with numerous themes. The chapters
deal with the response of the Church hierarchy and the government to popular devotions,
including republican and anticlerical opposition to the shrines. They explore the clergys
patronage of pilgrimage churches, highlighting their strategies for coping with the
problem of the churches legal status, and their approaches to fund-raising. The chapters
also illuminate themes relevant to the broader history of architecture, concentrating on
the regeneration of religious art, particularly monumental painting, sculpture, and stained
glass; the influence of archaeology and architectural history on architecture; and the
religious and political connotations of historical styles. Beyond closing significant gaps
in our knowledge of pilgrimage churches, it is the goal of this dissertation to contribute
76
See the definition of liberal Catholicism in Gildea, The Past in French History, 234.
25
fresh perspectives to the role of architecture in post-Revolutionary re-Christianization,
and, more generally speaking, in the confrontation of the Church with modernity.
26
Chapter 1: The Basilica of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours (1840-44)
Introduction
The Basilica of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours (1840-44) was one of the first
churches built in France as part of the Marian and Gothic revivals, and it embodied the
powerful coalition of notables that formed during the July Monarchy. Perched at the
edge of an escarpment above Rouen and the Seine River, in the suburb of Bonsecours, it
was erected by the parish priest, the Abb Victor Godefroy (1799-1868), in order to
promote and take control of the devotion to Our Lady of Bonsecours.1 While the
pilgrimage to the previous, medieval church was characterized by secular festivities, the
pilgrimage to the new church stressed the liturgy and sacraments. Notre-Dame de
Bonsecours is also a significant early example of the use of the Gothic style in
nineteenth-century architecture. In contrast to other early Gothic Revival churches that
were designed by successive architects or have since been destroyed, Notre-Dame de
Bonsecours was completely designed by Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy (1799-1882) and
still stands, with its extensive, unified decoration intact. The church and its decoration
were paid for almost entirely by private donations from July Monarchy notables. At a
time of rapid industrialization and social change in France, and Rouen in particular,
Godefroy was motivated to build the church in the Gothic style, and donors were
motivated to pay for it, by a desire to evoke an ideal medieval social order structured
according to Christian principles.
Godefroys choice of the Gothic style and construction of Notre-Dame de
Bonsecours is amply documented in an untitled manuscript written beginning in the
1
Between 1797 and 1959 the town was called Blosseville Bonsecours. Since 1959, its official name has
been simply Bonsecours. Andre Philippe, Bonsecours (Bonsecours: Mairie de Bonsecours, 2004), 12.
27
winter of 1876-1877 by his student, the Abb Jean-Thophile Bouvier (1818-89).2 In the
1830s, Bouvier attended the school that Godefroy ran at the presbytery of Saint-Lgerdu-Bourg-Denis.3 He then helped Godefroy to plan and oversee the construction and
decoration of the church in Bonsecours.4 After Godefroy died in 1868, Bouvier took up
the task of writing the history of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours that Godefroy had started,
working from memory and from Godefroys notes. Beyond Bouviers manuscript, this
study relies on other archives of the parish,5 municipality,6 and department,7 especially
the plans for the church and a subscription book that documents fund-raising.8 Drawing
There is a brief biography of Bouvier in Abb Andr Four, La Statue de N.-D. de Bon-secours et le sort
du mobilier de lancienne glise de Bonsecours, Bulletin de la Commission des antiquits de la SeineMaritime 26 (1966): 203. The first nineteen letters are in the Archives municipales de Bonsecours, 2 M
200 2. The twentieth letter is in the Archives paroissiales de Bonsecours, Carton 21. Except where noted,
Bouviers text is quoted unedited. The date of the manuscript is based on Bouviers reference to an event
in June 1868 as having happened eight and a half years before. Bouvier, letter 1, 1-2.
3
Bouvier, letter 5, 101.
In 1851, soon after Bouvier was ordained as a priest, he became a teacher at the school that Godefroy ran
in Bonsecours from 1843 until 1864. Bouvier, letter 12, 3 n. 1; letter 14, 6-10.
5
The Archives paroissiales de Bonsecours are the most important archives for Notre-Dame de Bonsecours,
as they contain the subscription book in which Godefroy gathered pledges of financial support starting in
1840, as well as nearly three hundred original drawings, some signed and dated by Barthlemy. The
subscription book is in Carton 16. In April 2005, the drawings were in a box in the presbytery attic.
Photographs of the drawings are on microfilm at the Archives dpartementales de la Seine-Maritime, 1 Mi
146 (R 1-2). Copies of the typed inventory of the plans are there and in the Archives municipales de
Bonsecours, 2 M 200 1.
6
The Archives municipales de Bonsecours contain letters sent between Godefroy, the mayor of
Bonsecours, and departmental authorities, plus the minutes of meetings of the Bonsecours Conseil
municipal and parish vestry. These record negotiations surrounding the construction of Notre-Dame de
Bonsecours. See the Archives municipales de Bonsecours, 2 M 200 1 on the basilica, 2 M 200 5 on the
Monument de Jeanne dArc across from the basilica, and 2 M 200 9 for a plan and photographs of the
basilicas stained glass windows.
7
The Archives dpartementales de la Seine-Maritime contain a few letters and minutes relevant to NotreDame de Bonsecours. See V 7 147.
8
This study also draws from two books on Notre-Dame de Bonsecours by Godefroy himself: [Victor
Godefroy], glise Notre-Dame de Bonsecours prs Rouen, dont les fondements ont t jets en 1840 (Paris:
Sagnier et Bray; Rouen: Fleury, 1847); and Victor Godefroy, Description du grand autel et du sanctuaire
de Notre-Dame de Bonsecours (Rouen: Fleury, 1859). Godefroy is identified as the author of the first
book in Abb Sauvage, Description de lglise de Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, in Notre-Dame de
28
from these previously unpublished sources, this study situates Notre-Dame de
Bonsecours at the crossroads of the rehabilitation of medieval architecture,
industrialization, and post-Revolutionary re-Christianization.
Bonsecours, by Abb Julien Loth and Abb Sauvage (Rouen: E. Aug, 1891), 41. Furthermore, this study
draws from an 1891 book whose thorough treatment of the church consists of a Notice historique by the
Abb Julien Loth (1837-1913) and a Description de lglise by the Abb Eugne-Paul Sauvage (184193), Abb Julien Loth and Abb Sauvage, Notre-Dame de Bonsecours (Rouen: E. Aug, 1891). Loth was
the cur of Saint-Maclou in Rouen, secretary of the Acadmie de Rouen, and a prolific historian. See
Robert Eude, Histoire religieuse du diocse de Rouen au XIXe sicle, tudes normandes, no. 47 (1955):
182-183.
29
Deciding to Build
Popular Religion, Devotion to Mary, and the Re-Christianization of Rouen
Godefroys construction of the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours is an early
example of the clergys push to promote and take control of popular religious practices,
particularly those focused on the Virgin Mary. The clergy of the eighteenth and early
nineteenth century were generally averse to expressions of popular religion. Informed by
Enlightenment rationalism and Tridentine rigorism, which was the legacy of the
sixteenth-century Council of Trent, they sought to banish religious practices initiated
outside of the Church, condemning them as superstitious.9 In the 1830s, the rise of the
Romantic movement led to a change of attitude.10 Already in 1802 in Le Gnie du
christianisme, Franois-Ren de Chateaubriand had celebrated ces dvotions populaires
qui consistent en de certaines croyances et de certains rites pratiqus par la foule, sans
tre ni avous, ni absolument proscrits par lglise. He observed that plus un culte a de
ces dvotions populaires, plus il est potique, puisque la posie se fonde sur les
mouvements de lme et les accidents de la nature, rendus tout mystrieux par
lintervention des ides religieuses (Chateaubriands italics).11 Under Chateaubriands
influence, a new generation of priests came to appreciate popular religion as poetic, and
to view its manifestations as proof of a reversal of Revolutionary de-Christianization.
They were particularly struck by the widespread pilgrimages and processions during the
9
Ralph Gibson, A Social History of French Catholicism, 1789-1914 (London: Routledge, 1989), 139;
Michel Lagre, Religion populaire et populisme religieux au XIXe sicle, in Histoire vcue du peuple
chrtien, ed. J. Delumeau (Toulouse: Privat, 1979), 2: 160; Robert Mandrou, Clerg tridentin et pit
populaire: Thses et hypothses, in La Pit populaire de 1610 nos jours, by Jean-Marie Debard et al.
(Paris: Bibliothque nationale, 1976), 107.
10
11
Franois-Auguste-Ren de Chateaubriand, Gnie du Christianisme (Paris: Garnier-Flammarion, 1966),

2: 46.
30
cholera epidemics of the 1830s and 1840s.12 Put on the defensive by competition from
secular ideologies like rationalism and socialism,13 priests assimilated spontaneous
religiosity into orthodoxy. They transported cults from outdoor shrines to churches, and
they reoriented devotion from local saints of questionable provenance to the Virgin Mary,
a symbol of the universal, institutional Church.14
Devotion to Mary was likewise opposed by the clergy of the eighteenth and early
nineteenth century, owing to the influence of Jansenism.15 Godefroy wrote that in the
early 1820s la dvotion la trs-sainte-Vierge tait trs-nglige, pour ne pas dire
presque inconnue.16 However, Marian piety was encouraged by priests ordained in the
nineteenth century. They revived sanctuaries dedicated to the Virgin, and sometimes
rebuilt them. The effort coincided with a series of apparitions of the Virgin that became
famous in France and around the world, particularly those of the rue du Bac in Paris
(1830), La Salette (1846), Lourdes (1858), and Pontmain (1870). In the first of these, on
the night of July 18, 1830, Mary appeared to Catherine Labour at the Novitiate of the
Filles de la Charit on the rue du Bac in Paris. She asked that a medal be struck with her
image and the caption O Marie conue sans pch, priez pour nous qui avons recours
vous. The medal, which became known as the mdaille miraculeuse, was struck for the
12
Gibson, A Social History of French Catholicism, 141; Lagre, Religion populaire et populisme religieux
au XIXe sicle, 166.
13
Lagre, Religion populaire et populisme religieux au XIXe sicle, 170.
14
Michael R. Marrus, Cultures on the Move: Pilgrims and Pilgrimages in Nineteenth-Century France,
Stanford French Review 1, no. 2 (1977): 217.
15
On the Jansenists attitude towards devotion to Mary see Nicholas Perry and Loreto Echeverra, Under
the Heel of Mary (London: Routledge, 1988), 49-55.
16
Abb Victor Godefroy, Vie de M. la
Le e vre, doyen de Darntal (Rouen: Fleury, 1854), 104.
31
first time in 1832 and widely distributed from 1834 onward.17 Frdric Ozanam observed
in Lyon in 1832, the year before he founded the Socit de Saint-Vincent-de-Paul, that
la dvotion la Sainte Vierge a pris un vaste dveloppement. Des paroisses entires se
portent Fourvires . . . Les petites mdailles de la Vierge sont rpandues avec une
profusion extraordinaire.18 After the severing of religion from royalty by the July
Revolution, and the anticlerical attacks of the early Orlanist regime, the medal
stimulated the Marian revival and rallied Catholics in disarray.19
Building the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours reinforced ancestral
traditions with presumed medieval origins. The author of a nineteenth-century history of
Marian devotion in France claimed that pilgrims from Normandy and neighboring
regions had been coming there since the thirteenth century.20 Indeed, the earliest records
of the previous church date to 1205 and 1301. However, Bouvier insisted that the
pilgrimage was not documented before the mid-sixteenth century,21 and expanded only in
the eighteenth century.22 The cur of Bonsecours in the mid-1700s wrote in his diary that
every year eight to ten parishes climbed the escarpment from Rouen to Bonsecours, to
17
Bernard Violle, Paris: Son glise et ses glises (Paris: Cerf, 1982), 2: 359-360; Grard Cholvy and Y.M. Hilaire, Histoire religieuse de la France contemporaine, 1800-1880 (Toulouse: Privat, 1985), 180;
18
Quoted in Cholvy and Hilaire, Histoire religieuse de la France contemporaine, 1800-1880, 180.
19
Perry and Echeverra, Under the Heel of Mary, 91-96.
20
Andr Hamon, Cur de Saint-Sulpice, LHistoire du culte de la Sainte Vierge dans les provinces
ecclsiastiques de Rouen, Reims et Sens, vol. 5 of Notre-Dame de France ou Culte de la Sainte Vierge en
France, depuis lorigine du christianisme jus u nos jours (Paris: Plon, 1865), 19.
21
Bouvier, letters 8 and 9, 175. Letters 8 and 9 are treated by Bouvier as one installment, and have
continuous pagination.
22
He pointed out that in contrast to successful pilgrimage churches, which became wealthy from pilgrims
donations, Notre-Dame de Bonsecours was poor until the late seventeenth century. Bouvier, letters 8 and
9, 177-178.
32
offer their prayers to Mary.23 This is indicative of the persistence of popular practices in
the eighteenth century, despite ecclesiastical disciplining.24
Building the basilica was part of the clericalization of the pilgrimage. In 1838,
when Godefroy became the cur of Bonsecours, the medieval church was too small to
contain the crowds of pilgrims who gathered in the thousands.25 Godefroy later recalled
that: certains jours ce concours est si grand que bien quon y clbrt alors plusieurs
messes, des personnes venues de loin ne pouvaient pntrer dans lglise pour y satisfaire
leur dvotion. Quelquefois dans les dimanches de lt de nombreux plerins ne
pouvaient assister au St Sacrifice quen dehors de lenceinte sacre et nayant pour sige
que le gazon du cimetire. Dautres fois ctaient des processions entires qui attendaient
que celles qui les avaient prcedes fussent sorties du vieux temple pour y pntrer leur
tour. Je conus alors le projet de construire une autre glise, qui ft plus en rapport avec
la saintet du lieu et laffluence des plerins.26 The choir alone of the new basilica that
Godefroy built had one hundred square meters more surface area than the medieval
church,27 permitting more pilgrims to celebrate mass inside the sanctuary, and shifting the
emphasis of the pilgrimage away from superstitious practices and secular festivities,
towards the reception of the sacraments of confession and communion.28 Godefroy
denounced the superstitious practices of pilgrims, such as kissing the altar in the Chapelle
23
Bouvier, letters 8 and 9, 195.
24
F. Lebrun, LEnracinement (1670-1770), in Histoire des catholiques en France du XVe sicle nos
jours, ed. Franois Lebrun (Toulouse: Privat, 1980), 198.
25
[Godefroy], glise Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, 1.
26
Quoted in Bouvier, letter 10, 191.
27
28
33
de la Sainte Vierge,29 and he put an end to the annual games and dancing on the feast of
the Assumption (August 15), the parishs principal feast.30
Building the basilica also belonged to the effort to re-Christianize Rouen after the
Revolution. When Godefroy arrived in Bonsecours in 1838, lglise tait dlaisse, on
semblait croire quelle ne souvriait le Dimanche que pour les plerins.31 In Bouviers
view, the inhabitants of Eauplet, the industrial part of Bonsecours on the banks of the
Seine, were especially lacking in religion: La grande majorit dEauplet ne visitait
jamais lEglise; la jeunesse y croupissait dans lignorance et le vice. On arrivait 20 et
25 ans sans avoir fait sa 1re Communion, plusieurs mme sans avoir reu le St
Baptme.32 Priests built and rebuilt parish churches in Rouen and the surrounding area
to make up for the destruction of the Revolution: out of thirty-eight churches standing at
the end of the Ancien Rgime, only twelve remained. They also built to minister to the
growing population of industrial laborers in suburbs like Eauplet.33 A boom in church
construction in the department of the Seine-Infrieure began during the July Monarchy
and peaked in the Second Empire. Over the course of the nineteenth century, eighty-one
churches were built and one hundred and eighty churches were partially rebuilt.34
29
Bouvier, letter 15, 4-5.
30
Bouvier, letter 7, 140. The Assumption is identified as the parishs principal feast in Jean-Emmanuel B.
Drochon, Plerinages franais de la Trs Sainte Vierge (Paris: Plon, 1890), 130.
31
32
33
Nadine-Josette Chaline, Lglise normande et son dcor au XIXe sicle, Connatre Rouen 4 (1981): 7.
34
Nadine-Josette Chaline, Lglise normande et son dcor au XIXe sicle, 3-6.
34
Victor Godefroys Early Career and Negotiations to Build the Basilica
Before Godefroy became a priest he was a textile manufacturer. As such, he
belonged to the rising class of the industrial bourgeoisie. His father was in the woolen
cloth business in Falaise (Calvados) and Godefroy owned and managed a woolen cloth
factory in Elbeuf, south of Rouen, from 1817 until he entered the Sulpician seminary in
Issy, outside Paris, in 1825.35 At the Maison dIssy, Godefroy redecorated the tiny
Neoclassical Chapelle de Notre-Dame de Toutes Grces and the Salle Saint-Sauveur.36
There, the archbishop of Rouen, Gustave-Maximilien-Juste Cro-Solre (1773-1844), took
an interest in Godefroy.37 Upon ordination on June 13, 1829, Godefroy would normally
have gone to his home diocese of Bayeux. However, because he had lived in Elbeuf and
was inspired to become a priest by the cur of Saint-Aubin-ls-Elbeuf, and because the
archbishop intervened, Godefroy went to Rouen.38
Upon ordination, Godefroy was appointed to the parish of Saint-Lger-du-BourgDenis, six kilometers north of Bonsecours.39 Godefroy oversaw the extensive restoration
of the sixteenth-century parish church, contributing over seventeen thousand francs of his
own money.40 In 1832, the precarious west gable was replaced and supports were
35
Bouvier, letter 2, 6-11; Bouvier, letter 3, 32.
36
Bouvier, letter 3, 30-31. There is a vague description of the seminary, including the Chapelle de NotreDame de Toutes Grces, in Henri Gauthier, Ces Messieurs de Saint-Sulpice (Paris: Fayard, 1957), 143151.
37
38
39
40
Bouvier, letter 5, 98; P. Roussignol, Notice sur Saint-Lger-du-Bourg-Denis (1890; reprint, Paris: Le
Livre dhistoire-Lorisse, 2005), 51-52.
35
attached to the exterior walls to prevent their imminent collapse.41 Then the cur
destroyed all trace of the churchs Gothic ornament. Pointed arch windows in the nave
and choir were replaced with round arch windows, the wooden ogival ceiling of the nave
was replaced by a plaster barrel-vaulted ceiling, and a low, flat ceiling was installed in
the Gothic choir (fig. 1).42 Interior walls were decorated with Doric pilasters and a
denticulated cornice, and Godefroy commissioned a retable consisting of a niche framed
by a Corinthian pediment, columns, and pilasters.43
The archbishop was impressed by what Godefroy had achieved at Saint-Lger and
gave him a greater challenge. Cro admired the Maison de Missionnaires that the
bishop of Bayeux had established in 1823 near the Basilica of Notre-Dame de la
Dlivrande, north of Caen.44 In 1835, Cro decided to build a parallel institution near the
Basilica of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, and he chose Godefroy to found it.45 In 1836,
when Godefroy was still the cur of Saint-Lger, he started planning the Maison de
prtres auxiliaire that would function as a retirement home for priests. Diocesan
architect Alexandre Frdric Pinchon (b. 1815) prepared the design and construction was
41
Four years later, the Saint-Lger municipal council voted to complete the restoration. Roussignol, Notice
sur Saint-Lger-du-Bourg-Denis, 164-165.
42
The choir ceiling and four of the choir windows were restored to the Gothic style in 1879. See
Roussignol, Notice sur Saint-Lger-du-Bourg-Denis, 166-168, 202-203.
43
The Gothic Revival wainscoting and stations of the cross were added in 1887. Godefroys retable,
destroyed in 1965, may have matched the two eighteenth-century stucco retables that survive on either side
of the choir and that are decorated with statues of the Virgin and Saint Joseph in niches surrounded by
porticos with Ionic pilasters. See Bouvier, letter 5, 95-96; Roussignol, Notice sur Saint-Lger-du-BourgDenis, 203; and Abb Andr Four, Lglise de Saint-Lger-du-Bourg-Denis, Bulletin de la Commission
des antiquits de la Seine-Maritime 26 (1966): 200.
44
Thirty years later, Barthlemy began the reconstruction of the basilica. R. P. Lepetit, Un Antique
plerinage: Notre-Dame de la Dlivrande (Mamers: G. Enault, 1939), 105-108.
45
36
underway by July 1837.46 The brick residence, now called the Maison diocsaine, has
a simple rectangular form reminiscent of a Florentine quattrocento palazzo, and a French
mansard roof (fig. 2). Inside, the chapel resembled the Church of Saint-Lger, with a flat
ceiling, a cornice, and coupled Corinthian pilasters dividing bays of round arch windows
and niches (fig. 3). Cro rewarded Godefroy for his work at Saint-Lger and the Maison
diocsaine with a new appointment. Following the May 31, 1838 death of the Abb
Fleurard, who had served as the cur of Bonsecours since 1790, Cro named Godefroy to
replace him.47
The Church of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours that Godefroy arrived at was built in
the thirteenth century, altered in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and given a
rectangular, brick choir in the eighteenth century.48 Godefroy demolished the old church
from 1842 until 1843 to make way for the new basilica.49 On the exterior, its most
striking features were its buttressed bell tower and late Gothic portals (figs. 4-5). The
west portal had an ornate tympanum dating to the end of the fifteenth century. It
represented the Virgin and Child between two angels and was framed by archivolts
carved with vegetal motifs. On the interior, a nave with a wooden ceiling was separated
from two small side aisles by simple columns dating to the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries (fig. 6).50 The choir was furnished with a wooden high altar and choir stalls and
separated from the nave by a wooden Rococo arch and choir screen. Visitors were
46
47
48
Bouvier, letter 6, 111; Abb Julien Loth, Notice historique, in Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, by Abb
Julien Loth and Abb Sauvage (Rouen: E. Auge, 1891), 11.
49
For the timeline of the demolition see Bouvier, letter 11, 229-233.
50
37
impressed by the ex-votos hanging from the churchs ceiling, walls, and columns. Prints,
paintings, reliefs, model ships, weapons, crutches, wax limbs, and even beds, were
offered as mementos of prayers believed to have been answered.51 However, when
Godefroy demolished the church, he dispersed the ex-votos along with the liturgical
furnishings.52
Godefroy wanted to demolish the church as early as August 1838, three months
after his appointment. Lglise toute entire est dans la plus triste tat, he told Bouvier,
elle est dmolir.53 Ten years of abandonment during the Revolution had taken their
toll on the church.54 In 1811 the masonry and brick needed repair and the roof and
wooden frame of the bell tower needed replacement.55 In 1829 the walls and bell tower
needed repair and work was done on the bell tower.56 Godefroy wanted to demolish the
church, not only because of its poor condition, but because he wanted to make the
sacristy and choir large enough for the priests from the Maison diocsaine.57 He wanted
51
M. A. Floquet, Notre-Dame de Bonsecours: Anecdote Normande (Rouen: N. Periaux, [1842]), 2; Elisa

Frank, Episodes normands: Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, Revue de Rouen 27 (1846): 149; Bouvier, letter
6, 111.
52
Bouvier, letter 11, 234-238; Four, La Statue de N.-D. de Bon-secours, 203-208.
53
54
Pierre Chirol, La Basilique de Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours (Rouen: Lain et Vicomt, 1943), 6.
55
Devis des rparations et rconstructions faire tant aux murs de cloture du cimetiere, qua lEglise et
clocher de la commune de blosville bonsecours a laquelle est reunie celle du mesnil Esnard [sic], 26
November 1811, Archives municipales de Bonsecours, 2 M 200 1.
56
Boutigny to Prfet de la Seine-Infrieure Comte Grard-Antoine-Hippolyte de Murat, 2 February 1829,

Archives dpartementales de la Seine-Maritime, V 7 147; Maire de Bonsecours Michel Louis Bard to
Prfet de la Seine-Infrieure Comte Grard-Antoine-Hippolyte de Murat, 22 January 1830, Archives
dpartementales de la Seine-Maritime, V 7 147.
57
M. Le Cur fait observer au conseil 1. que le chur de lglise est beaucoup trop petit; . . . 4. quil serait
impossible de recevoir dans ce chur, les prtres qui vont incessamment venir habiter la maison que lon
construit pour eux proche lglise, et qui devront assister aux offices de la paroisse. Du Registre des
dlibrations du conseil de fabrique de lglise de notre-dame de Bonsecours, est extrait ce qui suit, 23
38
to make them appropriate for bishops, for ceremonies staged with as much pomp as at the
cathedral. Bon-secours, he said to Bouvier, nest pas un lieu ordinaire. . . . Il nous
faut une Basilique.58
During the period of the Concordat, Notre-Dame de Bonsecours was legally a
parish church. However, the scale and cost that Godefroy foresaw exceeded the
requirements of the parish. To avoid opposition on these grounds, he minimized the
project in his dealings with the parish vestry and municipal council. The vestry and
municipality shared responsibility for the church; the municipality owned it. Even
though he wanted to build a completely new church,59 in February 1839 Godefroy asked
the vestry for permission to build a new choir and sacristy only, which the vestry
granted.60 But Godefroys reassurance failed to convince the municipal council. It did
not agree to the new choir and sacristy until a year later, when the cur personally
guaranteed the cost of construction.61
February 1839, Archives municipales de Bonsecours, 2 M 200 1.

58
Si jamais, comme je lespre, nous avons ici avec les vtrans du sacerdoce, une maison de
missionnaires, dont vous serez, Dieu aidant, les premiers membres, il nous faudra non seulement une
sacristie convenable, mais aussi un chur dune telle dimension, que nous puissions y faire les crmonies
avec autant de pompe qu la cathdrale. Bon-secours nest pas un lieu ordinaire. Nous aurons souvent
recevoir ici des Evques et des Archevques, il nous faut une Basilique. Bouvier, letter 7, 142.
59
Ltude approfondie de lesprit de la population laquelle il se livra dans cette circonstance, ne fit que
laffermir de plus en plus dans sa rsolution: Cen est fait,[] dit-il, []le peuple le souhaite, la Ste Vierge
le demande, je rebatirai lglise! Bouvier, letter 7, 143-144.
60
Du Registre des dlibrations du conseil de fabrique de lglise de notre-dame de Bonsecours, est

extrait ce qui suit, 23 February 1839, Archives municipales de Bonsecours, 2 M 200 1.
61
Extrait du registre des dliberations du conseil municipal de la commune de Blosseville Bonsecours,

25 February 1840, Archives municipales de Bonsecours, 2 M 200 1.
39
Planning and Building
Godefroys Choice of the Gothic Style
Meanwhile, Godefroy set about planning a new church. In September 1838 he
and Bouvier developed a program and an initial, Neoclassical project.62 They sketched a
plan for a monument grec of roughly the same proportions as the church later built by
Barthlemy.63 The plan is now lost, but is described in a letter from Barthlemy to
Bouvier as une glise en briques, dont lintrieur aurait t dcor en pltre avec
pilastres et chapitaux [sic] corinthiens, entablement et corniche recevant la retombe dun
berceau avec arcs doubleaux orns de sculptures.64 The description relates to
Godefroys work at Saint-Lger and the Maison diocsaine, as well as to other churches
in Rouen. It recalls the Church of the Madeleine, a rare example of eighteenth-century
church architecture in Rouen. The Parisian architect Parvis started construction in 1754
and the Rouen architect Jean-Baptiste Le Brument (1736-1804) completed the building
from 1767 until 1782.65 As Godefroy proposed for Bonsecours, the Madeleine has
Corinthian pilasters, and a cornice from which springs a barrel vault decorated with
62
Nous tudierons nos besoins et ferons un plan dglise aussi riche que possible. Bouvier, letter 7, 142.
63
Il se met srieusement luvre et donne le dernier coup de crayon au plan que nous avions exquiss en
septembre 1838. Ce plan tait vaste; il avait a peu prs les mmes proportions que lglise actuelle, mais ce
devait tre un monument grec. Bouvier, letter 7, 144.
64
Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy to Abb Jean-Thophile Bouvier, 2 October 1878. Quoted in Bouvier, letter
10, 198.
65
Jean-Pierre Mouilleseaux, Lglise de la Madeleine Rouen: Un Exemple du dbat thorique de

larchitecture sacre au temps de Soufflot, in Sou lot et larchitecture des lumires, 2nd ed. (Paris: cole
nationale suprieure des Beaux-Arts, 1986), 168-177. Another example of eighteenth-century church
architecture in Rouen is the Chapel of Notre-Dame de Charit at the Hospice Gnral (1789-91) by the
Rouen architect Jean-Guillaume-Bernard Vauquelin (1748-1823). See Thodore Licquet, Rouen: Prcis
de son histoire, son industrie, ses manufactures, ses monumens (Rouen: Frre, 1827), 156; Louis
Hautecur, Histoire de larchitecture classi ue en France, vol. 4 (Paris: A. J. Picard, 1952), 330; and
Franois Lemoine and Jacques Tanguy, Rouen aux 100 clochers: Dictionnaire des glises et chapelles de
Rouen (avant 1789) (Rouen: PTC, 2004), 167.
40
sculptured transverse arches. In 1842, during the construction of Notre-Dame de
Bonsecours, the Neoclassical style was used for the new convent chapel of the
Communaut dErnemont in Rouen, by Charles Barre. It has a Corinthian portico and, as
Godefroy proposed for Bonsecours, is built of brick, a material that was frequently used
in Normandy in the eighteenth century.66
But Godefroy soon had doubts about his choice of style for the new church. He
asked himself: A quel genre marrter? Quel style adopter?67 In the summer of 1839,
Godefroy considered buying the disused Church of Saint-Nicolas in Rouen and moving it
to Bonsecours. However, he had misgivings about the cost and suitability of moving the
sixteenth-century Gothic church, and abandoned the idea.68 In September 1839, a
succession of advisors persuaded Godefroy to select the Gothic style for a new church:
first, the architect Barthlemy, who urged Godefroy to read a book by Jean-Philippe
Schmit titled Les glises gothiques of 1837; second, the Abb Charles Robert, the
architect of the first Gothic Revival church in Normandy, the chapel of the religious
school in Yvetot, begun in August 1839; and third, Arthur Martin, the Jesuit art historian
who went on to co-author a groundbreaking monograph on the stained glass windows of
Bourges cathedral published from 1841 to 1844.69
66
Nadine-Josette Chaline, Rouen, foyer dart religieux au XIXe sicle, Socit des amis des monuments
rouennais (1980-81): 7-8; Lemoine and Tanguy, Rouen aux 100 clochers, 164; Hautecur, Histoire de
larchitecture classi ue en France, 4: 329.
67
68
On Godefroys negotiations for Saint-Nicolas see Bouvier, letter 10, 196. On the Church of SaintNicolas see Licquet, Rouen, 125-126; Nictas Periaux, Dictionnaire indicateur et historique des rues et
places de Rouen: Revue de ses monuments et de ses tablissements publics (1870; reprint, Brionne:
Grard Monfort, 1972), 581; and Lemoine and Tanguy, Rouen aux 100 clochers, 77-78.
69
Quelques avis sages minclinaient vers le style ogival du XIIIe sicle, comme le plus pur et le plus
simple tout la fois. Cependant je ntais pas encore dcid. Quoted in Bouvier, letter 10, 195.
41
Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy was born in Rouen on October 13, 1799, the first
child of Jacques-Michel Barthlemy, a shopkeeper from Saint-Martin-du-Vivier, near
Rouen (fig. 7).70 He spent his youth dans ltude des lettres et des sciences; trs vers
dans la cosmographie, il cultivait avec une mme ardeur ltude des langues vivantes, la
peinture et la musique.71 In 1823 he toured the country, visiting and sketching
numerous churches, including Reims cathedral.72 In 1823 or 1824, at the age of twentyfour, he decided to become an architect.73
In 1837, he was admitted to the Acadmie royale des sciences, belles-lettres et
arts de Rouen. The academys initial report on Barthlemy identifies architecture as his
profession, but in its discussion of Barthlemys achievements it refers to timekeeping
instruments rather than buildings.74 When Barthlemy addressed the Acadmie that year
70
One of Jacques-Eugnes uncles was a farmer in Saint-Martin-du-Vivier and another, named Robert
Bourdon, was a wine merchant in Rouen. There were no architects in the family. See Pierre Chirol, J.-E.
Barthlmy [sic]: Architecte diocsain, 1799-1882 (Rouen: Lain, 1947), 9. The two most important
biographies of Barthlemy were written by fellow architects and members of the Rouen Acadmie. One is
a brief obituary by Simon, the other is a speech delivered to the Rouen Acadmie by Pierre Chirol (18811953). Bouvier is of no help here. Simon did not cite his sources and Chirol revealed only a few: notably
the Abb Jean Cochet and notebooks given to him by Barthlemys heirs. Chirol wrote of the continuation
of Barthlemys practice: it was taken over by Barthlemys son, Eugne, who built the Rouen churches of
Saint-Paul, Saint-Andr, and Saint-Clment; in 1897, Eugne passed it on to his student Charles Lassire; in
1909, Lassire joined with Ren Anquetin; and in 1947, Anquetin and his son Jacques ran the practice
together. So Chirol probably gathered information from them as well. See M. Simon, Notice, Prcis des
travau de lacadmie de Rouen (1881-82): 591-594; Chirol, J.-E. Barthlmy; and Abb Jean Cochet, Les
glises de larrondissement du Havre, 2 vols. (Ingouville: Gaffney, 1845-46).
71
Simon, Notice, 591. Chirol was unable to find information on Barthlemys education. See Chirol, J.E. Barthlmy, 9-10.
72
Sauvage, Description de lglise, 6.
73
Simon, Notice, 591.
74
M. Barthlemy, architecte Rouen, nous a soumis le mmoire quil a publi sur les Mridiennes
mobiles, au temps moyen, de concert avec feu Frisard, habile horloger de cette ville, qui avait excut, sur
ses donnes, le modle en petit de ces sortes dinstruments. M. Destigny, juge assurment trs comptent,
et organe dune commission spciale, nous a dmontr les avantages de cet ingnieux chronomtre, que
ladministration fait excuter en grand, pour tre plac sur la faade du nouvel htel des Douanes,
aujourdhui en construction. Le rapporteur a profit de cette circonstance pour nous parler dune seconde
invention de M. Barthlemy, non moins remarquable que la premire: cest celle dun cadran solaire
42
he spoke of the connaissances diverses ncessaires larchitecte; puis, soccupant plus
directement de la position de lartiste dans nos contres industrielles, il a dissert sur
lhydraulique et sur les meilleurs moyens de bien apprcier et de bien appliquer, en
augmentant encore son nergie, cette prcieuse force motrice nos usines et nos
filatures.75 The technological expertise that Barthlemy showed suggests that he may
have trained as an engineer.
Godefroy selected Barthlemy as the architect of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours in
late September or early October 1839. What little is known about Barthlemys early
career is that he had never before designed a church, but had worked on partial
reconstructions of buildings.76 Godefroy seems to have chosen Barthlemy because he
was familiar with Gothic architecture (from 1838 to 1840 he filled a sketchbook with
drawings of French Gothic churches),77 was a devout Catholic,78 and was recommended
to him by Arthur Martin.79 The commission enabled Barthlemy to become a Gothic
Revival innovator, and it launched his career as an architect.
quinoxial, donnant, en mme temps, lheure du temps vrai et celle du temps moyen, sans calcul ni table
dquation.
Sur les conclusions toutes favorables de ce rapport, M. Barthlemy a t admis au nombre des
membres rsidents de lAcadmie. C. des Alleurs, Classe des sciences: Rapport, Prcis analytique de
lAcadmie royale des sciences, elles-lettres et arts de Rouen 39 (1837): 19-20.
75
Alleurs, Classe des sciences: Rapport, 27.
76
Chirol, J.-E. Barthlmy, 12.
77
The churches include the cathedrals of Amiens, Reims, Rouen, and Coutances, as well as four Rouen
churches that were influential for the plan of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours. These are Saint-Patrice, SaintLaurent, Saint-Pierre lHonor, and Saint-Nicolas. Chirol saw the sketchbook, but I do not know where it
is now. Chirol, J.-E. Barthlmy, 12, 14.
78
79
43
Barthlemy was named Architecte diocsain of Rouen in 1849, and he held the
post for over thirty years.80 Thus he specialized in ecclesiastical construction and
restoration, working on over fifty churches during his career, almost all of them in the
Seine-Maritime and Eure departments of Normandy (appendix 1).81 As part of his
practice, he developed a new technique for building sturdy and inexpensive vaults in
parish churches: Il consiste composer le fond et mme les arceaux des votes avec des
briques de pltre, cuites dans un four, moules et ptries lavance avec de locre jaune,
ce qui leur donne la teinte de la pierre. Ce procd, ingnieux et conomique, a
lavantage de produire des votes lgres et solides, lgantes et peu coteuses.82 In
Rouen, Barthlemy worked on the Church of Saint-Gervais, restored the portal of SaintPatrice,83 and designed the repouss lead tower of Saint-Romain that was executed in
1877 by the master metalworker Ferdinand Marrou.84 In 1868 he gave the Church of
80
Barthlemys nomination as Architecte des difices diocsains de Rouen is recorded in the folder on
Barthlemy in the Archives nationales, F 19 7229. He was a corresponding member of the national Comit
historique des arts et monuments, and from 1848 to 1876 served as an elected municipal councilor in
Rouen. Barthlemy received two papal honors: he was named Chevalier de Saint-Sylvestre in 1854 and
Chevalier de Saint-Grgoire-le-Grand in 1863. On May 31, 1868 he was named Chevalier de la Lgion
dHonneur. Didron refers to Barthlemy as: M. Barthlemy, architecte Rouen, et correspondant du
Comit historique des arts et monuments. [Adolphe-Napolon Didron], Nouvelles diverses, Annales
archologiques 1 (June 1844): 58. On the Comit historique des arts et monuments, established in 1837,
see Robin Middleton, The Rationalist Interpretations of Classicism of Lonce Reynaud and Viollet-leDuc, A. A. Files 11 (spring 1986): 37. See also Simon, Notice, 592-594; Chirol, J.-E. Barthlmy, 22,
28; and Ch. Bauchal, Nouveau dictionnaire biographique et critique des architectes franais (Paris: Andr,
Daly fils, 1887), 606.
81
82
He used the technique in the parish churches of Oissel, Neuville-Champ-dOisel, Saint-Aubin-JouxteBoulleng, and Saint-Valry-en-Caux, all in the Seine-Maritime. See Abb Jean Cochet, Les glises de
larrondissement dYvetot, vol. 2 (Paris: Didron, 1852), 9.
83
84
Lemoine and Tanguy, Rouen aux 100 clochers, 112.
44
Saint-Maclou a stone spire.85 And beginning in 1876 he completed the controversial iron
spire of Rouen cathedral, begun by Jean-Antoine Alavoine (1778-1834) in 1823, and left
unfinished since 1848. He added steep pyramids to the four corners of its base and a
lantern to its peak, stylistic references to the past that integrated the modern spire with the
Gothic cathedral.86
Barthlemy later claimed that he was the one who swayed Godefroy towards the
Gothic. In their first meeting in early September 1839, Godefroy presented his
Neoclassical project, then Barthlemy offered his view that Notre-Dame de Bonsecours
should be built in the Gothic style of the thirteenth century. Barthlemy recalled that he
said to Godefroy:
Je regrette infiniment, M. le cur de ne pas partager vos vues, au sujet du
style que vous dsirez adopter. Depuis quelques annes, les restaurations,
excutes aux monuments du moyen ge ont t loccasion de srieuses
tudes, qui ont fait reconnatre, mme aux partisans du Grec et du Romain
[sic] que les glises gothiques du XIe sicle au XVIe sicle, expriment
mieux, que tout autre style, par leurs formes en croix et leurs flches
lances la pense religieuse catholique. . . .
Jen conclus, Monsieur le Cur, que le style adopter pour votre
glise projete, devrait tre le gothique du XIIIe sicle.87
85
Abb Jean Cochet, ed., Rpertoire archologique du dpartement de la Seine-Infrieure (Paris:

Imprimerie nationale, 1871), col. 404; Chirol, J.-E. Barthlmy, 22; Lemoine and Tanguy, Rouen aux 100
clochers, 66.
86
Barthlemy fitted the lantern on the peak of the spire from March to September 1876 and he added the
four pyramids to its base between 1878 and 1884. Jean-Philippe Desportes, Alavoine et la flche de la
cathdrale de Rouen, Revue de lart 13 (1971): 59 n. 36. He also made other contributions to the
cathedral: he designed the stone tomb monument of Cardinal Cro in a fourteenth-century style and, along
with the Abb Charles Robert and Louis-Franois Desmarest, he restored the portail des Libraires (185561), the portail de la Calende, and the Chapelle absidiale de la Vierge (1866). Cros monument is in the
Chapelle de la Sainte Vierge. See Cochet, ed., Rpertoire archologique du dpartement de la SeineInfrieure, col. 434; and Eude, Histoire religieuse du diocse, 64. The Abb Robert was named Intendant
de la cathdrale in 1862. See Eugne Julien, Vie de la Ro ert, chanoine de Rouen (Paris: Cagniard,
1895), 233. Desmarest (b. 1814) was Barthlemys fellow Architecte diocsain. See Simon, Notice,
592; and Chirol, J.-E. Barthlmy, 24. For the dates see Periaux, Dictionnaire indicateur et historique des
rues et places de Rouen, 98.
87
10, 198.
45
In referring to recent restorations of medieval monuments, Barthlemy evoked the
restorations of the Abbey Church of Saint-Denis (begun by Franois Debret in 1813) and
the Sainte-Chapelle (begun by Flix Duban in 1836). In arguing that the Gothic was the
Catholic style par excellence, he evoked the association between the Gothic and
Catholicism that was made by Chateaubriand in Le Gnie du christianisme and by
Charles-Ren Forbes, Comte de Montalembert (1810-70) in his Histoire de Sainte
lisabeth de Hongrie of 1836.88 Barthlemy recalled that when Godefroy seemed
unconvinced, je lui offris un petit ouvrage que je venais de recevoir, ayant pour titre Les
glises gothiques [sic] et je lengageai le lire. Cet opuscule contient les principes
religieux de larchitectonique, leur application larchitecture gothique dans la
construction des glises, les flches, les formes symboliques, les verrires.89
Thanks to Bouviers manuscript, Les glises gothiques can be identified as a book
published anonymously in 1837 by Jean-Philippe Schmit (b. 1790).90 Schmit was a
bureaucrat in the Administration des cultes beginning in 1809 and from 1832 until 1840
he occupied the high-level post of chef de division des cultes catholiques in the
Ministre de justice et des cultes. As a sideline to his government job, Schmit worked as
a graphic artist. He exhibited prints at the Salon and illustrated the title page of the first
volume of Charles Nodier and Isidore Taylors Voyages pittoresques (1820).91 In Les
88
Georg Germann, Gothic Revival in Europe and Britain: Sources, Influences, and Ideas, trans. Gerald
Onn (Cambridge, MA: MIT, 1972), 79.
89
10, 198.
90
91
Bouvier describes it as in-12, 200 pages. Paris, Aug [sic] diteur 1837. Bouvier, letter 10, 199 n. 1.
For Schmits biography, see Jean-Michel Leniaud, LAdministration des cultes pendant la priode
concordataire (Paris: Nouvelles ditions latines, 1988), 134 n. 352; Michael Paul Driskel, The Gothic,
The Revolution and the Abyss: Jean-Philippe Schmits Aesthetic of Authority, Art History 13 (June
46
glises gothiques, counted by art historian Michael Paul Driskel among the important
contributions to the Gothic revival in France,92 Schmit denounced the destruction and
mutilation of medieval ecclesiastical buildings whose maintenance and restoration were
his responsibility.93 Like Victor Hugo (1802-70), who declared le vandalisme est
architecte in his 1832 essay Guerre aux dmolisseurs!,94 Schmit bemoaned the role of
architects in perpetrating acts of violence against medieval churches. He lamented that
Grand Prix winners spent five years in Rome and learned nothing of French monuments
of the Middle Ages: aussi voyons-nous presque tous les architectes chargs de rparer
une vieille cathdrale du treizime ou du quatorzime sicles sefforcer den rgulariser
la vieille architecture et de lassouplir aux rgles de Vignolle [sic].95 Schmit singled out
for criticism the restoration methods of whitewashing walls, removing stained glass
windows, and replacing medieval sculpture and liturgical objects with des vases sacrs
dtain, des vierges de pltre, des ornemens faux;96 methods used by Godefroy at SaintLger.
1990): 193-211; and Jean-Michel Leniaud, Les Cathdrales au XIXe sicle: tude du service des difices
diocsains (Paris: Economica, 1993), 83.
92
Driskel, The Gothic, 200.
93
Jean-Philippe Schmit, Les glises gothiques (Paris: J. Ang, 1837), 9, 73.
94
Victor Hugo, Guerre aux dmolisseurs! in Littrature et philosophie mles, ed. Anthony R. W. James
(Paris: Klincksieck, 1976), 2: 159. First published in Revue des deux mondes, 1 March 1832.
95
Schmit, Les glises gothiques, 15. Here Schmits rhetoric echoes that of Hugo in Notre-Dame de Paris
(1831): Mutilations, amputations, dislocations de la membrure, restaurations, cest le travail grec,
romain, et barbare des professeurs selon Vitruve et Vignole. Cet art magnifique que les Vandales avaient
produit, les acadmies lont tu. Victor Hugo, Notre Dame de Paris (Paris: Gallimard, 1974), 159. Also
quoted in Paul Frankl, The Gothic: Literary Sources and Interpretations through Eight Centuries
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1960), 484.
96
Schmit, Les glises gothiques, 68.
47
Schmit did not advocate a return to the construction of Gothic buildings in the
nineteenth century,97 but he forcefully argued that the Gothic style corresponded to the
beliefs and practices of the Catholic Church. According to Schmit, the established
proportions and distinct, standardized structural components of the classical temple
satisfy the intellect, but the seemingly endless spaces and innumerable columns of the
Gothic cathedral appeal to the soul, creating an image of the Heavenly Jerusalem.98 To
illustrate his view of the Gothic cathedral as the architectural counterpart of the divine
order on Earth, Schmit painted an idyllic tableau of a medieval community assembled for
mass in which each social rank occupied a specific part of the cathedral:
Loffice divin va commencer la cathdrale: voici dans la nef principale,
dans les tribunes et les lieux rservs, les hauts barons, les preux
chevaliers, revtus darmures tincelantes ou couverts de riches fourrures;
les dames ou les damoiselles [sic], avec leurs robes de brocard, leurs
manteaux dhermine ou de menu-vair, leurs hautes coiffures dor
surcharges de pierreries, et do pendent de longs voiles trainant jusqu
terre; derrire elles sont placs des pages portant leurs blasons. Au second
rang figure la riche bourgeoisie, sefforant de rivaliser par lclat de ses
costumes pittoresques. Les nefs latrales, occupes par la plbe vtue de
ses habits sombres, forment un encadrement dont les bords se perdent dans
le jour douteux que laissent chapper les vitraux vigoureusement colors
des chapelles.99
Classical, pagan architecture could no more serve as the complement to this Catholic
monarchist vision of social hierarchy than it could convey the Catholic idea of the
97
Nous ne demandons pas, sans doute, que pour comprendre le style et le grand caractre de nos
monumens religieux, ils se livrent aux tudes et aux contemplations religieuses, comme le faisaient
naturellement ceux qui les ont rigs; nous demandons moins encore que lon construise des glises
gothiques. . . . Btissons donc nos glises modernes sur le mme modle que nos thtres, que nos bourses,
que nos tribunaux; disons quil faut que tous les monumens de lpoque attestent ltat et les progrs de
lart, et quils transmettent aux sicles venir le patron la mode du jour. Il ny a rien objecter cela;
nous ne voulons parler ici que de la conservation des vieux monumens. Schmit, Les glises gothiques,
77-78.
98
Schmit, Les glises gothiques, 49-50, 55-57.
99
Schmit, Les glises gothiques, 61.
48
kingdom of heaven. Godefroy was unmoved by Schmits call for the preservation of
medieval buildings--he demolished the thirteenth-century church of Notre-Dame de
Bonsecours, regardless. However, he seems to have agreed with Schmits arguments for
the compatibility of the Gothic style to the Catholic religion. According to Barthlemy, it
was upon reading Les glises gothiques that Godefroy settled on the Gothic style for the
new church.100
The second advisor who Godefroy asked for help was the Abb Charles-LouisNapolon Robert (1804-85). Robert studied at the cole polytechnique in Paris and
worked for ten years as a naval engineer in Brest and Cherbourg before coming to the
Institution ecclsiastique dYvetot in 1837 to begin a second career as a priest and an
architect.101 There he oversaw the construction of the new main building of the religious
school,102 and on August 12, 1839, laid the cornerstone of a new chapel.103 Designed by
Robert in a late-thirteenth- or early-fourteenth-century style, it had a rectangular plan
terminated by a triangular apse (fig. 8).104 The exterior elevation was composed of
double lancet windows, buttresses surmounted by pinnacles, and a tracery balustrade-100
101
Julien, Vie de la
1951), 55-56.
Robert, 9, 21, 61 and Edward Montier, La Maison dYvetot (Rouen: Wolf,
102
Montier, La Maison dYvetot, 56. Hautecur attributed the Gothic Revival chapel of the Hpital
dYvetot to Henri Grgoire and dated it to 1837. See Louis Hautecur, Histoire de larchitecture classi ue
en France, vol. 6 (Paris: Picard, 1955), 323. But if Cochet is to be believed (and Cochet is more credible,
as a specialist on Norman churches), Hautecur was wrong. Grgoire designed the overall hospital, but
Robert designed the chapel and work on it was not begun until 1845. See Cochet, Les glises de
larrondissement dYvetot, 2: 347.
103
Julien, Roberts biographer, wrote that the first stone was laid in 1838. See Julien, Vie de la Ro ert,
92. The date given by the Abb Jean Cochet seems more trustworthy, because he quoted the text engraved
in the stone: Hic lapis positus est die XII augusti an. reparat salutis M. V. CCC. XXXVIIII reverend.
Cochet, Les glises de larrondissement dYvetot, 2: 342. Moreover, the 1839 date is confirmed by
Montier. See Montier, La Maison dYvetot, 60.
104
For a description of Roberts chapel see Cochet, Les glises de larrondissement dYvetot, 2: 342-345.
49
similar to those of the future Basilica of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours.105 Inside, the upper
chapel was Gothic and svelte, while the crypt was Romanesque and stocky (figs. 9-10).106
The bulk of construction was completed by June 23, 1841, when Archbishop Cro
presided over the benediction.107 After that date, the upper chapel was decorated with a
sculpted dado, gilded altar, carved choir stalls, and stained glass windows representing
the history of the Institution, its founders, and the archbishops of Rouen.108 These
features resemble the decoration of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, but because the date of
the Yvetot chapels decoration is unknown, it cannot be stated with certainty that one
influenced the other. Nearly a century later, in June 1940, the chapel was badly damaged
by a massive fire and subsequently razed.109 According to the noted Norman
archaeologist the Abb Jean Cochet, the remarkable achievement of the chapel was,
quelle a t, dans ce pays, le premier pas fait vers la rsurrection de lart chrtien et
quelle renoue la chane des traditions interrompues par la Rforme et la philosophie
voltairienne.110 It may also have been a link between the Gothic Revival movements in
England and France, as Robert had traveled to England several times as a naval
105
The pinnacles and balustrade were not yet completed in 1852. Cochet, Les glises de larrondissement
dYvetot, 2: 343.
106
Montier, La Maison dYvetot, 173.
107
Montier, La Maison dYvetot, 60.
108
Montier, La Maison dYvetot, 61. The decoration of the sanctuary was the work of Edmond Bonet,
the artist who designed the baptismal font at Notre-Dame de Bonsecours. Judging from the photograph
reproduced here as figure 13, and from Cochets description, the decoration of the apse wall was similar to
that at Bonsecours. It consisted of five niches containing statues and framed by arches. Cochet, Les
glises de larrondissement dYvetot, 2: 343.
109
See the account of the wartime destruction of the chapel and a description of its ruins in Montier, La
Maison dYvetot, 175-180.
110
Cochet, Les glises de larrondissement dYvetot, 2: 345. Cochet was a follower of Arcisse de
Caumont and the founder of Merovingian archaeology in France. See Jean-Pierre Chaline, Socia ilit et
rudition Les Socits savantes en France, XIXe-XXe sicles (Paris: CTHS, 1995), 144-146.
50
engineer,111 and the Gothic style had been widely used in English church construction
since the 1810s.
On September 18, 1839, Godefroy and Bouvier traveled to Yvetot to show Robert
their Neoclassical plan.112 Bouviers manuscript recreates the ensuing dialogue between
Godefroy and Robert. Robert offered blunt criticism and advice: Il est vaste, bien
conu, mais ce nest pas ce quil vous faut. Quoi, mon rvrend, vous voudriez faire un
temple payen, quand nous avons sous les yeux de si magnifiques modles de temples
chrtiens! Btissez moi une belle glise gothique! faites revivre parmi nous cet art
inspir par la foi et qui a engendr tant de merveilles. Troubled by this, Godefroy
responded: Mais je ny comprends rien! Ce style dailleurs me dplait, il me parait
barbare: rien ne se ressemble, aucune symtrie, cest fatigant! Robert tried to reassure
his visitor: Ah! cher cur, est-ce que le bon Dieu a voulu de la symtrie dans la
cration? Il a mis au contraire la varit dans lensemble, cest ce qui en fait la beaut.
De mme dans nos cathdrales! les sculptures, les ornements sont varis linfini: Cest
lexpression de la louange et de lamour qui slvent vers Dieu sous toutes les formes.
Votre style grec avec sa raideur, sa symtrie et ses ornements toujours les mmes, est
froid et glacial, comme les pauvres divinits en lhonneur desquelles il a t cr. Croyez
moi abandonnez ce style, vous vous repentiriez bientt de lavoir pris, et il serait trop
tard.113 Robert argued that the Gothic cathedral corresponds with a Christian view of
creation as infinitely varied and is therefore a more appropriate form of Christian
architecture than the classical temple.
111
Nadine-Josette Chaline, Lglise normande, 11.
112
113
51
In late September 1839, a few days after returning from Yvetot, Godefroy went to
Paris to hear the opinion of a third advisor: the art historian Arthur Martin (1801-56). A
Jesuit who had trained for the priesthood in Rome, Martin came back to Paris in 1838,
where he applied himself to the study and design of Christian art.114 At his meeting with
Godefroy, Martin repeated Roberts proposal to build in the Christian, Gothic style, and
he urged Godefroy to choose a religious architect: Ds lors que vous voulez lever un
monument en lhonneur de la Ste Vierge, il faut que ce soit un monument chrtien. Pour
cela il vous faudra un habile architecte et en mme temps un architecte religieux qui
sache comprendre les besoins du culte et prvoir jusquaux moindre dtails pour faciliter
la majest des crmonies.115 Martin recommended Barthlemy.116
The Jesuit established a successful career as a writer and artist, all the while
remaining involved with Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, aiding in the decoration until the
1850s. From 1841 to 1844, he published a monograph on the stained glass windows of
Bourges cathedral, which first laid out his rigorous theory of iconographical
interpretation,117 and was to have a considerable influence on the production of stained
114
H. Leclercq, Martin (Art.) et Cahier (Ch.), in Dictionnaire darchologie chrtienne et de liturgie, ed.
Fernand Cabrol and Henri Leclercq, vol. 10, part 2 (Paris: Letouzey et An, 1932), col. 2334-2335. For
Martins biography and bibliography see the rest of Leclercq, Martin (Art.) et Cahier (Ch.), col. 23342354; Pre Carlos Sommervogel, Bibliothque de la Compagnie de Jsus, new ed., vol. 5 (Paris: Alphonse
Picard, 1894), col. 619-622; and the relatively recent entry on Martin by Olivier Liardet and Frdric
Vienne, Martin Pre Arthur Marie, in Notre-Dame de la Treille, du rve la ralit: Histoire de la
cathdrale de Lille, ed. Frdric Vienne (Marseille: Yris, 2002), 277-279.
115
116
117
Martin insisted that there are no direct correlations between images and texts, and that images multiple
layers of meaning can only be discovered by comparing images with both written documents and other
images. Arthur Martin and Charles Cahier, Monographie de la cathdrale de Bourges, 2 vols. (Paris:
Poussielgue-Rusand, 1841-44). See also Leclercq, Martin (Art.) et Cahier (Ch.), col. 2335-2336; and
Jean Nayrolles, Deux approches de liconographie mdivale dans les annes 1840, Gazette des BeauxArts 128 (November 1996): 201-222.
52
glass.118 In an 1845 article on his travels to Germany, Martin argued, as had Schmit and
Robert, that Gothic cathedrals expressed the Christian idea of the infinite,119 and he
maintained that only artists inspired by God could rehabilitate Christian art.120 AdolpheNapolon Didron (1806-67), editor of the mouthpiece of the Gothic Revival movement,
the Annales archologiques, wrote that Martin a exerc une grande influence sur les
vitraux, les pavs-mosaques, la sculpture en pierre ou en bois, lorfvrerie [sic] et les
vtements sacerdotaux.121 Notably, he created models for the prolific Parisian
metalworker Placide Poussielgue-Rusand (1824-89),122 and he designed the gilded
reliquary, altar, and dado of the Chapelle Sainte-Genevive (1853) in the Church of
Saint-tienne-du-Mont (1492-1622) in Paris (fig. 11).123
118
Le grand ouvrage sur les vitraux de la cathdrale de Bourges, par exemple, na pas tromp lattente de
ses auteurs: il a exerc une influence considrable sur le dveloppement de la peinture sur verre, et cet art,
aprs avoir t nglig pendant plus de deux sicles, a trouv aujourdhui dans vingt manufactures une
renaissance si active, quon voulut y voir dabord une dcouverte nouvelle de secrets oublis. Alfred
Ram, LArt et larchologie au XIXe sicle LAchvement de Saint-Ouen de Rouen (Paris: Victor
Didron, 1851), 56.
119
Une cathdrale des beaux sicles est un monde qui dsespre lanalyse: on dirait que la pense de
linfini qui domina le gnie des artistes sest imprime dans leur uvre. Arthur Martin, Quelques
souvenirs dun voyage archologique Strasbourg et en Bavire, Bulletin monumental 11 (1845): 322.
120
Arthur Martin, Quelques souvenirs, 341.
121
Adolphe-Napolon Didron, Mlanges et nouvelles, Annales archologiques 17 (1857): 59. Didron

went on to criticize the recently deceased Martin for having been beaucoup trop clectique and he faulted
the artists and decorators who borrowed from his designs for lacking un got suffisamment pur.
122
123
Liardet and Vienne, Martin Pre Arthur Marie, 278.
Cte de Mellet, Sainte Genevive et lglise de Nanterre, Annales archologiques 26 (1869): 128;
Yvan Christ, Eglise Saint-tienne-du-Mont, in Dictionnaire des glises de France, ed. Jacques Brosse,
vol. 4 (Paris: Robert Laffont, 1968), sect. C: 65. Martin was also closely involved in the planning of the
Cathedral of Notre-Dame de la Treille in Lille. In 1856 he sat on the jury that selected finalists for the
project. When the jury was dissolved without having chosen a winner, Martin proposed a committee to
oversee future work, a committee that was to include Godefroy as well as Martin himself. Martin prepared
his own project for the cathedral, but later that year he died suddenly of apoplexy while on a trip to
Ravenna, and his plans were subsequently abandoned. Frdric Vienne, Les Dbuts du chantier (18561875), in Notre-Dame de la Treille: Du rve la ralit, ed. Frdric Vienne (Marseille: Yris, 2002),
123-131.
53
In addition to the documented influence of Barthlemy, Schmit, Robert, and
Martin, there were other conditions for Godefroys bold choice of the Gothic style. In
Normandy, Godefroy was surrounded by a wealth of medieval monuments and by the
intense activity of antiquarians. In Paris, a handful of writers had started to call for the
urgent conservation and imitation of medieval buildings. And around the country,
medieval revival churches had begun to be built. Normandy as a whole and Rouen in
particular were famous as open-air museums for the study of medieval architecture. This
reputation was fostered by Romantic travel literature: the first two volumes of the
Voyages pittoresques (1820) were devoted to Normandy, Hugo dubbed Rouen la ville
aux cent clochers in his Les Feuilles dautomne (1831), and Stendhal called the city the
Athnes gothique in his Mmoires dun touriste (1838).124 Several of Rouens bestknown Gothic monuments were restored in the years before and during the construction
of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours. The spire of Rouen cathedral was rebuilt by JeanAntoine Alavoine beginning in 1823, the Palais de justice received a new wing from
Henri Grgoire in the 1830s, and Grgoires completion of the faade of the Church of
Saint-Ouen, though not undertaken until 1845, was debated beginning in 1838.125
Normandy was also a center of activity for historians of medieval architecture.
The English Andrew Coltee Ducarel researched his Anglo-Norman Antiquities (1767) in
Normandy, and his compatriot George Downing Whittington prepared An Historical
Survey of the Ecclesiastical Antiquities of France (1809) in the region.126 Owing to close
124
Jean Mabire and Jean-Robert Ragache, Histoire de la normandie (Paris: Hachette, 1976), 308.
125
Kevin D. Murphy, Restoring Rouen: The Politics of Preservation in July Monarchy France, Word and
Image 11, no. 2 (April-June 1995): 196 and 199.
126
The importance of Normandy in the emergence of medieval archaeology is explained in Paul Lon, La
Vie des monuments franais: Destruction, restauration (Paris: A. and J. Picard, 1951), 91-97; and Louis
54
contact with their colleagues across the Channel, Norman scholars were the first in
France to assimilate the advances of English antiquarianism.127 In Caen in 1823, Arcisse
de Caumont, Charles de Gerville, and Auguste Leprvost founded the Socit des
Antiquaires de la Normandie, Frances first secular historical society. Caumont, the most
influential of the three, invented a rational system for the classification of medieval
architectural styles.128 Rouen had its own circle of antiquarians busy studying and
popularizing medieval monuments, including Jean-Achille Deville, Emmanuel Gaillard,
Eustache-Hyacinthe Langlois, Andr Pottier, and Eustache de la Querire.129 Deville
founded the Rouen Muse des antiquits in 1832 and as its director assembled one of the
richest collections of medieval sculpture in the country.130
Meanwhile in Paris, writers were fueling wide-spread interest in medieval
architecture. Victor Hugo popularized the Middle Ages more than anyone else.131 His
novel Notre-Dame de Paris (1831) combined fantasy and erudition, captured the
imagination of a generation, and introduced the public to the vocabulary of medieval
Hautecur, Histoire de larchitecture classi ue en France, 6: 286-287. The topic is also taken up in
Robin Middleton and David Watkin, Neoclassical and Nineteenth-Century Architecture (New York:
Abrams, 1980), 338.
127
On the interaction between Normandy and England see Lon, La Vie des monument franais, 91-94; and
Tina Waldeier Bizzarro, Romanesque Architectural Criticism: A Prehistory (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1992), 112.
128
Bizzarro, Romanesque Architectural Criticism, 133. On Caumont see the essays in Vincent Juhel, ed.,
Arcisse de Caumont (1801-187 ), rudit normand et ondateur de larchologie ranaise Actes du
collo ue international organis Caen du 14 au 16 juin 2001 (Caen: Socit des antiquaires de
Normandie, 2004).
129
Abb Sauvage, Notre-Dame-de-Bonsecours: Extrait de la Normandie Monumentale et Pittoresque, pp.

169-172 (Le Havre: Lemale, 1892), 171.
130
G. Vapereau, Dictionnaire universel des contemporains (Paris: L. Hachette, 1858), 530; Lucien dHura,
Rouen: Ses monuments et leurs souvenirs historiques (Paris: Tour de France, 1877), 184-199.
131
Edouard Lecanuet, Montalembert: Sa jeunesse (1810-1836), vol. 1 (Paris: C. Poussielgue, 1898), 345.
55
archeology.132 One of Hugos leading followers was Montalembert, who interpreted
Notre-Dame de Paris as a rallying cry for the rehabilitation of Gothic architecture.133 But
while Hugos cathedral was sinister, even grotesque, reflecting his anticlericalism,134 the
liberal Catholic Montalembert celebrated medieval architecture as the supreme
expression of the Catholic religion.135 In an article titled Du Vandalisme en France of
1833, Montalembert denounced the outright destruction and inept restoration of medieval
churches, as well as the construction of new churches in the classical style.136 In his first
book, Histoire de Sainte lisabeth de Hongrie of 1836, he identified the thirteenth
century as the high point of Christian art before its descent into the Renaissance and
pagan idolatry.137 And in an article titled De ltat actuel de lart religieux en France of
1837, Montalembert elaborated his prescription for the regeneration of Christian art in
France: artists should study the great monuments of Christian art, from the catacombs to
the seventeenth-century Gothic cathedral of Orlans. This would lead them to inspiration
132
Jean Mallion, Victor Hugo et lart architectural (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1962), 61;
Germann, Gothic Revival in Europe and Britain, 47.
133
P. de Lallemand, Montalembert et ses amis dans le Romantisme (1830-1840) tude daprs des
documents inedits (Paris, H. Champion, 1927), 309.
134
Janine R. Dakyns, The Middle Ages in French Literature, 1851-1900 (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1973), 19-20.
135
136
Charles-Ren Forbes, Comte de Montalembert, Du vandalisme en France: Lettre M. Victor Hugo,

Revue des deux mondes, 2nd ser., 1 (1 March 1833): 477-524.
137
Charles-Ren Forbes, Comte de Montalembert, La Vie de Sainte lisabeth de Hongrie (Paris: Cerf,
2005), 61.
56
and originality, as it did for the German artists of the Nazarene group.138 Montalembert
also emphasized the importance of artists faith.139
The architect who most resembled Montalemberts ideal was Louis-Alexandre
Piel (1808-41). Piel was one of just three architects praised by Montalembert in his De
ltat actuel de lart religieux en France for their travaux darchitecture si patiens, si
savans et si rgnrateurs--together with Jean-Baptiste Lassus (1807-57) and HippolyteLouis Durand (1801 or 1809-81), the architect of the Basilica of the ImmaculeConception in Lourdes (1862-72)--and Piel was the only one who became a priest.140 A
student of Franois Debret who belonged to the circle of the Saint-Simonian philosopher
Philippe Buchez and the liberal Catholic newspaper LAvenir, Piel published a number of
articles--on his travels to Germany, on the Salon of 1837, and on new churches in Paris-before entering the Dominican order, re-established in France by Henri Lacordaire (180261).141 Like Montalembert, he decried classicism in church architecture and championed
a return to the Gothic.142 In 1837, he designed the Church of Saint-Nicolas in Nantes in
the Gothic style, but after he left for Rome in 1840 the project was taken over by
138
Charles-Ren Forbes, Comte de Montalembert, De ltat actuel de lart religieux en France, in Du

vandalisme et du catholicisme dans lart (Paris: Debcourt, 1839), 187.
139
Montalembert, De ltat actuel de lart religieux en France, 200.
140
Montalembert, De ltat actuel de lart religieux en France, 179-180.
141
On Piel see Amde Teyssier, Notice biographique sur Louis-Alexandre Piel (Paris: Debcourt, 1843);
Alexandre de Beaurepaire, Frre Piel, de Lisieux, Revue de Rouen et de la Normandie 11, 2nd semester
(1843): 257-273, 387-400; Alpho. de Calonne, Notice Biographique sur Louis-Alexandre Piel, architecte,
religieux de lordre de Saint-Dominique, Revue gnrale de larchitecture (1844): col. 273-76; and Lon
de La Sicotire, Notice sur L.-A. Piel, architecte et dominicain (Caen: A. Hardel, 1844). Piels articles are
reprinted in Teyssier.
142
Teyssier, Notice biographique sur Louis-Alexandre Piel, 62; Calonne, Notice Biographique sur LouisAlexandre Piel, col. 275-276.
57
Lassus.143 Piels plans have disappeared and historians can only speculate on what they
looked like.144 In 1841, Piel died in Bosco, Italy at the age of thirty-three. The choice of
the Gothic for Saint-Nicolas was made by its new parish priest, Flix Fournier (b. 1803),
as early as March 1836, three and a half years before Godefroy settled on the Gothic for
Notre-Dame de Bonsecours.145 However, work was slowed by the rejection of Piels
design by the Nantes Conseil municipal and the Conseil des btiments civils (Fournier
hoped for their financial assistance),146 by Piels departure, and by Lassuss
transformation of the project.147 Building began in 1844, after the overall construction of
Notre-Dame de Bonsecours was completed, and continued until the church was
inaugurated in 1876.148
By 1839, when Godefroy settled on the Gothic style, medieval revival churches
had already begun to be built around the country. Amable Macquet started work on the
Chapel of the mont des Allouettes near Les Herbiers (Vende) in 1825149 and Dalstein
143
On Saint-Nicolas see Bruno Foucart and Vronique Nol-Bouton, Saint-Nicolas de Nantes, bataille et
triomphe du no-gothique, Congrs archologique de France: Haute Bretagne, session 126 (1968): 136181.
144
Foucart and Nol-Bouton, Saint-Nicolas de Nantes, 147.
145
Foucart and Nol-Bouton, Saint-Nicolas de Nantes, 143-144.
146
147
148
149
Macquet is sometimes spelled Maquet. On this architect see Bauchal, Nouveau dictionnaire
biographique et critique des architectes franais, 694. See the description and plan of the monument in
Charles Gourlier et al., Choi ddi ices pu lics projets et construits en France depuis le commencement
du XIXme sicle (Paris: Louis Colas, 1837-44), 1: 5, plate 157. See the discussions of the monument in
Jean-Claude Garcia, Jean-Jacques Treuttel, and Jrme Treuttel, Monuments contre-rvolutionnaires en
Vende (1815-1832), Monuments historiques 144 (1986): 55-56; and Jean-Michel Leniaud, Variations
franaises sur le no-gothique, in La Rvolution des signes LArt lglise (18 0-1930) (Paris: Cerf,
2007), 86-87. Hautecur stated falsely that the Chapel of the mont des Allouettes was demolished. See
Hautecur, Histoire de larchitecture classique en France, 6: 304.
58
(first name unknown) built the British Embassy Church on the rue dAguesseau in Paris
in 1834. The Chapel of the Dames de la Congrgation Notre-Dame, dite des Oiseaux, on
the rue de Svres, which scholars have alternately attributed to Franois-Marie Lemari
and Louis Brunet-Desbaines, was built in 1835.150 Charles-Auguste Questel started work
on the Church of Saint-Paul at Nmes in 1838, which he designed in 1835 in the
Romanesque style.151 However, these precedents were few, and Godefroys choice of the
Gothic style was nevertheless audacious.
The choice was particularly daring given the resistance to the style of the Conseil
des btiments civils, the government agency responsible for supervising the maintenance
and construction of all public buildings. Its members were classicists and almost all were
also members of the Acadmie. The agency would demonstrate its resistance in 1840 by
rejecting the Gothic designs of Piel for Saint-Nicolas in Nantes152 and of Franz Christian
Gau (1790-1854) for the new parish church of Sainte-Clotilde in Paris (1847-57).153
Rather than risk such censure, Godefroy craftily evaded the Conseil des btiments civils
altogether. He wished to spend seventy to eighty thousand francs on the new choir
alone,154 but in March 1841 Barthlemy produced a partial estimate of just 29,918
150
The Chapel of the Dames de la Congrgation Notre-Dame is attributed to Lemari in Montalembert,

De ltat actuel de lart religieux en France, 196 n. 1; and Middleton and Watkin, Neoclassical and
Nineteenth-Century Architecture, 340. It is attributed to Desbaines in Bauchal, Nouveau dictionnaire
biographique, 618; and Hautecur, Histoire de larchitecture classi ue en France, 6: 322-323.
151
These examples of early Gothic Revival churches in France are listed in Hautecur, Histoire de
larchitecture classi ue en France, 6: 322-323; Claude Malecot, Les Constructions nouvelles, in Le
Gothi ue retrouv avant Viollet-le-Duc, by Louis Grodecki et al. (Paris: Caisse national des monuments
historiques et des sites, 1979), 145-146; and Middleton and Watkin, Neoclassical and Nineteenth-Century
Architecture, 340-341.
152
153
Middleton and Watkin, Neoclassical and Nineteenth-Century Architecture, 358.
154
Mon dessein navait t dabord que de joindre un vaste chur la petite glise. Je nosais lever mes
59
francs.155 Because the estimate was for less than thirty thousand francs, it was subject to
the judgment of the prefect rather than the Conseil des btiments civils.156 Prfet de la
Seine-Infrieure Henri-Jean-Pierre-Antoine Dupont-Delporte (1783-1854) quickly
approved it and personally paid for a window in the basilica.157 Consequently, Godefroy
received no subsidies from the Conseil des btiments civils and the states only assistance
was a grant of three hundred francs from the Ministre des Cultes.158 The rest of the cost
of building Notre-Dame de Bonsecours was covered by private donations.
The Evolution of the Project

After Godefroy and Barthlemys first interview in early September 1839, they
met again at the end of September or in early October. According to Barthlemy, in the
second interview the cur told him: Vous allez tre content de moi; nous ferons une
vux plus haut, je ne pensais consacrer cette uvre que soixante-dix ou quatre vingt mille francs
environ. Godefroy quoted in Bouvier, letter 10, 201. Did Godefroy really only want to rebuild the east
end, as he told the Conseil de fabrique and the Conseil municipal? Or did he wish to rebuild completely
right from the start, as Bouvier recollected? Judging from Godefroys inordinate ambition, it seems
credible that he always aimed to rebuild the entire church, but hid his intentions initially, for fear they
would be quashed.
155
The partial estimate of 29,918 francs, dated March 15, 1841 and sent to the prefect, was for des travaux
faire pour la continuation des murs de bas cts de lEglise de N. D. de Bonsecours, jusques et y compris
la corniche formant gouttire. Barthlemy, Devis estimatif, 15 March 1841, Archives municipales de
Bonsecours, 2 M 200 1. Another copy of the estimate is preserved in the Archives dpartementales de la
Seine-Maritime, V 7 147. Bouvier and Sauvage also comment on this subterfuge. See Bouvier, letter 10,
203; and Sauvage, Description de lglise, 9.
156
Leniaud, Les Cathdrales au XIXe sicle, 465.
157
March 20, 1841, the prefect wrote to the mayor of Bonsecours that Monsieur le Cur de Bonsecours
mayant soumis le plan et le devis ci-joints des travaux projets lEglise de cette commune je vous prie de
linformer aprs en avoir toutefois refus au conseil municipal, que japprouve ces travaux et que je
lautorise les xcuter ses risques et prils. Prfet de la Seine-Infrieure Henri-Jean-Pierre-Antoine
Dupont-Delporte to Maire de Bonsecours Eugne Marie Jean Le Bourgeois, 20 March 1841, Archives
municipales de Bonsecours, 2 M 200 1.
158
The donation of the Ministre des Cultes was requested by Dupont-Delporte. Prfet de la SeineInfrieure Henri-Jean-Pierre-Antoine Dupont-Delporte to Maire de Bonsecours Eugne Marie Jean Le
Bourgeois, 8 September 1842, Archives municipales de Bonsecours, 2 M 200 1.
60
glise gothique comme vous le dsirez.159 Soon after, Barthlemy began work on his
first plan for the church.160 Barthlemys project for Notre-Dame de Bonsecours evolved
in two stages. In the first stage, in the winter and spring of 1840, Barthlemy proposed a
three-aisle basilican plan with a single portal on the west faade, a single bell tower over
the first bay of the nave, and sacristies occupying the last three bays of the aisles on either
side of the choir. Bouvier dated Barthlemys first plan to January 22, 1840.161 This may
be the same as an undated plan conserved in the parish archives (fig. 12).162 The undated
plan is probably earlier than another plan signed by Barthlemy and dated February 12,
1840 (fig. 13), now in the Archives municipales de Bonsecours,163 because in the undated
plan the columns separating the nave from the side aisles are simple cylinders, not
compound piers as in the February plan and in the finished building. Moreover, in the
undated plan, the apse barely protrudes from the east wall, it is not a deep niche that
extends beyond the choir as in the February plan and the completed church. The
February plan shows the outline of an enclosure surrounding the apse, but this must have
been added later. In the finished church, the area was used as a sacristy; and in the plan,
the spaces on either side of the choir are labeled as sacristies. Another project, dated
April 11, 1840 and conserved in the parish archives, survives complete with a plan,
159
Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy to Abb Jean-Thophile Bouvier, 2 October 1878. Quoted in Bouvier,

letter 10, 199.
160
161
162
[Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy], plan 18, Projet de Plan, undated, [22 January 1840?], Archives
163
Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy, plan, Eglise de N. D. de Bon Secours, 12 February 1840, Archives

municipales de Bonsecours, 2 M 200 1.
61
sections, and a side elevation.164 The April plan is nearly identical to that of February,
with the introduction of twin lancet windows and minor changes to the bell tower (fig.
14). The transverse and longitudinal sections reveal a tripartite elevation, with a
clerestory and triforium above each side aisle (fig. 15). In the north side elevation (fig.
16), the repetition of the gabled portals of the sacristy and side aisle; of lancet windows,
quatrefoils, and pinnacles at the levels of the side aisle and the clerestory; and of the same
motifs in the bell tower, give the design a look of mass production that echoes the mass
production of fabrics by Rouens textile mills.
In the second stage of the transformation of the project, Barthlemy proposed a
design with an east-end sacristy encircling the base of the apse and flying buttresses
above the side aisles. Surviving north and west elevations from this stage show a design
of greater complexity, with more varied and ornate decoration. In an undated north
elevation from this stage, now in the parish archives,165 the rail above the clerestory is
supported by trilobated arches in contrast to the quatrefoils of the side-aisle balustrade,
the pinnacles of the side-aisle buttresses are nearly double the height of those of the nave
buttresses, and the sacristy at the base of the apse introduces a row of pointed-arch
windows and a third roofline (fig. 17). In the faade elevation and corresponding plan,
three portals are framed by projecting gables and splayed jambs and archivolts (fig. 18).
On either side of the symmetrical faade, buttress piers carry the thrust of two tiers of
flying buttresses connected by balusters, a more elaborate arrangement than the otherwise
164
[Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy], plan 23, Plan du sol; plan 33, Coupe transversale et coupe
longitudinale; and plan 83, lvation du ct du nord. All 11 April 1840, Archives paroissiales de
165
[Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy], plan 84, lvation ct, undated, Archives paroissiales de Bonsecours,
Plans de Bonsecours.
62
plain single flying buttresses of the churchs abutment system. Between the diagonal
flying buttresses, octagonal turrets faced with blind arcades flank a rose window and a
gallery containing statues of the four evangelists. At the top of this steep triangular
composition rises the bell tower, pierced with lancets and trimmed with turrets and
quatrefoils. The intricacy and three-dimensionality of the faade and the complexity of
the side elevation--which are nearly identical in the plans and the built church--express
Godefroys increased confidence, bolstered by the progress of construction; by the
official approval for the project of the vestry, the Conseil municipal, and the prefect; and
by the evasion of the Conseil des btiments civils.166
Work on the new chevet began on March 24, 1840 with the excavation of the area
to the east of the thirteenth-century church.167 On May 4, Archbishop Cro laid the first
stone in a formal ceremony attended by Prefect Dupont-Delporte and other local
notables.168 Construction advanced rapidly, with one hundred workers simultaneously
raising the walls of the east-end sacristy, the choir, and the nave.169 By May 1842, the
thirteenth-century church was enclosed within the walls of the new nave and the new
choir was covered with stone vaults.170 With the old church still standing, Godefroy
celebrated mass in the new choir for the first time on the August 15 Feast of the
166
At first Godefroy negotiated authorization for a new east end only, not a total reconstruction. In
February 1839, Godefroy acquired the permission of the vestry to build a new choir and sacristies, but the
Conseil municipal did not offer its consent until a year later, on the condition that Godefroy personally
guaranteed the cost of construction. See Extrait du registre des dliberations du conseil municipal de la
commune de Blosseville Bonsecours, 25 February 1840, Archives municipales, 2 M 200 1. The prefect
did not give his written approval until April 14, 1840. See Bouvier, letter 7, 144 n. 1.
167
Chirol, La Basilique de Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours, 24.
168
Loth, Notice historique, 38-39.
169
Bouvier, letter 11, 226; Sauvage, Description de lglise, 16.
170
63
Assumption. The same day, Godefroy moved the wooden statue of the Virgin, dating to
the reign of Louis XV, from the old church to the north side chapel of the new church.171
Moving the high altar and the statue--which was the center of attraction for pilgrims-signified the shift of the cult of Our Lady of Bonsecours to the church under construction.
Godefroy then asked for permission to dismantle the thirteenth-century church. He began
demolition on August 29, a month before the Bonsecours Conseil municipal granted him
authorization.172 In 1843, the old church was entirely demolished and the nave, main
portal, and tower of the new church were completed.173 On January 5, 1843, Archbishop
Cro blessed and approved Barthlemys design for the main western portal;174 by 1844,
the overall construction was complete; and on October 31, 1844, a local priest blessed the
church.175
The Completed Church

The completed church has a unified design that draws from diverse archaeological
sources. A contributor to the Revue de Rouen observed in 1846 that the most striking
quality of the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours was its complete stylistic unity,
unity not always achieved by medieval buildings constructed over longer periods of
171
Bouvier, letter 11, 229; Sauvage, Description de lglise, 16.
172
The Conseil municipal agreed to the demolition of the old church on September 27, 1842. Bouvier,
letter 11, 233.
173
Chirol, La Basilique de Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours, 26.
174
175
Chirol, La Basilique de Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours, 27. The priest who blessed the church, JosephHippolyte Join-Lambert (1812-57), was a protg of Archbishop Cro, like Godefroy. In 1844 he ran a
boarding school in Bonsecours. See Eude, Histoire religieuse du diocse de Rouen au XIXe sicle, 187.
64
time.176 Measuring forty-four by seventeen meters, with a bell tower rising fifty
meters,177 its plan consists of a nave and two side aisles, without a transept, ambulatory,
or crypt (fig. 19). In his monograph on Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, Pierre Chirol
compared the plan of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours to the plans of fifteenth- and sixteenthcentury parish churches in Rouen, such as Saint-Patrice, which resembles Notre-Dame de
Bonsecours in that it has a nave with two aisles and no ambulatory or transept.178
Barthlemy adapted this late medieval configuration to modern needs by adding a
sacristy to the east end, in the place of an ambulatory.179 Otherwise, Barthlemys
references were thirteenth-century French cathedrals. The windows are subdivided by
masonry bar tracery--as opposed to the plate tracery of the twelfth century--and, in the
side elevations, a grid is formed by the intersection of vertical buttress piers with
pinnacles and horizontal tracery balustrades (fig. 20). Also common to thirteenth-century
French cathedrals are the elements of the faade: three porches decorated with sculpture,
a central rose window, and a gallery of statues in niches (figs. 21-22). Notre-Dame de
Bonsecours combines the clear geometry and opaque wall surfaces of the west front of
Notre-Dame de Paris (ca. 1200-50) and the complex overlapping shapes of the gabled
portals of Amiens cathedral (begun ca. 1225). However, unlike the rectangular, double
bell tower compositions of cathedral frontispieces, the basilica faade forms a triangle
176
Ce qui frappe, cest lunit complte qui prside lensemble du monument, unit qui nexistait pas
toujours dans les constructions anciennes du mme genre. Frank, Episodes normands, 155.
177
Adolphe Joanne, Itinraire gnral de la France . . . Normandie, 2nd ed. (Paris: Hachette, 1872), 64.
178
The other examples Chirol gave were Saint-Laurent, Saint-Pierre-lHonor, and Saint-Nicolas, the
church Godefroy had considered relocating to Bonsecours. Chirol, La Basilique de Notre-Dame-de-BonSecours, 24. For more on these churches see Lemoine and Tanguy, Rouen aux 100 clochers.
179
Only in the seventeenth century did parish sacristies acquire the considerable size to which the
nineteenth-century clergy were accustomed. Sauvage, Description de lglise, 20.
65
that culminates in a single bell tower. While the twin towers of cathedrals symbolized
the episcopal administration of an entire diocese, the isolated tower of Notre-Dame de
Bonsecours was an icon of the historical memory of a parish community, in which church
bells sounded the important events of peoples lives: baptism, marriage, and burial.180
Easily identifiable from the Seine Valley below,181 it stood for a post-Revolutionary
effort to restore Christianity to the center of society, to undo the modern fragmentation of
loyalties.182
Inside, the basilica has stone quadripartite rib vaults and a tripartite elevation
composed of side aisles, a triforium, and a clerestory, as is typical of thirteenth-century
French cathedrals (fig. 23). Like the piliers cantonns of Amiens cathedral, the columns
that support the side-aisle arcades are girded by four colonettes. Above, the band
triforium resembles the triforia of the cathedrals at Chartres (begun after 1194) and
Reims (1211-60), but the triforium at Bonsecours is blind. As at Reims, the clerestory
windows are treated as single openings, each subdivided into lancets and an oculus. In
contrast to the nave, the apse contains virtually no flat planes; its verticality,
transparency, and appearance of structural lightness give it the look of the upper chapel
of the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris (1243-48).183 The Sainte-Chapelle was the most
180
Philippe Boutry, Le Clocher, in Les Lieux de mmoire, ed. Pierre Nora, vol. 3, bk. 2 (Paris:
Gallimard, 1992), 80.
181
On dcouvre cette glise de fort loin, et lon pense que, du haut de son clocher, on pourra, par un ciel
serein, apercevoir la pleine mer prs de 60 kilomtres de distance. [Godefroy], glise Notre-Dame de
Bonsecours, 3 n. 1.
182
183
Boutry, Le Clocher, 82.
The apse is bordered by five bays of elongated lancet windows that stretch ten meters from the level of
the sculpted dado to the vaults and are separated only by narrow moldings and colonettes. Sauvage,
Description de lglise, 52.
66
prestigious building erected by the king during the thirteenth century,184 and a focus of
attention in the years leading up to and during the construction of the basilica owing to its
restoration by Flix Duban, beginning in 1836.185
Godefroy and others writing in the 1840s dated the style of the entire Basilica of
Notre-Dame de Bonsecours to the thirteenth century, and to the reign of Louis IX (122670) in particular. For Godefroy, the style of the building was logival primitif lancette,
poque la plus pure du treizime sicle.186 When Godefroy asked for donations from the
seminarians at Issy, he described the basilica as un difice comme on en batissait au
temps de St. Louis, et comme le pieux roi les aimait.187 Rouen antiquarian PierreAmable Floquet (1797-1881) commented in his 1842 pamphlet on the basilica that: La
foi de saint Louis, se rveillant au milieu du dix-neuvime sicle, lve Notre-Dame de
Bon-Secours une basilique telle que le saint roi les aimait, telle que, de son temps, on les
sut faire. . . . Oui, cest bien l le treizime sicle, le sicle de saint Louis, celui de la foi
vive et des belles glises; on sy sent transport, on y est en effet; on respire lair et les
croyances de ce temps-l.188 Similarly, Amable Tastu (1798-1885), a poet and author of
184
Robert Branner, Saint Louis and the Court Style in Gothic Architecture (London: A. Zwemmer, 1965),
56.
185
In 1835, an article in the Journal des dbats called for the restoration of the Sainte-Chapelle, Victor
Hugo referred to the building as a monument populaire, and Jean-Baptiste Lassus (1807-57) received a
gold medal at the Salon for a project to restore it. In 1836, Flix Duban (1798-1870) was chosen to direct
the restoration, and the year after that, Duban drew up a project. Work on the Sainte-Chapelle was
overseen by Duban until 1849, then by Lassus until 1857, and finally by mile Boeswillwald (1815-96)
until 1863. Hugo is quoted in Mallion, Victor Hugo et lart architectural, 655. See also Jean-Michel
Leniaud, Jean-Baptiste Lassus (1807-1857) ou Le Temps retrouv des cathdrales (Geneva: Droz, 1980),
60; and Jean-Michel Leniaud, Un Monument du XIXe sicle, in La Sainte Chapelle, by Jean-Michel
Leniaud and Franoise Perrot (Paris: ditions du patrimoine, Centre des monuments nationaux, 2007), 20.
186
187
188
Floquet, Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, 10. On Floquet see Vapereau, Dictionnaire universel des
contemporains, 672; and Jean-Pierre Chaline, Deux bourgeois en leur temps: Documents sur la socit
67
childrens books, remarked in her Norman travelogue of 1843 that the new church
enclosing the old one was construite dans le style de larchitecture gothique du temps de
saint Louis. She added that Larchitecte semble stre inspir en tudiant la SainteChapelle de la Cit de Paris.189
Godefroys choice of style associated Notre-Dame de Bonsecours with a religious
and political ideal. Many Catholics imagined the Middle Ages, especially the thirteenth
century, as an era when society was organized according to Christian principles.
Montalembert, for one, wrote in his enthusiastically received Histoire de Sainte lisabeth
de Hongrie that in the thirteenth century, the Church had more influence than at any other
time. Of the thirteenth century, he wrote: Il serait, du moins, ce quil nous semble,
difficile de trouver, en parcourant les glorieuses annales de lglise, une poque o son
influence sur le monde et sur la race humaine dans tous ses dveloppements ft plus
vaste, plus fconde, plus inconteste. Jamais peut-tre lpouse du Christ navait rgn
avec un empire si absolu sur la pense et sur le cur des peuples. . . . LOccident tout
entier ployait avec un respectueux amour sous sa sainte loi.190 This theocratic order was
personified by Saint Louis. To quote Montalembert once again, he was both a modle
des rois191 and le meilleur chrtien de France.192 By rebuilding the Basilica of NotreDame de Bonsecours in a thirteenth-century style, Godefroy and the donors who
rouennaise du XIXe siecle (Rouen: Socit de lhistoire de Normandie, 1977), 138 n. 4.

189
Amable Tastu, Des Andelys au Havre: Illustrations de Normandie (Paris: Lehuby, 1843), 113.
190
Montalembert, La Vie de Sainte lisabeth de Hongrie, 13.
191
192
68
supported the project expressed a desire to re-establish an exemplary Catholic and
monarchist past of which Saint Louis was the embodiment.
Barthlemys Later Church-Building Projects

Soon after Barthlemy built Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, he built the Chapelle
funraire (1844) of the Chteau du Plessis near Bouquelon, north of Pont-Audemer, in
the Eure (figs. 24-25). Commissioned by the Comte dOsmoy, this private family
mausoleum is only twelve meters long and five meters wide.193 Using the thirteenthcentury vocabulary employed at Bonsecours in a simpler arrangement, its plan consists of
a single nave terminated by an apse, while its faade is made up of a single portal,
flanked by octagonal towers topped by pinnacles, and surmounted by a rose window and
gable. Barthlemy collaborated on it with the glass artist Henri Grente and the sculptor
Jean Duseigneur, both of whom worked at Bonsecours.194
Barthlemy also went on to build another regional Marian pilgrimage church at
the edge of a Norman departmental capital, the Basilica of Notre-Dame de la Dlivrande
193
194
Chirol, J.-E. Barthlmy, 16-17.
Henri Grente (1814-49), who completed the windows for the apse of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours in
1842, completed the windows for the Chapelle funraire in 1845. Chirol, J.-E. Barthlmy, 13. Grentes
windows were removed around 1866 and are preserved in the Church of Lande-Saint-Lger and the Church
of Conteville. Philippe Chron, Ingnieur dtudes, Service rgional de linventaire de Haute-Normandie,
e-mail message to the author, 5 February 2009. Jean Duseigneur (1808-66), who made the models for the
west faade sculpture of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours from 1844 to 1847, finished the tympana for the
Chapelle funraire in August 1844--three months after he completed the model for the tympanum above the
main portal at Bonsecours--and he sketched the altar for the chapel in January 1845. For these dates see
Henry Martin et al., Jean du Seigneur, statuaire, Revue universelle des arts 23 (1866): 100-101. Didron
raved about the Chapelle funraire, especially its sculpture. After describing the iconography of the
tympana above the chapel entrance--on the outside is a piet, on the inside Jesus is shown leaving his tomb-he commented: Nous sommes laurore dune vritable renaissance gothique; sur tous les points de la
France on btit des glises et des chapelles en style ogival, selon les formes usites aux XIIIe, XIVe et XVe
sicles, et, aprs larchitecture, est venue la statuaire. Du reste, M. Duseigneur a presque termin son
remarquable travail. [Adolphe-Napolon Didron], Nouvelles diverses, Annales archologiques 1 (June
1844): 58.
69
(1853-78) in Douvres-la-Dlivrande, north of Caen (figs. 26-27).195 Like Notre-Dame de
Bonsecours, it has double lancet and rose windows and a one-story base encircling the
choir, as well as pinnacles, octagonal turrets, blind arcades, and a cusped-arch balustrade
above the cornice. However, its plan is more complex, owing in part to its slow,
staggered construction.196 It does not have flying buttresses, but distinctive three-sided
chapels protrude from its sides.
The chapel and basilicas are exceptional: most of the churches built by
Barthlemy were parish churches. One example is the Church of Saint-Denis in SainteAdresse (1874-77), a suburb of Le Havre (fig. 28). It is interesting to compare it with
Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, because it is similar, but plainer and smaller--and therefore
cheaper to build--in keeping with the humbler status of a parish church without a
pilgrimage.197 Like Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, Saint-Denis has a three-aisle basilican
plan with a sacristy at the east end. Unlike Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, it has an
ambulatory and three conch-shaped east-end chapels. Inside, Saint-Denis has an arcade
supported by piliers cantonns, a blind triforium, and a clerestory--like Notre-Dame de
Bonsecours. Outside, the elevation is similar to that of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, but
simpler and more economical. Saint-Denis has no flying buttresses, and its double lancet
windows are topped with trefoils and quatrefoils rather than the more complex roses of
195
On Notre-Dame de la Dlivrande see Lepetit, Un Antique plerinage.
196
Initially, only a tower was added to the existing medieval church, between the south transept and the
choir. This was finished in 1855 to commemorate the papal proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate
Conception the year before. In 1862, work was underway on a new nave. After the nave was completed in
1864, Barthlemy started work on the two transept chapels. And beginning in 1872, a lottery was
organized to raise funds for the more ornate north transept tower and the choir. Lepetit, Un Antique
plerinage, 141-169.
197
Saint-Denis is forty meters long and fourteen meters wide, with a bell tower that is forty-four meters
high. Notre-Dame de Bonsecours is slightly larger. Joanne, Itinraire gnral de la France . . .
Normandie.
70
Bonsecours. Barthlemys shift away from flying buttresses from Bonsecours (1840) to
Sainte-Adresse (1874) reflects a general shift among Gothic Revival practitioners, away
from flying buttresses and towards more economical solutions. For example, EugneEmmanuel Viollet-le-Duc defended flying buttresses before the Acadmie des beaux-arts
in 1846, but he did not use them in his parish churches of the 1860s.198 The west front of
Saint-Denis has a symmetrical, triangular composition like that of Notre-Dame de
Bonsecours, but it is articulated in shallower relief, without gables, and has only a single
portal flanked by double lancet windows (fig. 21). Furthermore, its sculpture is limited to
the tympanum, and whereas Notre-Dame de Bonsecours is entirely built of masonry, only
the faade and tower of Saint-Denis are stone, the rest of the church is built of cheaper
brick.
198
See chapter 2, The Completed Church.
71
Funding
Godefroys Subscription Campaign and the Domination of the Notables
The funding of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours by private rather than government
contributions was a result of the discrepancy between the basilicas status as a parish
church and the scale and cost of Godefroys plans. This variance was itself a
consequence of the lack of a legal category for pilgrimage churches during the period of
the Concordat. The exact cost of the basilica is unknown, but Godefroy referred vaguely
to a total in the millions of francs,199 and in 1847, wrote that two hundred thousand francs
were still needed for the decoration and furnishings.200 Godefroys success in fundraising reflects the extent of the new appreciation for popular religion, particularly
Marian devotion, as well as the rise and domination of the notables in the latter years of
the July Monarchy.
Godefroy solicited pilgrims to Bonsecours and took collections at orphanages,
schools, and seminaries; but the largest single gifts were subscriptions from notables.201
As defined by Andr-Jean Tudesq in Les Grands notables en France (1840-1849), the
social category of grands notables was composed of nobles and rich bourgeois who had
in common their wealth, well-established families, and public service, and who exerted
their economic, social, and political influence on a national scale.202 The notables
199
Quoted in Sauvage, Description de lglise, 8.
200
[Godefroy], glise Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, 21 n. 1.
201
On the separate category of donations made (mostly anonymously) by pilgrims, whose total from 1840
to 1865 exceeded 160,000 francs, see Bouvier, letter 15, 1-2; and Bouvier, letter 16, 1. On Godefroys
collections at educational institutions see Bouvier, letter 16, 1-3.
202
Andr-Jean Tudesq, Les Grands notables en France (1840-1849) tude histori ue dune psychologie
sociale (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1964), 1: 9-10. See also Andr Jardin and Andr-Jean
Tudesq, Restoration and Reaction: 1815-1848, trans. Elborg Forster (Cambridge: Cambridge University
72
domination was securest during the years of political calm, diplomatic peace, and
economic prosperity that coincided with Godefroys most active period of fund-raising,
beginning with the formation of the government led by Franois Guizot in 1840, and
ending with the crop failures and financial crisis of 1846.203 Nevertheless, the notables
were threatened by the social consequences of the industrial takeoff.204 Rouen was
transformed more than elsewhere in France. Owing to its textile factories, during the July
Monarchy it was the most industrialized city in the country after Paris.205 Workers from
rural, agricultural areas came to live in the city and work in the factories.206 On occasion,
they revolted against the deplorable conditions that they experienced.207 Against this
backdrop, the notables contributions to the basilica expressed the coming together of
priests, nobles, and rich bourgeois in defense of social stability. The contributions also
expressed the notables shared desire to associate themselves with a Catholic medieval
social order evoked by the revival at Bonsecours of Marian pilgrimage and Gothic
architecture.
Press, 1983), 128-129, 389.

203
Tudesq, Les Grands notables en France, 1: 482.
204
David H. Pinkney, Decisive Years in France, 1840-1847 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986),
150.
205
Robert Bezucha, An Introduction to the History, in The Art of the July Monarchy: France (18301848), by Robert Bezucha et al. (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1990), 31.
206
207
Pinkney, Decisive Years in France, 57.
Jean-Pierre Chaline, Transformations urbaines et mutations conomiques (1800-1914), in Histoire de

Rouen, ed. Michel Mollat (Toulouse: Privat, 1982), 348-349; Ren Herval, Histoire de Rouen (Rouen:
Maugard, 1949), 2: 286.
73
Godefroy was such a talented fund-raiser that Archbishop Cro called him le
grand enjleur--the great coaxer.208 Although municipalities were responsible by law
for the substantial restoration and reconstruction of all parish churches,209 Godefroy never
asked for help from the Conseil municipal, and he never went door-to-door collecting
money in his parish. According to Bouvier, Godefroy wanted to avoid burdening his
flock. The only local resident who he asked for a subscription was the mayor of
Bonsecours, Eugne Marie Jean Le Bourgeois. Godefroy only asked Le Bourgeois
because he wanted to give him a chance to leave a legacy.210 The cur drew the support
of the notables with two techniques: he encouraged them to sign a pledge in a
subscription book, and he allowed them to pay for and be identified with specific features
of the basilica, reviving a medieval practice.211 Beginning in 1840,212 he traveled by mail
coach and later train, accumulating subscriptions throughout the diocese of Rouen, in
208
Tous les dons faits Bon-secours taient entirement libres et volontaires. Ce qui ne veut pas dire que
M. Godefroy nait pas cherch quelquefois en faire doubler et mme tripler le chiffre. Son talent tait tel
que trs souvent il ruississait au del de ses esprances. Cest pour cela que le vnrable Prince de Cro
lappelait le grand enjleur [sic]. Bouvier, letter 16, 13.
209
This responsibility was established by the December 30, 1809 Dcret concernant les fabriques des
glises. See Adrien Dubief and Victor Gottofrey, Trait de ladministration des cultes, vol. 3 (Paris: Paul
Dupont, 1892), 537-538; and Leniaud, Les Cathdrales au XIXe sicle, 462.
210
Je vous lai dit ailleurs, jamais M. Godefroy ne voulut demander aucun secours la commune pr. son
glise ni mme faire des qutes domicile dans sa paroisse, il ne voulait pas que lon put dire quil avait
impos, mme moralement, des charges ceux qui lui taient confis[.] Aussi ne trouve-t-on sur ses lvres
ou dans ses notes que trs peu de noms des habitants de Bon-secours. ma connaissance il ne sollicita de
souscription que dune seule personne, ctait de M. Le Bourgeois, alors maire de la commune, afin de faire
passer son nom la posterit, comme donateur dun des grands vitraux du sanctuaire, sur lequel il est
dailleurs represent, lui et ses deux enfants. Si quelques habitants ont particips luvre, a t par un
acte absolument spontan de leur part. Bouvier, letter 18, 12. Le Bourgeois was the mayor of Bonsecours
from 1831 to March 1848 and from August 1848 to 1864. He subscribed to pay two thousand francs for
the stained glass window installed in the apse second from the right.
211
For a discussion of the use of the same fund-raising technique for the construction of the Basilica of the
Sacr-Cur see Raymond A. Jonas, Monument as Ex-Voto, Monument as Historiosophy: The Basilica of
Sacr-Cur, French Historical Studies 18, no. 2 (fall 1993): 496-499.
212
The earliest subscriptions date to 1840. Subscription book, Archives paroissiales de Bonsecours, Carton
16.
74
Paris and its suburbs, and in cities west and north of Paris such as Evreux, Beauvais, and
Senlis.213
In November 1845 Godefroy went as far as Belgium and Germany. He planned
only to visit relatives of Archbishop Cro in Le Roeulx, north-east of Mons, Belgium.
The cur had been present at Cros death on January 1, 1844, and had helped the
archbishops relatives with the funeral arrangements. In return, they invited him to visit.
Once he arrived at the family chteau, Godefroys hosts urged him to travel to the Rhine,
so he continued on to Cologne and Aachen before returning to Belgium and making stops
in Lige, Louvain, Antwerp and Brussels, gathering signatures and visiting churches
along the way.214 Godefroy recalled that he met with the architects of Cologne cathedral,
who he did not name. The effort to complete the cathedral had begun in 1840. Godefroy
also obtained a contribution from the archbishop of Cologne.215 In Brussels he received a
five hundred franc donation from the comtesse de Mrode and a promise of support from
a secretary of the queen of Belgium.216 Perhaps these dignitaries were willing to meet
with Godefroy and contribute to the construction of the basilica because of the appeal of
the Gothic and Marian aspects of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours. It may also have helped
that Godefroy was connected to the Cro family, which belonged to the pan-European
aristocracy.
213
Lorsque M. Godefroy eut resolu daller quter domicile pour son glise, il commena naturellement
par les villes du diocse de Rouen. Puis ce fut Paris, Paris surtout et sa banlieue, Evreux, Beauvais, Senlis
& c. quil alla visiter. Bouvier, letter 17, 1-2.
214
Bouvier, letter 17, 13-22. Godefroys travels are also recounted in Sauvage, Description de lglise,
14-15.
215
Bouvier, letter 17, 17. Did Godefroy mean Ernst Zwirner, the architect of Cologne Cathedral?
216
75
Godefroys travels gave the building project an international profile. Everywhere
he went, Godefroy showed prospective donors a building plan and colorful drawings of
the decoration,217 as well as a gilt red morocco subscription book, now preserved in the
parish archives (fig. 29).218 He started with the most respected names, strategizing that
they would set a powerful example,219 and asked for subscriptions from bishops and other
high-ranking ecclesiastics before approaching hommes du monde220--among them
aristocrats, industrial bourgeois, and politicians. Some contributors were, in fact, women.
Nine windows and two columns were paid for by women, reflecting the feminization of
French Catholicism in the nineteenth century, and in particular, the increase in
noblewomens participation in the charitable life of the Church.221 The women who
217
En mme temps quil y dirigent ses travaux dart, sous linspiration du R. P. Arthur Martin, il allait
frapper la porte des premiers htels de la capitale pour y faire connatre son uvre. Toujours il portait
avec lui le plan de son glise, les dessins enlumins de ses vitraux et des peintures murales et des pavages
du sanctuaire, ceux enfin des stalles et de sa magnifique chaire. Il savait si bien faire valoir tous ces
projets, quil rapportait trs souvent de riches offrandes. Cest ainsi quil pu, comme je lai dj dit
ailleurs, donner un nom chaque vitrail, chaque autel, chaque colonne ou colonnette, je dirai presque
chacune des pierres qui composent le sanctuaire vnr. Bouvier, letter 17, 11.
218
The subscription book is conserved in the Archives paroissiales de Bonsecours, Carton 16. For
Godefroys description of the subscription book see his Cahier o jai crit ce qui a trait lhistoire de B.
S., 21, Archives paroissiales de Bonsecours, Carton 16. Quoted in Bouvier, letter 12, 2. See also the
description in Sauvage, Description de lglise, 10-14.
219
Pour donner plus de poids et de crdit la souscription que jallais ouvrir je sentis que je devais
mautoriser des noms des personnes les plus respectables et les plus justement respectes, je comprennais
ce que lexemple des premiers souscripteurs pourrait avoir dentranant pour ceux qui viendraient leur
suite, que je marchais environn des sympathies gnrales, que luvre que je proposais avait remontr de
nombreuses adhsions, quon ne risquait donc rien de sinscrire la suite de ces hommes quon regarde
ordinairement comme de justes apprciations de la valeur dune uvre. Il tait donc important pour le
succs de bien commencer. Bouvier, letter 12, 3. Bouviers text is transcribed from Godefroys barely
legible account in his Cahier o jai crit ce qui a trait lhistoire de B. S., 22-23, Archives paroissiales
de Bonsecours, Carton 16.
220
221
For lists of window and column donors, including women, see appendix 2, as well as [Godefroy], glise
Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, 9-21; Alexandre Fromentin, Notre-Dame de Bonsecours: Plerinage religieux
et artistique (Rouen: P. Roussel, 1855), 8-15; L. Petit, Histoire et description de lglise de Notre-Dame de
Bonsecours (Rouen: H. Rivoire, 1861), 36-47; Sauvage, Description de lglise, 41-43, 52-68; and Msgr.
Prudent, Notre-Dame de Bonsecours (Rouen: Henri Defontaine, 1924), 34-43. Prudents monograph
contains illustrations of some of the donor portraits. On gender and Catholicism in nineteenth-century
76
donated windows and columns were unmarried, married, and widowed. Some belonged
to the Ancien Rgime nobility, one was the widow of a Napoleonic baron,222 and another
belonged to a monastic order.223
The most famous signatures in the subscription book are those of Montalembert
and Lacordaire, two of the leading figures of liberal Catholicism in mid-nineteenthcentury France.224 A pair de France and later a deputy, Montalembert campaigned for
freedom of religion, education, and the press. In his published work, beginning with the
Histoire de Sainte lisabeth de Hongrie of 1836, he celebrated the feudal Middle Ages as
a religious and political ideal.225 Lacordaire was renowned as a preacher--his sermons at
Notre-Dame de Paris attracted as many as ten thousand people--and he re-established the
Dominican order in France. Together with Flicit de Lamennais, Montalembert and
Lacordaire founded the short-lived liberal Catholic newspaper LAvenir (1830-31).226
Although their signatures gave prestige to the building project, Montalembert and
France see Gibson, A Social History of French Catholicism, 180-190. On noblewomens involvement in
Church social activities see David Higgs, Nobles in Nineteenth-Century France: The Practice of
Inegalitarianism (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987), 175.
222
Flicit-Sophie Dedun-Dyrville, widow of the baron de Septmanville (1762-1817).
223
Mre Javouhey, suprieure gnrale de la congrgation de Saint-Joseph de Cluny, et directrice de

lmancipation de Mana, en faveur des ngres. [Godefroy], glise Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, 20.
224
Subscription book, p. 55, Archives paroissiales de Bonsecours, Carton 16.
225
On Montalembert, especially his early career, see Edouard Lecanuet, Montalembert, 3 vols. (Paris, C.
Poussielgue, 1898-1902); P. de Lallemand, Montalembert et ses amis dans le Romantisme (1830-1840):
tude daprs des documents indits (Paris, H. Champion, 1927); Andr Trannoy, Le Romantisme politique
de Montalembert avant 1843 (Paris: Blond et Gay, 1942); James C. Finlay, Charles de Montalembert and
the Decline of Liberal Catholicism (Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms, 1966); and Guillaume de
Source Bertier de Sauvigny, The Young Montalembert: Liberal, Catholic, and Romantic, review of
Journal intime inedit, by Charles de Montalembert, Catholic Historical Review 77 (July 1991): 485-488.
226
On Lacordaire see Jos Cabanis, Lacordaire et quelques autres: Politique et religion (Paris: Gallimard,
1982).
77
Lacordaire do not seem to have followed through with their pledges to subscribe.
Godefroy did not write reu next to their names as he did next to others.
Godefroy associated the largest subscriptions with specific building parts by
emblazoning them with their donors names, coats of arms, and portraits. The idea came
from Antoine-Louis-Pierre-Joseph Godard, marquis de Belbeuf (1791-1872), a lawyer
and historian who belonged to a Norman family of the nobility of the robe, and whose
chteau was located just outside of Bonsecours.227 Belbeuf suggested to Godefroy that he
could donate a stained glass window for the basilica and revive the medieval practice of
donor portraiture: Il vous serait peut-tre . . . avantageux que je vous donnasse un vitrail
qui pourrait vous en attirer dautres. Ctait autrefois lusage que les seigneurs
signalassent leurs sentiments religieux en donnant aux glises qui se trouvaient sur leur
proprits, un vitrail peint, o les donateurs taient reprsents, dans lattitude de la prire
sur les vitraux quils avaient offerts. Il serait bon de renouveler cette pratique des temps
de foi.228 Godefroy liked Belbeufs proposal and extended it to other parts of the
basilica. He promised Belbeuf: Il ny aura pas un objet dans le sanctuaire que jlve
en lhonneur de la T. S. V. qui ne porte le nom dun gnreux bienfaiteur. Nous
commencerons par vous Mgr le Marquis. Vous serez represent [sic] avec toute votre
famille au bas du vitrail que vous voulez bien moffrir, et comme 1er souscripteur vous
227
On Belbeuf see Vapereau, Dictionnaire universel des contemporains, 152; Arcisse de Caumont, Mort
de M. le marquis Godard de Belbeuf, Bulletin monumental 38 (1872): 433; Adolphe Robert and Gaston
Cougny, eds., Dictionnaire des parlementaires franais, vol. 1 (Paris: Bourloton, 1889), 240; and Prevost
and Roman dAmat, eds., Dictionnaire de biographie franaise, vol. 5 (Paris: Letouzey et An, 1951):
col. 1304.
228
Godefroy, Cahier o jai crit ce qui a trait lhistoire de B. S., 22-23, Archives paroissiales de
Bonsecours, Carton 16. Godefroys text is transcribed, with a few minor changes, in Bouvier, letter 12, 67.
78
aurez la 1re place, celle du fond du sanctuaire.229 As Godefroy wished, Belbeuf
donated the axial window of the apse and other benefactors soon followed his example.230
Forty-four of the apse, side-aisle, and clerestory windows identify the person, family, or
institution responsible for them with their name and either their coat of arms or portrait,
or a combination of the two (fig. 30 and appendix 2).231 The twenty columns of the nave
are painted with their donors coats of arms and initials, announcing their status as pillars
of the Church (fig. 23). Subscriptions for windows ranged in value from five hundred
francs for the rose above the Chapelle de Saint Joseph to twenty-four hundred francs for a
double lancet in the apse. Columns cost as little as five hundred francs and as much as
thirteen hundred francs.232 Other parts of the church were purchased individually but not
personalized. Donors provided sculpture, such as the central tympanum of the faade and
the statues above the west portals.233 They also contributed liturgical furnishings,
229
230
Bouvier claims that in a few weeks Godefroy had found donors for all the windows. Bouvier, letter 12,
8.
231
The number of windows that identify their donors includes all five apse windows, all eighteen clerestory
windows, the two windows above the altars in the Chapelle de la Sainte Vierge and the Chapelle de Saint
Joseph, and nineteen out of twenty side-aisle windows. The window above the south portal is not
personalized. The forty-four windows do not include the grisaille windows of the sacristy, almost all of
which were donated by local clergy.
232
Sauvage writes that the columns were valued at three hundred francs, but that some donors greatly
exceeded this amount. However, those in the subscription book are all priced at more than five hundred
francs. See Sauvage, Description de lglise, 42; and subscription book, Archives paroissiales de
Bonsecours, Carton 16.
233
The central tympanum of the faade was donated by M. Baudon. According to Godefroy, Baudon was
an ancien receveur gnral de Rouen and a rgent de la banque de France. [Godefroy], glise NotreDame de Bonsecours, 4. The statue of Saint Joachim above the left gable of the faade was paid for by a
collection at the Lyce royal de Rouen; the statue of Mary installed above the central gable on April 11,
1846 was the gift of comtesse lie-Anne de Montmorency-Luxembourg; and the funds for the statue of
Saint Joseph above the right gable were collected at the Sminaire de Saint-Nicolas du Chardonnet, the
Petit Sminaire de Paris. Sauvage, Description de lglise, 26.
79
including the altar of the Virgin and the tabernacle of the high altar.234 However, these
donors identities and social positions are not displayed like those of the window and
column donors.
Clerical Donors and Priests Turn towards the July Monarchy

Of the sixty-five personalized windows and columns, twenty-six (forty percent)
were donated by clerics.235 Among them were the archbishops of Rouen, Beauvais, and
Nancy; cathedral clergy from Rouen and Paris; students, teachers, and principals at
Catholic schools and seminaries; the mother superior of a religious community; the
chaplain of the Paris Htel-Dieu; and parish priests from Rouen, Paris, and elsewhere in
Normandy and the le-de-France. Examination of the religious and political views of
four of the most prominent clerical donors reveals that they represented a cross-section of
the priesthood. Column donors Pierre de Dreux-Brz (1811-93), Flix Dupanloup
(1802-78), Charles-August-Marie-Joseph de Forbin-Janson (1785-1844), and JosephArmand Gignoux (1799-1878) each studied at the Sulpician seminary (like Godefroy)
and became bishops, but in other ways, their lives followed different paths. Dreux-Brz
was appointed vicar general by Denis-Auguste Affre (archbishop of Paris from 1840 until
1848) and was named bishop of Moulins in 1849. The son of the marquis de DreuxBrz, Louis XVIs master of ceremonies, his own opinions were legitimist and
ultramontane, and he joined with other like-minded priests to participate in charitable
234
The altar of the Chapelle de la Sainte Vierge was donated by the duc de Laval-Montmorency. He paid
ten thousand francs in installments beginning in 1847. See Bouvier, letter 17, 25-29. Louis-Marie-Edmond
Blanquart de Bailleul (1795-1868), who succeeded Cro as archbishop of Rouen in 1844, paid four
thousand francs for the tabernacle of the high altar. See the subscription book, Archives paroissiales de
Bonsecours, Carton 16; and Sauvage, Description de lglise, 86.
235
This number includes the window donated anonymously in memory of Archbishop of Paris HyacintheLouis de Qulen, who died in 1839.
80
organizations for the assistance of workers.236 In contrast, Dupanloup was the
illegitimate child of a peasant girl. He started his career as the headmaster of the Petit
Sminaire de Saint-Nicolas-du-Chardonnet in Paris (from 1837 until 1845), and taught
briefly at the Sorbonne (in 1841 and 1842) before rising to fame as bishop of Orlans, a
position he accepted in 1849. Dupanloup, too, was fond of the Bourbons and unsettled
by the 1830 Revolution; but he became a leading spokesman of Gallicanism, attacking
the fanatical, ultramontane newspaper LUnivers and voting against infallibility in
1870.237 While Dupanloup was active in public life (he was elected as a deputy in 1871
and was designated as an irremovable senator in 1875), Forbin-Janson became an outcast
because of his firm commitment to the Bourbons. He was named bishop of Nancy in
1823, and after the Revolution of 1830 his episcopal palace was sacked and the
government of the July Monarchy expelled him from the diocese. After that, he lived a
nomadic life, traveling to Germany, Rome, the United States, and Canada. He died in
Provence in 1844.238 Gignoux, conversely, was named bishop of Beauvais in 1841, and
occupied the seat for thirty-six years. He was an advocate of ultramontanism and a
236
R. Aubert and E. Van Cauwenbergh, eds., Dictionnaire dhistoire et de gographie ecclsiasti ues, vol.
14 (Paris: Letouzey et An, 1960), col. 790.
237
Roman dAmat, ed., Dictionnaire de biographie franaise, vol. 12 (Paris: Letouzey et An, 1970), col.
292-294; Austin Gough, Paris and Rome: The Gallican Church and the Ultramontane Campaign, 18481853 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1986), 110, 262. Gough defined Gallicanism as the belief that the Church was
a constitutional monarchy in which each bishop, holding an office of fully scriptural origin, enjoyed a
certain degree of independence as an administrator and a judge of doctrine; and, culturally, it was a plural
society in which the Holy See was able to tolerate a wide variety of national styles and customs. See
Gough, Paris and Rome, vi.
238
Prevost and Roman dAmat, eds., Dictionnaire de biographie franaise, vol. 14 (Paris: Letouzey et
An, 1979), col. 398-399.
81
devoted reader of LUnivers, but he nevertheless displayed a prudent reserve towards the
government in power.239
Except for the students and seminarians, the clerical donors were notables. Even
though most priests came from modest backgrounds, they were better educated and
wealthier than most men, and were necessarily active participants in the politics of their
constituencies.240 Their involvement with a project that was also sponsored by local
public officials (namely the mayors of Bonsecours and Rouen, two deputies of the SeineInfrieure, and the prefect of that department) reflects a general rapprochement between
the clergy and the government of the July Monarchy.241 In the aftermath of the July
Days, the clergy and the regime of Louis-Philippe viewed each other with mutual
hostility. Owing to the Bourbon monarchys claim to rule by divine right, many priests
refused to recognize the new king.242 For their part, the Orlanists did little to suppress
the anticlerical violence that was inspired by the Churchs close identification with the
Bourbons.243 The change in church-state relations from the Bourbon Restoration to the
July Monarchy is summed up by the difference in the legal status of the Church during
the two periods: the constitutional charter of 1814 designated Catholicism as the state
religion, while according to the revised charter of 1830, it was merely the religion of the
239
R. Aubert, ed., Dictionnaire dhistoire et de gographie ecclsiasti ues, vol. 20 (Paris: Letouzey et
An, 1984), col. 1292-1293.
240
241
Joseph Brugerette, Le Prtre franais et la socit contemporaine, vol. 1, La Restauration catholique

(1815-1871) (Paris: P. Lethielleux, 1933), 116-117.
242
243
Pamela Pilbeam, The 1830 Revolution in France (Houndsmills, U.K.: MacMillan, 1991), 108-109.
Mary Patricia Dougherty, LAmi de la religion and the Early July Monarchy A Catholic View o
Politics, Religion, and Society (Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms, 1988), 10; Michael Paul Driskel,
An Introduction to the Art, in The Art of the July Monarchy: France (1830-1848), by Robert J. Bezucha
et al. (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1990), 62.
82
majority of French people.244 Despite the relativism of the Orlanists and the legitimism
of the clergy, by the mid-1830s the two had reached an entente.245 Louis-Philippe and his
ministers came to appreciate the usefulness of religion as a force for social stability and
enacted policies favorable to the Church.246 The clergy, wanting order and authority
regardless of the system of government, reciprocated with their support of the regime.247
Godefroy himself expressed a wish for harmony with the government and the king in his
inaugural speech as cur of Bonsecours, on July 2, 1838: Je dsire vivre dans la paix le
plus profonde avec toute espce dautorit civile, et surtout avec celui qui en est lme et
le chef, et dont ladministration marque au coin de la sagesse et du plus gnreux
dvouement, est dj environn de tous mes respects.248 The clergy maintained a degree
of independence, however, because they did not want to identify themselves with the
Orlanists and to experience a repeat of the results of their alliance with the Bourbons.249
244
On the change in the status of the Church between the charter of 1814 and that of 1830 see Antonin
Debidour, Histoire des rapports de lglise et de ltat en France de 1789 1870 (Paris: Alcan, 1898),
415; John M. Allison, Church and State in the Reign of Louis-Philippe, 1830-1848 (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1916), 8-9; and Pilbeam, The 1830 Revolution in France, 104.
245
For a discussion of the Orlanists relativism see Ren Rmond, The Right Wing in France from 1815 to
De Gaulle, trans. James M. Laux (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1966), 119. On the
reconciliation of the Church and the government of Louis-Philippe see Brugerette, Le Prtre franais et la
socit contemporaine, 1: 116-117.
246
The Orlanists pragmatic approach to religion and policies favorable to the Church are discussed in
Debidour, Histoire des rapports de lglise et de ltat, 434-438; L. Baunard, Un Sicle de lglise de
France, 1800-1900, 3rd ed. (Paris: Ch. Poussielgue, 1902), 64, 70-71; Charles H. Pouthas, Lglise et les
questions religieuses sous la monarchie constitutionnelle (1814-1848) (Paris: Centre de documentation
universitaire, 1961), 280-283; Dougherty, LAmi de la religion and the Early July Monarchy, 12-13; and
Pilbeam, The 1830 Revolution in France, 118.
247
The call for Catholics to disassociate themselves from politics and to support the government that
maintained order and authority came from Montalembert. See Baunard, Un Sicle de lglise de France,
64-65; and Pouthas, Lglise et les uestions religieuses, 282.
248
249
The point that the clergy was afraid to ally itself closely with the July Monarchy is made in Brugerette,
Le Prtre franais et la socit contemporaine, 1: 120.
83
Archbishop Cro, who contributed more to the construction of the basilica than
any other clerical donor, exemplifies this transformation of church-state relations.250
Born near Cambrai in 1773, Cro belonged to the pan-European aristocracy. During the
Revolution he emigrated to Vienna, then Liechtenstein, returning only in 1819 to become
bishop of Strasbourg. Owing to his long exile, Cro spoke with a strong German accent
and thus avoided preaching in French.251 In 1821 he was promoted to the dignity of
grand-aumnier de France, in 1823 he was named archbishop of Rouen, and in 1825 was
appointed as a cardinal.252 As grand-aumnier, a role he occupied until the position was
terminated in 1830, Cro was the private chaplain of the royal family and he participated
in all official religious ceremonies. Notably, in 1824 he blessed the Chapelle expiatoire
(where Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were buried) and presided over the funeral of
Louis XVIII.253 Because of this role, Cro was closely associated with the Bourbons.254
During the July Revolution he feared violent reprisals and fled to a family chteau in
Belgium.255 Nevertheless, in 1834 Prefect Dupont-Delporte wrote to Ministre de la
250
For Cros pledges see the subscription book, pp. 1 and 3, Archives paroissiales de Bonsecours, Carton
16. For biographical information on Cro, also spelled Croy and Cro, see [Hippolyte Barbier],
Biographie du clerg contemporain, vol. 6, livraison 68 (Paris: A. Appert, 1841-44), 253-288; H. Fisquet,
La France pontificale: Mtropole de Rouen, (Paris: E. Repos, 1866), 304-312; Msgr. Baunard et al.,
Lpiscopat ranais Depuis le Concordat jus u la Sparation (1802-1905) (Paris: Librairie des saintspres, 1907), 540-542, 605; Eude, Histoire religieuse du diocse de Rouen au XIXe sicle, 59-64; Robert
Eude, Les Archevques de Rouen depuis le concordat de 1802 (Dieppe: Imprimerie dieppoise, 1954), 175184; and Jean-Pierre Chaline, Le Dix-neuvime sicle, in Le Diocse de Rouen--Le Havre, ed. NadineJosette Chaline (Paris: Beauchesne, 1976), 226-231.
251
Jean-Pierre Chaline, Le Dix-neuvime sicle, 227; [Barbier], Biographie du clerg contemporain,

284.
252
For a detailed account of this period of Cros life see Fisquet, La France pontificale, 304. On the role
of the grand-aumnier see Eude, Les Archevques de Rouen depuis le concordat de 1802, 176.
253
Fisquet, La France pontificale, 305; Eude, Les Archevques de Rouen depuis le concordat de 1802, 178.
254
On Cros attachment to the Bourbons see Jean-Pierre Chaline, Le Dix-neuvime sicle, 227.
255
This new emigration is discussed in Eude, Histoire religieuse du diocse de Rouen au XIXe sicle, 62;
84
Justice et des Cultes Jean-Charles Persil of Cros loyalty to the July Monarchy. Even
though Cro was, without doubt, le membre du haut clerg qui a le plus perdu la chute
des Bourbons: ce changement de position na point agi sur ce Prlat de manire le
ranger parmi les ennemis du gouvernement.256 Dupont-Delporte cited as documentation
the instructions of the archbishop to the clergy in his private correspondence and
published pastoral letters, which called for respect of the law, submission to government,
and the maintenance of harmony with the authorities and the populace.257 The prefects
assessment of Cro is corroborated by contemporary commentator Alphonse Ppin, who
identified the 1835 Fieschi plot to assassinate Louis-Philippe as a cause of the
reconciliation of the clergy with the July Revolution, and who credited Cro for seizing
the occasion to order the parish priests of his diocese to commemorate the eighteen
victims killed in the attack.258 In addition to the evidence of Dupont-Delporte and Ppin,
Eude, Les Archevques de Rouen depuis le concordat de 1802, 180; and Jean-Pierre Chaline, Le Dixneuvime sicle, 229.
256
Prfet de la Seine-Infrieure Henri-Jean-Pierre-Antoine Dupont-Delporte to Ministre de la Justice et des

Cultes Jean-Charles Persil, 24 May 1834, Archives nationales, F 19 2572, Dossier 2: Mgr Cro: Evque
de Rouen.
257
Prfet de la Seine-Infrieure Henri-Jean-Pierre-Antoine Dupont-Delporte to Ministre de la Justice et des

Cultes Jean-Charles Persil, 24 May 1834, Archives nationales, F 19 2572, Dossier 2: Mgr Cro: Evque
de Rouen.
258
Lanne 1835 a t marque par un grand pas, fait simultanment par le pouvoir et par la socit vers
les ides religieuses. Un horrible vnement, une tentative dassassinat contre la personne du Roi, et qui
amena la mort de plus de trente citoyens, parut tre une des causes dterminantes de la rconciliation
dfinitive du clerg avec la rvolution.
Mgr le Cardinal de Cro, Archevque de Rouen, que ses vertus prives, ses aumnes inpuisables,
et son dvouement bien connu aux intrts populaires, nont pu mettre rcemment labri des injures de
lathisme, avait compris le premier, quil fallait sassocier aux sentiments et aux vux dun peuple, qui ne
demandait qu reprendre le chemin des glises, pour aller remercier Dieu de lassistance miraculeuse quil
avait prte la France dans cette funeste journe. Mgr lArchevque de Rouen a saisi avec empressement
cette occasion de faire finir le douloureux divorce de la population et du clerg. Alphonse Ppin, tat du
catholicisme en France, 1830-1840 (Paris: Olivier-Fulgence, 1841), 371-372. In contrast to DupontDelporte and Ppin, who identified Cro as a supporter of the July Monarchy, Hippolyte Barbier called
Cro one of the French prelates who was the most impervious to the overtures of the new government.
However, Barbiers judgement was colored by his belief that the July Revolution was good for the Church
and by his condemnation of Cros tremendous wealth and frequent absence from his diocese while Grand-
85
the archbishops rapprochement with the July Monarchy may be inferred from the May 3,
1843 inauguration of the railroad linking Paris and Rouen, which was presided over by
Cro and the duc de Nemours, second son of Louis-Philippe and heir to the Orlanist
throne after the death of his older brother in 1841.259
The stained glass window paid for by the archbishop speaks of Cros close
relationship with Godefroy260 and of his encouragement of devotion to the Virgin.261 On
another level, it symbolizes the rallying to the July Monarchy of Cro and of the clergy in
general. After Cro laid the first stone of the new basilica, on May 4, 1840, he launched
the subscription drive with a gift of three thousand francs, and he later paid twenty-four
hundred francs for a double lancet window installed in the apse in 1842.262 Beneath the
first pledge in the subscription book, Cro expressed his approval of the building project:
Aumnier, and does not take into consideration the evidence of the Dupont-Delporte and Ppin primary
sources. Barbiers opinion that Cro did not rally to the regime of Louis-Philippe has been repeated by H.
Fisquet, Robert Eude, and Jean-Pierre Chaline. See [Barbier], Biographie du clerg contemporain, 263,
265, 286; Fisquet, La France pontificale, 310; Eude, Les Archevques de Rouen depuis le concordat de
1802, 182; and Jean-Pierre Chaline, Le Dix-neuvime sicle, 229.
259
260
Bouvier wrote of Godefroys affection for Cro: il lui tait dvou corps et me, il laimait comme un
bon fils aime son pre. Their intimacy was such that Godefroy was present at Cros death. Bouvier,
letter 14, 16.
261
In a pastoral letter, Cro commended the faithful of the diocese for their devotion to Mary: Au milieu
de laffaiblissement des principes religieux, de la diminution sensible de la foi chrtienne, vous avez
conserv une tendre dvotion et une vive confiance la trs-sainte Vierge; leve au fate de notre glise
Mtropolitaine, limage de la Mre de Dieu domine au loin vos villes et vos campagnes; son culte vous
plat, partout vous parez ses Autels de riches offrandes, partout ses ftes sont clbres avec honneur, son
nom chri se retrouve sans cesse sur vos lvres, dans vos peines comme dans vos joies, et vous vous faites
gloire de linvoquer, de la vnrer et de laimer comme des enfants aiment leur tendre mre. Ah! nen
doutez pas, N. T. C. F., Marie, du haut des Cieux, protge le Diocse qui lui est spcialement consacr
depuis tant de sicles. Gustave-Maximilien-Juste Cro-Solre, Mandement de S. A. Em. Monseigneur le
Cardinal Prince de Cro, Archevque de Rouen, Primat de Normandie (Rouen: Mgard, 26 November
1840), 5.
262
Godefroy describes his initial appeal to Cro and the response of the archbishop in his Cahier o jai
crit ce qui a trait lhistoire de B. S., 21, Archives paroissiales de Bonsecours, Carton 16. Godefroys
account is transcribed more legibly in Bouvier, letter 12, 2. For the date the window was installed see
Bouvier, letter 19, 5; and Sauvage, Description de lglise, 53.
86
je recommande instamment cette excellente uvre la pit des fidles, et je les verrai
avec bonheur contribuer par leurs offrandes a lever un temple en lhonneur de la trs
Sainte Vierge.263 He offered the second amount, pour autoriser de plus en plus cette
uvre de foy, et pour donner un nouveau tmoignage de pit et de confiance envers la
trs Sainte Vierge, and he dedicated it specifically to une des verrires du
sanctuaire.264 The window was produced by the Manufacture de Choisy-le-Roi using a
design by Henri Grente.265 The window paid for by Cro depicts eight bishop-saints of
Rouen from the third through to the eighth century. 266 In a separate zone below, Cro is
identified by his portrait and coat of arms as the bishop-saints successor and as the
windows donor. The remaining apse windows were the gifts of notables from the area:
Prefect Dupont-Delporte, the marquis de Belbeuf, the mayor of Bonsecours Le
Bourgeois, and the wealthy Rouen textile manufacturer Pierre Dutuit (1767-1852).267
The representation of Cro as a window donor expressed a political alliance between him
and local authorities Dupont-Delporte and Le Bourgeois, as well as deputy Victor
Grandin (1797-1849) and deputy and mayor of Rouen Henri Barbet (1789-1875)--both of
whom paid for windows in the south aisle.
263
264
265
The commission and design of the windows in general is analyzed in the section titled Decorating.
266
An inscription in the windows above Cros portrait and coat of arms reads in part: Fait Choisy H.
Grente. The bishop-saints are enclosed in mandorlas, interspersed with quatrefoils, and surrounded by a
grid background with a rinceau scroll border. They are, clockwise from the top left, Mellon, Victrice,
Prtextat, Ouen, Rmy, Hugues, Romain, and Godard. See Sauvage, Description de lglise, 53.
267
Their subjects are: the genealogy of the Virgin, holy women of the Old Testament, and saints of the
diocese of Rouen. The donors and subject matter of the apse (and aisle) windows are identified in Sauvage,
Description de lglise, 52-53; Fromentin, Notre-Dame de Bonsecours: Plerinage religieux et
artistique, 14; and [Godefroy], glise Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, 9.
87
Beyond showing support for the government of the July Monarchy, Cros
political motivation for contributing together with public officials was to demonstrate his
influence. Seeking to diminish bishops power, Louis-Philippe supervised the
embourgeoisement of the episcopate.268 While in 1789 all bishops were nobles, by 1850
only twenty-one bishops came from the aristocracy and the remaining forty-two were
middle class.269 Rather than choosing prelates for their social status, Louis-Philippe
selected candidates for the episcopate based on their administrative competence. The
bishop was no longer a dignitary; he was a civil servant.270 In the age of the bourgeoisbureaucrat bishop,271 the princely Cro paid for the apse window, and his portrait and
coat of arms within it, to identify himself with the basilicas sponsors at the highest levels
of local government. He and the other ecclesiastical donors held a range of religious and
political views. However, as a group they embodied the clerical assimilation of
pilgrimage and Marian piety that began in the 1830s. Furthermore, the ecclesiastical
donors partnership with area politicians demonstrated their wish to reconcile with the
July Monarchy and to compensate for the increasingly modest social origins of the
priesthood in general.272
268
Brugerette, Le Prtre franais et la socit contemporaine, 1: 119; Pouthas, Lglise et les uestions
religieuses, 175.
269
Dougherty, LAmi de la religion and the Early July Monarchy, 1; Gibson, A Social History of French
Catholicism, 62.
270
Baunard, Un Sicle de lglise de France, 154.
271
Pilbeam, The 1830 Revolution in France, 118.
272
On the recruitment of the July Monarchy clergy from the peasantry and artisan class see Pouthas,
Lglise et les uestions religieuses, 155; and Gibson, A Social History of French Catholicism, 68. On this
trend in Rouen see Jean-Pierre Chaline, Le Dix-neuvime sicle, 241.
88
Lay Donors and the Notables Turn towards the Church
The remaining thirty-nine personalized windows and columns (sixty percent of
the total number) were donated by lay people, including both nobles and rich bourgeois.
By the early 1840s, the conflict between these dominant groups had subsided on the
national level. Although still occasionally rivals, nobles and wealthy bourgeois were
more frequently allies, a situation reflected by their cooperative effort to build the
basilica.273 The vast majority of the noble donors were descendants of the pre-1790
noblesse, a category distinct from titrs, titled in the nineteenth-century, such as DupontDelporte, who was named a Baron de lEmpire by Napoleon in 1810, and who paid for
a window in the apse.274 Members of the Belbeuf, Biencourt, Dambray, Fitz-James,
Lachtre, Montmorency, and Mortemart families, who traced their noble origins to the
Ancien Rgime, donated windows and columns that identify them with portraits,
inscriptions, and coats of arms. In addition, the largest offering, ten thousand francs for
the altar of the Chapelle de la Sainte Vierge, was made in 1847 by Eugne-Alexandre de
Montmorency, duc de Laval (1773-1851), a scion of one of the oldest and most illustrious
noble families in France.275 His wife, Constance de Maistre (1793-1882), daughter of the
273
Tudesq presents this view of the relationship between July Monarchy nobles and bourgeois in Les
Grands notables en France, 1: 8-9.
274
An explanation of the distinction between the noblesse and the titrs is provided in Higgs, Nobles in
Nineteenth-Century France, 4. On Dupont-Delportes title see Roman dAmat, ed., Dictionnaire de
biographie franaise, vol. 12 (Paris: Letouzey et An, 1970), col. 459.
275
Godefroy went to the ducs seventeenth-century Chteau de Beaumesnil, near Bernay, in the Norman
department of Eure, to ask for his donation. The duc paid the entire amount he promised despite the
February Revolution of 1848. Bouvier tells the story in letter 17, 24-29, 32. See also Vapereau,
Dictionnaire universel des contemporains, 1244.
89
counter-revolutionary writer Joseph de Maistre, donated one thousand francs for the
tabernacle.276
Side by side with the offerings of nobles are the tributes of rich bourgeois, and of
prominent Rouen-area industrialists in particular. Pierre Dutuit, Victor Grandin, and
Henri Barbet--owners of local textile factories--donated windows that identify them with
portraits and inscriptions, but, being commoners, not with coats of arms. Dutuit,
portrayed with his deceased wife in the far south apse window, made a fortune investing
in water-powered spinning mills, but his family was never accepted in Rouen high
society because of its working-class origins.277 In contrast, Grandin and Barbet achieved
notability not only through their wealth, but through their family backgrounds and
political offices. Grandin, depicted with his family in the third south aisle window to the
west of the altar of Saint Joseph, was the son of a woolen cloth manufacturer in Elbeuf.
Before he entered politics, serving as deputy from 1839 to 1848, Grandin and his brothers
established a vast factory for spinning, dyeing, and weaving wool.278 Barbet, portrayed
with his wife and daughters in the south aisle window next to the altar of Saint Joseph,
inherited his fathers printed calico factory in Dville, a suburb northwest of Rouen (fig.
30). He was a liberal during the Bourbon Restoration and benefitted greatly from the
July Revolution, serving as mayor of Rouen from 1830 to 1847 and as deputy from 1831
to 1842 and 1844 to 1846. In the Chamber of Deputies, Barbet was preoccupied with
maintaining a stable work force and protecting the textile industry from foreign
276
277
On the Dutuit family see Jean-Pierre Chaline, Les Bourgeois de Rouen: Une lite urbaine au XIXe
sicle (Paris: Presses de la fondation nationale des sciences politiques, 1982), 110-114.
278
On Grandin see Edgar Bourloton, Gaston Cougny, and Adolphe Robert, Dictionnaire des
parlementaires franais, vol. 3 (Paris: Bourloton, 1891), 234; and Prevost and Roman dAmat, eds.,
Dictionnaire de biographie franaise, vol. 16 (Paris: Letouzey et An, 1951), col. 968.
90
competition. His remarkable social rise was assisted by his religious conversion from
Protestantism to Catholicism.279 Tudesq, who was struck by the national scale of
Barbets activity and influence, chose him as his first example of a grand notable in his
book on the ruling elite of the 1840s.280
Despite appearing next to each other in the stained glass portrait gallery, the noble
and bourgeois donors held opposing political views. On the Orlanist end of the
spectrum were men like Dupont-Delporte and Barbet, whose careers in government
coincided closely with the reign of Louis-Philippe: Dupont-Delporte was the prefect of
the Seine-Infrieure between 1830 and 1848; and Barbet was the mayor of Rouen
between 1830 and 1847. At the legitimist extreme was Charles-Emmanuel-Henri,
vicomte Dambray (1785-1868). Dambray succeeded his father as grand matre des
crmonies des ordres du roi during the Bourbon Restoration, and participated in the
1832 plot of the Duchesse de Berry to restore the throne to her son, the Bourbon
pretender.281 Even though they supported different branches of the Bourbon dynasty, the
lay donors came together to protect their shared material interests.
During the July Monarchy the ruling elite, both noble and rich bourgeois, turned
towards the Church. Religion became attractive for its social utility, as the basic Catholic
279
On Barbet see Prevost and Roman dAmat, eds., Dictionnaire de biographie franaise, vol. 5 (Paris:
Letouzey et An, 1951), col. 276-278; and Jean-Pierre Chaline, Les Bourgeois de Rouen, 106-108.
280
Tudesq refers to Barbet to explain why he chose the topic of his book. In response to the question Mais
pourquoi les grands notables?, Tudesq replies that Le cur, le notaire, le maire dun petit village sont les
notables de leur commune, de mme que le maire de Rouen Barbet, par exemple, est un notable de sa ville;
mais les premiers exercent leur influence sur quelques dizaines de familles; au contraire, le maire de
Rouen, dput, puis pair de France, grand ngociant manufacturier, membre des conseils qui reprsentent le
commerce et lindustrie, parent ou alli de riches familles en Normandie, mais aussi en Alsace et dans le
Sud-Ouest, exerce ses activits et son influence lchelle nationale. Tudesq, Les Grands notables en
France, 1: 1, 9.
281
See [Godefroy], glise Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, 11; and Roman dAmat and R. Limouzin, eds.,
Dictionnaire de biographie franaise, vol. 10 (Paris: Letouzey et An, 1965), col. 42.
91
social doctrine was that the unequal distribution of wealth was inevitable. According to
this belief, the poor should resign themselves to their suffering and the rich should
channel their compassion to performing paternalist acts of charity.282 The Churchs
teaching on social hierarchy and stability held obvious appeal for the upper levels of the
hierarchy. Faced with the creation of the industrial proletariat, and with it, the sudden
rise of modern socialism, they came to appreciate Catholicism as an instrument of social
control.283
At Bonsecours, notables demonstrated commitment to the Church and positioned
themselves on top of the social hierarchy it upheld, by paying for specific building parts
that identified them as donors. A verse of a hymn printed in 1847 entitled La Basilique
de la montagne, ou la nouvelle glise de Bonsecours evokes the disparity between
notables and working-class pilgrims, and between their donations of stained glass
windows and banners:
Tous ces vitrages magnifiques,
Donns par tes adorateurs,
O on lit, en lettres gothiques,
Leur rang, leurs titres et leur grandeur.
Ces bannires dart et dindustrie,
Donnes par lhonnte ouvrier.
Ici lame [sic] reste ravie
Et nos curs soupirent tes pieds.284
282
On the social utility of Catholicism under the July Monarchy see Paul Thureau-Dangin, Lglise et
ltat sous la monarchie de Juillet (Paris: E. Plon, 1880), 115; and Hugh Collingham, The July Monarchy:
A Political History of France, 1830-1848 (London: Longman, 1988), 304. Frank Paul Bowman discusses
the position of the episcopate on poverty and the industrial revolution in Le Christ des barricades, 17891848 (Paris: Cerf, 1987), 304-306.
283
On the response of the Church to the birth of the industrial proletariat and the rise of modern socialism
around 1840 see Thureau-Dangin, Lglise et ltat sous la monarchie de Juillet, 110-116. On the situation
in Rouen see Tudesq, Les Grands notables en France, 1: 269; Jean-Pierre Chaline, Le Dix-neuvime
sicle, 251-252, 257-258; and Jean-Pierre Chaline, Une Ville dominante bourgeoise (1800-1914),
Histoire de Rouen, ed. Michel Mollat (Toulouse: Privat, 1982), 351.
284
La Basilique de la Montagne, ou la nouvelle glise de Bonsecours, in Notre-Dame-de-Bonsecours:

Calendrier pour 1847 (n. p., [1847]).
92
The workers banners were left temporarily in the sanctuary to commemorate collective
ceremonies, while the stained glass windows were lasting components of the basilicas
decorative ensemble, with most of them identifying individual notables. The hymn refers
to the notables military rank and aristocratic titles, which they inscribed on the windows
they donated to project their authority; and it describes the worker-donor as honnte, a
word that reflects the ruling classes preoccupation with the morality of the industrial
proletariat.
Nearly three-quarters of the donors of the ground-level stained glass windows
positioned themselves at the top of the Catholic social hierarchy not only with an
inscription, but with their portrait.285 Local chtelain Belbeuf, who suggested the idea of
pictorially attaching donors to windows, claimed it was the custom of feudal lords.
According to Belbeuf, the seigneurs signaled their religious feeling by giving the
churches on their estates windows that represented them posed in prayer. Indeed, the
depiction of donors was common in religious art of the Middle Ages.286 Belbeuf revived
this medieval practice by commissioning two portraits for the double lancet window he
donated: one of himself and his son, and one of his wife and daughters. Gouache
cartoons for the portraits survive in the parish archives (fig. 31).287 Probably the work of
Caspar Gsell, the Paris-based artist of Swiss origin who designed the three central
285
There are donor portraits in twenty out of the twenty-seven windows of the apse and side aisles.
Photographs of the windows are preserved in the Archives municipales de Bonsecours, 2 M 200 9.
286
Corine Schleif, Hands that Appoint, Anoint and Ally: Late Medieval Donor Strategies for
Appropriating Approbation through Painting, Art History 16, no. 1 (March 1993): 1.
287
Plan 159, Dessins de vitraux, undated, Archives de la Paroisse de Bonsecours, Plans de Bonsecours.
93
windows of the apse installed in 1849,288 their composition is almost identical to that of
the portraits now in the basilica, except for the ornamental border and details of the
architectural background. Viewed in profile and contoured by wide black cames, the
kneeling figures are recognizable by their distinctive physiognomies and coats of arms.289
Beyond the facial features and heraldry, to leave no doubt about the windows
sponsorship, the figure of Belbeuf holds up a miniature model of the window. He and his
wife face each other in the bottom register of the two lancets installed in the privileged
place above the high altar (fig. 32). The subject of the window sections above them is the
Tree of Jesse. Its branches sprout from the sleeping figure of Jesse--who reclines across
the two lancets--and support ten mandorlas, each enclosing an Old Testament king.
Jesses and the kings descendants, Mary and the infant Christ, are depicted in the rose up
top.290 The proximity of the nineteenth-century portraits to the figures of the Old and
New Testaments connected the Belbeufs with the holy personages, and furthermore,
invited comparison between the lineage of the Virgin and the Belbeufs own genealogy.
The window suggested that the Belbeufs importance was predetermined by their noble
family origins.291 The personalized windows and columns of the marquis and other
notables called attention to two of the factors on which their dominance was based: their
288
Bouvier, letter 19, 5 and 8.
289
The Belbeuf coat of arms is dazur, au chevron dargent, accompagn en chef de deux molettes
dperon dor, et, en pointe, dune rose aussi dor tige et feuille dor. D. de. Mailhol, Godard de
Belbeuf, in Dictionnaire historique et hraldique de la noblesse franaise (1895; reprint, Hildesheim:
Georg Olms, 2001), 1: 1331. Belbeufs wife, Batrix Terray, belonged to a noble family from the
Lyonnais. The Terray coat of arms is dazur la fasce dargent charge de 5 mouchetures dhermines de
sable et accompagne de 3 croix trfles dor 2 et 1, et au chef aussi dor charg dun lion issant de
gueules. E. de Sereville and F. de Saint Simon, Terray, in Dictionnaire de la noblesse franaise (Paris:
La Socit franaise au XXe sicle, 1975), 944.
290
For more on the iconography of the window see Sauvage, Description de lglise, 52.
291
On nobles obsession with their family origins see Higgs, Nobles in Nineteenth-Century France, xv.
94
wealth and their families, indeed, their belonging to a network of families. At the same
time, the displays proposed a code of conduct to the poor. Furthermore, they suggested
that the hierarchy of French society was protected by the Church, and by Mary.
95
Decorating
As Godefroy chose the style of the church and raised the funds to build it, he
completely controlled the decoration. Although he left the day-to-day oversight of
construction to Barthlemy, he personally approved of all plans for the decoration, from
the installation of the stained glass windows in 1842, to the execution of the pulpit in
1860.292 Most of the artists who Godefroy hired were based in Paris and already
established in their careers. There were no competitions; Godefroy simply awarded the
commissions to artists introduced to him by Arthur Martin.293 Although his close
involvement often led to disputes with the artists,294 it ensured that the decoration was
completed, and that it was unified--both formally and iconographically. The extensive,
coordinated decoration, including exterior sculpture, interior mural paintings and
sculpture, stained glass windows, and liturgical furnishings, put Notre-Dame de
Bonsecours at the forefront of a national regeneration of religious art during the July
292
Tant quil ne stait agi que de mettre pierre sur pierres, il sen tait rapport entirement son habile
architecte et la conscience de ses appareilleurs, il lui tait dailleurs impossible de surveiller ces travaux
par lui-mme: il ne pouvait monter une chelle sans avoir de vertiges. Mais lorsquil fut question des
travaux intrieurs quil pouvait voir et suivre de prs il ne voulut sen rapporter qu lui-mme, tous les
plans durent lui-tre soumis comme il lavait exig pour les vitraux, se rservant le droit dy faire tels
changements quil jugerait convenable. Bouvier, letter 19, 19. Godefroy called himself the chef de
lentreprise in a letter he wrote to the directors of the Manufacture de Choisy-le-Roi, 18 May 1843.
293
Bouvier wrote of Godefroy: Il lui fallait ncessairement passer par Paris. Ctait la aussi et la
seulement, quil pourrait faire executer tous les objets dart qui devaient orner son glise: vitraux, statues,
autels, orgues, chaire et stalles & c. Bouvier, letter 17, 1. Bouvier also identified Martins role in
choosing artists. Godefroy, Bouvier wrote, was mis en rapport depuis longtemps dj par le Rd. Pre
Martin dont nous avons prcdemment parl, avec les artistes le plus capables de la capitale. Bouvier,
letter 19, 3.
294
Close living arrangements in Bonsecours only exacerbated tensions. Bouvier wrote of Godefroys
rapports, tantot trs agrables, mais le plus souvent tres difficiles avec les sculpteurs, les decorateurs, les
Peintres, les Bronziers, et les artistes de tous genres voire mme avec les simples ouvriers dont il faisait ses
hotes et qui plus dune fois ont apport le trouble parmi les familiers de la maison [sic]. Bouvier, letter 19,
1.
96
Monarchy and Second Empire.295 Furthermore, the decoration was a key aspect of the
basilicas evocation of a medieval social ideal, and it was central to Godefroys
reorientation of the pilgrimage towards the reception of the sacraments, especially the
Eucharist. The unified decoration signified that the popular devotion to Our Lady of
Bonsecours was absorbed into Catholic orthodoxy.
Exterior Sculpture
The elaborate program of figurative sculpture on the exterior of the building
connects the local cult of Our Lady of Bonsecours with the universal devotion to the
Virgin Mary, emphasizing Marys functions as a model of Catholic behavior and as a
symbol of the Church. In imitation of Gothic cathedrals, there are sculpted tympana
above the three portals of the west faade and the portals on the north and south sides of
the church (figs. 22, 33-34).296 Nine statues adorn the west faade; one that stood at the
peak of the apse is now gone (fig. 35).297 The project emerged in the context of the
obtrusive restoration of the Gothic exterior sculpture of Bourges cathedral (begun before
1836),298 the Basilica of Saint-Denis (1840),299 Amiens cathedral (commissioned in
295
Bruno Foucart, Le Renouveau de la peinture religieuse en France (1800-1860) (Paris: Arthna, 1987),
2.
296
Willibald Sauerlnder, Gothic Sculpture in France, 1140-1270, trans. Janet Sondheimer (London:
Thames and Hudson, 1972), 16.
297
In 1878, ten years after Godefroys death, a lead crest was installed along the ridge of the roof, together
with a statue of the Virgin and Child at the peak of the apse that has since been removed. Both the crest
and the statue were designed by Barthlemy and made of hammered lead by Ferdinand Marrou (18371917), the master metalworker who completed the spire of Rouen cathedral. The statue faced the main
approach to the basilica from the route de Paris. Sauvage, Description de lglise, 23.
298
299
Kevin D. Murphy, Memory and Modernity: Architectural Restoration in France, 1830-1848 (Ph.D.
diss., Northwestern University, 1992), 137.
97
1842),300 and Notre-Dame de Paris (begun in 1847);301 and it was executed at the same
time as other completely new ensembles of Gothic Revival monumental sculpture, such
as on the rebuilt west faade of the Church of Saint-Ouen in Rouen (begun in 1845),302
the restored west faade of the Sainte-Chapelle (underway in 1849 and 1850),303 and the
west faade of the new Church of Sainte-Clotilde (commissioned in 1851 and 1854).304
Godefroy managed the sculpture program in a way that reflects his background in
manufacturing. Seeking to economize, he commissioned the design and execution of the
west faade sculpture separately, hiring one accomplished artist to make models, and
other less experienced, less expensive artists to replicate them in stone. However, this
approach led to problems and delays, and Godefroy later came to regret it.305 In 1843, he
asked Jean-Bernard Duseigneur (also spelled Du Seigneur) (1808-66) to make the
models.306 Duseigneur had gained fame early on in his career as a protg of the
300
301
Alain Erlande-Brandenburg, Notre-Dame de Paris: La Restauration de la sculpture, in Viollet-le-Duc,

ed. Bruno Foucart (Paris: Runion des muses nationaux, 1980), 156-163.
302
Murphy, Restoring Rouen, 198.
303
Jean-Michel Leniaud, Flix Duban, architecte de la Sainte-Chapelle, in Flix Duban, 1798-1870: Les
Couleurs de larchitecte, ed. Sylvain Bellenger and Franoise Hamon (Paris: Gallimard, 1996), 77.
304
Georges Brunel, Sculpture de faade: Le Dcor de Sainte-Clotilde Paris, in La Sculpture du XIXe

sicle, une mmoire retrouve, by Jacques Thuillier et al. (Paris: Documentation franaise, 1986), 289-297.
305
Il navait dautres ressources que la charit des fidles, ressources par fois trs restreintes, et cependant
il ne voulait que des artistes du 1er Ordre, au moins pour les modles. Une fois en possession de ces
modles il esprait pouvoir les faire excuter par des simples praticiens quil payerait peu et quainsi il
ferait de grandes conomies. Ctait une grave erreur dont il fit plus tard son mea culpa. Bouvier, letter
19, 9.
306
Duseigneur made models for all the figurative sculpture of the west faade except the statues above the
left and right portal gables and the angels perched between these gables. Henry Martin et al., Jean du
Seigneur, statuaire, 100-103.
98
Romantic school,307 then struck out on his own to attempt to create a religious school of
sculpture.308 By the time Duseigneur accepted the Bonsecours commission, he had done
work for numerous churches in Paris, including Notre-Dame-des-Victoires, the
Madeleine, and Saint-Vincent de Paul, and had taught classes on Christian sculpture in
his Paris studio.309 He executed the Bonsecours commission from 1844 to 1847, sending
the models by train from his Paris studio,310 and three successive artists produced the
sculpture on site. Godefroy hired the last one, Charles-Claude Fontenelle (1815-66), in
June 1847.311 Fontenelle completed the central tympanum, correcting his predecessors
mistakes, and executed the side tympana and the statues above the side gables. In 1851
307
Duseigneur, the artist responsible for the models, studied at the cole des Beaux-Arts with the sculptor
Franois-Joseph Bosio, then burst onto the artistic stage with the exhibition of his Roland furieux at the
Salon of 1831. For more on Duseigneur beyond the essential article by Henry Martin et al., Jean du
Seigneur, statuaire, see Stanislas Lami, Duseigneur (Jean-Bernard), in Dictionnaire des sculpteurs de
lcole ranaise, vol. 2, bk. 6 (Nendeln: Kraus Reprint, 1970), 271-279; and Marie Busco and Peter
Fusco, Jean-Bernard Duseigneur, in The Romantics to Rodin: French Nineteenth-Century Sculpture
from North American Collections, ed. Peter Fusco and H. W. Janson (Los Angeles: Los Angeles County
Museum of Art, 1980), 249-250. The Roland furieux is reproduced in Hugh Honour, Romanticism
(London: Penguin, 1979), 141.
308
Montalembert identified Duseigneur in his 1837 De ltat actuel de lart religieux en France as among
a handful of artists then spearheading the regeneration of religious art by emulating medieval prototypes.
See Montalembert, De ltat actuel de lart religieux en France, 179-180.
309
He started the classes in 1842. Henry Martin et al., Jean du Seigneur, statuaire, 80. Duseigneur was
in Rouen regarding the commission from July 30 to August 7, 1842. He completed the central tympanum
model from May 1 to June 7, 1844 and the central lintel model from June 14 to July 20, 1844. He sent
Godefroy the model for the statue of the Virgin above the central gable on November 28, 1844; he
completed the models for the statues of the evangelists in the bell tower from January 22 to May 9, 1845;
he sent Godefroy the model for the left tympanum on February 18, 1846; and he sent him the model for the
right tympanum on September 2, 1846. He worked on the models for the archivolts between November 16,
1844 and March 1847. See the chronology in Henry Martin et al., Jean du Seigneur, statuaire, 100-103.
310
311
The transportation of the models is mentioned in Henry Martin et al., Jean du Seigneur, statuaire, 102.
Fontenelle was a student of Pierre-Jean David dAngers, and he first exhibited at the Salon of 1843.
Among his major works is the decorative pavement of the Sainte-Chapelle, which he completed sometime
between 1857 and 1863 after drawings by Louis Steinheil. On the succession of artists who executed the
faade sculpture see Bouvier, letter 19, 9-12. On Fontenelle see Stanislas Lami, Fontenelle (CharlesClaude), in Dictionnaire des sculpteurs de lcole ranaise, vol. 2, bk. 6 (Nendeln: Kraus Reprint, 1970),
379-380.
99
he signed the left tympanum and was still at work on the side-gable statues.312 As for the
tympana above the portals on the north and south sides of the church, they were executed
in Paris by Guillaume Fulconis (1818-73), the artist responsible for most of the figurative
sculpture inside the church (figs. 33-34).313 These illustrate the miraculous translation of
the Holy House of the Virgin from Nazareth to Loreto, Italy, and the Annunciation.314
High up on the west front of the church, at the base of the bell tower, a gallery of
niches contains statues of the four evangelists (fig. 22).315 Their presence signals the
Gospel origins of Mariology. Above the larger central portal gable are the Virgin and
Child, encircled by the backdrop of the rose window. Originally, Mary was bedecked
with the royal symbols of both a crown and a scepter, but the scepter has since broken
off.316 She is flanked by statues, on the side portal gables, of her father Joachim and her
husband Joseph, choices that emphasize her roles as daughter and wife, and that
correspond with the themes of the Education and Marriage of the Virgin developed in the
tympana below.317 Between the portal gables, narrow aedicules shelter angels holding
312
313
Bouvier, letter 19, 18. Fulconis signed each tympanum in the bottom right-hand corner. For his
biography see the sub-section of this chapter titled Sanctuary Sculpture and High Altar.
314
For the iconography of the exterior sculpture see [Godefroy], glise Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, 3-7;
and Sauvage, Description de lglise, 23-31.
315
Adolphe-Napolon Didron wrote of the evangelists that leffet de ces grandes figures est remarquable,
et lopinion de la ville de Rouen est unanime sur ce point essentiel. [Adolphe-Napolon Didron], Statues
nouvelles en style gothique, Rouen, Annales archologiques 3 (1845): 58.
316
317
Sauvage mentions the now missing scepter in Sauvage, Description de lglise, 26.
On the left stands Joachim, who holds a miniature, two-dimensional representation of a Gothic chapel.
This may signify a casket containing an offering, an object that is central to the apocryphal account of the
lives of Joachim and his wife Anne prior to the Immaculate Conception of their daughter Mary. Joachim
attempted to make an offering at the temple, but the gift was rejected by the high priest until after Mary was
conceived. On the right, Joseph holds the flowering staff that, according to legend, designated him as
Marys husband. See Louis Rau, Iconographie de lart chrtien, vol. 1, bk. 2 (Paris: Presses
universitaires de France, 1957), 154-161, 170-171.
100
blank banderoles across their bodies. All nine statues have compact volumes, smooth
textures, ample draperies with deep folds, and vacant facial expressions, and they draw
from common mid-thirteenth-century precedents.318
Below the statues, the left tympanum represents the Education of the Virgin,
showing the young Mary reading a book held by her mother Anne as her father Joachim
looks on (fig. 36),319 while the right tympanum depicts the marriage of Mary and Joseph
(fig. 37).320 The tympana connected Mary, and therefore the pilgrimage to Notre-Dame
de Bonsecours, to the sacraments. Marys education related to childrens catechism in
preparation for First Communion;321 her marriage related to the sacrament of marriage,
which, since the Revolution, was by law preceded by a civil ceremony.
The focus of the entire sculpture program is the central portal tympanum and
lintel.322 In the tympanum, the Virgin and Child sit on a Gothic throne, between two
angels who kneel and hold censers (fig. 38). Mary wears a crown and holds a scepter,
while Jesus clasps a globe surmounted by a cross, signifying the dominion of Christianity
over the world. This iconic image was drawn from the south tympanum of the west
318
These include the apostles from the Sainte-Chapelle (1241-48) and the Vierge dore of the south
transept portal of Amiens cathedral (ca. 1260).
319
This scene has no scriptural source and was not depicted until the fifteenth century. In 1842 it became
the subject of a painting by Eugne Delacroix titled Lducation de la Vierge La Leon de lecture. See
Rau, Iconographie de lart chrtien, 1: bk. 2, 168-169.
320
This theme, which is also apocryphal, is represented in the lower lintel of the Saint Anne portal of
Notre-Dame de Paris (ca. 1150-55 and later) and had recently become the subject of a sculptural group by
James Pradier in the chapel on the right side of the vestibule of the Church of the Madeleine in Paris (183540). See Rau, Iconographie de lart chrtien, 1: bk. 2, 170-173.
321
When he arrived in Bonsecours, Godefroy was alarmed by the ignorance of the local youth and he made
it his top priority to prepare them for First Communion. Bouvier, letter 7, 130, 142.
322
The first, third, and fifth order of the surrounding voussoirs are decorated with a foliate motif, as well as
busts of angels carved into the springers and keystones. The second order displays the apostles, and the
fourth shows Old Testament types who were interpreted as prefigurations of Mary and Jesus. [Godefroy],
glise Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, 4.
101
faade of Chartres cathedral (1145-50).323 Below in the lintel, the statue of Our Lady of
Bonsecours is displayed in a Gothic retable, framed by the contours of a church in
shallow relief, and approached on either side by a procession of pilgrims. The pilgrims
wear medieval-inspired fashions such as cloaks and tunics and many hold lit candles as
emblems of pilgrimage. Some show the trappings of their social status or profession. To
the left of the retable a woman wears a crown and a man wears a fur collar, signifying
their wealth. On the right, one man carries a model ship to identify him as a sailor, while
another holds a partly unrolled scroll so he is recognized as the architect, Barthlemy.324
Furthermore, some of the pilgrims have attributes that suggest the reason for their
pilgrimage. Nearing the retable from the left are two disabled men on crutches and a
woman in mourning who carries a funeral wreath. Approaching from the right is a
pregnant woman who clasps her hands above her belly. Didron called this une digne
inscription pour une glise ddie Marie, et qui porte le nom de Bon-Secours.325
The central tympanum and lintel are the nucleus of the exterior sculpture
program--and its communication of the absorption of the pilgrimage into Catholic
orthodoxy. The representation of Mary as queen of heaven expressed her victory,
through her virginity and her Assumption, over sin and death. After her apotheosis,
Christ himself set a crown on Marys head. Her relationship with Christ had long led
theologians to associate her with the Church. Therefore, the image of Mary as queen
proclaimed the Churchs power. Furthermore, its proximity to the depiction of a cross323
The Chartres tympanum is described and illustrated in Paul Williamson, Gothic Sculpture, 1140-1300
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), 14-15. For more examples of the subject of the Virgin and
Child enthroned see Rau, Iconographie de lart chrtien, 1: bk. 2, 93-94.
324
325
Sauvage identifies this figure as the architect in Sauvage, Description de lglise, 27.
Adolphe-Napolon Didron, Mouvement archologique en France, Annales archologiques 1

(November 1844): 238.
102
section of the French social hierarchy in the lintel legitimated that hierarchy. The
correspondence between Our Lady of Bonsecours in the lintel and the evocation of
catechism and depiction of marriage in the side tympana expressed Godefroys
reorientation of the pilgrimage towards the sacraments. Moreover, the correspondence
between Our Lady of Bonsecours and the Virgin enthroned above expressed his
reorientation of the local devotion in a more universal direction.326
Mural Paintings
Inside the church, mural paintings played a large part in unifying the decoration
and assimilating the pilgrimage to Bonsecours into a medieval social ideal, as they
recalled the effect of medieval wall paintings, which had been recently rediscovered.
Godefroy oversaw the entire commission in 1852-1853,327 Alexandre-Dominique
Denuelle (1818-79) supervised the overall polychromy, and Jean-Raimond-Hippolyte
Lazerges (1817-87) executed the figurative paintings. The paintings were inspired by
archaeological speculation about the polychromy of medieval buildings, and by the
resurgence of wall painting in Paris churches under the Bourbon Restoration and July
Monarchy.328 The controversy over the role of color in ancient architecture, sparked by
the architect Jacques-Ignace Hittorff (1792-1867) in 1827, and quickly taken up by the
pensionnaires in Rome, including Henri Labrouste (1801-75),329 also affected the
326
327
328
On the revival of mural painting see Lon Rosenthal, La Peinture monumentale, chap. 8 in Du
Romantisme au ralisme Essai sur lvolution de la peinture en France de 18 0 1848 (1914; reprint,
Paris: Macula, 1987), 298-344.
329
On the polychromy debate see David Van Zanten, The Architectural Polychromy of the 1830s (New
103
interpretation of medieval buildings. Ludovic Vitet (1802-73), who was appointed to the
position of Inspecteur gnral des monuments historiques in 1830,330 argued in an 1831
report that color was essential to the proper understanding of monuments built in the
Middle Ages. On ne comprend pas lart du Moyen Age, Vitet wrote, on se fait lide
la plus mesquine et la plus fausse de ses grandes crations darchitecture si, dans la
pense, on ne les rve pas couvertes du haut en bas de couleurs et de dorures.331 JeanPhilippe Schmit likewise discussed the importance of color in medieval architecture. In
his 1837 Les glises gothiques--which Godefroy read--he identified mural painting as a
necessary complement to the ethereal forms and religious meaning of the Gothic church.
Rien nest moins dans lesprit de lglise gothique, que laspect glacial et blessant de la
pierre nue, Schmit wrote, Il ne sympathise, ni avec le style arien de larchitecture, ni
avec le caractre symbolique mystrieux que ses inventeurs ont voulu lui donner.332
The implications for nineteenth-century church decoration were clear: easel
painting must be abandoned in favor of fresco or mural painting. Instead of hanging
canvases that break the structural lines of the architecture,333 Schmit advised, il serait
temps pour le clerg et pour ladministration de revenir franchement la peinture
applique sur le nu des murs, soit fresque, soit par les nouveaux procds quon a
York: Garland, 1977); Robin Middleton, Hittorffs Polychrome Campaign, in The Beaux-Arts and
Nineteenth-Century French Architecture, ed. Robin Middleton (London: Thames and Hudson, 1982), 175195; and Robin Middleton, Perfezione e colore: La Policromia nellarchitettura francese del XVIII e XIX
secolo, Rassegna 23, no. 3 (September 1985): 55-67.
330
On Vitet see Lon, La Vie des monuments franais, 188-193.
331
Ludovic Vitet, Les Monuments historiques du Nord-Ouest de la France, in tudes sur lhistoire de
lart. Deuxime srie. Moyen ge (Paris: M. Lvy frres, 1868), 354. Quoted in Bruno Foucart, Le
Renouveau de la peinture religieuse en France, 54.
332
333
Schmit, Les glises gothiques, 102-103.
Il ny a point darchitecture possible avec cette ridicule fantaisie qui sen vient rompre toutes les lignes,
altrer toutes les formes et donner au lieu saint laspect dun bazar. Schmit, Les glises gothiques, 121.
104
imagins pour y fixer lhuile. On se rapprocherait ainsi davantage du type primitif, et
tous les inconvniens [sic] quon vient de signaler disparatraient: cest seulement alors
quon aurait de la peinture monumentale.334 In keeping with Schmits suggestion,
Godefroy insisted: Nous ne pouvons recevoir aucunes toiles, dailleurs nulle part dans
lglise on ne trouverait un jour favorable pour faire ressortir les beauts dun tableau; la
lumire tamise par les vitraux fausserait les teintes des personnages. Lornementation
de notre glise consistera uniquement dans ses peintures murales linstar de celles de la
Ste Chapelle; de quelques fresques qui proclament les divers titres de la Ste Vierge sous
la forme danges aux ailes dploys portant chacun un attribut particulier[;] dans les
nombreuses statues polychrommes [sic] qui devront composer la garde dhonneur du
sanctuaire et des autels.335
Interest in color in ancient and medieval architecture had already had an impact
on major new churches in Paris such as Notre-Dame de Lorette, begun in 1823 by
Hippolyte Lebas (1782-1867), and Saint-Vincent de Paul, begun in 1824 by Jean-Baptiste
Lepre and completed by Hittorff from 1831 to 1844.336 Their vibrant painted
334
Schmit, Les glises gothiques, 123-124. Adolphe-Napolon Didron also observed le mauvais effet,
dans un monument religieux, de tableaux lhuile et dtachs de la muraille. Adolphe-Napolon Didron,
Introduction, Annales archologiques 1 (1844): 2.
335
336
The interior of Notre-Dame de Lorette is covered with mural decoration by twenty-three different artists
in a range of styles, from Byzantine to Baroque. Saint-Vincent de Paul contains even more elaborate
interior polychromy, executed between 1844 and 1854. It includes wax-encaustic wall paintings in the
nave and apse by Hippolyte Flandrin and Franois-Edouard Picot of 1849 to 1853. However, in contrast to
the painted decoration of Notre-Dame de Lorette, that of Saint-Vincent de Paul was conceived entirely by
the architect, Hittorff, in a unified, Byzantine idiom that reflects his attraction to Sicilian mosaics. The
decorative projects of Notre-Dame de Lorette and Saint-Vincent de Paul are compared in Driskel, An
Introduction to the Art, 63-65; and Donald David Schneider, The Works and Doctrine of Jacques Ignace
Hittorff, 1792-1867 (New York: Garland, 1977), 1: 305-307. Driskel discusses the Byzantine style of the
mural paintings at Saint-Vincent de Paul in Michael Paul Driskel, Representing Belief: Religion, Art, and
Society in Nineteenth-Century France (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992),
145-147.
105
polychromy was a marked departure from the bare stereotomy of their precedents, such
as Jean-Franois Thrse Chalgrins (1739-1811) Saint-Philippe du Roule in Paris, of
1764 to 1784, and tienne-Hippolyte Goddes (1781-1869) Saint-Pierre du Gros Caillou,
of 1822 to 1830.337 Interest in polychromy also affected church restorations in Paris,
particularly the extensive campaign of wall paintings supervised by Victor Baltard (180574).338 The first and best known of the projects he supervised was the wax-encaustic
decoration of the eleventh- and twelfth-century Church of Saint-Germain-des-Prs, begun
in 1842. Based on Baltards design, with input on the iconography from Arthur Martin
and Charles Cahier, the scheme consists of figurative paintings by Hippolyte Flandrin
surrounded by ornamental polychromy by Denuelle.339
Together with Godde and Lassus, Baltard was also involved in the restoration of
the Church of Saint-Germain-lAuxerrois, across from the east faade of the Louvre.340
In 1842, Victor Mottez (1809-97) started a series of frescos under its fifteenth-century
337
This lineage is traced in Barry Bergdoll, Lon Vaudoyer: Historicism in the Age of Industry (New York:
Architectural History Foundation, 1994), 56.
338
Baltard started the campaign in 1841 when he became the Inspecteur des ftes et des travaux dart de la
ville de Paris. He continued the task after 1848 as Architecte diocsain du dpartement de la Seine and
Architecte en chef de la premire section du Service des beaux-arts de la ville de Paris, and after 1860 as
Directeur du Service darchitecture de la ville de Paris. See the chronology of Victor Baltards career in
Pierre Pinon, Louis-Pierre et Victor Baltard (Paris: Centre des monuments nationaux, 2005), 212; and the
chapter in Pinon titled Le Restaurateur des glises de Paris, 133-153. On Baltards city-funded church
restoration projects see also Franois Loyer, Viollet-le-Duc et le dcor peint, in Viollet-le-Duc, ed. Bruno
Foucart (Paris: Runion des muses nationaux, 1980), 322; and David Van Zanten, Building Paris:
Architectural Institutions and the Transformation of the French Capital, 1830-1870 (Cambridge, U.K.:
Cambridge University Press, 1994), 269-270.
339
The bright, busy compositions in the sanctuary (1842-46), choir (1846-48), nave (1856-63) and transepts
(1864), display a complex iconography and vast decorative vocabulary that are unrestrained by the goal of
archaeological accuracy. On Flandrin and Denuelles cycle of wall paintings in Saint-Germain-des-Prs
see Bruno Horaist, Saint-Germain-des-Prs, in Hippolyte, Auguste et Paul Flandrin: Une Fraternit
picturale au XIXe sicle, by Jacques Foucart et al. (Paris: Runion des muses nationaux, 1984), 125-132;
and Pinon, Louis-Pierre et Victor Baltard, 135-136. See also the comments on the cycle in Driskel, An
Introduction, 66; and Driskel, Representing Belief, 124.
340
Leniaud, Jean-Baptiste Lassus, 57; Pinon, Louis-Pierre et Victor Baltard, 136.
106
porch. A student of Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Mottez was fascinated by true
fresco, as opposed to the more common nineteenth-century technique of wax-encaustic.
He spent five years transferring cartoons onto wet plaster, creating paintings whose
compositions and shallow picture spaces evoked Gothic portal sculpture, but whose
figures modeling and poses demonstrated Mottezs Academic training.341 Today
nothing of the paintings survives: the walls were full of saltpeter, and the porch was
exposed to rain and wind.342
The first archaeological restoration of a medieval building, and of medieval
polychromy in particular, was carried out on the Sainte-Chapelle.343 Duban began the
restoration in 1841; by 1843, the polychromy of a single bay in the upper chapel was
underway; and by 1844, one of the statues of the apostles in the upper chapel was
painted, gilded, and embellished with precious stones.344 Midnight blue, terracotta red,
and gleaming gold leaf dominate the polychromy, which harmonizes with the towering
341
Didron used strong language to criticize Mottezs paintings at Saint-Germain-lAuxerrois. The frescos,
Didron wrote, blessent la fois les convenances, le dogme religieux et la science archologique. Didron
was particularly scandalized by what he perceived as the overt sexuality of some of the figures. [AdolpheNapolon Didron], Fresques de Saint-Germain-lAuxerrois, Annales archologiques 6 (March 1847):
177-180.
342
On Mottezs work at Saint-Germain-des-Prs see Ren Giard, Les Fresques de Saint-GermainlAuxerrois, in Le Peintre Victor Motte daprs sa correspondance (1809-1897) (Lille: Ren Giard,
1934), 52-61. Giards book contains two illustrations of Mottezs frescos there. The focus of the cycle was
the tympanum above the central portal, which depicted Christ on the cross attended by the principal saints
of France. See also the concise discussion of Mottez at Saint-Germain-des-Prs in Bruno Foucart, Le
Renouveau de la peinture religieuse en France, 59-60.
343
In contrast to the municipally administered decoration of Saint-Germain-des-Prs, the restoration of the

Sainte-Chapelle was under the control of the national Conseil des btiments civils. The Sainte-Chapelle
was the responsibility of the Conseil des btiments civils, and not the Administration des cultes, because it
was attached to the Palais de justice. Leniaud, Un Monument du XIXe sicle, 19.
344
See the timeline in Leniaud, Flix Duban, architecte de la Sainte-Chapelle, 76-77.
107
expanse of stained glass windows in the chapel and differentiates between the
architectural members.345
The restoration of the Sainte-Chapelle was an important influence for the interior
polychromy of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, as Godefroy himself had said. Except for the
marble ex-voto plaques installed on the walls of the side aisles beginning in the 1850s,
every interior surface of the basilica is painted (fig. 23).346 To oversee the execution of
the paintings, Godefroy hired Denuelle, with whom he was put in contact by Arthur
Martin.347 Denuelle worked primarily on the interior decoration of churches, notably
Saint-Germain-des-Prs and Sainte-Clotilde in Paris, and Questels Saint-Paul in Nmes
(in 1848-49),348 and he acquired first-hand knowledge of medieval mural decoration: in
1845 he was responsible for providing the government with drawings of medieval wall
paintings in churches and civil buildings all over France.349 For the Bonsecours
345
Duban based the color scheme on several sources of archaeological evidence: scattered fragments of
existing polychromy, the Saint Louis Psalter (probably from between 1254 and 1270), and perhaps also
Charles Perciers colored sketches of the wall paintings before their destruction in 1802. Leniaud, Flix
Duban, architecte de la Sainte-Chapelle, 73-75.
346
There are 2,100 ex-voto plaques covering the walls, the side-chapel floors, and various steps. For a
thorough examination see David Bellamy, Un Tmoignage de la pit normande: Les Ex-voto de NotreDame-de-Bonsecours, tudes normandes 2 (1988): 65-78.
347
348
Denuelle studied painting with Paul Delaroche and architecture with Duban. For his biography see
Vapereau, Dictionnaire universel des contemporains, 515; Bauchal, Nouveau dictionnaire biographique,
639; and Olivier Liardet, Denuelle, Alexandre Dominique, in Allgemeines Knstler-Lexikon (K. G. Saur:
Munich, 2000), 186-188. Denuelles collaboration with Flandrin is discussed in the essays on SaintGermain-des-Prs and Saint-Paul in Nmes in Jacques Foucart et al., Hippolyte, Auguste et Paul Flandrin:
Une Fraternit picturale au XIXe sicle (Paris: Runion des muses nationaux, 1984), 95-105 and 125153. This book also reproduces several watercolor sketches by Denuelle.
349
[Adolphe-Napolon Didron], Peintures murales de la France, Annales archologiques 3 (September

1845): 195-196. The article is vague about Denuelles official capacity.
108
commission of 1852-1853, Denuelle sent teams of workers from Paris to prepare the
walls with a wax foundation, transfer patterns, and apply layers of paint and gilt.350
Although the nineteenth-century discourse on wall painting emphasized fresco,
wax-encaustic was a much more common technique. It was used at Bonsecours, as well
as in the Sainte-Chapelle.351 Reconciling the vogue for mural painting with the
advantages of oil painting, wax-encaustic can be corrected, and is brighter than fresco.352
The color scheme of the wall paintings in Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, restored in 1977
and 1978, consists of azure blue, red ochre, sea green, and extensive gilding, a spectrum
similar to that in the Sainte-Chapelle.353 Blue causes the surfaces of the column shafts,
spandrels, and vaults to appear to recede, while red, green, and gold accentuate projecting
forms such as colonettes, capitals, moldings, and ribs. Architectural members are also
differentiated by a variety of gilded geometric and vegetal motifs. The palettes of both
Notre-Dame de Bonsecours and the Sainte-Chapelle were conceived to coordinate with
polychromed figurative sculpture and stained glass windows. In each church, continuity
between the colors of the walls and windows integrates the planes of stone and glass and
unifies the interior space.
350
351
Leniaud, Un Monument du XIXe sicle, 38.
352
Bruno Foucart, Le Renouveau de la peinture religieuse en France, 59-61.
353
Red ochre and sea green are my descriptions based on the current state of the polychromy. Azur
is Godefroys word for the color of the column shafts: les nervures et les culs de lampe des voutes, les
colonnettes du triforium, les meneaux de fentres entirement dors offrent lil la richesse dun prcieux
mtal. Le ft des grosses colonnes qui soutiennent ldifice est couvert dun semis dor qui se dtache sur
un fond dazur. Les colonnettes qui les entourent chacune dune nuance particulire, sont enrichies dans
toute leur hauteur darabesques en or sagement combins; lor qui couvert le feuillage des chapiteaux est
habilement dcoup par quelques filets verts qui donnent plus deffet cette vgtation dj si splendide et
si varie. [Godefroy], Eglise de Notre-Dame de Bon-Secours. Article deuxime, undated, Archives
paroissiales de Bonsecours, Carton 16. Much of this manuscript, which Sauvage attributes to Godefroy, is
transcribed and edited in Sauvages Description de lglise. See Sauvage, Description de lglise, 36.
109
The figurative paintings at Notre-Dame de Bonsecours consist of thirty-six angels
in the arcade spandrels, each holding a banderole inscribed with a versicle of the litany of
the Virgin in one hand, and a corresponding emblem in the other (fig. 39).354 Godefroy
awarded the commission to Paris-based artist Jean-Raimond-Hippolyte Lazerges, known
for his paintings of religious subjects, who completed the job in two months.355 The
angels have elongated proportions and billowing draperies, and are flattened by
overlapping patches of gold and a regular pattern of gold crosses applied to the
background, which gives them an ethereal, other-worldly appearance. They reflect the
influence of the French strain of Pre-Raphaelitism, a movement promoted by AlexisFranois Rios 1836 book De la posie chrtienne dans sa matire et dans ses formes and
by Montalemberts commentary on it published a year later, titled De la peinture
chrtienne en Italie. Intent on regenerating Christian art, Rio and Montalembert
encouraged artists to emulate Italian painting of the trecento and early Renaissance,
especially the frescos of Fra Angelico.356
Despite the theory and recent examples of architectural polychromy, the wall
paintings at Notre-Dame de Bonsecours were controversial. Alexandre Fromentin
thought the colors could be too bright in broad daylight, but in the half-light of the church
354
On the iconography of the angels see [Godefroy], Eglise de Notre-Dame de Bon-Secours. Article
deuxime, undated, Archives paroissiales de Bonsecours, Carton 16. Transcribed in Sauvage,
Description de lglise, 35-41.
355
On the commission see Bouvier, letter 19, 24. For Lazergess biography see Vapereau, Dictionnaire
universel des contemporains, 1047. He was a student of the sculptor David dAngers and the painter
Franois Bouchot.
356
Driskel, Representing Belief, 64-68. On Rios De la posie chrtienne see Mary Camille Bowe,
Franois Rio: Sa Place dans le renouveau catholique en Europe (1797-1874) (Paris: Boivin, 1938), 106114.
110
interior, they took on a mystical character.357 A group of archaeologists who toured the
basilica in 1859 thought that les enluminures de lintrieur ont quelque chose de dur et
de cr qui frappe dsagrablement la vue, and they hoped that they would fade with
time.358 Sauvage confirmed in 1891 that this was a common first impression,359 but he
added that with time, the paintings had become less shocking: whether because they
were later unified by gilding, because the public became used to seeing bright-colored
wall paintings, or because the colors had simply faded with age.360 Although it was
controversial, the polychromy was essential to integrating the decorative program-focused on the sanctuary--and to conjuring an ideal Middle Ages.
Sanctuary Sculpture and High Altar

It is appropriate for the sanctuary to be the focus of the decorative program, as it
is the focus of the liturgy. Godefroy gave the sanctuary particular emphasis to draw
attention to the Eucharist, away from the statue of Our Lady of Bonsecours in the side
chapel, and away from the secular celebrations outside the church. Elevated above the
choir by three steps, the sanctuary contains a gilded bronze altar and an elaborately
sculpted and polychromed dado, completed by 1859 (figs. 32, 40-41).361 The forms and
colors of the sanctuary are in harmony with those of the decoration as a whole, but are
357
Fromentin, Notre-Dame de Bonsecours: Plerinage religieux et artistique, 8.
358
Thaurin and Robert dEstaintot, Compte rendu des sances (Caen: A. Hardel, 1860). Quoted in Abb
Andr Four, Bonsecours: La Basilique et son matre-autel, ce quen pensait la Socit franaise
darchologie en 1859. . .[sic], Bulletin de la Commission dpartementale des antiquits de la SeineMaritime 31 (1976-77): 209.
359
360
361
Both the altar and dado were completed by 1859 when Godefroy published his Description du grand
autel et du sanctuaire de Notre-Dame de Bonsecours.
111
richer and more intricate.362 The dado is made up of fifteen niches of varied dimensions
that are framed by clusters of engaged colonettes and surmounted by pointed arches and
high-pitched gables. It is decorated with the same blues, reds, and greens as the nave, but
the ratio of gilding to paint is much higher there.
The theme of the sanctuary sculpture is the theological relationship between the
crucifixion of Christ and the Eucharist. Each of the dado niches contains a statue or
group of sculpted figures by the Provenal sculptor Guillaume Fulconis (1818-73). After
working in Algeria from 1835 until 1851, then moving to Paris,363 Fulconis came to
Bonsecours to sculpt over one hundred and thirty statues for the dado, high altar, and
altars of the Chapelle de la Sainte Vierge and Chapelle de Saint Joseph, a commission he
completed in four years.364 As has been seen, he also sculpted the tympana above the
portals on the north and south sides of the church. On the right side of the dado are Old
Testament types who prefigure the sacrifice of Calvary (fig. 40).365 On the left, Jesus
hangs on the cross between Mary and John the Evangelist (fig. 41). The crucifixion
scene is flanked by two penitents, Saints Mary Magdalene and Francis of Assisi (hidden
362
Godefroy himself commented on the dado arches: Elles sont dcores de peintures qui rehaussent
lclat du sanctuaire, et en font la partie la plus apparente de ldifice par ses ornements, comme elle est la
plus noble par sa destination. [Godefroy], glise Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, 7.
363
Fulconis trained at the cole des Beaux-Arts in Avignon. On Fulconis see Jean Gavot, Un Artiste
sculpteur du comt de Nice un peu oubli: Guillaume Fulconis, Nice historique (1974): 120-123; and
Andr Pierre Fulconis, Louis Guillaume Fulconis, 1818-187 Statuaire. Une vie damiti (Provence,
Algrie, Normandie, Paris) (Saint-Martin de Castillon: Andr Pierre Fulconis, 2005). I have been unable
to find out what the dado statues are made of. Andr Pierre Fulconis does not identify the material.
364
Godefroy, Description du grand autel, 21. For Bouviers account of how Godefroy and Fulconis met
through a mutual acquaintance see Bouvier, letter 19, 12-15.
365
The Old Testament types are, from left to right: Moses (hidden behind the altar), two priests, Aaron,
Abraham, Melchizedek, Noah, and Abel. For the complete iconographical program of the dado see
Godefroy, Description du grand autel, 14-23.
112
behind the altar), and accompanied on the left by four Doctors of the Church who upheld
the status of the Holy Communion.366
The centerpiece of the sanctuary is the altar, designed by Barthlemy according to
Martins instructions (fig. 32). Fulconis finished plaster models for the statues of the
base of the altar in September 1853, the completed altar was displayed at the 1858
Exposition de Rouen, and it was inaugurated in May 1860.367 Its sarcophagus-like base
and retable are each faced with a row of niches: those of the base enclose statuettes of
Jesus and the twelve apostles, and those of the retable hold reliquaries and figurines of
angels. Although Godefroy insured the altar for the impressive sum of two hundred
thousand francs,368 he used new and cost-saving materials and techniques for the altar, as
well as the marble pavement inlaid with quick-drying colored pastes, reflecting his
experience in business.369 The altar incorporates mirrors lining the reliquary niches,
colored glass, imitation enamel, and silver-plated candelabra, and it was produced in a
single casting.370 Because of this, the group of archaeologists who visited Bonsecours in
1859 condemned the altar in their report as a crude simulation of thirteenth-century
metalwork. They also likened the statuettes in mirror-lined niches in the altar to
366
They are: Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome, and Gregory the Great.
367
Fulconis executed the altar in an outbuilding of the Maison diocsaine. Bouvier, letter 19, 17;
Godefroy, Description du grand autel, 3; Sauvage, Description de lglise, 80; Four, Bonsecours, 210
n. 2.
368
Godefroy, Description du grand autel, 3.
369
The decorative pavement of the sanctuary and choir was designed by Arthur Martin and executed in
1860 or 1861. Its composition consists of floral arabesques and medallions containing symbolic devices.
See Sauvage, Description de lglise, 70-73. Marble with paste inlay was also used by Fontenelle for the
pavement of the Sainte-Chapelle. See Leniaud, Un Monument du XIXe sicle, 46.
370
Thaurin and dEstaintot, Compte rendu des sances. Quoted in Four, Bonsecours, 210.
113
automatons displayed at holiday carnivals on the plateau above Rouen.371 This is telling,
as Godefroy had put an end to Bonsecours fte patronale, celebrated on the plateau
above Rouen, because its disorderly vendors, games, fireworks, and dancing were
repugnant to him.372 Godefroy made the altar flashy and dazzling in order to attract
pilgrims away from the statue of Our Lady of Bonsecours and from secular amusements,
towards the reception of the Eucharist. The archaeologists criticism is indicative of
modern anxiety about the mixing of religion, new technology, and commerce.373
Stained Glass Windows

The stained glass windows belonged to the resurgence of the medium of stained
glass and they contributed to the evocation of an ideal Middle Ages in the basilica. The
two windows at the far left and right of the apse are by Henri Grente (1814-49); the
remaining windows in the main body of the church are the work of Caspar Gsell (18141904) and Arthur Martin.374 Their installation began in 1842 with the five lancets of the
apse and continued until 1849 and possibly later.375 The resurgence of stained glass had
begun in the late 1820s with the opening of major French glass workshops: the
371
On pourrait cependant tolrer ces statuettes, si lauteur du plan de lautel navait pas eu la singulire
ide de tapisser ses niches reliquaires avec de petites glaces qui font ressembler ces arcades au plateau
suprieur de certaines vielles [sic] organises sur lesquelles un plus ou moins grand nombre de petites
figures mcaniques se livrent divers exercices. Thaurin and dEstaintot, Compte rendu des sances.
Quoted in Four, Bonsecours, 210.
372
373
As shall be seen in chapter 2, unease about religious debasement would also inform attacks on the
Basilica of the Immacule-Conception in Lourdes.
374
There are forty-eight stained glass windows in the main body of the church: twenty double lancets and
roses on each side (ten in the aisle and ten in the clerestory), five in the apse, two small roses over the side
altars, and a large rose above the central portal of the faade. Additional grisaille pattern windows decorate
the sacristy.
375
114
Manufacture de Choisy-le-Roi, south of Paris, founded around 1826 by Georges
Bontemps, and the Manufacture royale de Svres, founded in 1828 by Alexandre
Brongniart (1770-1847).376 Bontemps rediscovered the formula for red glass and
Brongniart experimented with the use of enamel.377 Important early examples of the
revived medium include windows in the Parisian churches of Sainte-lisabeth (1826) and
Notre-Dame de Lorette (1829), the restoration of the glazing of the Basilica of SaintDenis (1833-35), and the so-called Vitrail de la Passion in the axial chapel of the Church
of Saint-Germain-lAuxerrois in Paris (1839), which was based on a panel of the still
unrestored glass of the Sainte-Chapelle (work on the windows there began in 1847).378
Soon after, the complete program of medieval revival stained glass was installed at
Bonsecours.
All forty-eight windows in the main body of the church were executed by
Bontemps Manufacture de Choisy-le-Roi.379 At first, Godefroy gave the window
commission to Henri Grente, who was then the best-known glass artist there.380 In 1844
Grente set up his own studio and went on to become one of the most celebrated glass
artists of his generation, restoring and creating new windows in both France and
376
Chantal Bouchon et al., Enqute sur les peintres-verriers du XIXe sicle ayant travaill en France,
Revue de lart, no. 72 (1986): 90.
377
This consists of brightly colored ground glass fused onto the window surface. Chantal Bouchon and
Catherine Brisac, Le Vitrail, in Ces glises du dix-neuvime sicle, ed. Nadine-Josette Chaline (Amiens:
Encrage, 1993), 216.
378
The Vitrail de la Passion was a joint effort of Lassus and Didron. See Jean-Baptiste Lassus, Peinture
sur verre, Annales archologiques 1 (1844): 17-18; Virginia Chieffo Raguin, Revivals, Revivalists, and
Architectural Stained Glass, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 49, no. 3 (September
1990): 314; and Leniaud, Flix Duban, architecte de la Sainte-Chapelle, 77.
379
380
Grente had already made cartoons for windows in the Church of Saint-Michel in Dijon (1840) and the
Church of Les Authieux-Port Saint-Ouen in the Seine-Maritime (1841). Bouvier, letter 19, 3.
115
England.381 At Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, Grente installed five windows in the apse in
November and December 1842. However, Godefroy was unhappy with them, and he
commissioned replacements for the three center lancets, which were installed in 1849.382
Thus, of the windows designed by Grente, only the two flanking lancets of the apse
remain.383 To replace the center lancets, Godefroy hired Gsell, then a less known glass
artist at Bontemps.384 Gsell worked for Godefroy from 1844, and possibly earlier, until
after the 1848 closure of the Choisy studio, designing a total of forty windows.385 He was
aided by Arthur Martin, who drew the non-figural ornamentation for the aisle windows
and the rose of the west faade.386 Unsigned sketches preserved in the parish archives
attest to Martins assistance. With their combination of foliage and abstract geometric
patterns in vivid contrasting colors, these drawings for the foils of the roses above the
aisle lancets, including one for the easternmost window in the north aisle, resemble
381
Grente restored windows in the Cathedral of Saint-Jean in Lyon (1846) and the Basilica of Saint-Denis
(1848-1849). He executed windows in the Chapelle funraire of the Chteau du Plessis near Bouquelon
(1845), designed by Barthlemy; in the Church of Saint-Germain-des-Prs (1846); and at Ely Cathedral
(1848). Grente won the prestigious 1847 competition to restore the windows of the Sainte-Chapelle
(Arthur Martin was on the jury), but died of cholera in 1849 before he could start work. The best sources
on Grente are The Late M. Grente, The Ecclesiologist 10 (1849): 97-101; and F. Gatouillat, Grente,
Henri, in Allgemeines nstlerle i on, vol. 52 (Munich: K. G. Saur, 2006), 91-92. See also Raguin,
Revivals, Revivalists, and Architectural Stained Glass, 315-316. The jurys choice of Grente for the
restoration of the Sainte-Chapelle windows is announced in [Adolphe-Napolon Didron], Varits,
Annales archologiques 8 (January 1848), 56.
382
383
Inscriptions above the donor portraits in the lower panels identify the windows as made at Choisy by
Grente. The axial window was returned to its donor, the marquis de Belbeuf, who installed it in his family
chapel, on his estate. In 1875, the two others were given to a church in Falaise. See Bouvier, letter 19, 5.
384
Gsell was a Swiss-born student of Paul Delaroche and Ingres. See Gsell, Caspar (Johann Julius C.), in
Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildenden Knstler, ed. Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker, vol. 15 (Leipzig: W.
Engelmann, 1922), 158.
385
Bouvier, letter 19, 7. Gsell displayed windows for Notre-Dame de Bonsecours at the 1844 Exposition
de lindustrie. Jean-Baptiste Lassus, Exposition de lindustrie: Peinture sur verre, Annales
archologiques 1 (1844): 44.
386
116
Martins drawings of stained glass windows in his 1841-1844 Monographie de la
cathdrale de Bourges (figs. 42-43).
In designing the windows, Grente, Gsell, and Martin created unity by using the
same basic composition in the lancets of the aisles and apse, of a decorative border
surrounding a column of shapes, containing one or more figures (fig. 30). The overall
color scheme of intense blues, reds, and greens with gold and white accents further
unifies the windows and integrates them with the mural paintings. At the same time, the
glass artists created variety by using colors in varying proportions and configuring the
decorative motifs differently in each window.
Moreover, the glass artists gave the windows iconography that is far-reaching and
complex. The figures in the apse represent the Tree of Jesse, saints of the diocese of
Rouen, Old Testament holy women, and female saints. The north aisle contains scenes
from the Old Testament and the life of the Virgin, while the south aisle narrates the life of
Jesus from his birth to his ascension.387 The Stations of the Cross are also interspersed
with the aisle vignettes, eliminating the need for their depiction in easel paintings.388 In
contrast to these busy compositions viewed at relatively close range, the clerestory
lancets have larger, single figures visible from a distance: on the north side are the
apostles and the evangelists, on the south side are the prophets.389 The lower, most
visible panes of all of the lancets display the names, coats of arms, and portraits of their
donors.
387
[Godefroy], glise Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, 9, 15.
388
Bruno Foucart, Le Renouveau de la peinture religieuse en France, 62.
389
117
Beyond the variety in the windows ornament, color, and iconography, there are
noticeable differences between the figures sketched by Grente and Gsell. Grente made
his figures larger (there are four in his apse windows compared to six in Gsells), and he
drew his figures in a more convincing medieval idiom, with angular facial features, stiff
poses, and gestures that are easy to read but unnatural. He suspended them on tiny
plinths, denying their three-dimensionality, and dematerialized their bodies with copious
draperies. Conversely, Gsell gave his figures classical proportions and modeling (fig.
30). He softly shaded their faces, musculature, and draperies with tonal washes, and he
placed them for the most part on shallow stages framed by landscape and architectural
elements.
From the beginning, Godefroy had a clear vision for the windows. He wrote to
Bontemps in May 1842 to specify the style he wanted: Tout en gardant le style du 13e
sicle je tiendrais a ce quon imitat [sic] ce quil y a de plus doux en ce genre et de plus
gracieux en dessin, au lieu de suivre le genre rude qui se rapproche du bizantin [sic].390
After the apse windows were set in place, Godefroy met with Grente to discuss his
progress on the remaining windows. Frustrated by Grentes reluctance to accept his
instructions, the priest wrote to Bontemps to complain. Not only did Grente disagree
with his guidelines for the composition, but, Godefroy wrote,
Il tient absolument imiter dans les sujets, le genre de dessein [sic] quon
rencontre dans la plupart des vitraux du XIII sicle, les poses forces, peu
naturelles, tout en convenant quil pourrait dessiner mieux sil le voulait,
mais quil persiste dans son sentiment, parce quil le croit plus selon lart;
quil voudrait bien contenter les ecclsiastiques, mais quil tient plus
plaire aux antiquaires, en ce que sa rputation dartiste est attache leur
approbation ou leur dsaveu. Jai combattu, mais en vain cette
rsolution. Jai eu beau soutenir quen conservant le style du XIII sicle
ses gracieux ornements et son symbolisme on pouvait et on devait dessiner
390
Godefroy to Georges Bontemps, 3 May 1842. Quoted in Bouvier, letter 19, 4.
118
plus purement et plus gracieusement quon ne le faisait alors; que ces
figures grimaantes, ces bras casss, ces jambes torses, ces membres
raides ntaient pas des beauts, quau moment de lexcution de ces
vitraux les artistes faisaient de leur mieux, et que sils avaient pu mieux
faire certainement ils leussent fait, que le dessin ne doit pas rester dans
lenfance. Jai apport lappui de ce sentiment celui de Pre Martin, du
pre Cahier, de M. Barthlemy, qui est semblable au mien, je ny ai rien
gagn.391
Godefroy fired Grente because he did not accept his control of the project, and, as has
been seen, he replaced him with Gsell, who agreed to submit colored drawings of the
windows to his approval prior to their execution.392
This switch flew in the face of the authoritative opinion of the Annales
archologiques, which celebrated Grente and disapproved of Gsells windows at
Bonsecours. Godefroy forthrightly accused Grente of seeking to please antiquarians
more than ecclesiastics, and indeed, Grentes work appealed strongly to Didron, a leader
of the movement to revive the study of medieval art and architecture. In the first volume
of his journal, Didron offered high praise for another window designed by Grente,
installed in the Church of Notre-Dame de la Couture in Le Mans in 1843. He called the
window la plus remarquable fentre quon ait excute jamais, basing his assessment
particularly on its accurate imitation of late twelfth-century and early thirteenth-century
examples.393 Elsewhere in the initial volume of the Annales, the architect Lassus sharply
criticized one of Gsells windows for Bonsecours, then on display at the 1844 Exposition
de lindustrie. He described it as afflicted by a manie du perfectionnement and
391
Godefroy to the directors of the Manufacture de Choisy-le-Roi, 18 May 1843. Quoted in Bouvier, letter
19, 6.
392
393
An illustration of the window is reproduced with the article. See Adolphe-Napolon Didron, Peinture
sur verre: Vitrail de la Vierge, Annales archologiques 1 (1844): 83. Grente owned fragments of
medieval glass and used them for inspiration. See Raguin, Revivals, Revivalists, and Architectural
Stained Glass, 316.
119
continued to write that Les figures sont courtes et lourdes; le geste est insignifiant, et
lexpression manque compltement [sic] de cet accent indispensable pour faire deviner
lintention. Les sujets ne remplissent pas suffisamment les mdaillons, et lon y cherche
en vain lquivalent du style qui caractrise les anciens vitraux.394
Godefroy interpreted the modern regeneration of medieval stained glass
differently from Didron and Lassus. Didron insisted that pour faire des vitraux
rellement remarquables, il faut sattacher reproduire scrupuleusement les verrires du
moyen ge;395 and Lassus condemned those who copied the compositions of medieval
windows, but replaced the figures with des espces dimages colories avec force
indications de rotules, malloles et clavicules acadmiques.396 In contrast, Godefroy
wanted to integrate thirteenth-century ornament and symbolism with nineteenth-century
draughtsmanship, and he switched artists to accomplish this. The result was that the
windows harmonized with the overall decoration and architecture and contributed to the
evocation of a medieval ideal, but did not offend Godefroys taste for figures with
classical proportions and modeling.
Liturgical Furnishings
A complete program of elaborate, Gothic-style liturgical furnishings further
contributed to the evocation of a nineteenth-century medieval ideal, and it solidified
Godefroys association of the pilgrimage with the sacraments. Despite employing scores
of artists and specialized craftsmen for the furnishings, Godefroy ensured their formal
394
Lassus, Exposition de lindustrie, 44.
395
Didron, Peinture sur verre, 83.
396
Lassus, Exposition de lindustrie, 41.
120
consistency by collaborating with Barthlemy on initial sketches.397 Both Godefroy and
Barthlemy approached the design of the liturgical furnishings, as of the building itself,
by directly observing medieval buildings.398 Godefroy also drew inspiration from the
Gothic-style choir stalls of Amiens cathedral (begun 1508) and Notre-Dame de Paris
(1715-1717), as well as from pulpits he had seen in Belgium.399
The idea of basing the design of the liturgical furnishings on medieval models
was informed by Didron and the Annales archologiques, as well as by other recently
produced furnishings. Didron intended the Annales as a forum for advice on how to
build, decorate, and furnish modern churches. To this end, he published descriptions and
illustrations of medieval liturgical furnishings that could accommodate modern religious
practices.400 By the 1850s, when Godefroy started to commission Gothic Revival
liturgical furnishings for the basilica, there were already numerous precedents for this
practice. Some examples include: the reliquary built for Amiens cathedral in 1838 by
Louis (1807-1874) and Aim Duthoit (1805-1869);401 the organ designed for the Basilica
397
Regarding Godefroy and his collaboration on the liturgical furnishings with Barthlemy, Martin, and
others, Bouvier wrote: Partout il prenait des croquis, son habile architecte M. Barthlemy faisait de
mme. Mais ce qui plaisait lun tait souvent rejet par lautre. De l des hsitations et des lenteurs sans
fin. M. Godefroy prenait avis de tous ceux quil croyait capables de lui en donner. Il consultait menuisiers,
sculpteurs, peintres mme, mais nacceptait que ce qui lui plaisait. En dernier ressort, tant quil reut
ctait au R. P. Martin quil allait communiquer ses ides. Ce savant religieux lcoutait avec bont
rectifiait ce qui lui paraissait dfectueux et aprs de longues discussions finissait par lui donner un croquis
rsumant peu prs ses ides. Je dis peu prs, car lorsquil communiquait ce croquis M. Barthlemy, il
y faisait encore apporter des changements. Bouvier, letter 19, 32.
398
399
Pour les plans de ces meubles il voulut procder comme il avait fait pour le plan de son glise; aller
sinspirer dans les monuments les plus renomms pour la beaut de leur ameublement; cest ainsi quil
visita plusieurs cathdrales de France entre autres celle de Paris et dAmiens pour les stalles et pour la
chaire toutes les grandes glises de Belgique. Bouvier, letter 19, 32.
400
Adolphe-Napolon Didron, Ameublement et dcoration des glises, Annales archologiques 4 (1846):
1.
401
Jean-Michel Leniaud, Viollet-le-Duc et le mobilier religieux, in Viollet-le-Duc, ed. Bruno Foucart
121
of Saint-Denis by Franois Debret (1777-1850) and installed in 1841; the choir stalls put
in place in Saint-Germain-des-Prs by Baltard as part of his restoration campaign begun
in 1842;402 and the reliquary that Arthur Martin designed for Saint-Denis in 1844.403
The first of Godefroys commissions for liturgical furnishings was for the side
altars at the east ends of the aisles. In 1847 Godefroy had plans for the altar of the
Chapelle de la Sainte Vierge;404 and in 1853 a metalworker billed Godefroy for the
tabernacle of that altar.405 With the exception of the eighteenth-century statue of Our
Lady of Bonsecours, the statues of both side altars were sculpted by Fulconis by the late
1850s.406 The side altars are similar in design, but the altar dedicated to the Virgin is
more luxuriously embellished with enamel, filigree work, and gems (figs. 44-45).
Neither is as rich as the high altar, which Godefroy decorated with rows of reliquaries
and statuettes to make it the focus of the pilgrimage. Each side altar consists of a base
and a hexagonal tabernacle, like the high altar, with a retable made up of five gabled
niches, much like the niches of the sanctuary dado. The statues of the Virgin and Child
and Saint Joseph with Jesus as a boy are flanked by vases of sculpted flowers, and by
statues of angels whose slender proportions and banderoles relate them to the angels of
the spandrels and the west faade. The retables are painted with the same palette used
(Paris: Runion des muses nationaux, 1980), 262.
402
Hautecur, Histoire de larchitecture classi ue en France, 6: 328.
403
Leniaud, Viollet-le-Duc et le mobilier religieux, 262.
404
405
406
It was in the late 1850s that Fulconis left Bonsecours for Paris. Reconnaissant, envers M. Godefroy,
qui lavait tir de la gne en mme temps que de lombre[,] il ne voulut quitter Bonsecours quaprs lentier
achvement des cent trente et quelques figures qui devaient dcorer le sanctuaire[,] le matre-autel[,] ainsi
que les chapelles de la Ste Vierge et de St Joseph. Aprs ce travail il alla setablir Paris ou son talent le
placa bientt au premier rang des artistes chretiens [sic]. Bouvier, letter 19, 18.
122
throughout the church, but, like the sanctuary dado, they are more extensively gilded than
the walls and columns of the aisles and nave. The integration of the Chapelle de la Sainte
Vierge into the overall decoration of the church signals the integration of the devotion to
Our Lady of Bonsecours into accepted Catholic practice. Also, the similarity of the
chapels of Mary and Joseph gives equal value to the cults of Jesus parents. Furthermore,
the muted quality of the ornament of the side altars compared to that of the high altar
signals the subordination of both cults to the central mystery of the Eucharist.
Following the side altars, Godefroys next projects were the organ,407 gilded
wooden organ case, and oak choir stalls, the latter two completed by the Paris-based
cabinetmaker Kreyenbielt (fig. 46).408 The canopied tracery screen behind the choir stalls
acts as a transparent barrier between the two easternmost bays of the nave and the aisles,
narrowing sight lines from the nave to the sanctuary, and creating intimate, darkened
spaces in the chapels, suitable for prayer (fig. 44). The last and perhaps the most
complicated of the liturgical furnishings that Godefroy commissioned was the pulpit,
which was under way in 1860 (fig. 47).409 It was complicated, because both its design
and execution involved multiple collaborators. Based on sketches by Martin,
Barthlemy, and Godefroy, the plan was drawn by Kreyenbielt, then retouched by
407
The most renowned and prolific French organ-builder of the nineteenth century, the Parisian Aristide
Cavaill-Coll (1811-99), made the instrument itself, inaugurated in 1857. See Sauvage, Description de
lglise, 106-107. Cavaill-Coll built the organ for the Abbey Church of Saint-Denis between 1834 and
1841. See Nadine-Josette Chaline, Dcor et mobilier, in Ces glises du dix-neuvime sicle, ed. NadineJosette Chaline (Amiens: Encrage, 1993), 163-164.
408
The choir stalls were begun by the Rouen cabinetmaker Leroy, who was also responsible for the
cabinetry in the sacristy. See Bouvier, letter 19, 1, 30-32, 36; Sauvage, Description de lglise, 70; and
the list of Leroys principal works in Cochet, Les glises de larrondissement du Havre, 1: xx.
409
123
Barthlemy.410 The finished pulpit is an assemblage of Fulconis statues and figural basreliefs, Lavoies decorative sculpture, and Kreyenbielts cabinetry.411 It consists of a
casket resting on a central post and reached by two curving staircases, a tracery screen
rising from the aisle side of the casket, and a conical, three-tiered canopy supported by
the screen.412 Godefroy did not complete the church furnishings, but after he died in
1868, his successor mile Milliard (1830-98) continued to outfit the church in a similar
manner, adding holy water stoups with sculpted, painted reliefs (figs. 48-49),413 four
confessionals (fig. 50),414 and a baptismal font (fig. 51). With squat proportions, and a
stubby, spirally fluted column at the base of its bowl, the font is an exception to the
overall formal and iconographic unity of the decoration.415
410
411
Bouvier, letter 19, 36. Fulconis carved the pulpit statuary in his Paris studio. Bouvier, letter 19, 18.
412
The panels between the balusters of the casket are carved with bas-reliefs of New Testament scenes of
preaching and conversion, while those of the stairs are chiseled with vegetal motifs. Below the casket are
four nearly life-sized seated figures representing four French Doctors of the Church--Saints Irenaeus,
Thomas Aquinas, Bernard, and Hilary. Bouvier, letter 19, 36-38.
413
In 1872, Fulconis sculpted painted reliefs above the marble holy water stoups, representing two of the
central, non-scriptural tenets of Mariology pertaining to the birth and death of the Virgin. The subject of
the relief on the north side of the portal is the proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception by
Pope Pius IX in 1854. The pontiff stands before the papal throne (the cathedra) and is accompanied by a
crowd of miter-wearing clerics. Cardinal Henri-Marie-Gaston de Bonnechose, the archbishop of Rouen
from 1858 to 1883, kneels on his right and Godefroy kneels on his left. This is the only portrait of
Godefroy that I know of. The relief on the south side is the death and bodily Assumption of the Virgin.
Prelates had petitioned for the Assumption to be proclaimed a dogma since 1849, but it was not declared an
article of faith until 1950. See Sauvage, Description de lglise, 43-44; and Marina Warner, Alone of All
Her Sex: The Myth and the Cult of the Virgin Mary (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1976), 92.
414
In 1875, Kreyenbielt began the four wooden confessionals, helped by Guillaume Fulconis son Victor
(1851-1913). Victor Fulconis sculpted the statuettes placed in front of the pilasters on either side of the
three compartments. See Stanislas Lami, Fulconis (Louis-Pierre-Victor), in Dictionnaire des sculpteurs
de lcole rancaise, vol. 2, bk. 6 (Nendeln: Kraus Reprint, 1970), 431-432. Charles Cahier, co-author of
the Monographie de la cathdrale de Bourges with Arthur Martin (who died in 1856), chose the penitencethemed iconography. See Sauvage, Description de lglise, 102-106.
415
In 1886, Archbishop Thomas blessed the baptismal font, a lavish hexagonal receptacle costing thirty
thousand francs. It consists of a white marble bowl and pedestal sculpted by Edmond Bonet, and a
repouss copper cover by Ferdinand Marrou. The cover is decorated with reliefs depicting significant
baptisms. When removed, it is suspended from an adjacent support. On Edmond Bonet and the prominent
124
Through the decoration, Godefroy evoked the thirteenth-century social order
pined for by July Monarchy notables. By reviving medieval art forms using modern
techniques, he competed for pilgrims attention with secular distractions. Through the
decoration, Godefroy also conveyed the attitude of the Church towards the veneration of
Mary and Our Lady of Bonsecours in particular. The iconography communicated the
message that the Virgin was not an autonomous figure; rather, the pilgrimage devotion
belonged to a comprehensive belief system. In the exterior sculpture, Mary is shown as
part of an exemplary family; in the wall paintings, angels invoke her many attributes; in
the dado sculpture, she is a witness to the crucifixion in a larger program about the
Eucharist; in the windows she is the critical genealogical link between the Old Testament
patriarchs and her son, Jesus; and in the side altars, the statue of Our Lady of Bonsecours
which embodied the Virgin is paired with a statue of her husband, Joseph. The
integration of the iconography was reinforced by the repetition of formal motifs inside
and out, such as gables, aedicules, angels with banderoles, and double lancets and roses,
as well as by the color scheme throughout the interior of blue, red, green, and gold. The
clear message of the iconographically and formally unified decoration was that the
purpose of the pilgrimage was not only to ask for the intervention of the Virgin: it was to
participate in the liturgy and to receive the sacraments.
Rouen sculpture studio founded by his uncle, Jean-Baptiste-Edmond Bonet, see Nadine-Josette Chaline,
Dcor et mobilier, 155. On Ferdinand Marrou see Renaud Benot-Cattin and Hlne Verdier, Ferdinand
Marrou: Ferronier, Itinraires du patrimoine, no. 6 (Rouen: Service rgional de lInventaire gnral de
Haute-Normandie, Direction rgionale des Affaires culturelles, 1991). On the baptismal font and the
iconography of the font cover see Sauvage, Description de lglise, 94-97.
125
Conclusion: The Afterlife of the Pilgrimage Site
Godefroys initiative to build the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours paid off.
The new church was a success as an artistic enterprise and as a site of pilgrimage. In
1845 Adolphe-Napolon Didrons Annales archologiques praised it as le plus
magnifique prospectus que nous puissions donner pour pous[s]er la construction des
glises en style ogival and le plus beau en ce genre qui se soit encore fait, nonseulement en France, mais en Allemagne, en Belgique et mme en Angleterre.416 The
influence of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours on Gothic Revival construction is attested to by
Matthieu-Prosper Moreys Church of Saint-Epvre in Nancy (1864-79), with its triangular
faade and thirteenth-century vocabulary--particularly its flying buttresses. Indeed, the
resemblance of Saint-Epvre to Notre-Dame de Bonsecours is so close that a rival
architect in Nancy posthumously accused Morey of plagiarizing Notre-Dame de
Bonsecours.417 However, the exuberance, unity, and completeness of Notre-Dame de
Bonsecours is not matched by Saint-Epvre, nor by better-known Gothic Revival churches
such as Saint-Nicolas in Nantes (1844-52) and Sainte-Clotilde in Paris (1847-57), with
their multiple architects.
Devotion to Our Lady of Bonsecours increased exponentially after the
construction of the new church. While the old church attracted several thousand
Catholics at a time, the new church drew crowds of up to forty thousand.418 An 1865
history of devotion to the Virgin referred to Notre-Dame de Bonsecours as le grand
416
[Adolphe-Napolon Didron], Statues nouvelles en style gothique, Rouen, Annales archologiques 3

(1845): 59.
417
The claim was made in Lopold Gigout, La Vrit sur la reconstruction de la basilique Saint-Epvre
(Nancy: R. Vagner, 1891). See Hubert Elie, Un Architecte nancien: Prosper Morey (1805-1886)
(Nancy: Georges Thomas, 1964), 64-65.
418
126
plerinage du diocse;419 and an 1890 compendium of Marian pilgrimage shrines called
it le principal plerinage de la ville et du diocse.420 In the 1870s, Notre-Dame de
Bonsecours was among the destinations of pilgrimages listed in the widely circulated
Almanach du plerin.421 The rise of pilgrimage to Bonsecours was spurred in part by the
new building and in part by the same conditions that led to the growth of pilgrimage
throughout France.
Following the construction of the new church, the 1849 cholera epidemic was the
first calamity to stimulate pilgrimage to Bonsecours. Individual families came to ask the
Virgin for an end to the outbreak, then whole communities arrived by train and by boat:
Campagnes, gros bourgs, villes loignes arrivaient en masse qui a pied, qui en
char[r]ettes, les uns par les voies ferres les autres par les navires qui sillonnent la Seine,
Bouvier recalled.422 On June 11, 1849, Archbishop Louis-Marie-Edmond Blanquart de
Bailleul convened all of Rouens parishes to join in a procession from Rouen cathedral to
Notre-Dame de Bonsecours.423 Twenty or twenty-five thousand people participated, the
equivalent to one-fifth or one-quarter of the population of Rouen.424
419
Hamon, LHistoire du culte de la Sainte Vierge, 5: 19.
420
Drochon, Plerinages franais de la Trs Sainte Vierge, 129.
421
The Almanach du plerin was launched in 1875. Often, over a million copies were published. NotreDame de Bonsecours is listed in the 1875, 1876, and 1878 editions. The Bibliothque nationale does not
have a copy of the 1877 edition. On the Almanach du plerin see Claude Bellanger et al., eds., Histoire
gnrale de la presse franaise, vol. 3 (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1972), 550.
422
423
Louis-Marie-Edmond Blanquart de Bailleul, Mandement de Monseigneur larchev ue de Rouen,

primat de Normandie, ordonnant des prires publiques, en son diocse, pour la cession du cholra-morbus
(Rouen: Mgard, 8 June 1849), 6:
Art. 7. Nous convoquons pour lundi prochain, 11, toutes les paroisses de notre ville de Rouen,
ainsi que notre grand sminaire, et les autres ecclsiastiques de la ville, leffet daller processionellement
en lglise de Bonsecours, et dy conjurer la trs-sainte Vierge davoir piti de son peuple, et de nous
dlivrer ou prserver, par sa puissante intercession, des maux qui nous affligent ou qui nous menacent.
La Procession partira de la Cathdrale cinq heures trs-prcises du matin.
127
The Franco-Prussian War and Paris Commune also spurred the pilgrimage. On
August 25, 1870, with French defeat to the Prussian army imminent, Archbishop HenriMarie-Gaston de Bonnechose led a crowd of more than thirty thousand Catholics from all
of Rouens parishes up the mont Thuringe.425 During the years before and after 1870,
Bonnechose presided over pilgrimages to Bonsecours of groups from Amiens and Evreux
as well as Rouen; four hundred masses were celebrated annually in the basilica by
visiting priests; and no fewer than fifty thousand Catholics came to the basilica on Easter
Monday.426 In 1880, Notre-Dame de Bonsecours was the last stop on the Plerinage
national des diocses de Cambrai, Arras et Paris whose other major destinations were
Chartres, Auray, Pontmain, Mont Saint-Michel, and La Dlivrande.427 The pilgrims
traveled by train to Rouen and by chartered bus from there to Bonsecours.428
After the expansion of the pilgrimage in the 1870s and 1880s, the site was
transformed by the addition of a funicular, a guinguette or dance hall, and a monument to
Joan of Arc (figs. 52-53). The funicular, built in 1891 and 1892, connected Eauplet, at
the bottom of the mont Thuringe, with the rest of Bonsecours, at the top. Passengers
424
Prudent writes that twenty thousand people participated. Eude writes that the number was twenty-five
thousand. See Prudent, Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, 89; and Eude, Les Archevques de Rouen depuis le
concordat de 1802, 194-195. From the 1840s to the 1870s, the number of the citys inhabitants hovered
steadily around one hundred thousand. See the population graph in Jean-Pierre Chaline, Transformations
urbaines et mutations conomiques, 320.
425
This pilgrimage is recorded in Faits divers, cho de Fourvire, 10 September 1870, 395. The French
army surrendered on September 2, 1870.
426
Loth, Notice historique, 42.
427
Comit diocsain des plerinages, Plerinage national des diocses de Cambrai, Arras et Paris sous le
patronage de S. G. Mgr Lv ue dArras, oulogne & St-Omer et sous la prsidence de M. la Graux,
Vicaire-Gnral Notre-Dame de Chartres, Sainte-Anne dAuray, Notre-Dame de Pontmain, le Mont
Saint-Michel, Notre-Dame de la Dlivrande et Notre-Dame de Bon-Secours Rouen: Du 16 au 24 Aot
1880 (Arras: Socit du Pas-de-Calais, 1880).
428
Comit diocsain des plerinages, Plerinage national, 24.
128
from Rouen reached the lower station by boat or train; the upper station was just one
hundred meters from the basilica. Both stations were designed to resemble Swiss
chalets.429 Seeking to attract customers to ride the cable car to the top of the escarpment,
the owners of the funicular built the guinguette in 1893. Known as Le Casino, it
operated as a dance hall, restaurant, and games room until the 1930s.430 From 1890 to
1892, the Monument de Jeanne dArc was also erected at the edge of the plateau, in front
of the basilica (figs. 54-55). Archbishop Lon-Benot-Charles Thomas (archibishop of
Rouen from 1884 to 1894) initiated the project to commemorate Joan in the city where
she was burned at the stake; and he financed it with subscriptions pledged throughout the
diocese.431 It was designed by the architect Juste Lisch (1828-1910), whose major
commissions included the train station in Le Havre (1882, destroyed) and the
reconstruction of the Gare Saint-Lazare in Paris (1885-89).432 The monument consists of
two parts: a rusticated base embedded in the crest of the escarpment, invisible from the
basilica; and the platform above it on which were placed three Renaissance baldachins
enclosing statues facing the valley. Inside the base, a small chapel dedicated to NotreDame-des-Soldats is accessed by a single door from a terrace excavated from the hill side
(figs. 56-57).433 The chapel evoked the memory of tous les soldats morts avec Jeanne
429
The funicular ran until 1915. In the end it was unable to compete with the tram service begun in 1899.
The stations have since been destroyed. On the funicular see Philippe, Bonsecours, 144, 160-164.
430
On the Casino see Philippe, Bonsecours, 144-147. The town of Bonsecours purchased the Casino in
1964 and subsequently restored it to serve as a banquet and exhibition hall. It was destroyed by arson in
January 2006.
431
Information on the Monument de Jeanne dArc may be found in Abb Sauvage, Le Monument de
Jeanne dArc onsecours (Rouen: Cagniard, 1892); and Msgr Prudent, Le Monument de Jeanne dArc
Bonsecours, Architecture et la construction dans lOuest, May 1931, 25-30.
432
On Lisch see Middleton and Watkin, Neoclassical and Nineteenth-Century Architecture, 410.
433
The chapel, now disused, is described in Sauvage, Le Monument de Jeanne dArc onsecours, 138-
129
dArc et depuis elle, au service du pays.434 Its walls were to be covered with marble
plaques inscribed with the names of some of the donors for the monument.435 The stone
statues on the platform above represent Joan in the center with Saints Margaret and
Catherine on either side. On the dome above Joan, a gilded bronze statue of Saint
Michael stands poised to impale the dragon at his feet.436
The Funiculaire de Bonsecours, the Casino, and the Monument de Jeanne dArc
changed the way in which visitors experienced the basilica and the space around it. The
funicular made it quicker and easier for pilgrims to ascend the mont Thuringe, thereby
modernizing the pilgrimage. The guinguette and the lookout platform presented new
opportunities for secular leisure activities that competed with the religious rituals
performed inside the basilica and outside on the parvis. Furthermore, the monument to
Joan of Arc reshaped the symbolic meaning of the site. Across from the Gothic Revival
church that signified a Christian social and political Utopia set in an ideal Middle Ages,
the monument to the fifteenth-century heroine stood for a particularly Catholic brand of
nationalism. Joans renown grew in the nineteenth century as an offshoot of the
rediscovery of the Middle Ages. It reached a climax after the military defeat of 1871,
140.
434
Les Ftes du 0 juin 1892 Rouen Les Noces dargent piscopales de Monseigneur lArchev ue,
linauguration du Monument de Jeanne dArc, onsecours (Rouen: Cagniard, [1892]), 68.
435
436
Sauvage, Le Monument de Jeanne dArc onsecours, 139.
Louis-Ernest Barrias displayed the marble statue of Jeanne dArc prisonnire at the Salon of 1892.
Saint Michael was sculpted by Gabriel-Jules Thomas, Margaret is the work of the young sculptor Ppin,
and another young sculptor named Verlet carved the statue of Catherine. The sheep that rest on the
balustrade on the upper platform overlooking the Seine were carved by one of the brothers Georges and
Joseph-Antoine Gardet, both of whom were sculptors. It was probably Georges, because he was renowned
for his sculptures of animals. See Stanislas Lami, Barrias (Louis-Ernest), in Dictionnaire des sculpteurs
de lcole ranaise, vol. 2, bk. 6 (Nendeln: Kraus Reprint, 1970), 53-61; and the analysis of Jeanne dArc
prisonnire in Marie Busco and Peter Fusco, Louis-Ernest Barrias, in The Romantics to Rodin: French
Nineteenth-Century Sculpture from North American Collections, ed. Peter Fusco and H. W. Janson (Los
Angeles: Los Angeles County Museums of Art, 1980), 115-121.
130
when the pucelle was embraced by both Catholics and republicans as a consoling figure
of patriotic sacrifice and resistance to foreign domination. In the monument, the statue of
Joan imprisoned symbolized the state of the nation following the debacle of the FrancoPrussian War and Paris Commune, as well as the loss of Lorraine, Joans native province,
annexed with Alsace by Germany. But Joans memory was not a bridge to reconciliation
between Catholics and republicans: rather, it was a flashpoint of conflict. While
republicans stressed Joans humble origins, her condemnation by the Church, and her
abandonment by the king, Catholics emphasized the divine inspiration for her mission
and her Christian virtue. They compared her death at the stake with the crucifixion of
Christ.437 In keeping with the Catholic interpretation of the legacy of Joan of Arc, the
monument insisted on the religious motivation for Joans heroism, displaying her statue
amid the saints who gave her guidance and comfort. Moreover, the domed baldachins,
with their rich vocabulary of Renaissance ornamentation including cartouches, rinceau
scrolls, and putti, associated Joan with Rome and the process of canonization underway
since 1869. She was not declared a saint until 1920.
Like the Franco-Prussian War, the First World War provided another incentive for
the pilgrimage. On September 8, 1914, Archbishop Edmond-Frdric Fuzet and Rouen
Catholics promised to go on a pilgrimage to Notre-Dame de Bonsecours every year for
twenty consecutive years if their city was protected against German invasion. As Rouen
was still spared in 1915, Fuzet led the first pilgrimage. After his death later that year, his
successors fulfilled the vow. Just the number of pilgrims who traveled to Bonsecours on
437
On the contested memory of Joan of Arc in nineteenth-century France see Marina Warner, Saint or
Patriot? chap. 13 in Joan of Arc: The Image of Female Heroism (New York: Knopf, 1981), 255-275; and
Michael Winock, Jeanne DArc, in Les Lieux de mmoire, ed. Pierre Nora, vol. 3, bk. 3 (Paris:
Gallimard, 1992), 675-733.
131
the tram service for the 1915 plerinage du Vu totaled around twenty-three
thousand.438 Thus the pilgrimage to Bonsecours surged at the same times that pilgrimage
surged nationally: in response to disease and famine in the late 1840s and early 1850s, in
response to the Franco-Prussian War and Paris Commune, and in response to the First
World War.
However, the basilica failed in one basic way: it was not large enough to contain
the masses of people who gathered for major ceremonies, even though Godefroy had
complained that the small size of the old church forced pilgrims to assemble for mass in
the cemetery, and his goal had been to build a new church, qui ft plus en rapport avec
la saintet du lieu et laffluence des plerins.439 Already during the mass on June 11,
1849, the clergy completely filled the basilica, so the lay people gathered outside.
Archbishop Blanquart de Bailleul celebrated the mass inside at the high altar, while a
priest stood on the top step in front of the church and relayed what was going on. To
receive communion, lay people entered the church by one door and exited by another.440
On August 25, 1870 the problem of accommodating pilgrims during the mass was
handled differently. An altar was set up outside, in front of the main portal, so the
crowds could hear and see the spectacle of the ritual (fig. 58). The perron functioned as a
dais and the basilica faade served as a retable. Later on, the Monument de Jeanne dArc
was used in a similar manner (fig. 59).441 Nevertheless, despite the limitation of the size
of the basilica, Godefroy was able to clericalize, and to politicize, the pilgrimage to
438
Prudent, Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, 93.
439
440
441
For example, the Monument de Jeanne dArc was used as a stage for the 1915 plerinage du Vu.
See Prudent, Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, 94.
132
Bonsecours. Through his selection of the Gothic style, recognition of donors, and formal
and iconographical choices for the decoration, he turned the devotion towards the
sacraments, and he aligned it with Catholic social teaching on authority and hierarchy--at
a time when these principles were under siege.
133
Chapter 2: The Basilica of the Immacule-Conception in Lourdes (1862-72)
Introduction
The most visited Catholic pilgrimage site after Rome,1 Lourdes is the prime
example of the extent to which priests expanded and reshaped pilgrimage in the
nineteenth century--and how church construction contributed to the process. Dominating
the grotto where in 1858 Bernadette Soubirous saw an apparition of the Virgin Mary, the
Basilica of the Immacule-Conception was built from 1862 until 1872 on the orders of
the bishop, Msgr. Laurence (1790-1870), according to plans by the architect Hippolyte
Durand (1801-81 or 82).2 The church was essential to the clericalization of the
pilgrimage, by which the clergy fostered the cult with themselves in control. Priests used
the church to turn the pilgrimage away from practices they deemed superstitious, towards
the celebration of the mass and reception of sacraments. They used it to promote the
pilgrimage as an outgrowth of a tradition of Marian devotion in the Pyrenees, and as
evidence in support of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, recently promulgated
by Pope Pius IX. In addition, the church was essential to the modernization of the
pilgrimage. Clericalization was a modernizing force that structured the pilgrimage with a
powerful bureaucracy. Building the church directly on top of the grotto, and surrounding
it with ramps and open areas for priest-led processions and ceremonies, enabled priests to
institutionalize the pilgrimage. Moreover, the church was part of the clergys promotion
of the pilgrimage in a manner that combined the evocation of medieval religious
Michel Chadefaud, Lourdes: Un Plerinage, une ville (Aix-en-Provence: Edisud, 1981), 11.
Although the architect spelled his name Duran, the spelling Durand is preferred here because it is
used in most of the published sources about him.
134
traditions with modern means of commercialization.3 In their publicity for the shrine,
priests associated the pilgrimage to Lourdes with an ideal of pilgrimage in the Middle
Ages, at the same time that they attracted pilgrims using modern marketing techniques.
The choice of the Gothic style for the church reinforced the link between Lourdes and an
ideal of medieval pilgrimage, and Durands design also embodied his innovative ideas on
building churches cheaply and efficiently, in keeping with modern methods of mass
production. Furthermore, erecting the Basilica of the Immacule-Conception was the
first major step in the transformation of Massabieille--where the grotto is located--from a
wild, isolated spot, to the focus of a modern pilgrimage complex.
The extraordinary story of the development of the pilgrimage begins with a
remarkably humble protagonist, an illiterate and desperately poor fourteen year-old girl
named Bernadette Soubirous (1844-79).4 The setting is also humble: the town of
Lourdes, which had a population of 4,146 in 1841,5 was a stopping place for travelers to
the Pyrenees, but unlike other neighboring centers, it had no spa of its own.6 Instead,
marble and slate quarries were the major employers. Since 1853, Lourdes had suffered
from food shortages that led to famine and illness. Cholera killed thirty-eight people
France (Aldershot, U.K.: Ashgate, 2003), 148, 151.
4
This synopsis is based in part on the first written account of Bernadettes early visions, the February 21,
1858 report of the Lourdes police commissioner, Jean Dominique Jacomet, which is transcribed in R.
Laurentin, Lourdes: Dossier des documents authentiques, 2nd ed., vol. 1 (Paris: P. Lethielleux, 1957), no.
3, p. 160-165. It also draws from the excellent overviews of the apparitions in Sandra L. Zimdars-Swartz,
Encountering Mary: From La Salette to Medjugorje (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991), 43-57;
and Ruth Harris, Lourdes: Body and Spirit in the Secular Age (London: Penguin, 1999), 3-9.
5
Jos Cubero, Des Lumires la Seconde Rpublique, in Histoire de Lourdes, ed. Stphane Baumont
(Toulouse: Privat, 1993), 140.
6
Harris, Lourdes, 25.
135
there in 1855 and Bernadette herself was struck by the disease.7 On February 11, 1858,
Bernadettes mother sent her and two other girls to gather bones that could be sold for the
production of black pigment. Returning to town from their errand along the river, the
Gave de Pau, Bernadette became separated from her companions. There in a grotto at the
base of the outcrop of rock known as Massabieille, she saw a girl dressed all in white
who she later called aquer, meaning that one in the local dialect. This was the first
of eighteen apparitions that Bernadette reported between then and July 16, in which the
girl gave her specific instructions and revealed her identity. On February 25, aquer
directed Bernadette to uncover and drink from a hidden spring by the grotto. On March
2, she gave Bernadette a mission that was crucial for the emergence of the shrine: to go
to tell the priests to build a chapel there and to come in procession. And on March 25,
she said who she was: Que soy era Immaculado Councepciou, meaning I am the
Immaculate Conception in the local dialect. These words were critical to the clergys
eventual embrace of Bernadettes account.
The development of a pilgrimage based on reports of apparitions was not without
nineteenth-century precedents. Bernadettes claims were preceded by reports of two
apparitions with broad appeal: those of Catherine Labour on the rue du Bac in Paris
(1830), and those of Mlanie Calvat and Maximin Giraud at La Salette (1846). However,
neither generated a pilgrimage with the success of Lourdes. Catherine had a vision of
Mary, who instructed her to strike a medal with the image of what she saw. The resulting
cult of the miraculous medal attracted a mass following beginning in the early 1830s, but
Cubero, Des Lumires la Seconde Rpublique, 143.
136
there was no place at which it was centered.8 Catherine kept her identity secret for most
of her life, delaying the transformation of her convent into a shrine. The situation of
Mlanie and Maximin was different. Soon after the peasants claimed that the Virgin had
appeared to them where they herded cattle in the foothills of the Alps south of Grenoble,
La Salette drew fifty thousand pilgrims annually.9 In a pattern that would be emulated at
Lourdes, the bishop of Grenoble approved the devotion to Our Lady of La Salette in
1851,10 and from 1852 to 1861 he erected a Romanesque-style basilica near the site of the
apparition, designed by the architect Jean-Maurice Alfred Berruyer (1819-1901).11 The
visionaries message of penance and apocalyptic warning resonated strongly with
Catholics suffering from the crop failure and economic depression of the late 1840s. But
despite the appeal of the visionaries message--spread throughout the country by cheaply
printed pamphlets--12 and despite clerical endorsement and construction on the site, La
Salette never took off like Lourdes. The message of Mlanie and Maximin was too
Victor Turner and Edith Turner, Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture: Anthropological
Perspectives (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978), 212-213. See also the discussion of the
miraculous medal apparitions in chapter 1, Deciding to Build.
9
Michael R. Marrus, Cultures on the Move: Pilgrims and Pilgrimages in Nineteenth-Century France,
Stanford French Review 1, no. 2 (1977): 215.
10
Hilda Graef, Mary: A History of Doctrine and Devotion (Westminster: Christian Classics, 1965), pt. 2,
102.
11
On this basilica see Jean-Michel Leniaud, La Basilique de La Salette: LAchat du terrain, la

construction, lrection de la chapelle en basilique mineure, in La Rvolution des signes LArt lglise
(1830-1930) (Paris: Cerf, 2007), 191-213.
12
Thomas A. Kselman, Miracles and Prophesies in Nineteenth-Century France (New Brunswick, NJ:
Rutgers University Press, 1983), 63.
137
heterodox, the visionaries themselves were of questionable integrity,13 and most of all,
the hamlet of La Salette was too isolated, far from the nearest railroad.14
Soon after Bernadette reported the apparitions, Lourdes surpassed La Salette as a
national pilgrimage center and became the first modern pilgrimage center in France.15
The shrines success can be attributed to a range of factors. At the core of the appeal of
the devotion to Our Lady of Lourdes was the visionary herself. From the start,
Bernadette projected simplicity, honesty, and piety. Then in the 1860s, Bernadette
became the first saint to be photographed in her lifetime. Her image was disseminated in
photographs that portrayed her as an idealized peasant in an exotic Pyrenean setting.
These appealed to a public taste for the local traditions of rural areas.16 Beyond the
attraction of Bernadette, miraculous cures were central to the success of the Lourdes
shrine. Although there was nothing in Bernadettes account of her visions regarding
cures, soon after she discovered a spring in the grotto on February 25, 1858, local people
began attributing miraculous recoveries to the water that flowed there.17 Belief in the
healing property of the grotto spring belonged to a long-standing Pyrenean tradition of
curative sources.18 It was boosted in April 1858 by lay workers ad hoc installation of a
channel, taps, and a basin for collecting the water. Belief in the possibility of cures was
13
Turner and Turner, Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture, 222-227.
14
Kselman, Miracles and Prophesies in Nineteenth-Century France, 179; Suzanne K. Kaufman,

Consuming Visions: Mass Culture and the Lourdes Shrine (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005),
25.
15
For comparisons of La Salette and Lourdes see Kselman, Miracles and Prophesies in Nineteenth-Century
France, 178-179; and Kaufman, Consuming Visions, 25-26.
16
Thrse Taylor, Images of Sanctity: Photography of Saint Bernadette of Lourdes and Saint Thrse of
Lisieux, Nineteenth-Century Contexts 27, no. 3 (September 2005): 271; Harris, Lourdes, 145-150.
17
Zimdars-Swartz, Encountering Mary, 50; Harris, Lourdes, 79.
18
Kaufman, Consuming Visions, 98.
138
further encouraged by clerical initiatives such as: shifting the focus of healing rituals to
the Eucharist, organizing dedicated pilgrimages of the sick, and constructing a medical
bureau and baths.19 Priests in charge of the pilgrimage also publicized the relevance of
the cures to modern life, highlighting their effectiveness against new diseases and
contemporary social problems.20 However, there were other factors besides Bernadettes
charisma and the cures that made Lourdes a shrine that attracted crowds from throughout
the country and beyond, and that drew Catholics away from traditional local
pilgrimages.21
The incomparable success of Lourdes was the result of Church authorities
legitimation of the devotion at the grotto and their promotion of the cult in a modern
manner. At first the Church showed reserve towards the devotion that emerged
spontaneously. However, in 1862 Bishop Laurence actively encouraged the cult with a
pastoral letter that acclaimed the authenticity of the apparitions and promised the
construction of a church on the site, in keeping with Bernadettes message. In 1866, the
bishop appointed the missionaries of Notre-Dame de Garaison, also known as the
Garaison Fathers, as resident administrators of the shrine. Then from 1873 on, the Parisbased Augustinian Fathers of the Assumption, also known as the Assumptionists,
organized diocesan and national pilgrimages to Lourdes. These priests used the Basilica
of the Immacule-Conception and the facilities around it to institutionalize the devotion.
19
Kselman, Miracles and Prophesies in Nineteenth-Century France, 48-49; Zimdars-Swartz, Encountering

Mary, 58-59; Kaufman, Consuming Visions, 95-99.
20
21
Marrus, Cultures on the Move, 219-220; Ralph Gibson, A Social History of French Catholicism, 17891914 (London: Routledge, 1989), 150-151.
139
The Church also used the modern technologies of the railroad and the popular
press to attract a mass following to the shrine. Lourdes was connected to the rail system
in 1866 and the following year, Church authorities rented the first train chartered
exclusively for collective pilgrimage.22 In 1873, the Assumptionists organized the first
national pilgrimage to Lourdes. Central to their effort was the train they rented that July
to bring pilgrims from Paris to Lourdes with stops at the tomb of Saint Martin in Tours
and the birthplace of Saint Vincent de Paul in Buglose (Landes).23 Pilgrims were
attracted by package rail tours, fare discounts, and train cars designed for the sick.24 A
decade later, in 1883, 236 special trains transported 113,000 pilgrims to Lourdes.25
The events of Lourdes were widely advertised by Catholic periodicals. Chief
among them were the Parisian newspaper LUnivers, edited by the virulently
ultramontane Louis Veuillot, and the Assumptionists La Croix and Le Plerin. La Croix
was a national Catholic daily, while Le Plerin was the weekly newsletter of the Conseil
gnral des plerinages, a body that the Assumptionists created. Furthermore, the
Garaison Fathers published their own periodicals: the monthly Annales de Notre-Dame
de Lourdes, created in 1868, and the Journal de Lourdes, a weekly newspaper that
became the Journal de la grotte de Lourdes in 1898. The Annales sold mostly through
subscription, while it was predominantly pilgrims in Lourdes who bought the Journal.
22
Franois Caron, Histoire des chemins de fer en France, vol. 1 (Paris: Fayard, 1997), 605; Kselman,
Miracles and Prophesies in Nineteenth-Century France, 162.
23
Vincent-de-Paul Bailly, Plerinage national: Saint Vincent de Paul--Saint Martin--Lourdes, Le Plerin

1 (12 July 1873): 14-15.
24
25
Caron, Histoire des chemins de fer en France, 1: 605.
140
Pilgrims purchased thousands of copies of the Journal during the peak season.26
Guidebooks, postcards, and Henri Lasserres novel Notre-Dame de Lourdes also
promoted the pilgrimage. First published in 1867, Lasserres Romantic portrayal of the
shrine became one of the best selling books of the nineteenth century.27 Meanwhile,
pilgrims experience of Lourdes was transformed by urbanization and the proliferation of
modern amenities. In addition to the basilicas, baths, and service buildings on the
sanctuary grounds, Lourdes grew into a modern resort town with new boulevards, hotels,
and religious souvenir stores.28
Owing to the immense popularity of the pilgrimage to Lourdes, it has been
extensively studied and written about. Recently, the significance of the shrine has been
the subject of a productive debate between Anglophone historians. However, the
architecture of Lourdes has been largely absent from the discussion. The first widely
disseminated account of the apparitions and their consequences was written by the
Catholic journalist Henri Lasserre (1828-1900), published in serial form from 1867 to
1869, then issued as a book in 1869.29 The book, Notre-Dame de Lourdes, was a
runaway best-seller, printed in 142 French editions in its first seven years, and translated
into numerous languages. According to its publisher, the book sold over one million
copies. To lend dramatic tension to his story, Lasserre narrated the events of the grotto as
26
Marrus, Cultures on the Move, 218; Kaufman, Consuming Visions, 27, 30-31.
27
Marrus, Cultures on the Move, 218; Kaufman, Consuming Visions, 18, 25.
28
Kselman, Miracles and Prophesies in Nineteenth-Century France, 163; Kaufman, Consuming Visions,
10-11, 27.
29
Henri Lasserre, Notre-Dame de Lourdes, Revue du monde catholique, 10 December 1867-25 April
1869; Henri Lasserre, Notre-Dame de Lourdes (Paris: Victor Palm, 1869). For a discussion of Lasserres
work and the debates it sparked see Harris, Lourdes, 178-194. See also the biography of Lasserre in JeanBaptiste Laffon, Le Monde religieux bigourdan: 1800-1962 (Lourdes: uvre de la grotte, 1984), 231-233.
141
a struggle between the poor and simple people of Lourdes, and rich and powerful clerical
and civil authorities. While this approach added appeal for many of Lasserres readers, it
created enemies among those Lasserre vilified, particularly Bishop Laurence and the
Garaison Fathers. With the goal of rectifying the historical record, Laurence and PierreRemy Semp (1818-89), Father Superior of the missionaries, commissioned a Jesuit,
Lonard Cros (1831-1913), to write his own account.30 Cros was meticulous: he
gathered information from a range of sources, including living witnesses and official
documents, which led him to depart significantly from Lasserres story, stirring
Lasserres ire and even leading the Garaison Fathers to press Cros to change his
manuscript, resulting in the delay of its publication. Today, Cros book is more useful
than Lasserres for its presentation of primary documents, but Lasserres book remains
important because it shaped the popular interpretation of the apparitions.31 After Cros
effort, the next project of gathering a monumental collection of primary documents on
Lourdes was overseen by Catholic historian Ren Laurentin and published from 1957 to
1966. Like Cros book, Laurentins Lourdes: Dossier des documents authentiques
covers the development of the shrine up to and including construction of the Basilica of
the Immacule-Conception. And like Cros book, Laurentins volumes should be used
with caution, because the archival documents transcribed in it have been selected and
edited with the goal of establishing the truth of the apparitions.32
30
Lonard-J.-M. Cros, Histoire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes daprs les documents et les tmoins, 2nd ed., 3
vols. (Paris: Beauchesne, 1925-26). For a discussion of Cros contribution to Lourdes scholarship see
Harris, Lourdes, 194-203. See also the biography of Cros in Laffon, Le Monde religieux bigourdan, 75-76.
31
32
Zimdars-Swartz, Encountering Mary, 43.
142
Despite the multitude of Church-sanctioned histories, and histories written for a
general audience, what historian Thomas Kselman has called the first large-scale
treatment of Lourdes by a professional historian was published only in 1999.33 Ruth
Harriss Lourdes: Body and Spirit in the Secular Age is a masterful account of the
pilgrimage up until the First World War. Harris argues that the modernity of Lourdes,
manifested in consumerism and the exploitation of new technologies, is insufficient to
explain the shrines success. Rather, she attributes Lourdes appeal to its spirituality,
especially its focus on the care of the sick and the promise of the miraculous.34 Suzanne
Kaufmans 2005 Consuming Visions: Mass Culture and the Lourdes Shrine challenges
Harriss interpretation, which she believes wrongfully perpetuates a dichotomy between
the sacred and profane. Kaufman suggests instead that the interplay between religious
practice and commercialization reshaped the experience of pilgrimage, generating new
possibilities as well as anxieties about religious debasement.35 She deals not only with
the ways in which new technologies contributed to the development of the shrine, but
with how they transformed Lourdes into a modern spectacle,36 an analysis for which
she draws from Vanessa Schwartzs book on the dissemination of fin de sicle Paris as a
spectacle.37 For Kaufman, Lourdes success depended on the commingling of religious
practice and modern mass culture. This study builds on the work of both Harris and
33
Thomas Kselman, review of Lourdes: Body and Spirit in the Secular Age, by Ruth Harris, Catholic
Historical Review 87, no. 2 (2001): 337.
34
35
Kaufman, Consuming Visions, 4, 7, 9.
36
37
Vanessa R. Schwartz, Spectacular Realities: Early Mass Culture in Fin-de-Sicle Paris (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1998).
143
Kaufman, giving necessary attention to the role of architecture in the emergence of
Lourdes as a modern place of pilgrimage.
For detailed chronologies of the construction of the Basilica of the ImmaculeConception and descriptions of its form and iconography, one can turn to books by F.
Canto,38 Joseph Camoreyt,39 and J.-B. Courtin.40 All three were written by priests for
Catholic audiences. Camoreyt conceived his book explicitly for pilgrims who had
returned home, to enable them to revive their memories and to pray to the Virgin Mary. 41
A secular, scholarly account can be found in an unpublished Masters thesis by M.-J.
Legathe.42 Offering the first detailed biography of Hippolyte Durand, Legathe has shed
new light on his ideas about model churches and their expression in his built churches,
particularly the Basilica of the Immacule-Conception. Legathes thesis is based on
evidence in the Archives et patrimoine des sanctuaires de Notre-Dame de Lourdes and
the Archives nationales.43 This study draws from these and other sources, particularly a
section in the sanctuary archives on land and buildings that illuminates the legal status of
the basilica.44 This study also takes into consideration more of the plans in the sanctuary
38
F. Canto, Notre-Dame de Lourdes: tude monographique de cette chapelle (Auch: Flix Foix, 1871).
39
Joseph Camoreyt, Histoire des trois belles glises de Lourdes, 2nd ed. (Tarbes: Orphelins-Apprentis,
1939).
40
J.-B. Courtin, Lourdes: Le Domaine de Notre-Dame de 1858 1947 (Rennes: ditions Fransiscaines,
1947).
41
Camoreyt, Histoire des trois belles glises de Lourdes, ix.
42
M.-J. Legathe, Recherches sur la basilique suprieure de Lourdes, 2 vols. (mmoire de matrise,
Universit de Pau et des Pays de lAdour, 1997).
43
The sources in the Archives et patrimoine des sanctuaires de Notre-Dame de Lourdes that both Legathes
thesis and this chapter draw from are 1 B 1-3, Basilique suprieure; Archives Cros, (E) A. IV; and Plans.
The sources in the Archives nationales that both draw from are F 19 2374 and F 19 2375. These are files
from the Direction or Ministre des Cultes during the Concordat period.
44
These archives are: Archives et patrimoine des sanctuaires de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, 7 B 1, Terrains
144
archives in order to create a fuller picture of the evolution of the design for the basilica
and the larger site.45 It supplements Legathes work by dealing with the decoration of the
basilica, as well as the later development of the shrine and the town. It also frames the
church in a new way. While Legathe presents the church as a response to la soif de
spiritualit dans un sicle qui devenait matraliste,46 accepting an opposition between
the sacred and profane, this study shows that the church was embedded in modern
commercial society. And while Legathe explains the building as a consequence of
Lourdes success,47 this study posits a complex relationship between architecture and
religious practice at the shrine, interpreting the Basilica of the Immacule-Conception as
an integral part of the clergys transformation of the pilgrimage into a modern experience.
et btiments. This chapter also makes ample use of images of the basilica from Archives et patrimoine des
sanctuaires, Iconographie archives, D (Immacule-Conception) and E (Notre-Dame du Rosaire).
45
Archives et patrimoine des sanctuaires de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, Plans. In 2005, this part of the
collection comprised 354 items.
46
Legathe, Recherches sur la basilique suprieure de Lourdes, 1: 2.
47
145
Authorizing the Devotion and Deciding to Build
The Response of the Clergy
Although the clergy came to support the pilgrimage to Lourdes, its response to
Bernadettes claims was at first antagonistic, then hesitant. Four years passed between
the visions and the official approval of them by the Church. Bishop Laurence did not
publish his pastoral letter on the events of the grotto until 1862, a delay that was partly an
unwitting consequence of bureaucratic conflict and inefficiency, and partly a calculated
strategy to assess over time both the seer and the devotion that grew in response to her
experience. In the beginning, the Church was afraid of associating itself with a visionary
who might later turn out to be lying or insane.48 Moreover, priests were wary of a
devotion that they did not control and that endangered clerical authority. Nevertheless,
the clergy embraced the events that took place at the grotto of Massabieille because they
reinforced long-standing Pyrenean traditions of Marian piety as well as the brand new,
1854 papal promulgation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. More broadly
speaking, the verification of miracles at Lourdes confirmed the Churchs doctrine on the
supernatural in general. And the clergy was reassured by the increase in orthodox
religious practice that was stimulated by Bernadettes experience.49 Furthermore,
devotion to Our Lady of Lourdes was perceived as a potential antidote to the threats
posed to Catholicism by industrialization and secular thought.50
48
49
Kselman, Miracles and Prophesies in Nineteenth-Century France, 159-160.
50
Grard Cholvy and Y.-M. Hilaire, Histoire religieuse de la France contemporaine, 1800-1880
(Toulouse: Privat, 1985), 165.
146
When the Lourdes parish priest first heard of the apparition on February 11, 1858
from Bernadettes confessor, he said only Il faut attendre,51 a response that sums up the
clergys initial reticence about the events of the grotto. The cur, Marie-Dominique
Peyramale (1811-77), came from Momres, south of Tarbes, and was appointed to the
Lourdes parish in 1854.52 In the beginning, Peyramale was contemptuous of Bernadette.
When she first approached him on February 27, 1858 he compared her behavior at the
grotto to that of animals and told her that if her story was to be believed, she would need
to furnish proofs, in particular the apparitions name.53 Again, when Bernadette came to
Peyramale on March 2, 1858 with her instructions to build a chapel, he asked for more
evidence.54 But when Bernadette did tell Peyramale her visions identity--I am the
Immaculate Conception--he accused her of lying and sent her away brusquely, perhaps
because the name was an abstract concept, not a familiar term for the Virgin.55
Peyramale stayed away from the grotto until the bishop purchased the land in the fall of
1861.56 He was afraid that if he went there, it would be interpreted as a sign of his tacit
approval of the devotion.57 The curs prudence, and his dismissiveness of the visionary,
51
Laurentin, Lourdes: Dossier des documents authentiques, 1: 153.
52
For Peyramales biography see Monseigneur Peyramale, cur de Lourdes Sa vie et son uvre (Lourdes:
n. p., 1877); and Henri Lasserre, Le Cur de Lourdes: Mgr Peyramale (Paris: P. Lethielleux, 1897).
53
54
Laurentin, Lourdes: Dossier des documents authentiques, 1: no. 42, p. 225-226.
55
56
Ren Laurentin, Bernard Billet, and Paul Galland, Lourdes: Documents authentiques, vol. 6 (Paris:
Lethielleux, 1961), 44.
57
Gaetan Bernoville, Lv ue de ernadette Mgr Laurence, 4th ed. (Paris: Grasset, 1955), 146-148.
147
were motivated by fears of fraud and civil unrest, both of which could reflect badly on
the Church.58
However, by April 1858 Peyramales attitude began to change.59 Influenced by
reports of miraculous healings, a dramatic increase in orthodox religious participation
among local Catholics, a flood of letters on the apparitions,60 and an influx of important
visitors to Lourdes,61 he came to support the cause of Massabieille fully and to see it as
the work of God.62 Furthermore, Peyramale was impressed by Bernadette herself--he
was struck by her simplicity, her candor, her piety, and her refusal of gifts despite her
extreme poverty--and he came to take an interest in the girl.63 Early on he had found the
situation difficult to assess. It was, he wrote to his brother on March 9, 1858, either un
fait divin ou un fait physiologique.64 But on April 15 he approached Bishop Laurence
with the idea of an episcopal inquiry.65
58
Ren Laurentin and Bernard Billet, Lourdes: Documents authetiques, vol. 3 (Paris: P. Lethielleux,
1958), no. 412, p. 167.
59
Bernoville, Lv ue de ernadette, 151; Ren Laurentin, Lourdes: Documents authentiques, vol. 2

(Paris: P. Lethielleux, 1957), no. 141, p. 165.
60
Laurentin, Lourdes: Dossier des documents authentiques, 1: no. 65, p. 248-249; no. 67 bis, p. 252.
61
See for example Peyramales glowing description of the visit of an engineer from Pau in Ren Laurentin,
Bernard Billet, and Paul Galland, Lourdes: Documents authentiques, vol. 5 (Paris: P. Lethielleux, 1959),
no. 878, p. 219.
62
Laurentin and Billet, Lourdes: Documents authentiques, 4: no. 781, p. 285; Laurentin, Bernard Billet,
and Galland, Lourdes: Documents authentiques, 6: no. 1014, p. 206.
63
In a letter to Laurence of June 4, 1858, Peyramale praised Bernadettes comportment at her First
Communion, as well as her refusal of gifts. See Laurentin, Lourdes: Documents authentiques, 2: no. 315,
p. 359. In another letter of June 8, 1858, he again wrote glowingly of Bernadette. See Laurentin, Lourdes:
Documents authentiques, 2: no. 325, p. 371. Peyramale arranged for Bernadette to enter the school run by
the Surs de Nevers in the fall of 1860. Laurentin, Billet, and Galland, Lourdes: Documents authentiques,
6: 77-79. See also Harris, Lourdes, 151.
64
65
Laurentin, Lourdes: Dossier des documents authentiques, 1: no. 44 bis, p. 230.
Bernoville, Lv ue de ernadette, 151; Laurentin, Lourdes: Documents authentiques, 2: no. 151, p.

181.
148
Bertrand-Svre Mascarou Laurence was born in 1790 to a comfortable peasant
family in Oroix, north-west of Tarbes. He served as bishop of Tarbes from 1845 until he
died in Rome in 1870, where he participated in the Vatican Council of 1869-1870, an
event that culminated in the promulgation of papal infallibility.66 The way the historian
the Abb Paulin Moniquet saw it, Laurence made le sacrifice de sa vie pour affirmer sa
foi au dogme de lInfaillibilit pontificale.67 Owing to Laurences rural, peasant origins
he was sympathetic towards popular religious beliefs and practices such as miracles and
processions. Nevertheless, like Peyramale he was cautious in his response to the events
of the grotto. At first he was unconvinced by reports of Bernadettes apparitions, but by
the end of March he began to consider arguments for and against their supernatural
origin.68 On July 28, 1858, Laurence formally established a commission made up of
eleven of the dioceses clerical elders to evaluate the healing properties of the water from
the grotto, and to decide if the visions were real. If they agreed that the visions were real,
they would then decide whether they could be explained naturally, or if they were
supernatural and divine.69 During the commissions proceedings Laurence met with
Bernadette on at least two occasions. He was impressed by her, as Peyramale was, and
66
On Laurence see L. Dantin, Lv ue des apparitions Mgr Laurence v ue de Tar es, 1845-1870
(Paris: Spes, 1931); and Bernoville, Lv ue de ernadette. There is also a short biography in Msgr. L.
Baunard, Lpiscopat ranais depuis le Concordat jus u la Sparation (Paris: Librairie des SaintsPres, 1907), 611-613. On the First Vatican Council see Margaret OGara, Triumph in Defeat:
Infallibility, Vatican I, and the French Minority Bishops (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America
Press, 1988).
67
Paulin Moniquet, La Divine histoire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes (1858-1911), 5th ed. (Paris: Arthur
Savate, 1912), 137.
68
Bernoville, Lv ue de ernadette, 147-148. This interpretation of Laurences attitude towards popular

religion as informed by his upbringing is drawn from Harris, Lourdes, 131.
69
See the text of the edict that created the commission in Laurentin and Billet, Lourdes: Documents
authetiques, 3: no. 449, p. 210-214.
149
admired in particular her simplicity, honesty, composure, and intelligence.70 On January
18, 1862, three and a half years after he established the commission, Laurence signed a
pastoral letter officially confirming the authenticity of the apparitions and their
supernatural origin. Nous jugeons, he wrote in the letter, que lIMMACULE
MARIE, MRE DE DIEU, a rellement apparu Bernadette Soubirous, le 11 fvrier
1858 et jours suivants, au nombre de dix-huit fois, dans la grotte de Massavielle [sic],
prs la ville de Lourdes; que cette apparition revt tous les caractres de la vrit, et que
les fidles sont fonds la croire certaine.71
Beyond creating the commission and passing judgment on the visions, Laurence
exerted control over the new devotion in other ways, three of which deserve special
mention: he edited out reports of later visions at the grotto;72 he banned all publications
relating to Massabieille that he did not approve in writing;73 and he took personal charge
of acquiring the grotto and the land around it, as well as building a chapel there. The
bishop made his authority over the construction site explicit in the pastoral letter: Pour
nous conformer la volont de la Sainte Vierge plusieurs fois exprime lors de
lapparition, nous nous proposons de btir un sanctuaire sur le terrain de la Grotte qui est
devenu la proprit des vques de Tarbes.74
70
See Laurentin, Billet, and Galland, Lourdes: Documents authentiques, 6: 25.
71
The page of the pastoral letter that contains this passage is reproduced in Laurentin, Billet, and Galland,
Lourdes: Documents authentiques, 6: 49. The entire pastoral letter is transcribed in the same volume, no.
1044, p. 238-245.
72
See Laurences description of later visionaries in Laurentin and Billet, Lourdes: Documents authetiques,
3: no. 421, p. 174; and the analysis in Zimdars-Swartz, Encountering Mary, 59, 65.
73
This is right in the January 18, 1862 pastoral letter. See Laurentin, Billet, and Galland, Lourdes:
Documents authentiques, 6: 54.
74
Laurentin, Billet, and Galland, Lourdes: Documents authentiques, 6: no. 1044, p. 244.
150
Laurence came to support the Lourdes shrine in order to reinforce the recent
promotion of Marian piety at both the local and international levels. He himself had
revived neighboring Marian sanctuaries, and Pope Pius IX had promulgated the dogma of
the Immaculate Conception. The Pyrenees were home to a long tradition of devotion to
the Virgin: the many Marian shrines built in the region before the Lourdes apparitions
serve as evidence of this heritage. The literary convert to Catholicism Joris-Karl
Huysmans evocatively compared these churches to a galaxy of stars in his novel Les
Foules de Lourdes of 1906:
Les prcdents de Lourdes dans la rgion des Pyrnes sont
nombreux. Si lon prenait une carte des diocses de Bayonne et de
Tarbes, lon pourrait y tracer, autour de Lourdes, un cercle form par les
hameaux ou les chapelles qui furent autrefois des centres de plerinages
la Madone; Lourdes surgirait alors, au milieu de ce rond, tel quun astre
vivant, entour de neuf satellites peu prs morts.75
Huysmans emphasized the declining fortunes of the older Pyrenean shrines, which, by the
early twentieth century, had been eclipsed by Lourdes. But four of them were in fact
revived under Laurences leadership beginning in the 1830s and 1840s: Notre-Dame de
Garaison, Notre-Dame de Poueylan, Notre-Dame de Has, and Notre-Dame de Pitat.
The origins of the Chapel of Notre-Dame de Garaison, in the north-eastern corner
of the diocese, were strikingly similar to those of the church at Massabieille. At the
beginning of the sixteenth century, a young shepherdess named Anglze de Sagazan
reported a vision of the Virgin. Anglze, like Bernadette, claimed that Mary told her to
ask the priest to build a chapel on the site of the vision.76 The resulting chapel, erected
around 1540, was abandoned during the Revolution and sold to a private citizen in 1797.
75
Joris-Karl Huysmans, Les Foules de Lourdes, 16th ed. (Paris: P.-V. Stock, 1906), 10.
76
Bernoville, Lv ue de ernadette, 81-82.
151
In 1834, Laurence purchased the sanctuary as vicar-general of Tarbes. Worship resumed
at the chapel the following year.77 In 1836, he and Bishop Double, who he succeeded in
1844, established the Missionnaires de Notre-Dame de Garaison, later renamed the
Missionnaires de lImmacule-Conception, and also known as the Garaison Fathers.
Based at Garaison, the order would be appointed by Laurence to run the Lourdes shrine
in 1866.78 Laurence raised funds to restore the Garaison sanctuary, richly decorated with
mural paintings, and he also constructed new school buildings on the property.79 Three
years after work began on the Lourdes church, in 1865, he continued to see Garaison as
the most important Marian shrine in the diocese: parmi les sanctuaries de Marie, qui
font lornement du diocse, Garaison nous apparat au premier plan; il a t aussi le
premier restaur.80
Laurence also revived two sanctuaries at the southern edge of the diocese, high in
the Pyrenees: Notre-Dame de Poueylan, near Arrens, and Notre-Dame de Has, near
Gdre. He re-established worship in the eighteenth-century chapelle dore at Poueylan
in 1835, purchased it in 1850, and installed a group of Garaison Fathers immediately
77
Bernoville, Lv ue de ernadette, 85-88.
78
Pierre-Rmi Semp and Jean-Marie Dubo, Notre-Dame de Lourdes par ses premiers chapelains, 12th
ed. (Paris: Letouzey et An, 1931), 14.
79
Bernoville, Lv ue de ernadette, 88; S. Haurigot, Couronnement de la Vierge de Garaison le 17

septembre 1865: Un Mot sur cette chapelle vnre, in Lettre pastorale de Monseigneur Laurence,
vque de Tarbes, pour le couronnement de la Vierge de Garaison. Notice et compte-rendu de cette
crmonie, par S. Haurigot. Discours de Monseigneur pivent, v ue dAire, prononc Garaison, le 17
septembre 1865, by Bertrand-Svre Mascarou Laurence (Tarbes: Th. Telmon, 1865), 13.
80
Bertrand-Svre Mascarou Laurence, Lettre pastorale de Monseigneur Laurence, vque de Tarbes, pour
le couronnement de la Vierge de Garaison. Notice et compte-rendu de cette crmonie, par S. Haurigot.
Discours de Monseigneur pivent, v ue dAire, prononc Garaison, le 17 septembre 1865 (Tarbes:
Th. Telmon, 1865), 5. See also Harriss comments on Garaison in Harris, Lourdes, 130-131.
152
afterwards.81 Following a similar pattern, he reopened the chapel at Has in 1844,
purchased it in 1848, and then sent missionaries from Garaison to serve the sanctuary.82
In addition, Laurence revived the Chapel of Notre-Dame de Pitat in Barbazan-Debat,
south-east of Tarbes: masses resumed at the sixteenth-century church in 1839, Laurence
purchased it in 1861, and he again sent a group of Garaison Fathers to take over.83
Laurence understood his establishment of the new shrine at Lourdes as
complementary to his resuscitation of old Marian sanctuaries in the region, especially
Notre-Dame de Garaison, with its parallel apparition story. In his pastoral letters, he
made the relationship explicit. In his January 18, 1862 pastoral letter confirming the
authenticity of the Lourdes visions, Laurence connected Lourdes to Garaison when he
wrote:
Nous possdons dj un de ces sanctuaires bnis, fond, il y a quatre
sicles, la suite dune rvlation faite une jeune bergre, et o des
milliers de pelerins [sic] vont tous les ans sagenouiller devant le trne de
la glorieuse Vierge Marie, pour implorer ses bienfaits.
Grces soient rendues au Tout-Puissant! Dans les trsors infinis de
ses bonts, il nous rserve une faveur nouvelle. Il veut que, dans le
Diocse de Tarbes, un nouveau sanctuaire soit lev la gloire de Marie.84
Later on in the letter, Laurence invited Catholics to associate Lourdes with the
constellation of shrines that he had already regenerated: Dans vos supplications et dans
vos cantiques, vous mlerez dsormais le nom de Notre-Dame de Lourdes aux noms
81
Bernoville, Lv ue de ernadette, 115, 132. There is also a passing description of the chapel in
Touring-club de France and Comit local du Muse pyrnen, La Vierge dans lart et la tradition populaire
des Pyrnes (Lourdes: Muse Pyrnen, 1958), n. p.
82
Bernoville, Lv ue de ernadette, 101, 122. The chapel was destroyed and rebuilt in 1925-1926. Jean
Robert et al., Plerins et plerinages dans les Pyrnes franaises (Lourdes: Muse pyrnen, 1975), 6.
83
Bernoville, Lv ue de ernadette, 184; Robert et al., Plerins et plerinages dans les Pyrnes
franaises, 7.
84
Reproduced in Laurentin, Billet, and Galland, Lourdes: Documents authentiques, 6: no. 1044, p. 238.
153
bnis de Notre-Dame de Garaison, de Poeylan [sic], de Has et de Pitat.85 Rather than
seeing anything suspicious in the similarities between Garaison and Lourdes, Laurence
viewed the affinity as providential.86 In his 1865 pastoral letter on the coronation of Our
Lady of Garaison, he interpreted the apparitions at Lourdes as a sign of Marys favor
towards the diocese, because of his efforts to restore her sanctuaries there: Le Ciel
semble avoir eu pour agrables Nos Trs-Chers Collaborateurs et Nos Trs-Chers Frres,
le zle que ce diocse a montr et les sacrifices quil sest imposs, depuis trente ans,
pour restaurer ou relever ces asiles de pit, que nos anctres avaient rigs en lhonneur
de Marie, et que les sanglants vnements de la fin du sicle dernier avaient abattus ou
remis en des mains laques. Aussi, la Sainte-Vierge vient-elle de le gratifier dune
nouvelle et trs remarquable faveur: de son apparition, dans la grotte de Massabieille,
prs de la ville de Lourdes.87
Laurence authorized the new devotion to Our Lady of Lourdes not only to
enhance Marian piety stimulated by his revival of older cults of the Virgin, but to bolster
Pope Pius IXs promulgation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. This was the
dogma that the Virgin Mary was conceived by her parents free from the stain of original
sin. Belief in the Immaculate Conception was held by many Catholics since the late
Middle Ages, but it grew in prominence in the nineteenth century.88 In France, the
85
86
Harris makes this point about mid-nineteenth-century Catholics in general. See Harris, Lourdes, 40.
87
Laurence, Lettre pastorale . . . pour le couronnement de la Vierge de Garaison, 4.
88
On the history of the doctrine see Marina Warner, The Immaculate Conception, in Alone of All Her Sex
(London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1976), 236-254; and Edwin D. OConnor, Immaculate Conception,
New Catholic Encyclopedia, 2nd ed. (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America, 2003), 7: 331335.
154
conviction was strengthened by the miraculous medal apparitions of 1830: Catherine
Labour had reported that Mary taught her the prayer O marie conue sans pch, priez
pour nous qui avons recours vous.89 Once Pius IX declared the Immaculate
Conception an article of faith in 1854, Catholics were formally obliged to accept it as
true.90 The popes act had important political implications. To begin with, the dogma
stressed Marys spotless condition in contrast to the sinfulness of the rest of humanity.
Its emphasis on human inadequacy suggested that free thinking and parliamentary
government were doomed.91 In addition, by promulgating the dogma almost unilaterally,
with little input from bishops, Pius IX consolidated his own authority and cleared a path
towards the 1870 declaration of papal infallibility. Laurence and many other priests
interpreted the apparitions to Bernadette as evidence in support of the dogma.92
Therefore, the endorsement of the visions by the bishop was an expression of
ultramontane support for Pius IXs proclamation on the Immaculate Conception, as well
as for the temporal power of the pope, then threatened by Italian unification. As the
popes spiritual power increased, his temporal power decreased.
89
Kselman, Miracles and Prophesies in Nineteenth-Century France, 91-92; OConnor, Immaculate

Conception, 334.
90
Zimdars-Swartz, Encountering Mary, 56.
91
Austin Gough, Paris and Rome: The Gallican Church and the Ultramontane Campaign, 1848-1853
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1986), 105-106.
92
Laurence wrote in his January 18, 1862 pastoral letter affirming the authenticity of the apparitions:
Comment ne pas admirer, Nos Trs-Chers Frres, lconomie de la divine Providence? A la fin de lanne
1854, lImmortel Pie IX proclamait le dogme de lImmacule-Conception. Les chos portrent jusquaux
extrmits [sic] de la terre les paroles du Pontife; les curs catholiques tressaillirent dallgresse, et partout
on clbra le glorieux privilge de Marie par des ftes dont le souvenir restera jamais grav dans notre
mmoire. Et voil quenviron trois ans aprs, la Sainte Vierge, apparaissant une enfant, lui dit: Je suis
lImmacule-Conception, je veux quon lve ici une chapelle en mon honneur. Ne semble-t-elle pas
vouloir consacrer par un monument loracle infaillible du successeur de saint Pierre? Transcribed in
Laurentin, Billet, and Galland, Lourdes: Documents authentiques, 6: no. 1044, p. 242. On how this view
was shared by many other priests see Turner and Turner, Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture, 227.
155
The Response of the Government of Napoleon III
The government in power during the apparitions, that of Napoleon III, never
promoted the devotion of Our Lady of Lourdes. However, it came to accept it, in
keeping with imperial policy. Like the Church, the government was initially cautious in
its response to the apparitions. Secular officials then proceeded to discourage the
devotion to Our Lady of Lourdes actively. The prefect of Tarbes, Baron Oscar Massy
(prefect from 1849 until early 1859),93 took vigorous steps to suppress the shrine: on
May 4, 1858 he ordered the removal of religious objects from the grotto and on June 8
the grotto was barricaded according to his instructions.94 A committed Catholic, Massy
aimed to defend the Church against superstition, as well as to protect public order.95
Then on October 5 the grotto was reopened following the intervention of the central
administration, and, probably, of the emperor himself. Although there is no proof that
Napoleon III was directly involved, it seems likely in view of a letter written on October
2 by Gustave Rouland (1806-78), Ministre de lInstruction publique et des cultes, to
Laurence: Sa Majest ma expliqu quElle dsirait que laccs de cette Grotte ft libre,
ainsi que lusage de leau de la source; . . .96 The emperors wishes for the grotto must
have been informed by the reports of two prominent members of his inner circle who had
recently visited Lourdes: Amirale Bruat, his sons governess, prayed at the grotto on July
93
Cros, Histoire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, 1: 366.
94
See Cros, Histoire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, vol. 2, especially chapters 3 and 5.
95
Harris, Lourdes, 110-111, 132.
96
Rouland to Bishop Laurence, 2 October 1858. Transcribed in Laurentin and Billet, Lourdes: Documents
authentiques, 4: no. 768, p. 275.
156
28;97 and Achille Fould (1800-67), then Ministre dtat et de la Maison de lEmpereur,
was in Lourdes on September 24.98 There have been suggestions that Napoleon III lifted
the ban on the grotto because his son was spared from croup after his pious wife,
Eugnie, prayed to Our Lady of Lourdes; simply because Eugnie asked him to; and
because another family member was miraculously cured after visiting the grotto.
However, there is no documentation to support these theories.99
The decision to reopen the grotto was consistent with Louis-Napoleons efforts to
develop ties to south-western France, as well as to gain the favor of Catholics. The
imperial couple had a special attachment to the south-west of the country. They
vacationed there and traveled through the area on their way to Spain, where the Empress
Eugnie was born. Napoleon III was the first French sovereign to live at the Chteau of
Pau since Louis XIII. In 1852, he resumed the restorations there that had been begun by
Louis-Philippe;100 and in 1854-55, Durand built a palace for Louis-Napoleon and Eugnie
in Biarritz. Almost a year after the October 5, 1858 reopening of the grotto, the imperial
couple traveled through Lourdes on their way to the spa town of Saint-Sauveur.101 On
that trip of August and September 1859, they made generous gifts towards Pyrenean
infrastructure projects--both religious and secular--such as the Hospice Sainte-Eugnie in
97
Cros, Histoire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, 2: 296-303; Harris, Lourdes, 125-128.
98
Cros, Histoire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, 2: 438-439; Harris, Lourdes, 133-134.
99
Laurentin and Billet, Lourdes: Documents authentiques, 4: 59-61.
100
Catherine Granger, LEmpereur et les arts La Liste civile de Napolon III (Paris: cole des Chartes,
2005), 253.
101
On this trip see Laurentin, Billet, and Galland, Lourdes: Documents authentiques, 5: 312-318.
157
Barges and the Pont Napolon, linking Saint-Sauveur and Gdre.102 In choosing to
reopen the grotto, the imperial policy of lavishing attention on the Pyrenees converged
with the emperors effort to ingratiate himself with Catholics. Initially, most Catholics
supported the imperial regime as an authoritarian antidote to social unrest, but their
attitude towards Napoleon III began to sour as it became apparent that the emperor
supported the unification of Italy and the reduction of papal territory, a policy he had
contemplated since at least 1848.103 In sum, the Church came to promote the pilgrimage
to Lourdes because it stimulated orthodox religious practice, particularly Marian piety,
and it consolidated papal power. Meanwhile, the government came to accept the
pilgrimage in order to ingratiate itself with the south-west of the country and with
Catholics, two of its key constituencies. But even before Laurence had publicly approved
the devotion, he was maneuvering behind the scenes to build a church at Massabieille,
and to institutionalize the shrine.
102
Jean-Baptiste Laffon, Libralits de Napolon III en faveur des Hautes-Pyrnes, Bulletin de la

socit acadmique des Hautes-Pyrnes (1966-67): 23-24.
103
The cause of Italian confederation advanced in the summer of 1859, when French and Piedmontese
troops expelled the Austrian occupation from the Veneto. That autumn, Napoleon III published a pamphlet
under a pseudonym in which he expressed his views on the Roman question. Philippe Pichot-Bravard, Le
Pape ou lempereur Les Catholi ues et Napolon III, 1848-1870 (Perpignan: Tempora, 2008), 25, 145146; William E. Echard, ed., Italian Confederation, in Historical Dictionary of the French Second
Empire, 1852-1870 (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1985), 315-316.
158
Planning
Laurences Proposal for a chapelle domestique (1861)
To enfold the devotion to Our Lady of Lourdes within the bureaucracy of the
Church, Laurence purchased the grotto and surrounding area and he sought the
permission of the government to build there. However, the bishop faced a major obstacle
in this regard: pilgrimage churches in the capacity of pilgrimage churches were excluded
from the legal and administrative framework put in place by the Concordat.104 In keeping
with this document, the government recognized only religious structures that
corresponded with clearly defined constituencies. The main categories were cathedrals-associated with dioceses and archdioceses--and parish churches--attached to parishes.
There were also less common church types such as annexes and chapelles de secours for
overextended parishes, and oratories in institutions and private residences. Oratoires
particuliers and chapelles domestiques were exclusively for the use of people connected
to the establishments or homes to which they belonged. Public access was strictly
forbidden.105 According to the Concordat, all new churches required the authorization of
a government decree. To secure this, priests responsible for pilgrimage churches had to
fit them into the approved categories. Therefore, the pilgrimage church of Notre-Dame
de Bonsecours in Rouen was a parish church and that of Saint-Martin in Tours was a
chapelle de secours. At Lourdes, Laurence sought to fit the church he proposed into the
category of a chapelle domestique, however incongruous.
104
This point is made in Jean-Michel Leniaud, Les Basiliques de plerinage en France, in La Rvolution
des signes LArt lglise (18 0-1930) (Paris: Cerf, 2007), 180-182.
105
For a detailed breakdown of these categories see Adrien Dubief and Victor Gottofrey, Trait de
ladministration des cultes, vol. 1 (Paris: Paul Dupont, 1891), 627-701. For a short summary see JeanMichel Leniaud, LAdministration des cultes pendant la priode concordataire (Paris: Nouvelles ditions
latines, 1988), 48-50.
159
Buying the site was simple compared to trying to obtain permission to build.
Laurence wrote to the mayor and Conseil municipal of Lourdes asking to take possession
of, mon profit, en ma qualit dEvque de Tarbes, et au profit de mes successeurs au
mme sige, un terrain communal inculte, appel Rive de Massabieille [sic], born, au
nord, par le Gave de Pau; au midi, par le chemin du bois; lest et louest, par des
proprits particulires; sur lequel terrain se trouve une grotte du mme nom.106 He did
this on January 15, 1861, a year before he wrote his pastoral letter authorizing the
devotion to Our Lady of Lourdes, which indicates just how important it was for him to
control the site of the apparitions. At the end of February, the parcel of land was
surveyed, and a price agreed upon. The purchase, in his own name and that of the
bishopric, was finalized on September 5.107
Laurences approach to the purchase was similar to the way that the bishop of
Grenoble dealt with the purchase of the apparition site at La Salette, and may have been
influenced by it. On January 24, 1861, a La Salette missionary sent Laurence a letter
outlining this precedent.108 Msgr. Philibert de Bruillard bought the site in his own name
in 1851, then ceded it to the bishopric in 1852. The donation was approved by LouisNapoleon, in keeping with his policy of seeking the favor of Catholics, even though there
was no judicial basis for it. Vestries could legally accept gifts of the sort, but not
bishoprics. Bruillard does not seem to have asked the government for authorization of
his construction plans, which included a church, as well as residences for pilgrims and the
106
Laurence to Maire Lacad and the Conseil municipal of Lourdes, 15 January 1861. Quoted in Cros,
Histoire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, 3: 20.
107
108
Cros, Histoire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, 3: 21, 26.
Abb Rousselot, Missionnaire de La Salette, to one of the vicars-general of Tarbes, 24 January 1861,
Archives et patrimoine des sanctuaires de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, 7 B 1. The letter is transcribed in
Laurentin, Billet, and Galland, Lourdes: Documents authentiques, 6: no. 944, p. 150-151.
160
missionaries who served the shrine. As for the donation, there was no judicial basis for
such buildings.109 This is where Laurence approach differed from that of Bruillard:
while the bishop of Grenoble coped with the Concordat regimes refusal to acknowledge
the function of a pilgrimage church by bypassing the government, the bishop of Tarbes
put forward an expediency.
In his letter to the mayor and Conseil municipal of January 15, 1861, Laurence
presented his aim disingenuously:
Mon but est dy btir une modeste habitation de campagne, pour
moi et mes successeurs, avec une chapelle ou oratoire, dpendance oblige
dune rsidence piscopale. Une partie de cette chapelle serait rserve
aux personnes qui, en certains jours de ftes principalement, se rendent
la Grotte, pour la visiter et y prier, selon lusage tabli.110
In a second letter to the same addressees of the same date, Laurence was more candid. It
was incumbent on the bishop, he wrote, to ensure that pilgrims to the grotto y trouvent
un abri contre le mauvais temps, un btiment consacr au culte o ils puissent prier sans
tre troubls dans leur recueillement.111 Two weeks later, Laurence attempted to
persuade Rouland, the Ministre de lInstruction publique et des cultes, of the necessity of
a church as part of a pied--terre, la campagne from which the bishop veillerait ce
que tout se passt avec ordre et dcence. He added later that il aviserait ce que les
personnes qui visitent la grotte y trouvassent un abri contre le mauvais temps, et un
109
Bruillard purchased the lot on October 26, 1851, he ceded it to the bishopric on March 23, 1852, and
Louis-Napoleon authorized the donation on June 30, 1852. See Leniaud, La Basilique de La Salette,
192-194.
110
Laurence to Maire Lacad and the Conseil municipal of Lourdes, 15 January 1861. Quoted in Cros,
Histoire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, 3: 20.
111
Laurence to Maire Lacad and the Conseil municipal of Lourdes, 15 January 1861, Archives nationales,
F 19 2374, folder titled Terrains. Erection de la Chapelle. 1861-1877. Transcribed in Laurentin, Billet,
and Galland, Lourdes: Documents authentiques, 6: no. 941, p. 148.
161
sanctuaire la Vierge, pour y prier.112 Laurences allusion to a pilgrimage sanctuary
clearly conflicted with the Concordat regimes definition of a chapelle domestique as
private.
Although the government of Napoleon III came to accept the devotion at
Massabieille, it remained opposed to the construction of a church there. In the October 2,
1858 letter in which Rouland told Laurence of Louis-Napoleons wishes for open access
to the grotto, the minister made clear that lEmpereur ne croit pas quil convienne dy
autoriser ltablissement dun oratoire ou chapelle.113 Henri-tienne Garnier, the prefect
who took over from Massy in early 1859, resisted the bishops building project and
recognized the contradiction in his proposals. Ici, on parle de lrection dun difice
consacr au culte public; et l dun simple oratoire, dpendance de la maison
piscopale,114 he wrote in March 1861, before forwarding the dossier to Rouland.115
Nevertheless, in August 1861, Rouland and Louis-Napoleon signed a decree authorizing
Laurence to purchase the grotto and surrounding area, dans le but dy tablir une maison
de campagne.116 There was no mention of a church, because, as Rouland explained to
Garnier,
112
Laurence to Gustave Rouland, Ministre de lInstruction publique et des cultes, 30 January 1861,
Archives nationales, F 19 2374, folder titled Terrains. Erection de la Chapelle. 1861-1877. Transcribed
in Laurentin, Billet, and Galland, Lourdes: Documents authentiques, 6: no. 947, p. 156.
113
Gustave Rouland, Ministre de lInstruction publique et des cultes, to Bishop Laurence, 2 October 1858.
Transcribed in Laurentin and Billet, Lourdes: Documents authentiques, 4: no. 768, p. 275.
114
Prefect Henri-tienne Garnier to Bishop Laurence, 12 March 1861. Quoted in Cros, Histoire de NotreDame de Lourdes, 3: 22.
115
Cros, Histoire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, 3: 23; Laurentin, Billet, and Galland, Lourdes: Documents
authentiques, 6: 32.
116
A copy of the decree is preserved in the Archives et patrimoine des sanctuaires de Notre-Dame de
Lourdes, 7 B 1. The text of the decree is excerpted in Cros, Histoire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, 3: 26;
and reproduced in full in Laurentin, Billet, and Galland, Lourdes: Documents authentiques, 6: 45.
162
Les chapelles ou oratoires sont, comme le rappelle Mgr lvque,
des dpendances obliges des rsidences piscopales, et il ntait ainsi pas
besoin que lrection ft demande.117
But Laurences maneuver led to problems later. In his pastoral letter of January
18, 1862, Laurence declared his intention to build a sanctuary on the site of the grotto, a
structure that, vu la position abrupte et difficile des lieux, demandera de longs travaux et
des fonds relativement considrables (Laurentins italics).118 Minister Rouland did not
see this as a chapelle domestique. The pastoral letter, Rouland charged, ne suppose pas,
en effet, que Votre Grandeur veuille se borner construire sur le terrain acqui par
lvch un simple oratoire non-ouvert au public, accessoire ncessaire toute rsidence
piscopale; il autorise tout au contraire penser quon se propose de construire Lourdes
un difice bien plus considrable.119 Rouland advised Laurence to complete the
formalities necessary to obtain proper permission.120 Laurence prodded the bureaucracy
further, and he received encouragement to proceed with construction from Adolphe
Tardif (1824-89), Chef de division in the Administration des cultes; from the Dput des
Hautes-Pyrnes Pierre Dauzat-Dembarrre (1809-78); and from Prefect Garnier.
However, the encouragement of these officials did not solve the problem of the churchs
117
Gustave Rouland, Ministre de lInstruction publique et des cultes, to Prefect Henri-tienne Garnier, 13
July 1861, Archives nationales, F 19 2374, folder titled Terrains. Erection de la Chapelle. 1861-1877.
Transcribed in Laurentin, Billet, and Galland, Lourdes: Documents authentiques, 6: no. 998, p. 196.
118
119
Gustave Rouland, Ministre de lInstruction publique et des cultes, to Bishop Laurence, 14 February
1862. Transcribed in Laurentin, Billet, and Galland, Lourdes: Documents authentiques, 6: no. 1150, p.
312.
120
Gustave Rouland, Ministre de lInstruction publique et des cultes, to Bishop Laurence, 14 February
1862. Transcribed in Laurentin, Billet, and Galland, Lourdes: Documents authentiques, 6: no. 1150, p.
312.
163
assumed legal status as a chapelle domestique, an outbuilding of the episcopal
residence.121
The resulting uncertainty caused difficulties for Laurences successors in the
anticlerical climate that prevailed before and after the end of the Concordat in 1905,
when the Law of Separation of Church and State was passed. The press was full of
speculation about the closure of the Lourdes sanctuary. Opponents of the shrine were
outraged by the failure of the government to shut it down. Comment un rgime
dexception peut-il tre institu en faveur de la plus scandaleuse des entreprises
clricales? Comment ne pas faire disparatre cette chapelle o prtres et religieux se
livrent lexploitation honte du plus bas des fanatismes? asked the radical journal La
Lanterne.122 Supporters were convinced that a decision had already been made and that
closure was imminent.123 And every day the grotto administration was asked, de loin
comme de prs, dAmrique, de Belgique comme de Hongrie, si les plerinages ne seront
pas entravs ou mme rendus impossibles par la fermeture de la Grotte.124 The grotto
was not closed, but in 1910 it became the property of the town of Lourdes, and the next
year it was rented back to the bishop.125
121
Laurentin, Billet, and Galland, Lourdes: Documents authentiques, 6: p. 69 and no. 1367, p. 399-400.
122
Toujours Lourdes, La Lanterne, 2 February 1904. See the clipping in the Archives nationales, F 19
2375.
123
Paul Duch, Avertissement, La Nouvelliste de Bordeaux, 15 March 1904. See the clipping in the
Archives nationales, F 19 2375.
124
125
La Croix, 29 March 1904. See the clipping in the Archives nationales, F 19 2375.
Stphane Baumont, La Rinvention de Lourdes (1858-1993), in Histoire de Lourdes, ed. Stphane

Baumont (Toulouse: Privat, 1993), 251-252; Harris, Lourdes, 364-365.
164
Changes to the Grotto, before and after Laurence Declared the Authenticity of the
Apparitions in 1862
Responding to Bernadettes experience, in the spring and summer of 1858
Catholics began to gather in increasing numbers at the grotto. There, they participated in
unorthodox religious practices and decorated an illegal chapel. Although just eight
hundred meters from the town,126 when the Virgin first appeared to Bernadette the area
around the grotto was rugged and uninhabited (fig. 60). The very name of the mound
where the grotto is located, Massabieille, means masse vieille (old mass), and carries
primeval associations.127 One witness described it as an immense rock, sixty feet high,
embedded within a 120 foot escarpment. The rocks surface was indented with numerous
cavities, including one whose shape resembled a Gothic niche: that was where Mary
appeared to Bernadette.128 It was covered with thick scrub, a few poplars and alder trees,
and inhabited by pigs and snakes. There were two ways to get to the grotto: either by a
treacherous road above the rock and an even more dangerous path leading down to the
river, or along the rivers edge. Only a narrow strip of land strewn with boulders
separated Massabieille from the Gave de Pau, and when the river was swollen, the grotto
floor was submerged.129
Following the apparitions to Bernadette, there were reports of other apparitions
and of miraculous cures at the grotto. With these, there was a rise in unsanctioned
religious activity. The apocryphal visions appeared mostly to children; twenty-two
126
Courtin, Lourdes, 62
127
128
Frre Lobard, unpublished manuscript, December 1858. Quoted in Cros, Histoire de Notre-Dame de
Lourdes, 1: 32.
129
Lucien Poueyto, quoted in Cros, Histoire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, 1: 35; and Harris, Lourdes, 52.
165
children claimed to see visions in early July 1858.130 Many of them differed from the
apparitions to Bernadette in that they occurred in a cave deep inside the grotto.131 The
visionaries displayed strange and unsettling behavior, their faces grimacing and their
bodies contorting, and their messages were sometimes dark.132 Cures attributed to the
water of the spring by the grotto also multiplied, with hundreds counted in a three-day
period in mid-April alone.133 Sick and disabled people came to the grotto to drink and
bathe in the water, so that the approach to the grotto resembled a hospital.134 Meanwhile,
pilgrims came in procession at all hours of the day and night, leaving offerings at the
grotto. In one instance, visionaries swung their rosaries to sprinkle grotto water on a
crowd of pilgrims; in another, a crowd observed the crowning of a visionary.135
As pilgrims took part in these practices, they made ad hoc and unauthorized
changes to the grotto. On February 28, 1858, just three days after Bernadettes discovery
of the spring, workers directed the water into a channel, making it easier to collect. 136
They added taps and a basin in April. Pilgrims also decorated the grotto so that it
resembled a chapel. Already on April 2, 1858 the Lourdes police commissioner, Jean
Dominique Jacomet, noted that the grotto contained offerings of candles, a cross, an
130
131
132
Cros, Histoire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, 2: 246, 255; Harris, Lourdes, 94-95.
133
134
Cros, Histoire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, 2: 44, 72.
135
Cros, Histoire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, 2: 275-276.
136
Courtin, Lourdes, 64-65.
166
engraving, a carpet, and coins, most of which were donated by poor women.137 Two days
after, the first statue was on view.138 By mid-month, the grotto had acquired a framed
painting of Our Lady of La Salette, artificial flowers, a total of three plaster statues of the
Virgin, jewelry, and a twelve-meter-long balustrade salvaged from a demolition site.139
On April 24, Jacomet remarked that the balustrade and a makeshift altar gave the grotto
laspect dune vritable chapelle.140 Later, pilgrims decorated the hidden inner cave
where many of the apocryphal visions happened. Exploring the chamber in July, Jacomet
was dazzled by the magical effect of the arrangement there of one hundred burning
candles, thirty-six bouquets of flowers surmounted by wreaths, and two hundred
rosaries.141
Neither religious nor secular authorities approved of worship at the grotto. In
response to the apparitions of early July, the cur of Lourdes became fearful of diabolical
trickery and he protested by forbidding his catechists to go to the grotto and refusing to
bless any candles intended to be brought there.142 Similarly, the police commissioner
considered one procession to be a prank143 and the ceremonies surrounding the
137
Laurentin, Lourdes: Dossier des documents authentiques, 1: no. 110, p. 304; Harris, Lourdes, 86-90.
138
Laurentin, Lourdes: Documents authentiques, 2: no. 117, p. 138.
139
Laurentin, Lourdes: Documents authentiques, 2: no. 146, p. 169. Courtin called the altar a petit trne
rustique. See Courtin, Lourdes, 73.
140
Quoted in Cros, Histoire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, 2: 72; and Laurentin, Lourdes: Documents
authentiques, 2: no. 183, p. 234-235.
141
142
143
167
apparitions to be abominable.144 It was the secular authorities assessment of such
practices as superstition145 and of the grotto as an illegal place of worship under the
Concordat that led them to remove all religious objects from the grotto on May 4 and to
seal off the site on June 15.146 There ensued a struggle between devotees and the
government, devotees repeated breach of the barrier in defiance of the law, and the
governments reopening of the barrier, four months later.
Once Bishop Laurence declared the authenticity of the apparitions to Bernadette
in January 1862, he ordered changes to the grotto, changes that explicitly communicated
his control of the Lourdes devotion and its absorption into Catholic orthodoxy. That
year, he installed an imposing two-meter-high grill flanked by marble columns,
ostensibly to guard against vandalism and relic theft (fig. 61). In addition, the grill had
the effect of barring access to the inner cave associated with the apocryphal visions.
Installing it was an important step in effacing these visions from the canon of accepted
beliefs. Laurence also signaled his authority by charging Peyramale to create a safer path
down the side of Massabieille from the road, and by ordering the removal of the dense
brush from the riverbank and the planting of trees.147 Later, he approved liturgical
furnishings such as a pulpit (1864)148 and an altar (1866),149 at the same time that he
banned all ex-votos other than crutches, canes, and braces related to miraculous
144
145
146
Cros, Histoire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, 2: 76; Harris, Lourdes, 88, 109.
147
148
149
Courtin, Lourdes, 80.
168
recoveries.150 This reoriented the pilgrimage from the para-sacramental bathing in the
grotto water to the sacrament of the Eucharist, from physical problems to spiritual
concerns. Furthermore, he moved back the riverbank (in 1864 and 1865), creating a
parvis in front of the grotto to accommodate thousands of pilgrims participating in priestled ceremonies.151
In 1863 Laurence further conveyed the clericalization of the cult of Our Lady of
Lourdes by commissioning a statue of Bernadettes vision, to be placed in the grotto
where it had appeared (fig. 62). Already in spring 1858, lay people had deposited cheap
plaster casts in the grotto, motivated, according to Garaison Father Jean-Marie Dubo
(1828-99), by a desire to reify the apparition: Dans cette niche o lme cherchait la
Vierge disparue, la prire aurait voulu rencontrer une image qui lui ft illusion et le rendit
plus confiante, en lui laissant croire que Marie tait l pour lentendre.152 The casts,
then the painted marble statue ordered by Laurence, provided pilgrims with physical
contact with the sacred. The replacement of the multiple casts by Laurences single
statue also conveyed that the bishop had struck the later visions from the canon and
authenticated those of Bernadette only.
Laurences statue was paid for by two wealthy sisters from Lyon and designed by
Joseph-Hugues Fabisch (1812-86), an Aix-born Lyon artist responsible for important
precedents in Marian sculpture: the statue of Our Lady of Fourvire (1852) above the old
Chapel of Notre-Dame de Fourvire (fig. 63) and the statue of Our Lady of La Salette
150
151
152
Jean-Marie Dubo, Petite histoire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, in Notre-Dame de Lourdes par ses
premiers chapelains, by Pierre-Rmi Semp and Jean-Marie Dubo, 12th ed. (Paris: Letouzey et An,
1931), 222.
169
(1859) on the site of that apparition, both of gilded bronze.153 Interestingly, the statue of
Our Lady of Fourvire, which represents the Virgin with outstretched hands in the
manner of the miraculous medal, was completed before Pius IX promulgated the dogma
of the Immaculate Conception in 1854. As such, it is the first (or at least among the
first)154 of many statues of the Virgin erected during the period of the Second Empire, a
group that also includes Henry Esprandieus Monument de lImmacule Conception in
Marseille (1855-57) (fig. 64) and Jean-Marie-Bienaim Bonnassieuxs sixteen-meter-tall
Notre-Dame de France in Le Puy-en-Velay (1860).155 For the statue of Our Lady of
Lourdes, Fabisch interviewed Bernadette to hear her account of the vision, but she was
nevertheless sharply critical of the finished work, inaugurated with great clerical fanfare
in 1864. Fabischs sculpture represented the vision to the clergys specifications, notably
making the Virgin look larger and older than how she appeared to Bernadette.156
However, by far the most significant change that Laurence imposed on the grotto was the
construction of a church directly above it. The location of the church strengthened the
clergys control of the devotion to Our Lady of Lourdes. The Gothic Revival design of
the church reinforced priests promotion of the cult in way that embraced both medieval
Christian traditions and modern innovations in the organization of pilgrimage.
153
On Fabisch in general, as well as the Lourdes, Lyon, and La Salette statues, see Elisabeth HardouinFugier et al., Les Peintres de lme Art lyonnais du XIXe sicle (Lyon: Muse des beaux-arts, 1981), 7180.
154
Notre-Dame de Fourvires status as a precursor to other monumental statues of the Virgin is pointed
out in Elisabeth Hardouin-Fugier, Voir, revoir Fourvire (Hauteville-Lompnes: Lardant, 1988), 11.
155
The composition of this group is established in the short essay by Anne Pingeot, Les Vierges colossales
du Second Empire, in La Sculpture franaise au XIXe sicle, ed. Anne Pingeot et al. (Paris: Runion des
muses nationaux, 1986), 208-213.
156
On Fabischs statue of Notre-Dame de Lourdes see Cros, Histoire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, 3: 141158; and Bernard Billet, Une Statue la grotte, in Lourdes: Documents authentiques, by Ren Laurentin
and Bernard Billet, vol. 7 (Paris: P. Lethielleux, 1966), 41-60. See also Harriss interpretation in Harris,
Lourdes, 72.
170
Durands Salon Exhibitions and Publications
Hippolyte Louis Durand (1801-81 or 82), the architect of the Basilica of the
Immacule-Conception, was an obvious choice for the commission (fig. 65).157 He had
worked for Laurence already, was a convert to Catholicism, and had developed a system
for building churches economically, a helpful qualification for a project with an uncertain
budget. Furthermore, he had worked on prestigious religious and civil commissions-including a villa for the emperor and empress. Born in Paris in 1801, he studied
architecture with Louis-Hippolyte Lebas (1782-1867) and Antoine-Laurent-Thomas
Vaudoyer (1756-1846), entering the second class of the cole des Beaux-Arts in 1819
and the first class in 1820.158
A frequent exhibitor at the annual Salons, his submissions attracted critical
attention, starting in 1837 with restoration drawings of the Gothic Church of Saint-Remi
(ca. 1170-80) in Reims (appendix 3).159 Durands studies drew reverential praise from
Montalembert. In De ltat actuel de lart religieux en France of 1837, he called them
de savantes et consciencieuses tudes.160 Moreover, Montalembert listed Durand with
157
For Durands full name and birth date see the form filled out by Durand for the Direction des Cultes in
the Archives nationales, F 19 7230. Durands birth date is wrongly identified as 1809 in the catalogue of
the Bibliothque nationale and elsewhere.
158
Legathe, Recherches sur la basilique suprieure de Lourdes, 1: 25. Despite what is stated by Courtin
and Harris there is no evidence that Durand studied with Viollet-le-Duc. See Courtin, Lourdes, 96; and
Harris, Lourdes, 170-171.
159
mile Bellier de la Chavignerie and Louis Auvray, Dictionnaire gnral des artistes de lcole ranaise
(1882-85; reprint, New York: Garland, 1979), 2: 496; Ch. Bauchal, Nouveau dictionnaire biographique et
critique des architectes franais (Paris: Andr, Daly fils, 1887), 648. The architect and archaeologist
Albert Lenoir (1801-91) remarked that ce travail considrable nest pas sans intrt. Albert Lenoir,
Architecture, Journal de lInstitut histori ue 6, no. 33 (April 1837): 121. A year later Durand showed
drawings of Notre-Dame de lpine (begun before 1440), a Flamboyant Gothic church near Chlons-enChampagne. Durands drawings of Notre-Dame de lpine were published in Justin Taylor, Champagne,
Voyages pittoresques et romantiques dans lancienne France (Paris: P. Didot, 1857). The elevation is
reprinted in Alain Villes, Notre-Dame de lpine: Sa Faade occidentale, in Congrs archologique de
France, 135e session, 1977, Champagne (Paris: Socit franaise darchologie, 1980), fig. 20.
160
Charles-Ren Forbes, Comte de Montalembert, De ltat actuel de lart religieux en France, in Du
171
Lassus and Piel as the only architects producing works, si patiens, si savans et si
rgnrateurs.161 Durands inclusion in such company indicates Montalemberts high
opinion of him; it also suggests Durands elevated status at the outset of the Gothic
Revival more generally.
With his 1845 Salon submission of model churches, Durand defended the Gothic
on rational grounds, with an emphasis on frugality. He also advanced the idea of model
churches, an idea that was influential during the period of the Second Empire. The
project, which he called Parallle de projet[s] dglises en style ogival du XIIIe sicle,
consisted of model churches for four administrative divisions: a village, a township
(canton), a district (arrondissement), and a departmental capital (chef-lieu de
dpartement).162 Durand explained later that his models were supposed to respond to
objections that the Gothic was more expensive than the Greek and Roman styles, and to
debunk the idea that Gothic buildings could only be constructed with stone.163 They were
intended to serve as aids for Academically-trained architects who were unfamiliar with
the Gothic.164 In a review for the Annales archologiques, the Baron de Guilhermy noted
vandalisme et du catholicisme dans lart (Paris: Debcourt, 1839), 180 n. 1.
161
Montalembert, De ltat actuel de lart religieux en France, 179-180.
162
Bellier de la Chavignerie and Auvray, Dictionnaire gnral, 2: 496; [Adolphe-Napolon Didron],

Constructions nouvelles, Annales archologiques 2 (March 1845): 189.
163
Nous nous proposons de prsenter une srie dautres dispositions dans une suite darticles, et nous
joindrons toujours lappui des chiffres, qui sont la meilleure manire de rpondre aux objections de ceux
qui persistent soutenir quon ne peut construire aussi conomiquement en style ogival quen style grec et
romain. Au surplus, cette opinion est fonde sur une ide fausse, mais gnralement accrdite; car, cest
une grave erreur de croire que logive ne peut slancer en courbes lgantes quavec le secours de la pierre
de taille; . . . Hippolyte Durand, Considrations sur lart religieux: De la dcoration et du mobilier des
glises de villages, LArt et larchologie en province 9 (1849): 26.
164
En face de cette rnovation qui a dj fait de merveilleux progrs en Allemagne et en Angleterre, il faut
bien le dire, la plupart de nos architectes sont pris au dpourvu, il est trs-difficile de changer en un jour la
direction imprime aux tudes de toute sa vie, cest pour suppler cette insuffisance momentane que
nous publierons une srie de modles dglise en style du 13e sicle; . . . Hippolyte Durand, Quelques
172
that Durands more far-reaching goal was, de prouver que larchitecture du moyen ge,
rduite aux proportions les plus simples et lornementation la plus sobre, laisse encore
bien loin derrire elle le style pseudo-grec invent par messieur de lInstitut, de lcole
des Beaux-Arts et du Conseil des btiments civils.165 For Guilhermy, Durand did not do
enough to demonstrate the inexpensiveness of the Gothic. He urged Durand to produce
more detailed estimates, so that il sera une bonne fois constat pour toujours que le plein
cintre romain ou logive du XIIIe sicle ne cote pas plus cher que lentablement grec ou
larcade romaine.166 Earlier, another critic had ridiculed what Durand had exhibited:
On retrouve partout le mme clocher et la mme disposition, la grandeur seule diffre;
cest comme pour les marmites, he quipped.167 In response to such derision of Durands
models as patterns for banal, ready-made churches, Guilhermy insisted that they were not
des monuments tout faits, mis en vente sur un comptoir, ce qui pourrait sembler par trop
commercial, mais seulement des modles consulter dans loccasion.168 The similarity
of Durands church designs to mass-produced, commercial goods was a recurring theme
considrations sur lart religieux du XIIIe sicle: Devis dune glise de village en style du XIIIe sicle,
LArt et larchologie en province 9 (1849): 14.
165
Baron de Guilhermy, Salon de 1845: xamen archologique, Annales archologiques 2 (June 1845):
357-358.
166
Guilhermy, Salon de 1845, 358.
167
The entire passage on Durand reads: M. Durand a expos un Parallle de projets dglises en style
ogival du treizime sicle. La construction ddifices catholiques y est mise la porte de toutes les
bourses. Il y a des glises pour village, pour chef-lieu de canton, pour chef-lieu darrondissement et pour
chef-lieu de dpartement, sige de lvch. On retrouve partout le mme clocher et la mme disposition,
la grandeur seule diffre; cest comme pour les marmites. Arthur Guillot, Salon de 1845. Deuxime
article, Revue indpendente 19 (10 April 1845): 393-394. The existence of this article is signaled in JeanMichel Leniaud, Jean-Baptiste Lassus (1807-1857) ou le temps retrouv des cathdrales (Geneva: Droz,
1980), 126.
168
Guilhermy, Salon de 1845, 358.
173
in his career. Years later, mile Zola and Huysmans would lambaste the Basilica of the
Immacule-Conception because of the resemblance.
Durand attributed his idea for the Parallle to the Annales archologiques.169 In
the first volume published in 1844, Didron promised to offer much-needed guidance on
the construction and decoration of new churches in the Gothic style.170 Les hommes
pour excuter et les modles choisir manquent, Didron lamented. He aimed to solve
the problem: Lun des buts essentiels des Annales archologiques est prcisment de
donner ces modles et de faire connatre les artistes instruits et habiles.171 Didron
assured his readers that he would publish a model for a fully-decorated, thirteenthcentury parish church that could be enlarged to become a cathedral, or shrunk for a
village church--complete with a description and estimate.172 But the promise went
unfulfilled except for a plan and a section by Jean-Baptiste Lassus.173 Entitled glise du
169
. . . M. Durand a reconnu que les Annales lui avaient suggr son ide, . . . Adolphe-Napolon
Didron, Modles dglises pour des constructions nouvelles en style ogival, Annales archologiques 2
(1845): 259. Jean-Michel Leniaud has pointed to an earlier source that offered advice on building a
church, for a parish of six thousand people: Msgr. Alexandre-Raymond Devie, Rituel du diocse de Belley,
vol. 4, O jets dart (Lyon: L. Lesne, 1843), 300 ff. See Leniaud, Jean-Baptiste Lassus, 125.
170
Journellement on est consult sur le style quil convient dadopter dans la construction des glises
nouvelles; sur la confection des autels, des stalles et des chaires; . . . Des conseils suivis sont donner sur
tout cela. Adolphe-Napolon Didron, Introduction, Annales archologiques 1 (1844): 2.
171
Didron, Introduction, 3.
172
Dans nos premiers numros, nous offrirons, en texte et en dessin, un modle dglise paroissiale
daprs le style svre du plus beau XIIIe sicle. Nous donnerons, excuts par M. Lassus, des plans,
coupes, lvations, vues, dtails dune glise antrieure saint Louis, et rpondant la fin du rgne de
Philippe-Auguste; elle sera sculpte, peinte et meuble selon les exigences de la mme poque. La qualit
et le prix des matriaux, bruts et travaill; seront discuts dans un devis, pour quon puisse se rendre
compte de ce que coterait btir, en ce moment mme, une glise de ce genre. En agrandissant les
dimensions du type qui sera offert, on pourrait avoir une cathdrale; en les amoindrissant; on obtiendrait
une glise de village. Les dessins et le texte seront excuts daprs cette double vue. Didron,
Introduction, 3.
173
The plates after Lassuss drawings are titled glise du XIIIme sicle. Coupe longitudinale and
glise du XIIIme sicle. Plan. Both were published in Annales archologiques 1 (1844). Didron
regretted the failure of the project: Nous avons toujours dsir donner suite cette premire ide, et
prsenter une srie de dessins qui complteraient pour la constructions, lornementation et lameublement
174
XIIIme sicle, the plates were actually of Saint-Nicolas in Nantes, whose construction
Lassus took responsibility for in 1840.174
In 1845 Durand approached Didron with a proposal for a set of drawings based on
his Salon submission. Didron eagerly agreed to collaborate. He dropped his idea for
models in the Annales and decided to publish a church-building manual for priests
instead.175 The title he proposed was Exemples dglises ogivales en style du XIIIe
sicle.176 Restricted in scope to churches for townships and villages--where there was
the most demand--177the manual was to reproduce plans for churches and liturgical
furnishings, as well as estimates for construction in brick and two kinds of stone.178
Didron was wary of the perception of the models as confining rather than liberating, so he
insisted on the ease of adapting them to diverse materials and budgets.179 However,
le modle que nous regardons comme le meilleur; nous voulions publier en mme temps un texte et un
devis lappui de ces planches. Malheureusement le temps et la place nous ont manqu constamment; plus
nous allions, plus nous remarquions avec regret quil nous serait impossible de poursuivre notre ide dans
les Annales. Didron, Modles dglises pour des constructions nouvelles, 258.
174
Georg Germann, Gothic Revival in Europe and Britain: Sources, Influences, and Ideas, trans. Gerald
Onn (Cambridge, MA: MIT, 1972), 141-142.
175
Nous allons publier avec M. Durand, mais en dehors des Annales, une srie de dessins destins servir
de guide aux ecclsiastiques qui ont btir des glises sur divers points de la France. Didron, Modles
dglises pour des constructions nouvelles, 258-259.
176
[Adolphe-Napolon Didron], Exemples dglises ogivales en style du XIIIe sicle, Annales

archologiques 6 (1847): 348.
177
Cest aux cantons, aux gros villages ou mieux aux villages ordinaires et aux plus petites communes que
nous voulons offrir dabord des exemples de constructions gothiques; voil surtout les localits qui nous
demandent des avis et un guide. Didron, Modles dglises pour des constructions nouvelles, 259.
178
Un texte sera joint ces dessins; il comprendra trois devis diffrents, suivant les trois principales
varits de matriaux. Un devis sera fait pour la brique, ou les terres cuites; un devis pour la pierre
calcaire; un devis pour la pierre dure, le granit de lAuvergne ou de la Bretagne. Didron, Modles
dglises pour des constructions nouvelles, 259.
179
La varit est le caractre de larchitecture chrtienne; nous dsirons donc, en prsentant des exemples,
quon les modifie suivant les localits, suivant les matriaux, suivant les ressources dont on dispose.
Didron, Modles dglises pour des constructions nouvelles, 259-260.
175
Durands professional responsibilities prevented him from completing his portion of the
book, so Didron abandoned the project.180
In June 1847, Didron proposed that he would not publish imagined types (glises
inventes) in a book, but would print engravings of existing thirteenth-century, northern
French churches in the Annales.181 The first model was presented in October by EugneEmmanuel Viollet-le-Duc (1814-79), the architect, restorer, and scholar. It was the early
Gothic church of Montral (Yonne), built in the early 1200s and restored by Viollet-leDuc between 1845 and 1850. Viollet-le-Duc described it as simple and economical,
without flying buttresses, and he supplied an estimate proving that it could be built in the
nineteenth century for just over 200,000 francs.182 In the volumes that followed, Didron
published descriptions and drawings of Cologne cathedral and the abbey church of SaintDenis, as well as numerous medieval liturgical furnishings and objects, but he never
offered the range of existing examples of thirteenth-century French churches that he had
promised.183 So, while Didron conceived the idea of model churches, Durand was the
one who developed it.
In 1849, Durand published two Gothic-style model churches and an altar in the
Moulins journal LArt et larchologie en province, without Didrons collaboration. First
180
Adolphe-Napolon Didron, Avenir et pass des Annales, Annales archologiques 5 (December 1846):
379 n. 1.
181
Ces gravures reprsenteront, non pas des glises inventes, ni mme arranges, ce qui pourrait tre
suspect nos abonns, mais des glises existantes encore dans le pays o le gothique du XIIIe sicle est
arriv sa perfection, dans lIle-de-France, la Picardie, la Champagne, dans une grande partie de la
Bourgogne et de la Normandie. [Didron], Exemples dglises ogivales en style du XIIIe sicle, 348349.
182
Eugne-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, Modles dglises ogivales et cintres, Annales archologiques 7

(1847): 169-177.
183
Didron promised to provide a full range of examples in a footnote to Viollet-le-Ducs article. Viollet-leDuc, Modles dglises ogivales et cintres, 22 n. 1.
176
came a village church. Its plan is basilican with an apse and transepts and its faade
consists of a single portal surmounted by a tracery window and a small bell tower (fig.
66). The estimate specifies that the church was executed in the district of Moulins,
suggesting that Durand had actually built it. This is puzzling, as Durands only known
religious buildings in the Moulins area are the Church of Saint-Menoux, which he merely
restored, and a funerary chapel for the nearby chteau de Beaumont. The estimate also
explains that the church was small and inexpensive. It measured only 16 m 50 cm long, 9
m 30 cm wide, and 9 m 80 cm high. The exterior was brick except for the stone of part
of the faade and some details. And the ceiling was plaster and lath; there were no stone
vaults. Owing to the size and the materials of the Moulins church, its total cost was
8,959.96 francs, tiny in comparison with the 200,000 francs that Viollet-le-Duc estimated
would be needed to build the church of Montral.184 Second, Durand published a plate of
an altar (fig. 67). Executed for a private chapel (perhaps that of Beaumont) with a stone
base and wooden tabernacle, it cost only 200 francs.185 Third, Durand published a model
church for a township (fig. 68). He provided less information on it than he had on the
village church, but it is clear from the estimate and plates that the proposed church would
be stone with brick vaults and would have robust masses and austere details. Durand
estimated that the cost to build it would be just over 100,000 francs. His projected book,
the Exemples dglises, never appeared.186
184
Durand, Quelques considrations, 14-16.
185
Durand, Considrations sur lart religieux, 28.
186
Hippolyte Durand, Projet dglise en style ogival du XIIIe sicle, pour un chef-lieu de canton dune
population de 3500 mes, LArt et larchologie en province 9 (1849): 90-91.
177
In his articles in LArt et larchologie en province, Durand justified the Gothic
for modern church building on the basis that the style was Catholic, economical, and
adaptable to local materials. The Gothic style was the most appropriate for Catholic
liturgy and harmonious with Catholic symbolism: it was aptly called art religieux. 187
Durand promoted the Gothic Revival as a force for social conservatism, declaring that
lart religieux peut tre un puissant auxiliaire pour combattre luvre de destruction qui
sape la base de la vieille socit sous prtexte de la rgnrer.188 According to Durand,
architects could build in the Gothic style as cheaply as in the Greek and Roman styles.189
And they could build Gothic churches in other materials besides stone, particularly brick,
as they had in Toulouse.190 Yet there were limits to Durands enthusiasm. Gothic
architecture of the thirteenth century was only the most perfect expression of religious art
until il surgisse un art nouveau que nous appelons de tous nos vux.191 And Durand
insisted that when it came to civil architecture, nous professerons lecclectisme [sic] le
plus large, car si lart religieux doit affecter les formes immuables du dogme qui la cr,
il ne peut en tre de mme pour lart profane qui doit subir toutes les transformations que
le caprice et la mode mme peuvent lui imposer.192 What was original about Durands
187
Durand, Quelques considrations, 13.
188
Hippolyte Durand, Monographie de la Cathdrale dAuch, par M. lAbb Canto, LArt en province,
n.s., 11 (1850): 149-150.
189
Durand, Quelques considrations, 14; Durand, Considrations sur lart religieux, 26.
190
191
192
178
defense of the Gothic was not his religious argument, which derived from Chateaubriand
and Montalembert, but his preoccupation with frugality.193
The idea of model churches proved influential. In 1853 Hippolyte Fortoul, the
Ministre de lInstruction publique et des cultes, asked diocesan architects to prepare
models for churches, presbyteries, and primary schools. These were to be published in a
book and serve as the basis for future construction, but not all the architects responded
and the book was never printed.194 The idea was pursued further by Anatole de Baudot
(1834-1915), Viollet-le-Ducs favorite student.195 In 1866 Baudot printed Viollet-leDucs design and estimate for the church of Saint-Denis-de-lEstre in Seine-Saint-Denis
(1860-66) together with his own analysis in the Gazette des architectes et btiment,
which he edited.196 The exercise was similar to Didrons use of the church of Montral in
the Annales.197 Then in 1867 Baudot published glises de bourgs et villages, a collection
of medieval and medieval revival parish churches, presenting a variety of compositions
and materials, and accompanied by estimates.198
Comparison of Durands and Baudots plates reveals a shift in the kinds of
medieval prototypes that interested Gothic Revival architects: from cathedrals to parish
193
The association between the Gothic and Catholicism in the nineteenth century is discussed in chapter 1.
194
Jean-Michel Leniaud, Les Cathdrales au XIXe sicle: tude du service des difices diocsains (Paris:
Economica, 1993), 482-486.
195
On Baudot see Franoise Boudon, Recherche sur la pense et luvre dAnatole de Baudot, 18341915, Architecture, mouvement, continuit 28 (March 1973): 1-66. Claude Laroche also compares
Durands and Baudots production of models or types. See Claude Laroche, Les glises dAbadie: Un
Laboratoire darchitecture sacre, in Paul Abadie: Architecte, 1812-1884, ed. Claude Laroche (Paris:
Runion des muses nationaux, 1988), 161.
196
Anatole de Baudot, glises contemporaines, Gazette des architectes et du btiment (1866): 65-70, 89,
102, 103, 105, 113-115, 118-119, 189, 193-196, 198-199, 227, 230-233, 273-275.
197
Boudon, Recherche sur la pense et luvre dAnatole de Baudot, 6.
198
Anatole de Baudot, glises de bourgs et villages (Paris: A. Morel, 1867), 1: 2.
179
churches. In the 1840s and 1850s they emulated cathedrals, an approach exemplified by
Lassuss designs, particularly those for Saint-Nicolas in Nantes (1844-52), the SacrCur in Moulins (1849-81), and Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Belleville in Paris (1854-59).
The approach is also demonstrated by Barthlemys Basilica of Notre-Dame de
Bonsecours (1840-44) and, much later, by Durands Basilica of the ImmaculeConception (1862-72). However, in the 1860s, Viollet-le-Duc and his followers attached
greater importance to parish churches.199 This can be seen in Viollet-le-Ducs Church of
Saint-Denis-de-lEstre, as well as the churches illustrated in Baudots book, such as
Viollet-le-Ducs Church of Aillant-sur-Tholon in the Yonne (1863-65).200 Both Durand
and Baudot sought to facilitate the construction of modern parish churches. To this end,
Durand published modern parish churches of his own design. His model church for a
township incorporates features of cathedrals, and he advised young artists to find
inspiration in cathedrals.201 In contrast, Baudot published medieval as well as modern
parish churches. He defended his book on the grounds that it was the first anthology of
medieval village churches among many monographs of medieval cathedrals.202
199
For this argument see Robin Middleton and David Watkin, Neoclassical and Nineteenth-Century
Architecture (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1980), 354-356. For an analysis of Lassuss designs and how
they relate to cathedrals see Leniaud, Jean-Baptiste Lassus, 150-154.
200
Baudot, glises de bourgs et villages, 2: 1-4, plates 1-5.
201
Nous dirons donc tous ceux qui entrent dans la carrire artistique, au lieu dtudier exclusivement
lart antique et italien, allez donc dans nos cathdrales du Nord, tchez de vous inspirer du gnie de ces
artistes gants mconnus pendant longtemps, puisez aux mmes sources o ils trouvaient la force et la
constance ncessaires laccomplissement de si grandes choses, cest--dire dans des penses
profondment pieuses et religieuses; coup sr quand vous reviendrez parmi nous, vous ne recommencerez
plus, le cas chant, les uvres incroyables brvetes et patentes par MM. de lInstitut. Durand,
Quelques considrations, 13.
202
Beaucoups douvrages ont donn des monographies plus ou moins compltes de nos cathdrales et de
nos glises au moyen ge; mais il manque, pour les constructeurs appels lever des difices modestes, un
Recueil de ces anciennes glises de village que lon trouve parses encore dans les environs de Paris, en
Bourgogne, en Champagne et en Brie; difices bien conus toujours, excuts avec des ressources minimes,
dun aspect gracieux et original, commodment disposs et durables.
180
Baudots understanding of architectural composition was different from both
Durands and Didrons. For Baudot, it was the application of rational laws, while for
Durand and Didron it was imitative.203 Durand called all of his projects models and
wanted his project for a village church to be un des types quon peut le plus
gnralement excuter quels que soient dailleurs les matriaux que les ressources locales
peuvent fournir.204 Didron proposed that his model parish church could be shrunk or
enlarged,205 and that the churches in his manual could be built anywhere in the country,
with a range of materials.206 In contrast, Baudot explicitly rejected imitation. He insisted
that his thought was not to furnish des ensembles reproduire et des formes copier,
mais uniquement de faire ressortir les principes qui, au double point de vue de la structure
et de laspect, ont guid les artistes du moyen ge dans la conception des difices quils
nous ont laisss.207 He argued that the dimensions and materials of medieval
monuments determined their general system of construction. Because of this, a small
church is not the reduction of a bigger one, and architectural character varies from region
to region.208 So while Durand and Didron invited imitation, Baudot presented the study
Nous nous sommes donc impos la tche de former un Recueil de plusieurs de ces petits
monuments les plus remarquables et pouvant servir de types encore aujourdhui pour nos constructions
religieuses. Baudot, glises de bourgs et villages, 1: 1-2.
203
Louis Hautecur, Histoire de larchitecture classi ue en France, vol. 7 (Paris: A. et J. Picard, 1957),
350; Barry Bergdoll, introduction to The Foundations of Architecture: Selections from the Dictionnaire
raisonn, by Eugne-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, trans. Kenneth D. Whitehead (New York: George
Braziller, 1990), 15-16; Barry Bergdoll, The Ideal of the Gothic Cathedral in 1852, in A. W. N. Pugin:
Master of Gothic Revival, ed. Paul Atterbury (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), 105.
204
205
Didron, Introduction, 3.
206
Didron, Modles dglises pour des constructions nouvelles, 259.
207
Baudot, glises de bourgs et villages, 1: 4.
208
Ce quil y a de remarquable dans les monuments de cette poque, cest que chacun deux est bas sur
181
of architecture as an investigation of principles, an approach derived from his teacher
Viollet-le-Duc.209 Durands Salon submissions and publications are notable for his idea
of building Gothic Revival churches cheaply, particularly through the standardization of
forms. It was an idea that Durand put into practice, even at Lourdes.
Durands Restorations and Building Projects

Durand built much more than he published, working in the le-de-France,
Champagne, the Bourbonnais, and the south-west of the country (appendix 4). His most
significant contribution to French architecture was as a pioneer of the Gothic Revival.
He designed his first Gothic-style building in 1845: a small Chapelle funraire for the
Chteau de Beaumont, north-west of Saint-Menoux, in the Bourbonnais.210 In 1849
Durand published an enthusiastic monograph on Bourges cathedral211 and the
Administration des cultes named him Architecte diocsain des Basses-Pyrnes et du
Gers. He designed the Church of Saint-Andr in Bayonne (designed 1847, built 1856-69)
with Hippolyte Guichenn and was briefly in charge of restoring Bayonne cathedral
un systme gnral de construction conu en raison des dimensions de ldifice et de la nature des
matriaux; cest ainsi quune petite glise nest pas la rduction dune grande et que le caractre
architectural varie suivant les provinces. Baudot, glises de bourgs et villages, 1: 5.
209
This aspect of Viollet-le-Ducs theory is discussed in Barry Bergdoll, introduction to The Foundations
of Architecture, 16.
210
Durand wrote to Didron of his design for the chapel: Dcidment le gothique commence prendre
racine ici. Jai fait un projet de chapelle pour M. dOrjault de Beaumont, propritaire du dpartement de
lAllier. Je me suis renferm dans toute la svrit du XIIIe sicle, et je crois que vous serez content du
rsultat. Quoted in [Adolphe-Napolon Didron], glise et chapelle nouvelles en style du XIIIe sicle,
Annales archologiques 3 (1845): 59. In January 1847, Didron referred to the chapel as built. Durand, he
wrote, a construit au chteau de M. dOrjault de Beaumont une petite chapelle funraire en style ogival.
Adolphe-Napolon Didron, Renaissance du moyen ge, Annales archologiques 6 (1847): 6. I have not
been able to discover if the chapel exists.
211
Hippolyte Durand and A. de Girardot, La Cathdrale de Bourges: Description historique et

archologique avec plan, notes et pices justificatives (Moulins: P. A. Desrosiers, 1849).
182
(1849-52). Durand was named Architecte diocsain de Tarbes et dAuch in 1854212 and
he based his practice in this region until he died in Tarbes in 1881 or 1882.213 He built
mostly ecclesiastical buildings, but he also constructed two residences for highly
prestigious secular clients: the Renaissance-style Chteau de Monte-Cristo in Le Port
Marly, Yvelines (1844-47) for the prolific fiction writer Alexandre Dumas, pre (180270),214 and the Neoclassical Villa Eugnie in Biarritz (1854-55) for the imperial couple
(figs. 69-70).215 These commissions speak to Durands prominence as an architect and
his openness to what he called ecclectisme in civil architecture.
Durands two most innovative and controversial Gothic Revival churches were
Saint-Jacques in Tartas (designed 1846, built 1849-1856) and Saint-Martin in
Peyrehorade (designed 1846, built 1852-57), both in the Landes (figs. 71-74). In each
case, Durands Gothic design was supported by the local authorities but rejected by
agents of the State. In Tartas, his project was approved by the parish priest, the
212
The Auch nomination is documented in Antoine-Aim-Alphonse de Contentin, Directeur gnral de

lAdministration des cultes, to the prfet de Gers, 3 March 1854, Archives nationales, F 19 7230. The
Tarbes nomination is documented in Antoine-Aim-Alphonse de Contentin, Directeur gnral de
lAdministration des cultes, to the prfet des Hautes-Pyrnes, 3 March 1854, Archives nationales, F 19
7230.
213
In a letter nominating Durand to the Lgion dhonneur, an award he received in 1875, Bishop Laurence
emphasized Durands construction of churches and, above all, the Grand Sminaire in Tarbes (1862-69).
See Laurence to Baroche, Ministre de la Justice et des cultes, 7 July 1869, Archives nationales, F 19 7230.
There is disagreement between the sources on the date of Durands death. The 1881 date is given in Ulrich
Thieme, ed., Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildenden Knstler, vol. 10 (Leipzig: E. A. Seemann, 1914), 201;
and Roman dAmat, ed., Dictionnaire de biographie franaise, vol. 12 (Paris: Letouzey et An, 1970), col.
662. The 1882 date is given in E. Delaire, Les Architectes lves de lcole des eau -Arts, 2nd ed. (Paris:
Construction moderne, 1907), 251; Laffon, Le Monde religieux bigourdan, 122; and Legathe, Recherches
sur la basilique suprieure de Lourdes, 1: 177.
214
On Monte-Cristo see Hautecur, Histoire de larchitecture classi ue en France, 6: 316-319; and Alain
Decaux, Quand Alexandre Dumas construisait le chteau de Montecristo, Monuments historiques 1
(1974): 103-105.
215
On the Villa Eugnie see David Van Zanten, Auguste-Dodat Couvrechef, in The Second Empire,
1852-1870: Art in France under Napoleon III (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1978), 46;
Genevive Mesuret and Maurice Culot, Architectures de Biarritz et de la c te as ue De la elle po ue
au annes trente (Lige: P. Mardaga, 1990), 40; and Granger, LEmpereur et les arts, 235-236.
183
municipal council and mayor, and even the classicist Conseil des btiments civils, but the
prefect resisted.216 The situation in Peyrehorade was similar: although Durand had the
support of the vestry and municipal council in 1847, construction was held up until 1852
by the prefect and the Commission des difices religieux. This was the government
office created in 1848 to replace the Conseil des btiments civils in matters of
ecclesiastical art and architecture.217
These disputes reflect a national conflict between classicist members of the
Acadmie des beaux-arts and Conseil des btiments civils, and promoters of the Gothic
Revival such as Didron, Lassus, and Viollet-le-Duc.218 In 1845, Didron criticized the
restoration of the abbey church of Saint-Denis by the Conseil des btiments civils. In
retaliation, the Conseil stopped the construction of three Gothic Revival churches: SaintAndr at Reims, Saint-Aubin at Toulouse, and Gustave and Charles-Victor Gurins
Saint-tienne at Tours (1869-74). Of the three churches, only Saint-tienne was ever
built. After the north tower of Saint-Denis had to be demolished in 1846, the Conseil
approved Franz Christian Gaus Gothic-style plans for the Church of Sainte-Clotilde in
Paris (1846-57), under pressure from the prefect. There followed a polemical battle
between permanent secretary of the Acadmie Dsir Raoul Rochette (1790-1854) and
216
Durand, quoted in Didron, Renaissance du moyen ge, 12.
217
See [Adolphe-Napolon Didron], Les Prfets de France et le style ogival, Annales archologiques 5
(1846): 238-239; Didron, Renaissance du moyen ge, 7; and Catherine Lahonde and Bertrand Charneau,
Peyrehorade, glise paroissiale Saint-Martin, Inventaire gnral du patrimoine culturel dAquitaine (1995),
Rf. Mrime IA40000170. On the formation of the Commission des difices religieux see Leniaud, Les
Cathdrales au XIXe sicle, 48-49.
218
This discussion of the conflict is drawn from Middleton and Watkin, Neoclassical and NineteenthCentury Architecture, 357-358.
184
Viollet-le-Duc, over the suitability of building Gothic-style churches in the nineteenth
century.219
Durands churches in Tartas, Peyrehorade--and Lourdes--are similar to each other
and to his project for a model church for a township that he published in LArt et
larchologie en province. The built churches and model church are all stone and they all
have basilican plans (figs. 68, 71-75). They are all Gothic in style, with central bell
towers above their faades, and single lancet windows in expanses of wall. However,
there are minor variations. The plan of the Basilica of the Immacule-Conception differs
from those of the other churches because of the function of the basilica as a pilgrimage
church and the need for many altars where visiting priests could celebrate mass. Instead
of a simple, conch-shaped apse, the Lourdes basilica has five chapels radiating from its
chevet (fig. 76). And instead of side aisles, it has chapels connected by a narrow corridor
(fig. 77). There are also differences in the churches elevations. At Tartas and
Peyrehorade, and in the model church, the bell tower surmounts the narthex or the first
bay of the nave, but at Lourdes it rises above a porch. Moreover, the churches at Tartas
and Peyrehorade have flying buttresses, but the others do not.220 At Lourdes the triforium
is blind, at Tartas it is painted on, and at Peyrehorade and in the model church there is no
triforium. The expanses of wall are most exploited at Tartas, where the interior surfaces
219
See Eugne-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, Du style gothique au XIXe sicle, Annales archologiques 4

(1846): 325-353. Raoul Rochettes Considrations sur la question de savoir sil est convenable, au XIXe
sicle, de btir des glises en style gothique is reprinted in it, p. 326-333. The debate between Raoul
Rochette and Viollet-le-Duc is discussed by Louis Hautecur under the headings La Polmique de 1846
and La Contre-offensive des Gothiques in Louis Hautecur, Histoire de larchitecture classi ue en
France, vol. 6 (Paris: Picard, 1955), 335-341.
220
On the absence of flying buttresses at Lourdes, see the sub-section The Completed Church, in this
chapter.
185
are covered with a vast program of mural paintings.221 Comparison of the three built
churches and the model church, with their variations on a common theme, shows that
Durand used his system of the efficient repetition and adaptation of forms in his building
practice.
Laurences Choice of Durand

Bishop Laurence chose Durand for the Lourdes commission not only because of
his professional standing, but because he had known him for over a decade, first as an
architect, then as a Catholic in his diocese. Furthermore, Durand had shown zeal for the
dogma of the Immaculate Conception. In 1857, he had entered a competition organized
by the city of Bordeaux for a monumental fountain in the Place des Quinconces, which
Durand later reflected on as preparation for his work at Lourdes.222 His project received
only a simple mention, but it must have stood out in the crowd.223 The other
submissions, including the winning entry by Frdric-Auguste Bartholdi (1834-1904),
later the sculptor of the Statue of Liberty, centered on personifications of water in
mythological guises. In contrast, Durand conceived of a fountain surrounding a
221
Muriel Mauriac, Llan nogothique de Saint-Jacques, LA uitaine monumentale (September 2004):

70.
222
For a detailed discussion of the competition, open from April 30 to November 20, 1857, see Isabel
Roux, Projets et ralisations: Le Quartier des Quinconces Bordeaux (1770-1870) (thse de doctorat,
Universit de Bordeaux III, 1994), tome 1, vol. 2, 432-439. For Durands reflections, see Durand to Pre
Lonard Cros, Notes relatives la construction de la chapelle de Lourdes, 10 June 1879, p. 1, Archives et
patrimoine des sanctuaires de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, (E) A. IV 7, Fonds Cros.
223
Durand to Pre Lonard Cros, Notes relatives la construction de la chapelle de Lourdes, 10 June
1879, p. 3, Archives et patrimoine des sanctuaires de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, (E) A. IV 7, Fonds Cros.
The passage of this manuscript concerning the Bordeaux competition is edited and reprinted in Cros, 3: 3234. The manuscript is the most important primary document on the Basilica of the Immacule-Conception.
186
Colonne couronne par la Vierge immacule.224 Bishop Laurence explicitly endorsed
the column project and sent it to Pope Pius IX on Durands behalf.225
Had the monument been realized, it would have belonged to a family of columns
commemorating the proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception by Pius IX
on December 8, 1854, a family that overlaps with the group of statues of Mary erected in
France during the period of the Second Empire, already mentioned. One statue of the
Immaculate Conception was decided on by Pius himself already in December 1854 and
erected on the Piazza di Spagna in Rome by Luigi Poletti (1792-1869) in 1856,226
although Durand claimed not to have known about this until 1867.227 Another was
initiated by the Bishop of Marseille, Eugne de Mazenod, in September 1855 and
designed by Henry Esprandieu (1829-74) (fig. 64).228 This was inaugurated in
December 1857 on the boulevard du Nord (today the boulevard dAthnes) in front of
Marseilles main train station, but has since been moved to a less prominent setting near
the tracks (the corner of the boulevard Voltaire and rue des Hros). The Marseille
monument stood as a testament to French support for the spiritual and temporal authority
of the pope, and the Bordeaux monument would have too.
224
225
1879, p. 2-5, Archives et patrimoine des sanctuaires de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, (E) A. IV 7, Fonds Cros.
226
On this monument see Maria Grazia Tolomeo, Il Monumento della Immacolata Concezione di Luigi
Poletti: Arte e architettura della restaurazione, Bollettino dei Musei comunali di Roma 4 (1990): 87-101.
227
228
On the monument to the Immaculate Conception in Marseille, as well as its relation to the column in
Rome, see Odile Blum, La Vierge dore, Marseille: Revue culturelle 179 (January 1997): 86-91.
187
In addition to the column project, work that Durand performed as diocesan
architect of Tarbes helped to position him for the Lourdes commission. In December
1850, he enlarged Tarbes cathedral.229 In 1854, he made plans and an estimate for the
restoration of Lourdes parish church of Saint-Pierre.230 And in 1856, Durand began
work on the Romanesque-style chapel of the Petit Sminaire de Saint-P (1856-59), a
school founded by Laurence in 1822 in Saint-P-de-Bigorre, ten kilometers west of
Lourdes.231 Having experienced a religious conversion under the influence of the Abb
Jean-Franois Dasque, the Suprieur de Saint-P, on June 18, 1860 Durand was
confirmed by Laurence at the Petit Sminaire, in the chapel he designed.232
Durand solicited the Lourdes commission actively and early on: he offered to
build a chapel at the grotto already in August 1858.233 The following summer, Durand
wrote to the Abb Dasque of his consuming ambition to work with him on a grotto
church: Pensez un peu cette grande affaire, afin que nous puissions faire ensemble
quelque chose digne du sujet. Cest le rve comme le but de toutes mes penses et je suis
229
Legathe, Recherches sur la basilique suprieure de Lourdes, 1: 48. Legathe cites N. PousthomisDalle, Les Restaurations de la cathdrale de Tarbes au XIXe sicle (D. E. A. thesis, Universit ToulouseLe Mirail, 1979), 46.
230
That July, two of its pinnacles collapsed in earthquakes. The entire eleventh-century Romanesque
church (mostly rebuilt in the sixteenth century) was demolished in 1904. See Camoreyt, Histoire des trois
belles glises de Lourdes, 105-120. Durand writes of his project to restore the Church of Saint-Pierre in
Durand to Pre Lonard Cros, Notes relatives la construction de la chapelle de Lourdes, 10 June 1879,
p. 9, Archives et patrimoine des sanctuaires de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, (E) A. IV 7, Fonds Cros. Legathe
gives the date: Legathe, Recherches sur la basilique suprieure de Lourdes, 1: 176.
231
Dantin, Lv ue des apparitions, 333-334.
232
Laurentin, Billet, and Galland, Lourdes: Documents authentiques, 6: 46 n. 104; Laffon, Le Monde
religieux bigourdan, 122.
233
Durand to Canto, Vicaire gnral dAuch, 14 August 1858. Quoted in Laurentin and Billet, Lourdes:
Documents authetiques, 3: no. 526, p. 283.
188
heureux de les mler aux vtres.234 Then on December 29, 1861 Durand sent Laurence
his proposal.235 Laurence responded by awarding Durand the commission unilaterally:
there was no competition or jury to determine the architect.236 On August 29, 1862
Prefect Garnier advised Laurence that he was free to proceed with construction--of a
chapelle domestique. The next day the bishop wrote to Durand, telling him the news and
asking him to come right away to start work.237 On September 17 the two went to
Massabieille to survey the building site.238 Their relationship ensured Laurences control
over the project.
The Evolution of the Project

Durand developed his design for a church on top of the grotto in three stages:
first, a project now lost, of early 1861; second, a larger Romanesque project facing away
from the town of Lourdes, of late 1861; and third, a Gothic project facing towards the
town, of 1862 and 1864. Except for minor details, the built church conforms almost
exactly to the third project. Durand made the church larger to accommodate more
pilgrims, he made it Gothic to associate the pilgrimage with the perceived high point of
French Christian society, and he turned it towards the town so that it would assert itself in
234
Dantin, Lv ue des apparitions, 336.
235
236
237
The letters are transcribed in Laurentin, Billet, and Galland, Lourdes: Documents authentiques, 6: no.
1367 and 1369, p. 399-400.
238
Ren Laurentin and Bernard Billet, Lourdes: Documents authentiques, vol. 7 (Paris: P. Lethielleux,
1966), 165.
189
the transformed religious landscape. The design would facilitate priest-led rituals inside
the church and offer a scenographic backdrop for such rituals outside the church.
Durand had started work on his design before the government told Laurence he
could start building (August 29, 1862) and before the bishop signed his pastoral letter on
the apparitions (January 18, 1862). His first project, now lost, is known only from a letter
from Dasque to Durand of February 27, 1861. Dasque described the proposed church as
eighteen by forty meters with a basilican plan composed of a nave flanked on either side
by four chapels and a sacristy, and a three-sided apse.239 Durand presented his second
project in a December 29, 1861 Description sommaire de la chapelle de N. D. de
Lourdes et de ses dpendances and an undated elevation and plan. The Description
sommaire identifies the style of the church as le roman bysantin [sic] du XIe sicle.240
However, while the elevation has Romanesque round arch windows, heavy buttresses,
and radiating chapels, it lacks Byzantine domes (fig. 78). Durands identification of the
style was informed by nineteenth-century ideas about the influence of Byzantine
architecture on French Romanesque churches.241 The second project is bigger than the
first, measuring twenty by fifty meters, with nineteen-meter vaults, as opposed to
eighteen by forty meters. The plan is arranged roughly the same as before, except that
239
Dasque to Durand, 27 February 1861, Archives et patrimoine des sanctuaires de Notre-Dame de

Lourdes, 1 B 1, Basilique suprieure. Transcribed in Laurentin, Billet, and Galland, Lourdes:
Documents authentiques, 6: no. 957, p. 163.
240
Durand, Description sommaire de la chapelle de N. D. de Lourdes et de ses dpendances, 12

December 1861, copies in Archives et patrimoine des sanctuaires de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, 1 B 1 and 1
B 3, Basilique suprieure. Transcribed in Laurentin, Billet, and Galland, Lourdes: Documents
241
Notable proponents of these ideas include Ludovic Vitet, Albert Lenoir, and Flix Verneilh. Lenoirs
theory of Romanesque architecture is analyzed in chapter 3, in the sub-section titled Hypothetical
Reconstructions of the Fifth-Century Basilica of Saint-Martin. See also Barry Bergdoll, Lon Vaudoyer:
Historicism in the Age of Industry (New York: Architectural History Foundation, 1994), 122-123, 237240; and Jean Nayrolles, LInvention de lart roman lpo ue moderne (XVIIIe-XIXe sicles) (Rennes:
Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2005), 117-121, 138-139, 285-304.
190
there are five alcoves on either side of the nave instead of four, and one of the alcoves is
not a chapel, but a passage to a side porch (fig. 79). The alcoves are connected, afin de
faciliter le service.242 The chevet is crowned by five chapels radiating from an
ambulatory, and, on the west faade, a porch with balconies on either side leads to a
perron and a path that descends to the grotto. The porch and the bell tower with a statue
of the Virgin above it line up with the axis of the grotto below. The proposed statue
belonged to the succession of statues of the Virgin on bell towers that included those of
the old Chapel of Notre-Dame de Fourvire (1852) and the Basilica of Notre-Dame de la
Garde in Marseille (1870) (figs. 63 and 80).243 Under the north side of the church is a
crypt, with its sanctuary above the grotto. The crypt and the grotto are similar
underground chambers: one artificial, one natural. Indeed, the words crypt and
grotto come from the same Greek origin: krupt, meaning a vault.244 Beyond the
chevet to the east, towards the town, a cloister connects the church to a residence for the
bishop and pilgrims. The residence reflects the legal status of the church as a chapelle
domestique and Laurences intention to oversee the pilgrimage closely.245
242

243
On the statue above the Basilica of Notre-Dame de la Garde see Denise Jasmin, LAchvement du
clocher, la Vierge monumentale (1866-1870), in Henry Esprandieu: Architecte de Notre-Dame-de-laGarde, by Denise Jasmin, Isabelle Langlade, and Bruno Wuillequey (Aix-en-Provence: Edisud, 1997), 3243.
244
This etymological observation is made in Legathe, Recherches sur la basilique suprieure de Lourdes,
1: 61.
245

191
Durand presented his third project in a second Description sommaire dated
September 15, 1862246 and in drawings of May 1, 1864, after work had begun on the
building site.247 The third project differs from the first two because it is Gothic, and
because it is turned towards the town.248 The completed church is essentially the same as
the 1864 drawings, with small changes to the ornament. A residence was built by 1866,
but it was not integrated with the church as Durand had proposed in an undated plan. As
the result of its 180-degree rotation, the third project is not liturgically oriented and the
bell tower is no longer on axis with the grotto. Durand eliminated the side porch; it
became redundant once the church faced the town. The rotation facilitated the movement
of pilgrims in processions from the town to the church, contributing to the
sacramentalization of the pilgrimage. Furthermore, it resulted in the projection of an
iconic image of a church from Massabieille to the town, symbolically communicating the
clergys control of the grotto.
Aside from the rotation, the plans of the second and third projects are nearly the
same: only the molding profiles and the relationship between the faade balconies and
the first side chapels are slightly different (figs. 79 and 81). The plans of the overall site
are also alike. A platform surrounds the church, making it easier for pilgrims to circulate
and to survey the river valley and the rituals unfolding there, and a cloister connects the
246
Durand, Chapelle de Lourdes: Description sommaire de son ensemble, 15 September 1862, copy in
Archives et patrimoine des sanctuaires de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, 1 B 1, Basilique suprieure.
Transcribed in Laurentin and Billet, Lourdes: Documents authentiques, 7: no. 1372, p. 163-164.
247
The drawings reproduced here are preserved in the Archives et patrimoine des sanctuaires de NotreDame de Lourdes, Plans. A similar set was published in J. O., Chapelle Lourdes, Le Moniteur des
architectes (1869): col. 81, 86-87, plates 17, 21, 34-35.
248
Durand also produced a plan, dated September 15, 1862, of the church facing away from the town.
Perhaps it was dated incorrectly, or perhaps it was produced for comparative purposes. See Hippolyte
Durand, Inv. 8, Plan au sol, 15 September 1862, 39 x 56 cm, Archives et patrimoine des sanctuaires de
Notre-Dame de Lourdes, Plans.
192
church to a rectangular residence fronted by a portico (figs. 79 and 82). One noticeable
change in the overall plan of the third project is a wall separating a private Clotre des
Missionnaires, for Laurences deputies the Garaison Fathers, from a public Clotre des
Plerins.
The main difference between the elevations of the second and third projects is that
of style. The Gothic forms of the third project--pointed arches, rose and quatrefoil
windows, pinnacles, and finials--evoked the medieval epoch that Montalembert had
established as the apex of Christian theocracy in France. However, the side elevations of
the second and third projects share the same basic outline (figs. 78 and 83). In both, the
bell tower is decorated with aedicules and reinforced by buttresses, and it rises above a
porch with balconies. The five bays of the nave are punctuated by windows surmounted
by hood-molds, and the bays are divided by buttresses. In the second project, the hoodmolds are echoed by blind arcades on the walls of the aisles and clerestory. In the third
project, the arches are repeated on the clerestory walls only. In the elevations of both
projects, the main horizontal elements are denticulated cornices, and the sacristy beside
the choir is emphasized by an implied transept, an extra-wide bay with pediments above
the aisle and clerestory cornices, double clerestory windows, and elaborate moldings.
The principal faade elevation of the third project has a narrow, triangular
composition (fig. 84). Its base consists of a perron with stairs ascending on the sides and
a crypt entrance in the center. The perron leads to a porch articulated by jamb and
archivolt moldings, located in between balconies. The gable above points upwards to a
rose window, blind arcades, and aedicules. The bell tower is terminated by a cross rather
than a statue of the Virgin as in the second project. Longitudinal sections of the third
193
project reveal a tripartite elevation with a triforium between a clerestory and side chapels
(fig. 85). The horizontal pattern of triforium arcades counterbalances the vertical
emphasis of compound piers. Cross sections reveal interior details such as multifoil and
cusped-arch tracery between the side chapels, and a complex sequence of colonettes in
the apse (fig. 86).
Ultimate authority over the design of the church rested with Laurence, but advice
and criticism came from a variety of sources: clerical and lay, solicited and unsolicited.
Durand later recalled that when he presented his project to Laurence, the bishop
submitted it to the commission . . . institue pour tout ce qui se rattachait aux affaires de
la Grotte.249 Indeed, the group that studied Durands second project on January 16,
1862 consisted of Laurence and toute la mense piscopale, vicaires gnraux,
secrtaires, missionnaires, etc. [sic]250
One refrain of criticism, heard from Laurence and others, was that the church
proposed by Durand was too small; another was that it was simply not good enough. The
Abb Dasque responded to Durands first project in February 1861 by urging the
architect to think bigger and to add radiating chapels, choir stalls, an ambulatory, and side
doors that would be dune grande utilit pour les jours de grands concours.251 Looking
at the second project, it is obvious that Durand took his advice to heart. In December of
that year, Dasque also provided a full program for the residence adjoining the church, but
249
250
Dasque to Durand, 17 January 1862. Transcribed in Laurentin, Billet, and Galland, Lourdes:
Documents authentiques, 6: no. 1043, p. 236-237.
251
Dasque to Durand, 27 February 1861, Archives et patrimoine des sanctuaires de Notre-Dame de

Lourdes, 1 B 2, Basilique suprieure. Transcribed in Laurentin, Billet, and Galland, Lourdes:
194
the lack of detail in Durands overall plans makes its impact difficult to assess.252 In
January 1862, Dasque informed Durand of Laurences response to his second project, the
one designed in a so-called roman bysantin style that is outlined in his December 29,
1861 Description sommaire. The bishop, Dasque wrote, souhaite encore plus et
mieux. Dasque explained that Mgr demande plusieurs augmentations et modifications
qui auront pour effet dajouter limportance et aussi, je crois, la beaut du
monument. However, he reassured Durand, il ny aura rien de chang dans la pense
mre.253
Peyramale, the Lourdes parish priest, also pushed for a larger and more imposing
design. In November 1862, he congratulated himself for obtaining his goal: Jai enfin
obtenu que lon btisse un monument digne de la Reine des cieux. Je crois bien quil ny
aura pas dans le monde quelque chose de plus pittoresque, dun aspect plus grandiose.
Comme lon pense que jai un peu pouss la roue, on me fait compliment de toute
part.254 Soon after, Peyramale commented that the vast proportions he wanted were
necessary for the pilgrims who would come in crowds, and for the ex-votos they would
bring with them.255 Peyramales boast is not supported by the evidence, as the second
and third projects of 1861 and 1862 have nearly the same dimensions and general
contours, but it certainly speaks to the parish priests strong feelings on the design of the
252
Dasque to Durand, 24 December 1861. Transcribed in Laurentin, Billet, and Galland, Lourdes:
253
Dasque to Durand, 17 January 1862. Transcribed in Laurentin, Billet, and Galland, Lourdes:
254
Peyramale to his brother Alexandre, 17 November 1862. Transcribed in Laurentin and Billet, Lourdes:
255
Peyramale to Laurence, 1 December 1862. Transcribed in Laurentin and Billet, Lourdes: Documents
195
church, and to the friction between him and the architect. Henri Lasserre dramatized this
toxic relationship in his novel Notre-Dame de Lourdes (1869), recounting that Peyramale
had ripped up Durands plan and thrown the pieces into the Gave.256 Durand
acknowledged Peyramales animosity towards him, but insisted that the incident never
happened. He later wrote that Peyramale had a dsir incssant de trouver larchitecte en
faute and the priest never forgave Durand for not showing him his plans.257 Peyramales
attitude reflected his frustration at being marginalized from control of the pilgrimage by
Laurence.258 Durand answered Peyramales and Laurences calls for aesthetic
improvements by giving the church richer, Gothic ornamentation in his third project. He
responded to Dasques early call to expand the plan (it grew from eighteen by forty
meters in the first project, to twenty by fifty meters in the second), but he dismissed
Laurences and Peyramales later exhortations to go bigger, explaining afterwards that no
matter what size he gave the church, it would never be able to contain the largest crowds
of pilgrims, and besides, the irregular terrain of the building site posed serious
problems.259
While Dasque, Laurence, and Peyramale demanded merely that Durand enlarge
and improve his design, two outsiders proposed a complete reconsideration of the
relationship between the church and the grotto. They wanted the church to enclose the
256
Lasserre, Notre-Dame de Lourdes, 442.
257
1879, p. 11-15, Archives et patrimoine des sanctuaires de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, (E) A. IV 7, Fonds
Cros.
258
259
Cros.
196
grotto. Louis de la Fitte, an Intendant Militaire (quartermaster) in Pau, wrote to
Peyramale in December 1861 with the suggestion that the future church should be built
on top of Massabieille and oriented from east to west, as in Durands third project, so that
le monument dominerait, une grande hauteur, en regard de la route de Pau, toute la
valle du Gave.260 La Fitte also proposed that the grotto should be closed off to become
the crypt of the church, accessed by a staircase descending from the nave, through the
rock, and illuminated dimly and mysteriously by a single rose window. He reasoned that
isolating the grotto in this manner would promote meditation and religious feeling.261
Ramon Benedicto, a Spanish priest, wrote to Laurence in August 1862 with
another idea for enveloping the grotto within the church. He argued threateningly that to
erect the church on top of the grotto would be a crime, an insulte la glorieuse
Vierge, an acte de mpris that would not go unpunished. In fulfillment of the Virgins
instructions, the church must be built lendroit mme o Elle est apparue Bernadette,
et non pas ailleurs. The niche of the apparitions must be at the center of the high
altar.262 Benedicto accompanied his letter with a plan showing a basilica wedged
between the grotto and the river, with the high altar below the niche, in the middle of the
south wall, and with a fountain at the threshold of the sanctuary.263 At the same time that
Benedicto insisted on a strict literal interpretation of Marys instructions to build a chapel
260
La Fitte to Peyramale, 25 December 1861. Transcribed in Laurentin, Billet, and Galland, Lourdes:
261
La Fitte to Peyramale, 25 December 1861. Transcribed in Laurentin, Billet, and Galland, Lourdes:
262
Ramon Benedicto to Laurence, 12 August 1862. Translated into French in Cros, Histoire de NotreDame de Lourdes, 3: 105-107. The original Spanish letter is transcribed in Laurentin, Billet, and Galland,
Lourdes: Documents authentiques, 6: no. 1357, p. 393-395.
263
Benedictos interesting plan is reproduced with French explanations in Cros, Histoire de Notre-Dame de
Lourdes, 3: 108; and with the original Spanish key in Laurentin, Billet, and Galland, Lourdes: Documents
197
la Grotte,264 he blithely suggested that the rock surrounding the niche should be
blasted. This move, along with the enclosure of the grotto, would have transformed the
site of the apparitions beyond all recognition. There is no evidence that Durand
considered the entreaties to enclose the grotto of La Fitte or Benedicto. However, the
very existence of such proposals is indicative of support for the clericalization of the
pilgrimage through architectural means, beyond Laurence and his inner circle. Indeed,
with their schemes to build a church around the grotto, La Fitte and Benedicto suggested
a transformation of the religious landscape more radical than even the construction of
Durands design above the grotto.
Funding
Since the legal status of the basilica was the incongruous one of chapelle
domestique, it could not benefit from the finances of a vestry, the town, or the Ministre
des Cultes like a parish church could.265 Instead, the construction of the basilica was
financed by individual Catholics. Revenue sources included offerings left at the grotto,266
the sale of water from the grotto spring,267 and, most importantly, a subscription drive
managed by Laurence. The subscriptions that arrived reflect the national acceptance of
264
Laurentin, Lourdes: Dossier des documents authentiques, 1: no. 23, p. 202.
265
On the financing of parish churches during the Second Empire see Leniaud, Les Cathdrales au XIXe
sicle, 462-477.
266
With typical dramatization, Lasserre claimed that the basilica was paid for only by les gros sous jets
dans la Grotte par la foi populaire, les ex-voto reconnaissants de tant de malades guris, de tant de curs
consols, de tant dmes ressuscites la vrit et la vie, . . . Lasserre, Notre-Dame de Lourdes, 440.
267
On the sale of bottled water see Laurentin, Billet, and Galland, Lourdes: Documents authentiques, 6:
70; and Kaufman, Consuming Visions, 66-67.
198
the devotion to Our Lady of Lourdes and its particular appeal among ultramontane and
legitimist Catholics.
Despite Durands concern with economy, the cost of the basilica was three times
his initial estimate. In 1862, the architect calculated that Laurence would need three
hundred thousand francs to build the church.268 In fact, the bishop spent almost that
much on the crypt alone.269 By the end of 1868, he had paid five hundred thousand
francs to raise the church to the height of the clerestory. The following year he figured
that he needed another four hundred thousand to complete the building.270 The final total,
then, not including the decoration, was probably around nine hundred thousand francs.271
This was nine times the cost of Durands model church for a township, even though the
Basilica of the Immacule-Conception was only slightly larger, measuring twenty by
fifty-one meters instead of twenty by forty-five meters. More than anything else, the
higher cost can be attributed to the challenge posed by the building site. However, the
cost was lower than that of the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours in Rouen,
measuring seventeen by forty-four meters, which ran in the millions of francs.
Laurence himself launched the subscription drive with his January 18, 1862
pastoral letter in which he attested to the authenticity of the apparitions, making it clear
268
Durand, Chapelle de Lourdes: Description sommaire de son ensemble, 15 September 1862, copy in
Archives et patrimoine des sanctuaires de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, 1 B 1, Basilique suprieure.
269
Courtin, Lourdes, 98 n. 1.
270
Laurence explained his financial predicament in a circular dated 26 July 1869. Quoted in Cros, Histoire
de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, 3: 216; and paraphrased in Courtin, Lourdes, 99.
271
Camoreyt wrote that the total cost was eight hundred thousand francs. See Camoreyt, Histoire des trois
belles glises de Lourdes, 3.
199
that he controlled the building project as well as the devotion to Our Lady of Lourdes.272
The pastoral letter was not only read in every church in the diocese, but on January 30,
Laurence sent it to the bishops of France and Belgium, together with a circular asking for
help with fund-raising.273 In the pastoral letter, he stressed the difficulty and expense of
conforming to Marys instructions and building on Massabieille. He emphasized that he
needed the support of Catholics not only in the diocese, but in all of France and beyond.
Thus, building the church was part of raising the profile of the pilgrimage on an
international scale.
To entice Catholics to give, he promised them rewards. He announced that all
groups and individuals that donated five hundred francs or more would be granted the
title of fondateur du sanctuaire de la Grotte de Lourdes, and all that donated twenty
francs or more would be called a bienfaiteur principal.274 Their names would be
inscribed on a register in a gilded metal heart on the high altar of the church. A weekly
mass would be said for all donors; two weekly masses would be said for fondateurs and
bienfaiteurs principaux. Similar strategies of exchanging tangible benefits for donations
were also used by the organizers of other projects to build pilgrimage churches, including
Notre-Dame de Bonsecours and the Basilica of the Sacr-Cur.275
272
273
274
275
Raymond Anthony Jonas, Monument as Ex-Voto, Monument as Historiosophy: The Basilica of SacrCur, French historical studies 18, no. 2 (fall 1993): 496-499.
200
Laurences appeal had a quick but short-lived effect. By the end of March 1862
offerings totaled 33,787 francs.276 However, by 1865 the bishop was worried that
donations were waning. He used his pastoral letter on the coronation of Our Lady of
Garaison to attempt to dispel a rumor that he had collected enough money to finish the
church and outbuildings. The truth, Laurence insisted, was that if donations did not
return to their former rate, he would have to suspend construction the following spring.277
The bishop told Durand in March 1866 that les fonds pour la grotte ne viennent pas278
and he was worried enough that he suggested abandoning the use of ashlar masonry for
the churchs exterior walls. Laurence did not have to stop construction, nor give up finecut stone facing, but he continued to make urgent pleas for funds: in a circular of May
21, 1866 for the inauguration of the crypt,279 and another of July 26, 1869.280
There are three main primary sources that list donations. The first is a register
titled Dons pour lrection du sanctuaire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, compiled from
February 1862 to September 1864 by the Chanoine Marie-Jean-Gualbert-Antoine
Fourcade (d. 1865), secretary of the episcopal palace, and continued from 1864 until
1870 by the Pre Jean-Marie Dubo (1828-99),281 one of the first Garaison Fathers who
276
Laurentin, Billet, and Galland, Lourdes: Documents authentiques, 6: 346.
277
Laurence, Lettre pastorale . . . pour le couronnement de la Vierge de Garaison, 4 n. 1.
278
Laurence to Durand, 9 March 1866, Archives et patrimoine des sanctuaires de Notre-Dame de Lourdes,
1 B 2, Basilique suprieure. Transcribed in Laurentin and Billet, Lourdes: Documents authentiques, 7:
no. 1815, p. 494.
279
See the circular that Laurence sent out on May 9, 1866. Transcribed in Laurentin and Billet, Lourdes:
280
281
Laurentin, Billet, and Galland, Lourdes: Documents authentiques, 6: no. 1054, p. 284-286. Laurentin
noted that the register was preserved in the Archives de lvch de Tarbes et Lourdes. It would be
interesting to find out if this item is still there and to consult it at first hand.
201
oversaw the Lourdes shrine.282 The second source is another register that Laurence
himself tabulated daily from February 1862 until November 1869.283 And the third
source is a series of accounts prepared by Peyramale.284 Drawing from these documents,
the historian Ren Laurentin was able to calculate the sums collected: a total of 33,787
francs by the end of March 1862,285 59,514 by the end of May,286 and 109,827 by the end
of July.287
Drawing from the 998 letters sent to the bishop in response to his call for
subscriptions from the end of January to the end of August 1862, Laurentin was also able
to reconstruct the geography, social status, and gender of the donors.288 The departments
that sent the most letters were Paris (fifty-eight), the Pyrnes-Atlantiques (twenty-six),
and the Nord (twenty-one). Early on, offerings arrived from Spain, the Netherlands,
Germany, Algeria, Canada, and elsewhere, but the foreign country that sent the most
letters to Laurence from February to August 1862 was Belgium (fourteen).289 Laurentin
deduced that there were slightly more lay people than clergy among the correspondents:
364 laypeople and 323 clergy. Of the clergy, twenty were bishops, 279 were secular
priests, and twenty-four were members of religious orders. Of the laypeople, 261 were
282
On Dubo see Semp and Dubo, Notre-Dame de Lourdes par ses premiers chapelains, 11-24.
283
Laurentin, Billet, and Galland, Lourdes: Documents authentiques, 6: no. 1074, p. 291. Laurentin wrote
that this register was preserved in the Archives et patrimoine des sanctuaires de Notre-Dame de Lourdes.
284
285
286
287
Laurentin and Billet, Lourdes: Documents authentiques, 7: 31 n. 131.
288
Laurentin, Billet, and Galland, Lourdes: Documents authentiques, 6: 57-61.
289
Laurentin, Billet, and Galland, Lourdes: Documents authentiques, 6: 58. See also Cros, Histoire de
Notre-Dame de Lourdes, 3: 74 and 123; and Dantin, Lv ue des apparitions, 329.
202
commoners and 103 were nobles. More men made offerings than women: the ratio
among lay nobles was the closest (fifty-seven men to forty-six women), the gap was
slightly bigger among lay commoners (157 men to ninety-one women), and much bigger
among priests and nuns (265 priests to fifty-eight nuns).290 The geographic origins of
donors confirm the national, even international fame of the Lourdes shrine and the project
to build a church there. The number of priests and nuns who contributed is a reflection of
clerical acceptance of the devotion to Our Lady of Lourdes. And the breakdown of
donors by social status and gender reinforces the important roles played by nobles and
women in nineteenth-century French Catholicism.291
Some of the donors were prominent Catholics. Among ecclesiastics, the most
enthusiastic bishops were Louis-Joseph Delebecque of Ghent, Belgium, and AntoineMathias-Alexandre Jaquemet (1803-69) of Nantes. In February 1862, the month after
Laurence wrote his pastoral letter on the apparitions, he also received generous offerings
from the bishops of Blois, Aire-sur-Adour, Luon, and Coutances, as well as from the
archbishop of Avignon. Secular priests sent donations from all over the country, as did
Catholic schools292 and religious congregations, starting with the Surs de la Visitation
in Paray-le-Monial.293 Their convent was famous as the one entered in 1671 by
290
Laurentin, Billet, and Galland, Lourdes: Documents authentiques, 6: 60. Laurentin wrote that the ratio
of priests to nuns was 323 to 58, but he must have meant 265 to 58, since the total number of clerical
correspondents was 323.
291
On the importance of nobles in nineteenth-century French Catholicism see Gibson, A Social History of
French Catholicism, 193-199; and David Higgs, Nobles and Religion in Nobles in Nineteenth-Century
France: The Practice of Inegalitarianism (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987), 157-175.
On the importance of women see Gibson, A Social History of French Catholicism, 180-190.
292
Cros, Histoire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, 3: 70; Laurentin, Billet, and Galland, Lourdes: Documents
293
Cros, Histoire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, 3: 62; Dantin, Lv ue des apparitions, 324.
203
Marguerite-Marie Alacoque, whose visions of the heart of Jesus were central to the cult
of the Sacred Heart in nineteenth-century France.294
Among laypeople, several names stand out. Antoine Blanc de Saint-Bonnet
(1815-80)--a religious and political philosopher who studied with Pierre-Simon
Ballanche (1776-1847) and influenced the writers of the Catholic literary revival that
emerged at the end of the century--295 subscribed on February 14, 1862.296 Raymond
Joseph Paul, Comte de Sgur dAguesseau (1803-89)--elected deputy for the HautesPyrnes in 1849, then appointed senator in 1852--asked to become a fondateur on April
15.297 mile Keller (1828-1909)--deputy of the Haut-Rhin from 1859 to 1863 as a
member of the Catholic opposition and a staunch defender of the popes temporal power-subscribed on July 7.298 And one of the earliest donations (of one hundred francs) was
sent by Lon Papin-Dupont (1797-1876) on February 8, 1862.299 Dupont was
instrumental in reviving the cult of Saint Martin of Tours beginning in the 1850s and was
one of the strongest supporters of rebuilding the Romanesque basilica that contained
Martins tomb.300 But the highest ranking donor was Maria Christina (1858-1929), queen
of Spain, who offered one thousand francs on August 20, 1863 as a deposit on a promised
294
See Raymond Jonas, The Sacred Heart visits the Charollais, in France and the Cult of the Sacred
Heart: An Epic Tale for Modern Times (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 9-33.
295
Jean Tulard, ed., Dictionnaire du second empire (Paris: Fayard, 1995), 157.
296
Dantin, Lv ue des apparitions, 327; Laurentin, Billet, and Galland, Lourdes: Documents
297
Sgur dAguesseaus letter of April 15, 1852 in which he asked to become a fondateur is transcribed
in Dantin, Lv ue des apparitions, 328.
298
299
Duponts initial letter is transcribed in Laurentin, Billet, and Galland, Lourdes: Documents
300
Papin-Dupont is discussed in detail in chapter 3.
204
larger gift.301 On February 4, 1862, Laurence sent two copies of his pastoral letter to
Empress Eugnie with a letter vowing that regular prayers would be said for the imperial
family in the new church. However, the empress declined to subscribe as long as
construction was not authorized.302 Laurence was stunned by her response and followed
up immediately with a letter to the Ministre de lInstruction publique et des cultes
insisting on the legitimacy of his authorization to build an oratory as a required accessory
of his country house.303 Eugnies response underscored that although the imperial
regime accepted the pilgrimage to Lourdes and tacitly permitted the construction of a
church there, it maintained the Concordat and withheld explicit approval.
The prominent French donors represent an extreme ultramontane and legitimist
faction among Catholics. Support for the pope and the restoration of the Bourbon
monarchy was not as strong among Catholics during the period of the Second Empire as
it was in the early years of the Third Republic. Indeed, during the period of the Second
Empire many Catholics did not take a hard line on the popes temporal power and most
were not legitimists.304 However, Bishop of Nantes Jaquemet supported legitimists in the
elections of 1852 and in 1859 he felt intensely anxious about the Roman Question,
envisaging a schism over the issue.305 Blanc de Saint-Bonnet championed legitimism in
301
Dantin, Lv ue des apparitions, 329; Laurentin and Billet, Lourdes: Documents authentiques, 7:
271.
302
Laurence to Empress Eugnie, 4 February 1862, Archives et patrimoine des sanctuaires de Notre-Dame
de Lourdes, 7 B 1. The letter is transcribed in Cros, Histoire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, 3: 54-55; and
303
304
Roger Price, The French Second Empire: An Anatomy of Political Power (Cambridge: Cambridge
305
Jean Maurain, La Politique ecclsiastique du second empire de 1852 1869 (Paris: Flix Alcan, 1930),
251, 429.
205
the book he wrote after the 1848 February Revolution, De la restauration franaise,
mmoire prsent au clerg et laristocratie. Then in 1861 he trumpeted papal
infallibility as a basis for social cohesion in LIn ailli ilit.306 Sgur dAguesseau was
elected as a monarchist in 1849. After the souring of church-state relations in 1860
owing to the emperors Italian policy, he became an especially passionate defender of the
papacy.307 Dupont was appalled by attacks on the Holy See and the strength of his
legitimist convictions was such that he named his daughter Henriette after the Bourbon
pretender, Henri, Comte de Chambord.308 These donors were motivated to contribute to
the construction of the basilica because it promoted the dogma of the Immaculate
Conception, a dogma that advanced their political agenda by condemning parliamentary
government and preparing the way for papal infallibility. The building is a testimony to
their desire to institutionalize their ultramontane and legitimist ideals.
306
Tulard, Dictionnaire du second empire, 157.
307
Tulard, Dictionnaire du second empire, 1185.
308
Odile Mtais-Thoreau, Un Simple lac: Lon Papin-Dupont, le saint homme de Tours (1797-1876)
(Paris: Hrault, 1993), 48, 66.
206
Building and Decorating
Construction
Massabieille was an extremely challenging building site. It was chosen regardless
because the domination of the grotto by the basilica was a powerful symbol of the control
of the devotion to Our Lady of Lourdes by the Church. Work began on October 13,
1862, a month and a half after Prefect Garnier encouraged Laurence to move forward
with the project, with sixty, then one hundred laborers preparing the terrain.309 Durand
described Massabieille as une sorte de cone, dont la Grotte formait une partie de la base,
les eaux du Gave en baignaient le pied, le rocher apparaissait en plusieurs endroits et les
intervalles prsentaient de profondes excavations. As a result, l o le constructeur eut
dsirer trouver le solide on trouvait le vide, ce qui lobligeait a tablir un sol rsistant, et
contrairement, o le vide eut t ncessaire, on trouvait le rocher quil fallait escarper la
mine pour faire de la place.310 To create a stable base for the church, in early 1863
workers began erecting a twenty-meter-high retaining wall on the north side of the rock
formation, above the grotto (fig. 87).311 In the summer they started foundations to the
east and west, for the missionaries residence and apsidal chapels.312 Meanwhile, Durand
faced a labor revolt, as masons demanded higher salaries.313 Then in September,
309
Laurentin and Billet, Lourdes: Documents authentiques, 7: 11, 32.
310
311
Cros said that work on the wall started in February; Laurentin said that it started in March. See Cros,
Histoire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, 3: 114; and Laurentin and Billet, Lourdes: Documents authentiques,
7: 36. Durand noted the height of the wall in Durand to Pre Lonard Cros, Notes relatives la
construction de la chapelle de Lourdes, 10 June 1879, p. 6, Archives et patrimoine des sanctuaires de
Notre-Dame de Lourdes, (E) A. IV 7, Fonds Cros.
312
A temporary residence was built in 1866 to the south-east of the church.
313
Cros, Histoire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, 3: 120; Laurentin and Billet, Lourdes: Documents
207
catastrophe struck: the eastern portion of the retaining wall collapsed in a heavy
rainstorm. The next five months were spent repairing the damage and studying its cause.
Durand was cleared of wrongdoing, but his status was nevertheless diminished by the
incident--Laurence declined to see him for weeks afterwards.314 Following this setback,
it was a relief to all involved that by the spring of 1865 pilgrims could see the crypt rising
from the ground.315
Massabieille was the site of engineering and labor difficulties; it was also a locus
of a power struggle within the Church hierarchy. Henri Lasserre claimed that the Abb
Peyramale believed he was personally responsible for fulfilling the Virgins command,
transmitted by Bernadette as an intermediary: Vous irez dire aux Prtres de faire btir
ici une chapelle.316 In a published rebuttal of Lasserres version of the events at
Lourdes, the historian Abb Paulin Moniquet (1838-1919) offered an alternate reading of
these words: Dans le langage de lEcriture et de lEglise, le mot Prtres dans son sens
gnral dsigne les prlats, les chefs hirarchiques. Cest donc lEvque de Tarbes que
le message tait immdiatement adress. Cest lui que revenait la mission dajouter au
message cleste la sanction de lEglise et de pourvoir sa parfaite excution.317
314
Cros, Histoire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, 3: 132-135; Laurentin and Billet, Lourdes: Documents
authentiques, 7: 38-39.
315
Laurentin and Billet, Lourdes: Documents authentiques, 7: 70.
316
These are the Virgins words as recorded in Moniquet, La Divine histoire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes,
129. Lasserre wrote of Peyramales feelings on the church: A toute heure il songeait au message que la
trs-sainte Vierge lui avait adress par lintermdiaire de la Voyante; toute heure il songeait ces
gurisons prodigieuses qui avaient accompagn et suivi la divine Apparition, ces miracles sans nombre
dont il tait le tmoin quotidien. Il vouait sa vie excuter les ordres de la puissante Reine de lunivers et
dresser sa gloire un monument magnifique. Lasserre, Notre-Dame de Lourdes, 441.
317
Moniquet, La Divine histoire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, 129. On Moniquet see Laffon, Le Monde
religieux bigourdan, 291-293.
208
However, neither Laurence nor Peyramale supervised the project alone. Laurentins
analysis of correspondence between the bishop, the cur, and the architect has revealed
that Laurence was ultimately responsible for overseeing construction of the church; and
that he delegated the day-to-day administration of the work site to Peyramale, Durand,
and a series of contractors.318 They were free of government bureaucracy because of the
legal status of the church as a chapelle domestique. As Durand later commented, the
project was en dehors de ladministration des Cultes, . . . une affaire particulire.319
Instead, progress on the church was threatened by the animosity between Peyramale and
Durand that was dramatized by Lasserre in the story of the cur throwing the architects
plans in the river. Laurence entrusted Peyramale with regulating the finances of the site
and Durand with managing materials and personnel. But because Durand lived in
Bayonne, then Tarbes (beginning in the spring of 1863), he was rarely present.320
Nevertheless, Laurence sided consistently with Durand. This infuriated the cur, who
ranted about Durand in a letter to the bishop: laissez-le satisfaire ses fantaisies dartiste,
dpenser follement largent, et vous aurez la paix.321 Peyramales resentment of Durand
reflected his frustration at being marginalized from the functioning of the pilgrimage by
Laurence.
The completion of the crypt in 1866 coincided with Laurences installation of the
Garaison Fathers at the grotto, and with the arrival of the railroad to Lourdes. The crypt
318
319
1879, p. 8 bis, Archives et patrimoine des sanctuaires de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, (E) A. IV 7, Fonds Cros.
320
321
Peyramale to Laurence, 7 December 1863. Transcribed in Cros, Histoire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, 3:

137.
209
enabled the missionaries to redirect the veneration of Our Lady of Lourdes towards the
sacraments, and the train line permitted them to expand the scope of their efforts
dramatically. The crypts inauguration was the climax of three days of ceremonies.322
On Saturday May 19, 1866, Laurence consecrated the five crypt altars before a small
group of priests. On Sunday, the bishop celebrated mass at Lourdes parish church of
Saint-Pierre. And on Monday, a procession traveled from the parish church to
Massabieille, and Laurence celebrated another mass--not inside the crypt, which was too
small for the crowds, but between the grotto and the Gave. Before a throng of fifty to
sixty thousand people, including 225 priests, Laurence sang the mass, Garaison Father
Dubo delivered the sermon, and a choir of seminarians on the far bank provided
appropriate pomp. This was the first mass at the grotto. The procession route and the
sequence of masses at Saint-Pierre, then Massabieille, signaled the shift of the focus of
the pilgrimage from the parish church to the new pilgrimage church, as well as a
corresponding shift of control over the devotion from Peyramale to Laurence and the
Garaison Fathers. Dubo talked about this in his sermon and he also pointed out that the
construction of a sanctuary at the grotto directed attention from Mary to Jesus, to the
sacraments of confession and communion.323
322
On the three-day event see Dubo, Petite histoire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, 228-236; Moniquet, La
Divine Histoire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, 141-142; Cros, Histoire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, 3: 191193; and Laurentin and Billet, Lourdes: Documents authentiques, 7: 73-76.
323
According to Dubo, the inauguration of the crypt marked the beginning of an era in which pilgrims
could receive the sacraments near the grotto rather than at the parish church, and in which devotion to Our
Lady of Lourdes led to communion with Christ: Ce jour acheva la constitution du plerinage et lui ouvrit
une re nouvelle.
Les dvots visiteurs de Notre-Dame de Lourdes devaient trouver dsormais la Grotte tout ce qui
sanctifie un plerinage, satisfait la pit et aide la prire. Jusque-l ceux qui voulaient rendre Notre-Dame
tous les hommages de la religion se confessaient et communiaient dans lglise paroissiale de Lourdes. Le
clerg de la ville avec tout son zle ne pouvait suffire tant de travail. Et dailleurs, pour le cur des
fidles, lglise tait trop loin du lieu sanctifi par Marie.
Lautel, la Table sainte, le confessional se trouvaient maintenant dresss prs de la Grotte. Le
210
In response to the invitation of Laurence, the first of the Garaison Fathers arrived
at Lourdes on May 17, 1866, to prepare for the inauguration of the crypt and to
bureaucratically operate the pilgrimage. They established the latest outpost of the
Missionnaires de Notre-Dame de Garaison, the order that Laurence created in 1836 and
that revived Marian shrines around the diocese. The Lourdes vanguard included Superior
Pierre-Remy Semp (1818-89), Dubo, and Jean-Marie Fourcade (1833-1912). Work on
their provisional residence had not yet started, so they moved into a dilapidated house in
the town. They ate their meals in a wooden shed near the crypt, where they spent their
days hearing confessions.324 In their role as the shrines administrators, the Garaison
Fathers went on to publish journals, organize regional pilgrimages exploiting the railroad,
and expand the infrastructure of the sanctuary. They were expelled from the shrine in
1903 as the result of the anticlerical law of July 1, 1901 requiring the authorization of
religious congregations.325
The inauguration of the railroad and Lourdes train station took place on March 9,
1866, two months before the inauguration of the crypt. The train was instrumental for the
pilgrimage, but there is no evidence that executives at the Compagnie du Midi traced the
Tarbes-Pau line via Lourdes because they foresaw its take off. There were other reasons
for the choice: the alternate route via Ossun would have required a costly tunnel, while
the Lourdes route served a more populated and industrialized area, and it connected with
Sauveur des mes rsidait ct de sa mre dans lEucharistie et dans ses ministres. Des missionnaires
restrent attachs au service des plerins. Dubo added that at the grotto, the Virgin allait faire un travail
immense pour largir le rgne de son Fils sur la terre et dans le ciel. See Dubo, Petite histoire de NotreDame de Lourdes, 234.
324
325
Moniquet, La Divine histoire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, 140.
Harris, Lourdes, 187. On the law of July 1, 1901 see John McManners, Church and State in France,
1870-1914 (New York: Harper and Row, 1972), 128.
211
Pyrenean spas and quarries. In addition, a possible covert reason for the decision was
that then Ministre des Finances Achille Fould owned a property near Lourdes and he
needed the passage of the Lourdes line to develop it. Whatever the justification, as soon
as trains arrived at Lourdes, Laurence asked the Ministre de Justice et des cultes for
permission to use the line to transport pilgrims. His request was granted, and three
thousand pilgrims arrived for the crypts inauguration on five trains, while thousands
more were stranded on platforms because there were not enough cars.326 Connecting
Lourdes to Bordeaux, Paris, and beyond, from then on the railroad was essential to the
growth of the pilgrimage.327
After the completion of the crypt, there was still much to do to finish. By July
1866, the walls of the side chapels reached the level at which the ribs spring from their
supports.328 By the end of 1868, the walls came up to the clerestory, and the portal, the
piers, and arcades began to take shape.329 The vaults and bell tower were not yet
completed and most of the liturgical furnishings were not yet installed.330 In May 1871,
Pre Semp was able to write that la grande glise est couverte, but it still lacked most
liturgical furnishings and decorations. Moreover, the spire, pinnacles, parvis, and
permanent missionaries residence had yet to be built.331 Laurence died in 1870, so it
was his successor, Pierre-Anastase Pichenot (bishop of Tarbes from 1870 until 1873)
326
Courtin, Lourdes, 2; Chadefaud, Lourdes, 21-22.
327
Harris, Lourdes, 10; Kaufman, Consuming Visions, 21.
328
Durand to Laurence, 3 July 1866, Archives et patrimoine des sanctuaires de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, 1
B 2, Basilique suprieure.
329
330
Laurence, pastoral letter, 26 July 1869. Transcribed in Dantin, Lv ue des apparitions, 364-365.
331
Semp, letter, May 1871. Quoted in Cros, Histoire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, 3: 224.
212
who blessed the church and said the first mass there on August 15, 1871. Finally, after
almost ten years of construction, on March 14, 1872 a blue and white flag flew on top of
the spire, announcing the completion of the church.332 After Pichenot was transferred,
the new bishop Benot-Marie Langnieux (bishop of Tarbes from 1873 until 1874)
persuaded Pope Pius IX to give the Church of the Immacule-Conception the title of
basilica. The pope did this in a brief of March 13, 1874.333 Once Langnieux left the
bishopric, Csar-Victor Jourdan (bishop of Tarbes from 1875 until his death in 1882)
organized the consecration of the basilica and coronation of the statue of the Virgin on
the high altar on July 1-3, 1876. Joseph-Hippolyte Guibert, then the archbishop of Paris,
presided over the consecration and Pier-Francesco Meglia, the papal nuncio, led the
coronation.334 It is fitting that Msgr. Guibert consecrated the basilica, as he was
responsible for the clerical takeover of two other projects to build pilgrimage churches.
He had taken charge of the planning of the Basilica of Saint-Martin in Tours in the 1860s,
and he was currently in the process of overseeing construction of the Basilica of the
Sacr-Cur on Montmartre.
The Completed Church

The completed church provided the practical facilities necessary for the Garaison
Fathers to carry out their work of sacramentalization. With its site on top of the grotto,
the basilica also symbolized the domination of the devotion to Our Lady of Lourdes by
332
Semp and Dubo, Notre-Dame de Lourdes par ses premiers chapelains, 299-300.
333
Moniquet, La Divine histoire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, 148; Semp and Dubo, Notre-Dame de
Lourdes par ses premiers chapelains, 301.
334
Moniquet, La Divine histoire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, 150-152; Courtin, Lourdes, 100, 132-133.
213
the Church. Furthermore, the form of the basilica represented the clergys approach to
the devotion. Specifically, its Gothic style and relationship to Durands model churches
reflected the clergys promotion of the pilgrimage in a manner that evoked Frances
medieval past and that exploited modern marketing techniques.
A problem with the site, from the point of view of the clergy, was the restriction
of the size of the church and the number of pilgrims that the Garaison Fathers could
minister to within its walls. The church measures fifty-one meters long and twenty-one
meters wide. Its vaults are nineteen meters high and the bell tower rises fifty-four meters
from the base of the outer crypt walls and seventy meters from the river valley.335 In
comparison, it is bigger than the regional pilgrimage center and suburban parish church
of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, which measures forty-four meters long and seventeen
meters wide, and has a fifty-meter-high bell tower.336 However, it is slightly smaller than
the city-center parish church of Saint-Nicolas in Nantes, built by Jean-Baptiste Lassus
from 1844 until 1876. Saint-Nicolas measures roughly twenty-four meters wide and its
vaults are twenty-two meters high.337 And the dimensions of the church in Lourdes are
significantly smaller than those set by the competition for another national pilgrimage
center in 1874--the Basilica of the Sacr-Coeur in Paris (designed by Paul Abadie and
built from 1874 until 1919). The Sacr-Cur competition was for a church ninety meters
long and fifty meters wide.338
335
Courtin, Lourdes, 17, 101.
336
Adolphe Joanne, Itinraire gnral de la France . . . Normandie, 2nd ed. (Paris: Hachette, 1872), 64.
337
Bruno Foucart and Vronique Nol-Bouton, Saint-Nicolas de Nantes, bataille et triomphe du nogothique, Congrs archologique de France: Haute Bretagne, session 126 (1968): 136-181.
338
Claude Laroche, Anatomie dune chimre: Gense et fortune du projet Abadie, in Paul Abadie:
Architecte, 1812-1884, ed. Claude Laroche (Paris: Runion des muses nationaux, 1988), 264.
214
Owing to its limited size, the upper church of the Basilica of the ImmaculeConception could fit barely one thousand people, a tiny fraction of the crowds that
assembled in Lourdes for major occasions.339 Two examples from the period just after
the church was built are the national Pilgrimage of the Banners of October 1872, which
drew fifty thousand pilgrims from beyond the region;340 and the 1876 consecration of the
basilica and coronation of the Virgin, attended by close to one hundred thousand
pilgrims.341 The basilicas insufficiency spurred the arrangement of outdoor areas for
ceremonies, as well as the construction of two successive basilicas.
One consequence of the site was that the basilica was small; another was that it
represented the Catholic Churchs control over the devotion. It embodied the Churchs
exaltation of the reception of sacraments and suppression of questionable practices,
particularly those stimulated by the apocryphal visions. The basilica on top of the grotto
also represented the superimposition onto Bernadettes narrative of the Churchs own
pastoral and political agendas. On the local level, this was the revival of Pyrenean
traditions of Marian piety by Bishop Laurence. On the international level, it was the
definition of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception by Pope Pius IX. In addition, the
hierarchy of the basilica and the grotto represented Catholic gender relations. The
masculine purview of priests dominated the feminine cave where plants and a spring
339
Courtin, Lourdes, 123 n. 2.
340
Henry Branthomme, Une Cit sainte sur le rocher (1866-1901), in Histoire de Lourdes, ed. Stphane
Baumont (Toulouse: Privat, 1993), 208.
341
215
connoted fertility and where an illiterate girl and the Mother of God conversed without
intercession.342
Durands design for the basilica took full advantage of the site. In his
arrangement, the basilica and the grotto were visually integrated, thereby suggesting that
the Church and the devotion to Our Lady of Lourdes were theologically integrated. The
building materials contributed to the effect. Durand constructed the exterior of the
basilica almost entirely of regularly cut blocks of grey Lourdes stone like that which
undulates below in its primeval form. The stone he chose for the crypt is veined and
slightly darker than that which he selected for the upper church. Only the crypt string
course is dark blue-grey granite and the spire is white stone from the Charentes (figs. 8889).343 The forms of the basilica and retaining wall also relate to the grotto. The vertical
element of the false transept marks the interior bay occupied by the choir and sacristies
with buttresses, a pair of blind arches, multifoil windows, and a pediment. It also stops
the eye between repeating identical nave bays and apsidal chapels. Furthermore, the false
transept pulls the eye down the lines of retaining-wall buttresses to the striated rock face
and recess below. Durand constructed the horizontal element of the retaining wall out of
ashlar masonry and reinforced it with buttresses like the church. Yet the wall is streaked
with dark stains and covered here and there with plants like the grotto, so it is a
transitional zone between the church and the grotto. In addition, the Gothic shapes of the
basilica reflect the rock formations of Massabieille: the churchs ogival arches and
342
This analysis of the symbolism of the basilica and the grotto draws from Harris, Lourdes, 171-172; and
343
Courtin, Lourdes, 102, 106-107.
216
moldings echo the natural diagonal contours of the rock and the pointed niches of the
grotto, in particular that of the apparition (fig. 62).344
Durands design relates to medieval churches, as well as his development of
model churches. Therefore, the basilica conveyed a Catholic ideal of the medieval past,
as well as the modern organization of the pilgrimage. Specifically, Durands design is
twelfth-century in style. Historians of the Basilica of the Immacule-Conception-Canto,345 Camoreyt,346 and Courtin--dated the basilicas style to the thirteenth century.
Courtin lent authority to this assessment by quoting Viollet-le-Duc as having described
the basilica upon seeing it as une vraie perle de style ogival du XIIIe sicle.347
However, the evidence of the building itself suggests that Durand was more interested in
twelfth-century prototypes than in thirteenth-century ones. The bare expanses of wall
pierced by single lancet windows surmounted by hood-molds evoke the chevet of Noyon
cathedral (begun ca. 1150) and the Church of Saint-Germer-de-Fly (begun before 1160)
(fig. 90). Likewise, the dense and opaque main faade, whose only effects of
transparency and overlapping forms are created by the arcades on either side of the
central portal and the balustrades above them, recall twelfth-century precedents, such as
the mostly flat frontispiece of the abbey church of Saint-Denis (1135-40), rather than
thirteenth-century ones like the deeply contoured faade of Amiens cathedral (begun ca.
1225) (fig. 91). Furthermore, Durand employed an internal buttressing system that was
344
The comparison between the Gothic forms of the basilica and the Gothic-like forms of the surrounding
rock formations has already been drawn by Canto. In particular, he pointed to the openings of the Grottes
des Esplugues to the south of the basilica. See Canto, Notre-Dame de Lourdes, 17.
345
Canto, Notre-Dame de Lourdes, 18.
346
Camoreyt, Histoire des trois belles glises de Lourdes, 3.
347
Unfortunately, Courtin did not identify his source. Courtin, Lourdes, 101.
217
used in the mid-twelfth century, such as in the choir of Saint-Martin-des-Champs in
Paris, which dates to around 1140.348 He shunned flying buttresses, a support system
invented in the 1170s with the extension of Notre-Dame de Paris.349 The thrusts of the
nave vault are absorbed by the side-chapel vaults and outer walls (fig. 86).350 Durand had
used the same twelfth-century lancet windows, opaque expanses of wall, and internal
buttresses in his model church for a township, even though he had described that church
as thirteenth-century in style. He had also used the same forms, combined with flying
buttresses, in his churches at Tartas and Peyrehorade.
Durands inclusion of flying buttresses in his 1846 designs for the churches in
Tartas and Peyrehorade, but not in his model church of 1849 or in the Basilica of the
Immacule-Conception of 1862, can be understood in the context of the landmark debate
on the Gothic Revival between Permanent secretary of the Acadmie des beaux-arts,
Dsir Raoul Rochette, and Viollet-le-Duc. The debate was sparked by the Conseil des
btiments civils when it approved Franz Christian Gaus Gothic-style plans for the
Church of Sainte-Clotilde in Paris in early 1846.351 The Acadmie went on the offensive
with a report refuting the appropriateness of building Gothic churches in the nineteenth
century. In the report, Raoul Rochette argued that flying buttresses were one of the chief
faults of the style. High, ethereal vaults came at the cost of flying buttresses that
348
Jean Bony, French Gothic Architecture of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1983), 40.
349
Bony, French Gothic Architecture, 180.
350
351
Middleton and Watkin, Neoclassical and Nineteenth-Century Architecture, 358.
218
diminished solidity, and that obstructed churches exteriors, like giant scaffolding.352 In
his rebuttal of June 1846, Viollet-le-Duc defended flying buttresses, citing his earlier
published arguments in favor of the support systems solidity and economy of
materials.353 Thus, in 1846, Durand had strong justification for incorporating flying
buttresses into his designs.
However, Viollet-le-Duc did not stay convinced of his arguments. In his parish
churches of the 1860s, at Saint-Denis-de-lEstre (1860-66) and Aillant-sur-Tholon
(1863-65), he abandoned the use of flying buttresses.354 Instead, he devised supports for
the nave vaults that his student Anatole de Baudot called arcs-boutants intrieurs as
opposed to arcs-boutants extrieurs. Baudot referred to the supports using the French
word for flying buttresses (arcs-boutants) even though they were hidden under the aisle
roofs and embedded in the aisle masonry. He defended their use by Viollet-le-Duc on the
grounds that they permitted savings on materials without making sacrifices on
proportions and lighting conditions.355 Viollet-le-Ducs recourse to internal buttresses,
like Durands, was motivated by a preoccupation with frugality in church building that
352
Dsir Raoul Rochette, Considrations sur la question de savoir sil est convenable, au XIXe sicle, de
btir des glises en style gothique. Printed in Eugne-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, Du style gothique au
XIXe sicle, Annales archologiques 4 (June 1846): 330.
353
Viollet-le-Duc, Du style gothique, 340. Viollet-le-Duc referred to his earlier discussion of flying
buttresses in De la construction des difices religieux en France depuis le commencement du christianisme
jusquau XVIe sicle, Annales archologiques 2 (1845): 148-149.
354
For plans and discussion of Saint-Denis-de-lEstre see Baudot, glises contemporaines, and
Catherine Marmoz, Saint-Denis: lglise Saint-Denis-de-lEstre (Seine-Saint-Denis), in Viollet-le-Duc,
ed. Bruno Foucart (Paris: Runion des muses nationaux, 1980), 192-195. For plans and discussion of the
Church of Aillant-sur-Tholon see Baudot, glises de bourgs et villages, 2: 1-4, plates 1-5; and Bernard
Lauvergeon and Claudine Berger, Lglise dAillant-sur-Tholon (Yonne), in Viollet-le-Duc, ed. Bruno
Foucart (Paris: Runion des muses nationaux, 1980), 188-191.
355
Baudot wrote about the buttressing system in Baudot, glises contemporaines, 194 and 273; and
Baudot, glises de bourgs et villages, 2: 2.
219
became widespread in the period of the Second Empire.356 During the economic crisis of
1866, the issue became urgent. Seeking to lower its costs, the Parisian Conseil municipal
asked Duban to prepare a report on the economical construction of churches.357
Durands choice of the Gothic style for the Basilica of the Immacule-Conception
associated the cult of Our Lady of Lourdes with the interpretation of medieval society as
a Christian theocracy that was popularized in the 1830s by Montalembert.358 It also
reinforced the comparison made by the priests in charge, with their publicity for the
shrine and the pageantry of the rituals they organized, between the modern pilgrimage to
Lourdes and medieval pilgrimage. They held up medieval pilgrimage as authentic,359 and
as a practice embedded within a vision of the Middle Ages as hierarchical, yet unified by
the social bonds of charity and responsibility.360 The basilica expressed a desire to revive
the faith and morality of the epoch of Christian kings and the Crusades, as an antidote to
the perceived materialism and corruption of the nineteenth century.361 However, at the
same time that the basilica embodied the clergys medievalism, it gave architectural form
to the modernity of the pilgrimage. For one thing, Durands choice of the Gothic style,
interpreted by French advocates of the Gothic Revival as the national style, reflected the
pilgrimages national scale.362 For another, Durands use of austere, twelfth-century
forms, and his repetition of these forms in the basilica, his parish churches in the south356
Boudon, Recherche sur la pense et luvre dAnatole de Baudot, 25.
357
Hautecur, Histoire de larchitecture classi ue en France, 7: 60.
358
See chapter 1.
359
Emery and Morowitz, Consuming the Past, 148, 164.
360
Harris, Lourdes, 359; Emery and Morowitz, Consuming the Past, 146.
361
Harris, Lourdes, 255; Emery and Morowitz, Consuming the Past, 145, 148, 151.
362
220
west, and his published model church for a township, reflected the clergys modern
organization of the pilgrimage.
Durand drew many aspects of his design from his earlier parish churches and his
model church, but he planned some of them specifically to enhance the clericalization of
the pilgrimage through processions and the reception of the sacraments. For example,
Durand placed two porches on either side of the main portal of the faade (fig. 91).
There are no obvious medieval prototypes for this arrangement, although the arcades
flanking the central bell tower in the upper tier of the faade of Cahors cathedral (after
1300) present an interesting comparison.363 When the porches were added between 1872
and 1877, they were open on two sides. The porches offered an even higher vantage
point from which to survey the river valley and the rituals unfolding there than the
platform surrounding the church.364 They promoted the consumption of priest-led rituals
as spectacle. However, because pilgrims used the porches for profane activities such as
resting and eating, and disturbed the quiet atmosphere inside the basilica, in 1909 the
porch arcades were glazed and the enclosed spaces were converted into chapels with
much-needed extra altars for visiting priests.365
Another feature that Durand planned to enhance the clericalization of the
pilgrimage was the superimposition of the upper-church and crypt portals. The crypt
doorway enabled the use of the crypt before the rest of the church was built.366 Once
363
The similarity was kindly suggested to me by Janet Marquardt.
364
The late date of the porches is indicated in Courtin, Lourdes, 104-105. Durand emphasizes the view in
Durand to Pre Lonard Cros, Notes relatives la construction de la chapelle de Lourdes, 10 June 1879,
p. 18, Archives et patrimoine des sanctuaires de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, (E) A. IV 7, Fonds Cros.
365
366
221
construction was done, the two portals facilitated circulation, especially during
processions. The Italianate mosaic portrait medallions above each entrance, incongruous
with French Gothic forms, came later. The portrait of Pius IX, pope of the Immaculate
Conception, was installed in the upper portal gable in 1876. The portrait of Pope Pius X,
who extended the feast of the Lourdes apparitions to the worldwide Church, was installed
in the balustrade above the lower doorway in 1908.367 The portraits symbolized the links
that bound the devotion to Our Lady of Lourdes with the policies of the Vatican.
Durand also designed the interior to facilitate priest-led rituals. In the upper
church, the apse and side chapels provided extra altars where visiting priests could
celebrate mass (figs. 77, 92-94). The side chapels are divided from each other by walls
that rise above the altars and are surmounted by quatrefoil and double-lancet tracery
screens, derived from thirteenth-century sources. The side chapels are joined by
passageways in the nave piers. They are elevated by a few steps above the nave,
separating them from and making them more visible from the main vessel of the church.
The aisles and ambulatory facilitated the circulation of pilgrims and created a
processional route around the nave, choir, and sanctuary. However, a photograph dated
to after the completion of the pulpit in 1873 shows a curtain hanging between two side
chapels, suggesting that at times the celebration of mass was given priority over ease of
movement (fig. 92).
The main crypt chapel is a low-vaulted space filled with a forest of short coupled
columns of dark grey marble (fig. 95). The vaults, columns, and massive piers block
pilgrims sight lines to the high altar and radiating chapels. Peyramale criticized the
367
222
crypt for this, but Durand defended the columns on structural grounds.368 Today pilgrims
access the chapel by entering the lower faade portal and walking straight ahead through
a twenty-five meter-long corridor under the nave of the upper sanctuary, but this corridor
was not excavated from the rock until 1904. Before then, once pilgrims entered the lower
faade portal and the vestibule beyond, they turned left or right to access the crypt from
one of two lateral passageways under the side chapels of the upper church (fig. 96).369
The two corridors eased the circulation of pilgrims to and from the main vessel of the
crypt. However, because they were filled with confessionals, and penitents were
disturbed by passing pilgrims, once the central corridor was excavated the side corridors
were sealed off from the entrance vestibule.370 The crypt was reconfigured in favor of the
reception of the sacraments. Thus Durands design, and later alterations to the basilica,
contributed to the clericalization of the cult of Our Lady of Lourdes.
The Basilica of the Immacule-Conception contrasts with Gothic Revival
churches begun during the July Monarchy era such as Notre-Dame de Bonsecours (184044), Jean-Baptiste Lassuss Saint-Nicolas in Nantes (1844-76), and Franz Gau and
Thodore Ballus Sainte-Clotilde in Paris (1846-57). Clearly, this sample of earlier
churches represents a variety of programs and compositions. Notre-Dame de Bonsecours
was built to serve a suburban parish and regional pilgrimage and is small and compact in
comparison with Saint-Nicolas and Sainte-Clotilde, which were constructed to meet the
368
369
See Durands description of this configuration in Durand to Pre Lonard Cros, Notes relatives la
construction de la chapelle de Lourdes, 10 June 1879, p. 20-21, Archives et patrimoine des sanctuaires de
Notre-Dame de Lourdes, (E) A. IV 7, Fonds Cros. See also Camoreyt, Histoire des trois belles glises de
Lourdes, 40-43; and Courtin, Lourdes, 110-120.
370
Camoreyt, Histoire des trois belles glises de Lourdes, 41-43; Courtin, Lourdes, 111-120.
223
requirements of city-center parishes. The urban churches both have cathedral-like plans
with transepts and radiating chapels, but differ from each other in that Sainte-Clotilde has
a double bell tower faade, while Saint-Nicolas has a single bell tower frontispiece like
Notre-Dame de Bonsecours. However, all three incorporate thirteenth-century features,
especially flying buttresses, to recreate a Gothic architecture that is linear, vertical, and
transparent, expressing the Christian idea of the infinite.
Conversely, the twelfth-century characteristics of the Immacule-Conception-including its lack of flying buttresses, expanses of wall, and relatively small windows-give form to Durands practical ideas about the affordability and adaptability of the
Gothic. Durands design for the basilica has more in common with churches begun
during the Second Republic and Second Empire like Paul Abadies Church of SaintMartial in Angoulme (1849-56), Gustave and Charles-Victor Gurins Church of Sainttienne in Tours (1869-74), and Anatole de Baudots Church of Saint-Lubin in
Rambouillet (1865-69).371 There are significant differences between these urban parish
churches--Saint-Martial and Saint-tienne are a mix of Romanesque and Gothic with
round arch windows and rib vaults, while Saint-Lubin is distinctly Gothic and has cast
iron columns in the nave--but, like the Immacule-Conception, all of them have single
bell towers above porches and a large amount of wall surface compared to window
openings, and none have flying buttresses. As his 1867 glises de bourgs et villages
shows, Baudot shared the interest of Durand in reconciling the Gothic with a range of
371
On Saint-Martial see Claude Laroche, Saint-Martial dAngoulme et linvention du no-roman, in

Paul Abadie: Architecte, 1812-1884, ed. Claude Laroche (Paris: Runion des muses nationaux, 1988),
171-172. Saint-tienne is illustrated and discussed in Middleton and Watkin, Neoclassical and NineteenthCentury Architecture, 340-341 and 343. On Saint-Lubin see Boudon, Recherche sur la pense et luvre
dAnatole de audot, 24-26.
224
programs and materials for churches, and with building Gothic Revival churches
economically.
Decoration
The decoration of the basilica also contributed to the clericalization of the
Lourdes cult. Its iconography conveyed the integration of the events at the grotto into the
official history of the worldwide Church. Work on the decoration of the basilica was the
result of a collective effort overseen by Bishop Laurence and his successors. Durand
designed the altars, and artists from Paris, Lyon, and Marseille designed and executed
stained glass windows, sculptures, and liturgical furnishings. Much of the decoration was
completed in the 1870s in the Gothic style, in keeping with Durands writings on
harmony in decoration and architecture, and his practice of constantly reproducing the
same forms. The decoration has been altered many times since, particularly in response
to the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). Durands religious mentor, the Abb Dasque,
composed the iconographical program in February 1861. However, the program was
radically revised by the episcopate because of its exclusive focus on the mystery of the
Immaculate Conception. In late 1862, Laurence asked for changes that expanded the
theme to embrace the feasts of the Virgin. Then, after Laurences death in 1870, his
successors made the iconography even broader, a move that incorporated the devotion to
Our Lady of Lourdes into a more general canon of Catholic beliefs.
The Abb Dasque wanted to relate the apparitions to the history of the belief in
the Immaculate Conception only, concentrating on the promulgation of the belief as
dogma by Pius IX in 1854. He planned to represent the pope in the upper axial window
225
of the chevet. In the eighteen other clerestory windows and the sculpted high altar he
planned to offer pilgrims la proclamation du dogme de lImmacule Conception
prpare immdiatement par la croyance des 18 sicles qua durs la loi nouvelle, et
mdiatement par les dsirs des 40 sicles qua durs la loi ancienne.372 Dasque wished
to dedicate the radiating chapels to the feasts of the Virgin, including the feast of the
Immaculate Conception, and to assign the side chapels to eight of the Pyrenees most
famous Marian sanctuaries, including those that Laurence revived. According to Dasque,
the side chapels would demonstrate that lapparition de la Vierge Immacule Lourdes
est la fois une rcompense et un encouragement la pit de nos Pyrnes occidentales,
pit qui clate de mme que dans lglise universelle par les grandes ftes tablies en
lhonneur de Marie, et dune manire spciale par cette troupe de sanctuaires vnrs
dont nous sommes en possession.373 While the clerestory and radiating chapels would
connect the Lourdes devotion to the spiritual and political agenda that Pope Pius IX had
advanced with his proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, the side
chapels would link the cult to the program of re-Christianization that Bishop Laurence
had set in motion with his revival of Marian shrines in the Pyrenees.
Laurence, however, wanted the iconography to be more widely relevant. He
asked Dasque to replace the Pyrenean sanctuaries in the side chapel windows with the
feasts of the Virgin and to substitute the Immaculate Conception in the main portal
tympanum under the bell tower with the Coronation of the Virgin.374 He had launched
372
Dasque to Durand, 27 February 1861, in Laurentin, Billet, and Galland, Lourdes: Documents
373
Dasque to Durand, 27 February 1861, in Laurentin, Billet, and Galland, Lourdes: Documents
374
Dasque to Durand, 22 December 1862, in Laurentin and Billet, Lourdes: Documents authentiques, 7:
226
the subscription drive for the basilica on an international scale. Therefore, the church had
to appeal to Catholics from all of France and beyond. Laurence steered the iconography
away from the local and the current, towards the universal and the eternal.
In the completed church, the only component of Dasques program that Laurence
and his successors retained is the clerestory theme of the history of the Immaculate
Conception. While Dasque dedicated the apsidal chapels to the feasts of the Virgin, the
bishops assigned the axial chapel to the Sacred Heart and the chapels on either side to
well-known Marian devotions.375 While Dasque and Laurence wanted Marian subjects
for the main portal tympanum, the executed relief shows Christ in majesty surrounded by
symbols of the four evangelists. And while Dasque dedicated the side chapels to
Pyrenean shrines, the bishops assigned them to a wide variety of saints.376 The
iconography of the completed church reflected the clerical hierarchys reorientation of
the pilgrimage from the Virgin to Christ, from para-sacramental rituals at the grotto to the
sacrament of the Eucharist in the basilica. Moreover, the iconography reflected the
hierarchys promotion of the pilgrimage on the national and international stage.
The iconography of the completed church invited comparison between recent
events at the grotto and episodes in the Bible and Church history. One of the apsidal
windows depicts Bernadettes eighteenth and last vision from the far bank of the Gave de
Pau on July 17, 1858, when the grotto was closed by the civil authorities, and the Holy
Familys Flight into Egypt.377 The juxtaposition drew attention to the resemblance
no. 1411, p. 191.

375
376
Courtin, Lourdes, 140-144, 155-159.
377
Courtin, Lourdes, 148-149. The significance of the pairings in the side- and apsidal-chapel windows is
227
between Bernadettes persecution and that of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, and it likened
Prefect Massy to King Herod. The analogy strongly disparaged the State for its attempt
to suppress the shrine, even though the grotto was barricaded over three years before
Laurence authenticated the apparitions. Another apsidal window shows Laurence
reading his January 18, 1862 pastoral letter confirming the authenticity of the apparitions,
below Christ sending out the apostles to evangelize the world.378 The parallel evoked the
Catholic belief in apostolic succession, from the Apostles to all popes and bishops. It
compared Laurence and his commission with Christ and his Apostles, and it likened the
bishops pastoral letter to the gospel. Thus, the analogy glorified Laurence and his role in
legitimizing the devotion to Our Lady of Lourdes. Moreover, Christ and the Apostles
was a more appealing choice of subject for the windows donors, who came from Nantes
and elsewhere in Brittany, than a Pyrenean shrine.379 In sum, the iconography belonged
to the Church hierarchys strategy to clericalize the Lourdes devotion, to assimilate it into
worldwide Catholic orthodoxy rather than to isolate it as local lore.
Durands approach to planning the Basilica of the Immacule-Conception was
informed by his commitment to harmony among liturgical furnishings and between
furnishings and architecture. He had written about this in his 1849 articles in LArt et
larchologie en province.380 Then, in his September 15, 1862 Description sommaire,
pointed out in Harris, Lourdes, 173. Harris refers to the juxtaposition of Bernadette and Marguerite-Marie
Alacoque, the seventeenth-century nun whose visions spurred the cult of the Sacred Heart.
378
379
380
In the first article, Durand wrote that Nous nous occuperons dans un prochain article du mobilier des
glises de la nature de celles dont nous donnons plus loin le devis, car il est bon que tout soit en harmonie, .
. . Durand, Quelques considrations, 14. In the second article, Durand wrote that Dans tous les cas, la
plus grande harmonie densemble et de dtails doit exister entre tous les objets en bois qui ornent ou
228
Durand explained that he had designed the Basilica of the Immacule-Conception with its
future decoration in mind: Ce monument, . . . a t tudi dans la disposition et le
nombre de ses traves de telle sorte, quil soit possible plus tard, de lorner et le dcorer
par la peinture et la sculpture dune manire toute symbolique . . .381 This way of
working is evident in a plan and cross-section of one of the apsidal chapels of the crypt
(fig. 97). In the plan on the top half of the sheet Durand drew the contours of the walls
and attached columns. In the cross-section on the bottom half he sketched the altar in
such a way that it is completely integrated with the columns, ribs, and arches of the
architecture.
The impact of Durands designs for the decoration can be seen in the completed
church. The Chapelle de Saint-Jean lEvangliste in the crypt resembles his cross-section
of the apsidal chapel, owing to its columnated base, stepped retable, and tabernacle to
serve as a pedestal for a statue (fig. 98). Likewise, the altars in the chapels of the upper
church all approximate Durands designs for the altars of the Sacred Heart and of Saint
Joseph, with their varied combinations of ornaments such as multifoils, incised
arabesques, and rows of gables, corbel arches, and cusped arches (figs. 92, 93, 99, and
meublent les glises, tels que lambris dappui ou de hauteur, stalles, chaire prcher, bancs-duvre,
confessional, etc. dont lornementation sera toujours subordonne aux ressources pcuniaires, comme le
style celui du monument. Nous donnerons successivement des modles varis de ces divers objets, ainsi
que des fonts baptismaux et des bnitiers. Autant que possible, il sera bon de faire excuter ces derniers
objets en pierre, en leur conservant toujours un caractre de simplicit en harmonie avec le reste de
ldifice. Durand, Considrations sur lart religieux, 28.
381
Hippolyte Durand, Chapelle de Lourdes: Description sommaire de son ensemble, 15 September 1862,
copy in Archives et patrimoine des sanctuaires de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, 1 B 1, Basilique suprieure.
229
100).382 Their common decorative vocabulary unifies the altars with each other and with
the architecture.
Durands repetition of forms in his furnishings at Lourdes accords with the
repetition in his model church for a township and his churches across the south-west.
Furthermore, Durands use of cheap materials for the decoration--roughcast over rubblestone walls and vaults,383 and initially terra cotta for the altar statues384 and white glass
for the windows--385 was consistent with the aesthetic of frugality that he promoted in
LArt et larchologie en province (figs. 101-103). One aspect of the decoration that was
not overseen by the bishops, nor designed by Durand, was the profusion of ex-votos (fig.
104). These objects contributed to the basilicas medieval ambiance: the metal hearts
resembled reliquaries, and the military medals and banners recalled the pageantry of the
Crusades.386 However, as shall be seen, Zola and Huysmans later scorned the ex-votos
for their cheapness and their appeal to childish taste, for their resemblance to massproduced goods.
382
The altars of the Sacred Heart and of Saint Joseph are no longer in place. The altar of the Sacred Heart
was probably removed in 1975 when the high altar was moved into the place of the altar of the Sacred
Heart in the axial Chapelle du Saint Sacrement. The altar of Saint Joseph was probably taken out in 1977
when a doorway was created in the chapel to make it easier for pilgrims in wheelchairs to enter and exit the
church. See Henry Branthomme and Chantal Touvet, Histoire des sanctuaires de Lourdes, 1947-1988:
volution et ralisations (Lourdes: NDL, 2005), 405, 419.
383
384
385
386
The sanctuary administration removed the banners in 2001.
230
The Emergence of Modern Pilgrimage at Lourdes
The Rise of National Pilgrimage in the 1870s and the Modernization of the Shrine
The astonishing increase in the number of pilgrims to Lourdes in the 1870s is
unthinkable without the arrival of the railroad in 1866, the completion of the basilica in
1872, and the pilgrimage movement that followed the crisis of 1870-1871.387 Most
Catholics understood the experience of the anne terrible in terms of the basic Christian
narrative of transgression and atonement. They viewed the recent catastrophes of the
collapse of the Second Empire, the invasion of France by the Prussian army, the Paris
Commune, and the capture of papal Rome by Italian troops as the result of Frances
collective sinfulness. The French people had renounced their Catholic vocation, and in
return, God had abandoned them.388 The religious order of the Assumptionists channeled
the resulting impulse of repentance into mass pilgrimages. At the beginning of the first
issue of their periodical, Le Plerin, the Assumptionists explicitly connected the
pilgrimages they organized with national repentance: La pense des plerinages est ne
de nos malheurs et des perscutions que subit le Pre commun des fidles, comme si Dieu
voulait nous enseigner ne jamais dsesprer.389
The first national pilgrimage that the Assumptionists planned was to La Salette, in
August 1872. Turnout was disappointing--only seven hundred Catholics participated--
387
Raymond A. Jonas, Restoring a Sacred Center: Pilgrimage, Politics, and the Sacr-Cur, Historical
Reflections/Rflexions historiques 20, no. 1 (1994): 114.
388
David Harvey, Monument and Myth: The Building of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, in The Urban
Experience (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989), 217; Jonas, Monument as Ex-Voto, 501;
Raymond Anthony Jonas, France and the Cult of the Sacred Heart: An Epic Tale for Modern Times
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 158.
389
J. Gondry du Jardinet, Le Plerin au lecteur, Le Plerin, 12 July 1873, 1.
231
mostly because of the shrines isolated Alpine setting far from the nearest train line.390
Then in October 1872 a parish priest from Beaune, the Abb Victor Chocarne, organized
a pilgrimage to Lourdes in which participants carried banners from their home regions
and placed them in the newly completed basilica. The banners shrouded in black crpe
from the lost departments of Alsace and Lorraine were poignant symbols of national
mourning.391 Seeking to capitalize on the success of the Pilgrimage of the Banners, the
Assumptionists arranged their own Plerinage national to Lourdes in July 1873, for
which they booked a special train to bring pilgrims from Paris to Lourdes, via Tours.392
While the first national pilgrimage to Lourdes attracted just over two thousand
pilgrims, far fewer than the twenty to fifty thousand pilgrims reported to have come for
the Pilgrimage of the Banners, the numbers increased each year in response to the
Assumptionists efforts. Nearly one hundred thousand pilgrims came to Lourdes in 127
processions in 1874.393 In 1876, the same number attended a single two-day event, the
coronation of Our Lady of Lourdes.394 Every year from 1900 to 1907 five to six hundred
thousand pilgrims came to Lourdes. And over one million pilgrims and visitors traveled
to the shrine in 1908 to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the apparitions.395
The growth of the pilgrimage to Lourdes was supported by the growth of an
extensive physical infrastructure at the shrine, of which the basilica was the centerpiece.
390
Branthomme, Une Cit sainte sur le rocher, 206; Kaufman, Consuming Visions, 25-26.
391
Cros, Histoire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, 227; Branthomme, Une Cit sainte sur le rocher, 209-210.
392
Le Plerin, 12 July 1873, n. p.
393
394
395
Chadefaud, Lourdes, 40-41.
232
As the Assumptionists coordinated vast movements of pilgrims around the country,
successive bishops and the Garaison Fathers (until the missionaries expulsion in 1903)
realized improvements and new buildings at the shrine.396 They contributed to the
modernity of the pilgrimage experience by using new technologies and enhancing the
spectacle of the pilgrimage, as well as by influencing the transformation of the town of
Lourdes into a resort. The first auxiliary structures were designed by Durand. In 1863 he
presented Laurence with plans for the Garaison Fathers residence,397 and in 1866 the
brick and wood building to the south-east of the basilica was ready for the missionaries to
move in (fig. 105).398 Durand also drew plans for a terrace in front of the basilica,
measuring thirty meters wide and twenty meters deep, on which work was underway in
1872 (fig. 106). The terrace and broad staircase before it became loci of the pilgrimage
as spectacle. The Gothic-inspired Lourdes-stone buildings on either side housed offices
for accounting and registering masses, for operating the pilgrimage bureaucratically. 399
Nevertheless, the 1872 Pilgrimage of the Banners proved that the basilica and
terrace were insufficient to accommodate a large number of pilgrims in ceremonies
directed by priests. Bishop Benot-Marie Langnieux (bishop of Tarbes from 1873 to
1874) and the Superior of the Garaison Fathers, Pre Semp, took the first steps to
396
Kaufman makes this direct comparison between the Assumptionists and Garaison Fathers in Suzanne K.
Kaufman, Selling Lourdes: Pilgrimage, Tourism, and the Mass-Marketing of the Sacred in NineteenthCentury France, in Being Elsewhere: Tourism, Consumer Culture, and Identity in Modern Europe and
North America, ed. Shelley Baranowski and Ellen Furlough (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan
Press, 2001), 66.
397
398
399
See Durand to Pre Lonard Cros, Notes relatives la construction de la chapelle de Lourdes, 10 June
See also Courtin, Lourdes, 186-187. For the 1872 date of construction see Cros, Histoire de Notre-Dame
de Lourdes, 3: 226.
233
remedy the problem. In 1874, the architecte de la Grotte after Durand, Saint-Gilly,
created a master plan for the shrine. Early the following year, Langnieux received Pope
Pius IXs blessing to build un rosaire monumental au pied de la Basilique de NotreDame de Lourdes.400 Soon Durand drafted a project for the structure. He gave Semp a
sketch for a church, in front of the Basilica of the Immacule-Conception, with two
ramps reaching eastward on either side of the faade and connecting the upper terrace
with a vast lower esplanade. Photographs dated to 1880 and conserved in the sanctuary
archives seem to document the project at a later stage (figs. 107-108).401 They show the
ramps as Durand described them to the Jesuit historian Lonard Cros, with hexagonal
chapels in harmony with the style of the Immacule-Conception.402 However, Church
authorities rejected Durands project in favor of one by Lopold-Amde Hardy (182994).403
A student of Joseph Nicolle (1810-87), Hardy was a diocesan architect, and he
served as architecte-en-chef of the 1878 Exposition de Paris, for which he built an
enormous iron and glass palace decorated with terracotta and mosaics.404 Like Durands
project for a church of the rosary at Lourdes, Hardys completed Basilica of Notre-Dame
400
I have not been able to find Saint-Gillys first name. Courtin, Lourdes, 191.
401
The faade elevation is dated to 1880 in Courtin, Lourdes, 193.
402
Cros.
403
On Lopold-Amde Hardy see the folder in the Archives nationales, F 19 7231; Delaire, Les
Architectes lves de lcole des eau -Arts, 289; Bellier de la Chavignerie and Auvray, Dictionnaire
gnral, 2: 742; and Prevost and Roman dAmat, eds., Dictionnaire de biographie franaise, vol. 17
(Paris: Letouzey et An, 1989), 647.
404
Hautecur, Histoire de larchitecture classi ue en France, 7: 384. Another important commission for
Hardy was the Institut agronomique on the rue Claude Bernard in Paris (1882-90), which recalls the
Baroque brick and stone pavilions of the Place des Vosges. This is illustrated in Hautecur, Histoire de
larchitecture classi ue en France, 7: 378.
234
du Rosaire (1883-89) features ramps embracing an esplanade. Unlike Durands project,
it was designed in the Romano-Byzantine style, with elliptical ramps (figs. 109-110).405
The basilica echoes other nineteenth-century pilgrimage churches that share its RomanoByzantine style and mosaic decoration, particularly Notre-Dame de la Garde in Marseille
(1853-63) and the Sacr-Cur on Montmartre in Paris (1874-1919).406 A key design
concern for Hardy was to avoid detracting from the Basilica of the ImmaculeConception, and hence from the symbolism of its domination of the grotto.407 Indeed,
owing to its low and wide dimensions, historically earlier style, and rusticated masonry,
the faade of Notre-Dame du Rosaire serves visually as a base for the ImmaculeConception. The rusticated grey Lourdes marble of the church of the rosary also relates
to the adjacent grotto and mountains.408
Work on the site began in 1883 with the demolition of the Garaison Fathers
residence and the adjacent cottage where the bishop lived.409 The basilica and ramps
were built at the same time, and the basilica was inaugurated in 1889.410 The upper parts
of the ramps circle the basilicas dome, the lower segment of the south ramp rests on
arched niches embedded in the hillside, and the lower segment of the north ramp is
supported by open arcades, which allowed pilgrims to move freely between the esplanade
405
On the Basilica of Notre-Dame du Rosaire see Marcel Daly, Basilique Notre-Dame de Lourdes, La
Semaine des constructeurs, 2nd ser., no. 43 (19 April 1890): 510-513, plates; 2nd ser., no. 44 (26 April
1890): 517, 522-525; The Church of the Rosary, Lourdes, France, The American Architect and Building
News 39, no. 892 (28 January 1893): 63-64; and Courtin, Lourdes, 191-291.
406
407
Daly, Basilique Notre-Dame de Lourdes, 512.
408
The Church of the Rosary, 64.
409
410
235
and the grotto. Inclining gradually and lacking steps, the ramps were safe for
processions, even torch-lit night-time ones, and they put the processions on display.411
The faade is integrated with the ramps and curving stairs on either side, and served as a
retable during open-air ceremonies, including the Eucharistic procession established by
the Assumptionists in 1888.412 Its centerpiece is a high-relief stone tympanum
representing the Virgin and Child giving the rosary to Saint Dominic.413
The plan of the basilica is hidden on the exterior by the terrace and ramps. It is in
the shape of a Greek cross, with a dome over the crossing, and an apse and transepts that
are each semicircular and have five radiating chapels. Measuring forty-eight meters long
and fifty-two meters wide, Notre-Dame du Rosaire can hold 3,500 people, considerably
more than the one thousand that can fit into the Immacule-Conception. It therefore
enabled the further sacramentalization of the pilgrimage. The dome rises to twenty-two
meters, and does not block the view of the Immacule-Conception from the esplanade.414
Distinctively bulbous and squat, and ringed with two rows of oculi, it was originally
topped with an octagonal lantern that has since been replaced with a gilded cross and
crown. An 1852 school project by Hardy provided a prototype for his church dedicated
to the Virgin, topped with a light-transmitting dome. The project was for a lighthouse,
and it consisted of a relief sculpture of the Virgin and Child, topped with a light-emitting
globe, like a halo.415
411
The Church of the Rosary, 64.
412
413
Daly, Basilique Notre-Dame de Lourdes, 513; Courtin, Lourdes, 199-200, 224-230.
414
415
See the discussion and illustration of the project in Neil Levine, The Romantic Idea of Architectural
236
Mosaics executed from 1894 to 1920 cover the inner surfaces of the dome, the
apsidal half dome, and the fifteen chapels (fig. 111).416 Mosaics in the chapels represent
mysteries of the life of Christ, so that the basilica functioned as a monumental rosary.
The decision of Bishop Billre (bishop of Tarbes from 1882 until 1899) to ornament the
basilica with mosaics was directly influenced by the mosaic decoration of Marseille
cathedral and Notre-Dame de la Garde, also in Marseille.417 More broadly speaking, it
belonged to the revival of monumental mosaic decoration in France that began with the
mosaic decoration of Charles Garniers Paris Opera, inaugurated in 1875, and continued
until the onset of the First World War. Notre-Dame du Rosaire was one of the most
important commissions of Jean-Dominique Facchina (1826-1903), who executed the
mosaics of the Opera and propelled the revival of the medium with a modern technique
that allowed him and his staff to assemble tesserae in a Paris studio rather than on
location, saving time and money.418 In sum, the Basilica of Notre-Dame du Rosaire
reasserted the control of the clergy over the cult of Our Lady of Lourdes, without
Legibility: Henri Labrouste and the No-Grec, in The Architecture of the Beaux-Arts, ed. Arthur Drexler
(New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1977), 406-411.
416
Courtin, Lourdes, 238, 243.
417
Billre explicitly referred to this influence in a conversation with Msgr. Delannoy, bishop of Aire, which
is recorded in the Journal de Lourdes, 15 June 1890; and cited by Courtin, Lourdes, 237. The mosaics of
the side chapels and nave of Notre-Dame de la Garde were completed in 1866. Denise Jasmin, Isabelle
Langlade, and Bruno Wuillequey, Henry Esprandieu: Architecte de Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde (Aix-enProvence: Edisud, 1997), 29. For more on the mosaics of Notre-Dame du Rosaire see Maryse Andrys, Le
Renouveau de la mosaque monumentale en France de 1875 1903: tude sur la production et lactivit
des principaux ateliers parisiens de la fin du XIXe sicle (thse de doctorat, Universit de Franche-Comt,
1995), 1: 205-222.
418
For this context see Maryse De Stefano Andrys, Le Renouveau de la mosa ue en France Un Demisicle dhistoire, 1875-1914 (Arles: Actes Sud, 2007), 8-14. Andrys mentions that Notre-Dame du Rosaire
was one of Facchinas most important commissions in Le Renouveau de la mosaque monumentale, 1:
222.
237
detracting from the Basilica of the Immacule-Conception. Furthermore, it associated the
cult with the rosary devotion and its avid promoter, Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903).419
In addition to the Basilica of Notre-Dame du Rosaire, successive bishops and the
Garaison Fathers built a series of other structures to reshape the pilgrimage under their
control: a sacristy next to the grotto (1874),420 a shelter for pilgrims (1877-79),421 a
medical bureau (1884),422 baths (1890),423 octagonal stair towers connecting the parvis of
the Basilica of the Immacule-Conception with Notre-Dame du Rosaire and the bank of
the Gave (1908),424 a terrace on top of Notre-Dame du Rosaire (1909),425 and outdoor
Stations of the Cross on the Mont des Esplugues, on the south side of the sanctuary
(finished in 1912).426 The sanctuary administration also built a combined printing shop
and electrical plant (1890 or 1894),427 and a chapel to commemorate the First World War
(begun in 1919 and demolished in 1956).428
These developments contributed to making the pilgrimage a modern experience.
The medical bureau, embedded into the right ramp of Notre-Dame du Rosaire, used
419
On the importance of the rosary for Leo XIIIs pontificate see R. P. Lecanuet, La Vie de lglise sous
Lon XIII (Paris: Flix Alcan, 1930), 147; and Nicholas Perry and Loreto Echeverra, Under the Heel of
Mary (London: Routledge, 1988), 140-143.
420
421
422
Courtin, Lourdes, 206; Kaufman, Consuming Visions, 104.
423
424
Courtin, Lourdes, 45-46, 189-190.
425
426
427
Courtin, Lourdes, 35; Kaufman, Consuming Visions, 30.
428
Camoreyt, Histoire des trois belles glises de Lourdes, 43; Courtin, Lourdes, 24-26; Branthomme and
Touvet, Histoire des sanctuaires de Lourdes, 176, 636.
238
science to verify the cures at the grotto.429 The baths, containing multiple dressing rooms
and compartments with pools--one for each pilgrim--used the trappings of spa resorts to
impose order on the ritual of bathing.430 The printing shop published promotional
pamphlets and guidebooks, as well as the Garaison Fathers journals: the Annales de
Notre-Dame de Lourdes and the Journal de Lourdes. And the electrical plant supplied
enough power to illuminate the shrine day and night during the annual national
pilgrimage.431
In anticipation of the arrival of five million pilgrims for the centenary of the
apparitions in 1958, the bishop of Tarbes and Lourdes from 1947 to 1970, Pierre-Marie
Thas, wanted to build a vast shelter that met the same program requirements as the
Basilica of Notre-Dame du Rosaire: to accommodate more pilgrims and to conserve the
existing architecture and landscape surrounding the grotto.432 Thas also wanted to erect
a church on the sanctuary grounds dedicated to Pope Pius X (1903-14), who was
canonized in 1954.433 Pius X was known for upholding Marianism in opposition to
modernism, a movement within the Catholic Church that critiqued accepted
429
430
Harris, Lourdes, 312-313.
431
432
On the resulting Basilica of Pie-X see Lourdes 1958, special issue of Art chrtien 10 (1958); Pierre
Vago, Les Nouveaux amnagements de Lourdes, Architecture daujourdhui 28, no. 71 (1957): 6-8;
Pierre Vago, Basilica of St. Pius, Lourdes, France, Architectural Design 29 (1959): 239-242; Pierre
Vago et al., Lourdes 1959, Architecture daujourdhui 29, no. 81 (1958-59): 46-57; Pierre Vago et al,
Lourdes: Basilique Saint-Pie X, Techniques et architecture 18 (1958): 109-113; and Branthomme and
Touvet, Histoire des sanctuaires de Lourdes, 163-226. On the specific matter of Thass program
requirements see Vago, Les Nouveaux amnagements de Lourdes, 6; Pierre Vago, Le Programme de
Lourdes, Lourdes 1958, special issue of Art chrtien 10 (1958): 12; Chanoine Lesbordes, Histoire et
raisons dtre de la basilique souterraine de Lourdes, Lourdes 1958, special issue of Art chrtien 10
(1958): 20; and Vago, Basilica of St. Pius, 239.
433
Branthomme and Touvet, Histoire des sanctuaires de Lourdes, 121, 174.
239
interpretations of scripture and Church history, and that demanded the democratization of
the Church.434 Thas entrusted the realization of these ideas to Pierre Vago (1910-2002)
in 1955.435 The year before, he had named Vago architecte en chef de luvre de la
Grotte to supervise other projects.436 Vago had studied with Auguste Perret at the cole
spciale darchitecture in Paris (1928-33), edited the journal LArchitecture
daujourdhui from 1931 to 1947, and built numerous buildings including churches and a
Dominican convent.437
The solution Vago devised to meet Thass program requirements was to sink the
church into the meadow on the south side of the walkway joining the esplanade and the
east entrance to the sanctuary grounds, and to vault it with prestressed concrete. Two
engineers submitted proposals for the execution of the concept: Pier Luigi Nervi (18911979) and Eugne Freyssinet (1879-1962).438 Freyssinet had built concrete airplane
hangars at Orly from 1916 to 1924, with spans of eighty meters, and these influenced
hangars designed by Nervi in the 1930s. In 1939, Freyssinet first patented a system of
prestressed concrete.439 Although Nervis design was more elegant, Freyssinets was
chosen for its simplicity and the economy with which it could be built. Indeed, the
434
Perry and Echeverra, Under the Heel of Mary, 154.
435
Pierre Pinsard, Naissance et volution dun projet, Architecture daujourdhui (December 1858January 1959): 48.
436
Branthomme and Touvet, Histoire des sanctuaires de Lourdes, 132.
437
Mathilde Dion, Pierre Vago (1910-2002): Notice biographique, (Institut franais darchitecture,
Archives darchitecture du XXe sicle, Paris, 1991, typed manuscript), 1-17; available from
http://archiwebture.citechaillot.fr/awt.
438
439
There is an illustration of Nervis design in Vago, Basilica of St. Pius, 239.
Michel Ragon, Histoire mondiale de larchitecture et de lur anisme modernes (Paris: Casterman,
1972), 2: 123; Kenneth Frampton, Modern Architecture: A Critical History (London: Thames and
Hudson, 2007), 40.
240
church was inaugurated in March 1958 after only twenty-two months of construction, and
it was completely paid for by 1961.440 It belongs to a group of structurally innovative
reinforced concrete churches realized in the 1950s in France that also includes Pierre
Pinsards Couvent des Dominicains in Lille (1952-65), Guillaume Gillets Church of
Notre-Dame in Royan (1955-1958), and Le Corbusiers Couvent de la Tourette near
LArbresle (1956-60).441
The resulting Basilica of Pie-X (1956-58) covers a surface of 14,500 square
meters and is 201 meters long, 81 meters wide, and 11 meters high (figs. 112-113).442 It
can accommodate twenty-thousand people, compared to the one thousand and 3,500 that
can fit into the Basilica of the Immacule-Conception and Notre-Dame du Rosaire,
respectively.443 The church is scaled to the pilgrimage: three million people came to
Lourdes in 1954, and almost five million came in 1958.444 As such it suits mass
celebrations, not individual prayer.445
The elliptical plan of the Basilica of Pie-X relates to the contours of the building
site and of the ramps of Notre-Dame du Rosaire. The ellipse also evokes the Christian
440
Lesbordes, Histoire et raisons dtre de la basilique souterraine de Lourdes, 20; Branthomme and
Touvet, Histoire des sanctuaires de Lourdes, 220-225.
441
Yves-Marie Hilaire, Les Grandes tapes de lhistoire du catholicisme et lvolution des constructions
religieuses en France au XXe sicle, in Architecture religieuse du XXe sicle en France, ed. Cline
Frmaux (Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2007), 27.
442
Vago et al., Lourdes: Basilique Saint-Pie X, 109.
443
Yves Cranga and Marie-Anne Sire, Protection et restauraton des sanctuaires de Lourdes: La
Complexit de lapproche patrimoniale, Monumental 17 (1997): 12.
444
Lesbordes, Histoire et raisons dtre de la basilique souterraine de Lourdes, 20; Branthomme and
Touvet, Histoire des sanctuaires de Lourdes, 240-241.
445
Pierre Jounel, La Clbration liturgique dans lglise de Saint-Pie X, Lourdes 1958, special issue of
Art chrtien 10 (1958): 28.
241
symbols of a fish and a mandorla.446 From next to the church, the building is almost
invisible, but from the many high points around the sanctuary, its oval outline is plain to
see. There is no faade, and the flattened dome is covered in turf. Rather, the presence
of the church is subtly signaled by the concrete retaining wall that surrounds the dome,
and by the broad entrance stairs and ramps that facilitate processions.447
Inside, V shaped prestressed concrete supports that recall crutches hold up the
vast covering whose ribs and spine add to the fish symbolism of the ellipse.448 The freestanding supports are arranged around the outer edge of the nave. They separate the nave
from the ramps and a ten-meter-wide ambulatory, as well as sacristies, offices, and a
chapel where the Eucharist is kept. The nave floor slopes downward to the altar in the
center. The incline makes the altar more visible, as does the altars central location in the
church and the pyramidal podium that it is raised on.449 The centrality of the altar reflects
Pius Xs encouragement of lay people to receive frequent communion, and the resulting
increase in lay participation in the mass.450 Strong lighting draws attention to the altar
and the periphery of the church, but the vault is kept dark to de-emphasize its relatively
low height.451
446
Vago et al., Lourdes: Basilique Saint-Pie X, 109.
447
Pierre Vago et al., Basilique de Lourdes, glises de France reconstruites, special issue of Art chrtien
4 (September 1956): 79; A.-G. Martimort, La Basilique Saint Pie X et la liturgie, Architecture
daujourdhui (December 1858-January 1959): 49.
448
Cranga and Sire, Protection et restauraton des sanctuaires de Lourdes, 15.
449
Martimort, La Basilique Saint Pie X et la liturgie, 48.
450
Owen Chadwick, A History of the Popes, 1830-1914 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1998), 362-363; Branthomme
and Touvet, Histoire des sanctuaires de Lourdes, 198.
451
The vaults of the Basilica of Pie-X are eleven meters high. In comparison, the vaults of the Basilica of
the Immacule-Conception are nineteen meters high and those of the Basilica of Notre-Dame du Rosaire
are twenty-two meters high.
242
With its plain shapes, unadorned concrete, and burial underground, the Modernist
basilica fulfilled Vagos wish to echo the character of Bernadette, the grotto, and the
Lourdes devotion in general, which he perceived as simplicity and poverty.452 It was
typical of how church architecture in the 1950s expressed values associated with early
Christianity.453 However, owing to its dedication to Pius X, the basilica also connected
the cult of Our Lady of Lourdes with this pope, and not only his transformation of
worshipping practices, but his suppression of new critical methods in biblical scholarship,
which he condemned as modernist.454
The Modernization of the Town

While successive bishops and the Garaison Fathers developed the shrine, they
also worked with municipal and State officials to transform the town of Lourdes into a
modern resort. Like the shrine, the town incorporated new technologies, and it promoted
the experience of the pilgrimage as a spectacle. The officials approached urban planning
in a way that was consistent with the redesign of Paris during the period of the Second
Empire by the Baron Georges Haussmann. They widened and paved existing streets and
squares, planted trees, built sidewalks, and created new boulevards that composed views
of the sanctuary and aided circulation, especially between the train station and the
452
Vago et al., Lourdes 1959, 47.
453
Isabelle Renaud-Chamska, Architecture religieuse et cration artistique en France entre 1950 et 1980,
in Architecture religieuse du XXe sicle en France, ed. Cline Frmaux (Rennes: Presses universitaires de
Rennes, 2007), 79-80. See the conclusion of this dissertation on how the Pre Couturier also embraced an
aesthetic of simplicity and poverty, and how that aesthetic is reflected in Le Corbusiers Chapel of NotreDame du Haut at Ronchamp (1950-55).
454
Chadwick, A History of the Popes, 354, 362.
243
sanctuary.455 They installed electricity and rented telegraph access from the rail depot.
And entrepreneurs further transformed the city into a modern tourist center by building a
tramway and funicular, dioramas and panoramas, and hotels, restaurants, and souvenir
stores.456 These boulevard institutions were emblems of modern urban life. One
example, panoramas, were popular attractions in fin-de-sicle Paris. At Lourdes, they
permitted pilgrims to experience Bernadettes visions of the Virgin Mary as a
spectacle.457 Another example, souvenir stores, displayed immense stocks of massproduced religious statues and images, or Saint-Sulpice art. Hundreds of the stores
lined the boulevards leading to the sanctuary.458
In addition to these developments, work on a new parish church began in 1875
and was finished in 1903 (fig. 114). While control over the devotion to Our Lady of
Lourdes shifted from the Abb Peyramale to successive bishops and missionaries,
building the Church of the Sacr-Cur in Lourdes was a means for the cur to assert his
authority. The church replaced the eleventh-century Romanesque Church of Saint-Pierre
(demolished in 1904 after a fire in 1896), which was in poor condition and too small for
Lourdes growing population and pilgrimages.459 Bishop Langnieux and the Abb
Peyramale initiated a project with a budget of three hundred thousand francs, but after
Langnieux left the diocese in 1875 Peyramale asked the architect Delbarre de Bay to
455
Laurentin and Billet, Lourdes: Documents authentiques, 7: 18; Kaufman, Selling Lourdes, 67.
456
Harris, Lourdes, 175; Kaufman, Consuming Visions, 28.
457
Kaufman, Consuming Visions, 50-51; Schwartz, Spectacular Realities, 149-150.
458
459
Lasserre, Le Cur de Lourdes, 275-277. On the Church of Saint-Pierre see Camoreyt, Histoire des trois
belles glises de Lourdes, 105-120.
244
draw up a grander Neo-Romanesque project costing eight hundred thousand francs.460
Donations fell far short of this amount, and construction was halted from 1877 until after
June 1898.461 The historian Henri Lasserre, who strongly supported Peyramale and the
new parish church, blamed the deficit on the Garaison Fathers and their concurrent fundraising efforts for the Basilica of Notre-Dame du Rosaire.462
Peyramale also struggled with the Garaison Fathers to urbanize the town in a way
that reinforced his authority. In particular, he tried to run the main route from the train
station to the shrine through the town center and past the new parish church. Peyramale
and the municipal council first proposed the creation of an L shaped route, leading
south on the ancient Roman road, the present chausse Maransin, then west on a widened
and straightened rue de la Grotte (fig. 115). Although indirect, the route would
encourage pilgrims to patronize existing businesses in the town and to make the new
parish church the first and last stop of their pilgrimage to Lourdes.463 However, owing to
opposition from property owners and the military engineers in charge of Lourdes
medieval fortress, Peyramale and the municipal council modified their plan. They
suggested a short cut between the new parish church and the shrine, following the north
slope of the fortress hill. The short cut had the advantage of crossing government land,
so that no private property owners could protest it and no new stores could be built on it,
460
I have not been able to find out Delbarre de Bays first name. See Lasserre, Le Cur de Lourdes, 275;
Paulin Moniquet, Les Origines de Notre-Dame de Lourdes: Dfense des vques de Tarbes et des
missionnaires de Lourdes, examen critique de divers crits de M. H. Lasserre, 2nd ed. (Paris: Arthur
Savate, 1901), 415-416; and Camoreyt, Histoire des trois belles glises de Lourdes, 78.
461
Lasserre, Le Cur de Lourdes, 284-287; Moniquet, Les Origines de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, 421, 428.
462
Lasserre, Le Cur de Lourdes, 287.
463
Peyramale emphasized the importance of the parish church for the pilgrimage: LEglise de la ville est
devenue, par la nature et la force des choses, lanne e, le complment de lEglise de la Grotte, et, pour
parler plus exactement, LA PREMIRE ET LA DERNIRE STATION DES PLERINAGES [sic].
Quoted in Lasserre, Le Cur de Lourdes, 277. See also Lasserre, Le Cur de Lourdes, 266.
245
creating competition for existing stores.464 Nevertheless, the Garaison Fathers insisted
that the new boulevard de la Grotte follow a direct course from the train station to the
shrine. They argued that the avenue should align with the Basilica of the ImmaculeConception before it reached the bridge across the Gave, offering newly arriving pilgrims
a theatrically staged view of the shrine.465 The Ministre des Travaux Publics sided with
the missionaries, and after three years of conflict with Peyramale and the municipal
council, work on the route prescribed by the missionaries began in 1879 and finished in
1881.466 The alignment of the church with the boulevard de la Grotte was inspired by the
placement of public monuments on axis with new streets in Haussmanns Paris.467 The
boulevard de la Grotte with its scenographic view of the shrine, and the institutions of
mass consumption that bordered it and other avenues, transformed Lourdes into a
spectacle, and became markers of the towns modernity.
464
Lasserre, Le Cur de Lourdes, 264-265; Laurentin and Billet, Lourdes: Documents authentiques, 7: 19.
465
Lasserre, Le Cur de Lourdes, 271.
466
Moniquet, Les Origines de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, 270-283; Courtin, Lourdes, 5-6; Branthomme,
Une Cit sainte sur le rocher, 213; Harris, Lourdes, 175.
467
Barry Bergdoll, European Architecture: 1750-1890 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 249-251.
246
Conclusion: The Criticism of the Basilica by mile Zola and Joris-Karl Huysmans
Lourdes attracted the attention of two of the leading literary figures of the late
nineteenth century: mile Zola (1840-1902) and Joris-Karl Huysmans (1848-1907).
Although they came to Lourdes with contrasting views on literature and faith, Zola and
Huysmans both condemned the shrine for what they saw as its desecration of religion by
modernity, and by commercialism in particular. The response of the architectural press
to the Basilica of the Immacule-Conception was generally mild,468 but Zola and
Huysmans aimed the full force of their invective at the architecture of the shrine. Zola
published Lourdes, his most successful novel, in 1894, while Huysmans published Les
Foules de Lourdes in 1906, the year before his death. 469 A naturalist and an anticlerical
republican, Zola interpreted the cures, which the medical bureau publicized as
miraculous, as the result of hysteria and the influence of the crowd. From his point of
view, mass pilgrimages were royalist political demonstrations.470 Huysmans was a
former follower of Zola, but he had turned from naturalism to spiritualism and the occult,
468
The Moniteur des architectes offered praise for the church as bien conu et conscieusement tudi. 468
Writing in the Encyclopdie darchitecture, Parisian architect Gabriel Davioud (1823-81) called the
Immacule-Conception la pice importante among the religious monuments whose plans were shown in
the 1872 Salon. Diocesan architect of Bayeux and Ses Victor Ruprich-Robert (1820-87) similarly
commented in his review of the architecture section of the 1872 Salon in the Revue gnrale de
larchitecture that Durands church was very important. He wrote that the plan was competent and wellproportioned, but that the architecture shown in the elevations was not handled with the same skill as in the
adjacent project in the Salon for a church in Languidic (Morbihan) by Pierre-Joseph-Edouard Deperthes,
and this caused Durands submission to lose much of its interest. In another review of the architecture
section of the 1872 Salon that was published in book form, Albert Fabre and Lon de Vesly wrote nothing
positive about Durands project. Instead they sniped that the church in Durands drawings appeared
pretentious and empty without the picturesque setting of the grotto and mountains that surrounded the
actual church. See J. O., Chapelle Lourdes, Le Moniteur des architectes (1869): col. 87, plates 17, 21,
34-35; G. Davioud, Le Salon, Encyclopdie darchitecture 1 (1872): 85; Victor Ruprich-Robert, Salon
de 1872--Architecture, Revue gnrale de larchitecture 29 (1872): col. 164; and A. Fabre and L. de
Vesly, LArchitecture au Salon Art anti ue, moyen ge, renaissance, . . . revue annuelle des uvres
e poses dans la section darchitecture. . . . 1re anne, 1872 (Paris: A. Lvy, 1872), 22.
469
Harris, Lourdes, 331. On Zolas trip to Lourdes and the development of his novel, see Ren Ternois,
Zola et son Temps: Lourdes, Rome, Paris (Paris: Socit les belles lettres, 1961).
470
Harris, Lourdes, 304, 320, 332.
247
and in 1892 he converted to Catholicism.471 Huysmans account differs fundamentally
from Zolas because it expresses a deep sympathy for the spirituality of the pilgrimage,
especially the compassionate care of the sick and suffering.472 The difference between
the two authors interpretations of Lourdes indicates a larger literary and cultural shift. In
the fin de sicle, the naturalistic approach, informed by scientific positivism, was
superseded by forms of literature that reflected a revolt against positivism and an
embrace of traditional Catholicism.473 Zola and Huysmans both constructed what
Suzanne Kaufman has called a discourse of religious debasement.474 However, they
attacked the mixing of religion and modern technology and commerce that they observed
at Lourdes for different reasons. While the shrine unsettled Zola because it undermined
the republican view of the Church as anti-modern, it disturbed Huysmans because it
corrupted older forms of worship that he saw as authentic.475
Zola and Huysmans criticized the architecture of Lourdes because it did not
conform to a medieval ideal, but was infused with modernity.476 For them, the religious
debasement of the shrine pervaded its architecture as well. They returned from their trips
to Lourdes disgusted by what they saw as the shrines ugliness and resemblance to a
471
Richard Griffiths, The Reactionary Revolution: The Catholic Revival in French Literature, 1870-1914
(London: Constable, 1966), 100; Kaufman, Consuming Visions, 87-88.
472
Harris, Lourdes, 339; Kaufman, Consuming Visions, 88. On Huysmans trips to Lourdes and his
aesthetic critique of the shrine see Robert Baldick, The Life of J.-K. Huysmans (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1955), 318-319, 331-332.
473
474
475
Kaufman, Consuming Visions, 64, 79, 93.
476
248
marketplace.477 They disapproved of the Basilica of the Immacule-Conception because
of its small size, cheap construction, and display of ex-votos that looked like a bazaar.
Zola derided the exterior as being un peu mince et frle, trop neuve, trop blanche, avec
son style amaigri de fin bijou, and as having une fragilit, une candeur pauvre de foi
enfantine.478 As for the interior, he put down the colors as gaudy and the architecture
and decoration as appealing to childish taste.479 His protagonist was struck by the discord
he saw between the new shrine and the faith of the Middle Ages, which the Church was
attempting to revive through the pilgrimage.480 He compared contemporary church
architecture to mass-produced religious art and attributed the cheapness and flashiness of
both to their creators unbelief.481 Zolas statement on the faithlessness of artists is
ironic, given that Durand was a devout Catholic.
477
Harris, Lourdes, 334; Kaufman, Consuming Visions, 88-89.
478
mile Zola, Lourdes (Paris: Stock, 1998), 140-141.
479
Alors, dans son trouble, tourdi par le chant des orgues, Pierre leva la tte, regarda lintrieur de la
Basilique. Ctait une nef troite, haute, bariole de couleurs vives, que des baies nombreuses inondaient
de lumire. Les bas-cts existaient peine, se trouvaient rduits un simple couloir filant entre les
faisceaux des piliers et les chapelles latrales; ce qui semblait augmenter encore llancement de la nef, cet
envolement de la pierre en lignes minces, dune gracilit enfantine. Zola went on to describe the
decoration. He said that the quotations attributed to the Virgin, spelled out with metal hearts faisait la joie
des mes enfantines, trs occupes en peler les mots. Zola, Lourdes, 329.
480
481
Emery and Morowitz, Consuming the Past, 161.
After hearing these ideas proposed by a character named M. de Guersaint, an architect, Pierre felt
malaise that came from the dsaccord entre le milieu tout moderne et la foi des sicles passs, dont on
essayait la rsurrection. Il voquait les vieilles cathdrales o frissonnait cette foi des peuples, il revoyait
les anciens objets du culte, limagerie, lorfvrerie, les saints de pierre et de bois, dune force, dune beaut
dexpression admirables. Ctait quen ces temps lointains, les ouvriers croyaient, donnaient leur chair,
donnaient leur me, dans toute la navet de leur motion, comme disait M. de Guersaint. Et, aujourdhui,
les architectes btissaient les glises avec la science tranquille quils mettaient btir les maisons cinq
tages, de mme que les objets religieux, les chapelets, les mdailles, les statuettes, taient fabriqus la
grosse, dans les quartiers populeux de Paris, par des ouvriers noceurs qui ne pratiquaient mme pas. Aussi
quelle bimbeloterie, quelle quincaillerie de pacotille, dun joli faire pleurer, dune sentimentalit niaise
soulever le cur! Lourdes en tait inond, ravag, enlaidi, au point dincommoder les personnes de got
un peu dlicat, gares dans ses rues. Tout cela, brutalement, jurait avec la rsurrection tente, avec les
lgendes, les crmonies, les processions des ges morts; et Pierre, tout dun coup, pensa que la
condamnation historique et sociale de Lourdes tait l, que la foi est morte jamais chez un peuple, quand
249
Like Zola, Huysmans scoffed at the Immacule-Conception as thin and flimsy.
He described it evocatively as la basilique qui grelotte, maigre comme une perche, sous
son chapeau de pierrot, dans son mince vtement de pierre, sur le plat humide de son
roc.482 His opinion of the interior was that it was cramped and poorly laid out for the
circulation of pilgrims: Sans lvation et sans largeur, la nef est, en somme, longe de
chaque ct par un troit corridor dans lequel la foule se bouscule sans pouvoir
circuler.483 And while Zola likened all of Lourdes to a cheap souvenir store, Huysmans
pointed out the similarity of the Basilica of the Immacule-Conception to a junk shop,
owing to the display of ex-votos, especially the banners: Lon dirait, en examinant ce
dballage de hardes qui flottent au plafond, dun schoir et de ce fatras de babioles
cloues aux murs, dun magasin de dcrochez-moi a, dune boutique de bric--brac; . .
.484 Huysmans was disappointed that the ornament of the shrine did not match his vision
of Lourdes as a reversion to the Middle Ages. He contrasted its inauthentic massproduced religious art with its authentic medieval-seeming suffering and religious
tradition.485 Both Zola and Huysmans associated Lourdes modern buildings and
infrastructure with commercialism and religious debasement.
il ne la met plus dans les glises quil construit, ni dans les chapelets quil fabrique. Zola, Lourdes, 388389.
482
Huysmans, Les Foules de Lourdes, 101.
483
Huysmans went on to say that the funeste ganache qui a construit ce misrable pastiche du XIIIe sicle,
na su russir quune chose, lalliance de lincommodit et de la laideur. Huysmans, Les Foules de
Lourdes, 119-120.
484
485
Huysmans, Les Foules de Lourdes, 122.
Cases of lupus and leprosy, all the diseases of the Middle Ages are here, and some are cured just like
that, after the Blessed Sacrament has passed by. Evidently only in Lourdes can one get an impression of
what pilgrimage used to be like in former times. Unfortunately the dcor, a poor imitation, is unspeakable.
There is such a proliferation of devotional objects. Quoted in Joris-Karl Huysmans, The Road from
Decadence: From Brothel to Cloister, trans. Barbara Beaumont (Columbus: Ohio State Press, 1989), 226.
250
Zolas and Huysmanss criticism of the Basilica of the Immacule-Conception
was insightful, as it reflects Durands own ideas about his work. The authors found fault
with the basilica because of its association with cheap, mass-produced goods. Indeed,
Durand had theorized the creation of cheap, mass-produced churches, and the basilica
demonstrates his ideas on the subject. As has been seen, Durand exhibited model
churches to respond to objections that the Gothic was more expensive than the Greek and
Roman styles, he developed his ideas on economical model churches further in LArt et
larchologie en province, and he applied his ideas to his built churches, including the
basilica at Lourdes. The Immacule-Conception resembles a model church that he
published, and two other churches that he built in the south-west--at Tartas and
Peyrehorade. They are all Gothic in style and built of stone. They all have basilican
plans, central bell towers over their faades, and single lancet windows in large areas of
wall. The basilica at Lourdes was also economical. Durand controlled costs by keeping
the church small and compact, as well as with austere twelfth-century forms, internal
buttressing, rubble interior walls and vaults, and cheap materials for the decoration.
Durands manner of building churches cheaply and efficiently, which had been compared
to mass production, was a means to promote the hegemony of the Gothic and of
Catholicism. His modern attitude towards church construction corresponded with the
modern attitude of the clergy at Lourdes towards the pilgrimage. However, Zola and
Huysmans condemned the Basilica of the Immacule-Conception, because for them, it
represented the violation of the idealized realm of the Middle Ages--as portrayed by
Chateaubriand and Montalembert, and in the Assumptionists publicity--by the modern
realm of technology and commercialism.
251
At the heart of Lourdes success was the compelling figure of Bernadette and the
promise of miraculous cures. However, the shrine would not have transformed from a
local pilgrimage site, entrenched in the local lore of apparitions, to a national pilgrimage
site, without the embrace of the devotion to Our Lady of Lourdes by the clergy, and their
promotion and organization of the pilgrimage using modern bureaucracies and marketing
techniques. Control of the Lourdes devotion was seized by Bishop Laurence, who
delegated authority to the regional Garaison Fathers, and by the Paris-based
Assumptionists. Laurence took charge of authorizing the devotion, purchasing the grotto,
gaining legal permission to build, and overseeing the funding and construction of a
church. In doing so he oriented the cult away from questionable practices, towards the
sacraments. Architecture was critical to the clericalization of the cult. The Basilica of
the Immacule-Conception was the culmination of Laurences physical alteration of the
grotto, which began with securing it with a grill and equipping it with liturgical
furnishings. The basilica provided infrastructure for the delivery of the sacraments of
confession and communion, its site overlooking the grotto was an allegory for the
Churchs domination of the devotion, its Gothic style conveyed the clergys wish to
restore a Catholic, medieval social order, and the iconography of its decoration integrated
Lourdes into the official, universal history of the Church. More broadly speaking, the
basilica reinforced Laurences re-Christianization of the Pyrenees through the revival of
older Marian shrines. Furthermore, it reinforced Pope Pius IXs consolidation of his
spiritual power through the promulgation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception in
1854. But at the same time that Durand made the basilica Gothic, he based it on an
inexpensive model church that he had designed. Owing to the affinity of the architects
252
working method to mass production, the basilica expressed the clergys exploitation of
the modern technologies of mass production and industrialization in the organization of
the pilgrimage. The basilica became the focus of the shrine and the town that developed
around it, planned according to the principles of Haussmanns Paris, with all the
amenities of a modern resort. It became the center of the spectacle of pilgrimage,
promoted on the boulevards, the esplanade, the ramps, and the parvises, and in the three
successive basilicas--of pilgrimage that was distinctly modern.
253
Chapter 3: The Basilica of Saint-Martin in Tours (1886-1925)
Introduction
The controversy over building a church on the tomb of Saint Martin in Tours
encapsulates the religious and political debates that gripped French society during the
early Third Republic. It belonged to debates between conservative and liberal Catholics,
as well as larger debates between Catholics and anticlericals. The affaire de SaintMartin1 also highlights how advances in archaeology and the history of architecture
shaped the forms and meanings of nineteenth-century monuments. The archaeology of
the fifth-century church of Saint-Martin in Tours was an important influence for the
Basilica of Saint-Martin by Victor Laloux (1850-1937). In particular, the archaeologist
Jules Quicherats 1869 hypothetical reconstruction of the church built on Martins tomb
in 471 had a direct impact on Lalouxs design, conceived in 1884 and executed from
1886 until 1925. Msgr. Meignan, archbishop of Tours from 1884 until 1896, embraced
Lalouxs design because its archaeological references linked his own episcopate with that
of Martin and other early bishops of Tours, and, more generally, because they linked the
re-Christianization of post-Revolutionary France to the Christianization of late Roman
Gaul. Furthermore, Meignan embraced Lalouxs design because it contrasted strikingly
with a competing proposal to rebuild the eleventh-century basilica that stood on the site
until its destruction in the French Revolution. This idea was initiated by the uvre de
Saint-Martin, a lay charitable society, and developed by the architect Alphonse-Jules
Baillarg (1821-82) from 1872 to 1874. The meaning it carried was completely different.
1854-1893 (Paris: E. Champion, 1922), 445.
254
The eleventh-century monument symbolized the old order in which the Church and State
were an inseparable unity and religious practice was near-universal. The uvre
conceived its reconstruction as an act of expiation for the crimes of the Revolution and as
a metaphor for moral reconstruction.2 Lalouxs design offered another interpretation of
the archaeology of the Basilica of Saint-Martin that corresponded with an alternate vision
of the role of the Church in post-Revolutionary France.
This study relies on the documentation of the nineteenth-century effort to
construct a church on Martins tomb in the Archives de la Basilique Saint-Martin, the
Archives dpartementales dIndre-et-Loire, the Archives diocsaines de Tours, and the
Archives nationales. It also draws cautiously from the late nineteenth-century
biographies of the main protagonists of the saga, which are strongly biased in favor of
their subjects, and on the 1922 history of the uvres struggle to rebuild the eleventhcentury church that stood on Martins tomb by Dom Jean Martial Besse (1861-1920),
which is strongly biased in favor of the uvre.3 Besse was a Benedictine monk at the
Abbey of Ligug, a prolific writer on religion and politics, and an ardent defender of the
Action Franaise.4 He interpreted the conflict that arose between the uvre and Meignan
Raymond Jonas refers to Saint-Martin and the Sacr-Cur on Montmartre as examples of the selfconscious use of monument building as a metaphor for the moral reconstruction of France. See Raymond
A. Jonas, Restoring a Sacred Center: Pilgrimage, Politics, and the Sacr-Cur, Historical
Reflections/Rflexions historiques 20, no. 1 (1994): 118.
3
Abb Pierre-Dsir Janvier, Vie de M. Dupont: Mort Tours en odeur de saintet le 18 mars 1876,
daprs ses crits et autres documents authenti ues, 2 vols. (Tours: Oratoire de la Sainte-Face, 1879);
Abb Paul Verger, Monseigneur Casimir Chevalier, camrier secret de sa saintet, clerc national du sacr
collge, et secrtaire consistorial pour la France: Notice biographique et littraire (Tours: Mame, 1894);
Abb Henri Boissonnot, Le Cardinal Meignan (Paris: Victor Lecoffre, 1899); Besse, Le Tombeau de Saint
Martin de Tours.
4
G. Charvin, Besse (Dom Jean-Martial), in Dictionnaire dhistoire et de gographie ecclsiasti ues, ed.
Alfred Baudrillart, vol. 8 (Paris: Letouzey et An, 1935), 1201-1205. Besses work for the Action
Franaise is also mentioned in Harry W. Paul, The Second Ralliement: The Rapprochement between
Church and State in France in the Twentieth Century (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America,
255
over construction on Martins tomb as part of a national conflict between Catholic
ultramontanes and liberals.5 And he foretold that Lalouxs church would remind future
generations of the era of persecutions and religious troubles in which it was built.6 As for
more recent sources, this study draws from Charles Lelongs sweeping book on
construction on Martins tomb from the saints death in 397 to Lalouxs church, as well
as from Brian Brennans focused article on The Revival of the Cult of Martin of Tours
in the Third Republic.7 Lelongs book has been extremely useful for its presentation of
the complex progression of buildings on the tomb and of archaeologists and art
historians divergent interpretations of that progression. Brennans article has been
invaluable in gaining understanding of how Martins cult was appropriated for political
ends during the period from the 1870s until after the First World War. The only previous
sustained analysis of the nineteenth-century Basilica of Saint-Martin is that of MarieLaure Crosnier Leconte in her important revisionist monograph on Laloux.8 This study is
indebted to the groundbreaking research on Lalouxs design of Crosnier Leconte and
adds to it findings from the diocesan archives, which she did not consult, as well as a new
emphasis on the relationship between Lalouxs design and the archaeology of the site.
1967), 19-21, 28.

5
Besse, Le Tombeau de Saint Martin de Tours, 444.
Charles Lelong, La Basilique Saint-Martin de Tours (Chambray: CLD, 1986); Brian Brennan, The
Revival of the Cult of Martin of Tours in the Third Republic, Church History 66, no. 3 (September 1997).
8
Marie-Laure Crosnier Leconte, Victor Laloux, 1850-19 7 LArchitecte de la gare dOrsay (Paris:
Runion des muses nationaux, 1987).
256
The Revival of the Cult of Saint Martin in the Nineteenth Century
The uvre de Saint-Martin and Catholic Lay Action
The driving force behind Baillargs project was the uvre de Saint-Martin, a
charitable society founded in 1854 by Lon Papin-Dupont (1797-1876).9 Known to his
admirers as le saint homme de Tours, Dupont was born in Martinique and left a career
there as a magistrate to commit himself to a life of religious and charitable works in
Tours.10 In 1849, when cholera terrorized Tours, the relics of Saint Martin were carried
in a procession through the city streets, a ritual to which Dupont attributed the diseases
retreat and miraculous recoveries.11 Five years later, Dupont channeled Saint-Martins
popularity by forming an organization with the mission of distributing clothing to the
poor, a task modeled after Martins famous act of charity: dividing his cloak and giving
half to a beggar. Called the Ouvroir (sewing room), then the Vestiaire (cloakroom),
the organization was identified as the uvre de Saint-Martin pour procurer des
vtements aux pauvres when it was approved by the archbishop of Tours, Msgr. Morlot,
in 1855.12 The uvre soon diversified its activity. It arranged pilgrimages to religious
institutions in the Touraine and Poitou that traced their roots to Saint Martin: Ligug, the
first monastery in all of Gaul, founded by Martin soon after his departure from the
Roman army; the Abbey of Marmoutier, which Martin founded when he was bishop of
Tours (ca. 371-397); and Candes, the parish where Martin died in the course of an
Odile Mtais-Thoreau, Un Simple lac: Lon Papin-Dupont, le saint homme de Tours (1797-1876) (Paris:
Hrault, 1993), 154.
10
Louis-Marie Danviray, Dupont, Lon, in Dictionnaire de spiritualit, vol. 3 (Paris: Beauchesne,

1957), col. 1831.
11
Janvier, Vie de M. Dupont, 1: 376-378.
12
Janvier, Vie de M. Dupont, 1: 382.
257
episcopal visit.13 The uvre also mobilized a campaign to revive the pilgrimage to
Martins burial place in Tours. At the time of Martins burial in the late fourth century,
the site of the tomb was a cemetery in a suburb outside the walls of the Roman city of
Tours.14 The uvre undertook the campaign by locating and excavating the remains of
the saints tomb in 1861 and by commissioning Baillargs project to build a church on
the site in 1872. During the Middle Ages, Martins burial place was the most important
French site of pilgrimage and arguably the most important Christian site of pilgrimage
after Jerusalem, Rome, and Compostela.15
The uvre de Saint-Martin belonged to a movement of lay action by wealthy
Catholics. The initiative came from the Congrgation of the First Empire and Bourbon
Restoration, a group of fervent royalists committed to proselytism and charity.16 Out of
the Congrgation grew the much larger Socit de Saint-Vincent-de-Paul. Founded by
Frdric Ozanam in 1833, its goals were to provide immediate aid to the poor and to
13
On the pilgrimages organized by the uvre see Janvier, Vie de M. Dupont, 1: 394-399. On Martins
association with each of these institutions see Sharon Farmer, Communities of Saint Martin: Legend and
Ritual in Medieval Tours (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991), 3, 14-19.
14
Luce Pietri, La Ville de Tours du IVe au VIe sicle Naissance dune cit chrtienne (Rome: cole
franaise de Rome, 1983), 348.
15
Le saint Spulchre, Jrusalem, les tombeaux des aptres saint Pierre et saint Paul, Rome, celui de
saint Jacques de Compostelle, en Espagne, et le tombeau de saint Martin, Tours, furent les plerinages les
plus clbres dans le monde chrtien, ceux o les fidles se rendaient avec plus de zle et en plus grand
nombre. Prtre du diocse, Des Plerinages au tombeau restaur de saint Martin, par un prtre du
diocse (Tours: Cattier, 1863), 12. Diana Webb calls Tours one of the most considerable pilgrimage
destinations in medieval Europe north of the Alps. Diana Webb, Medieval European Pilgrimage, c. 700c. 1500 (Houndsmills, U.K.: Palgrave, 2002) 6. Horton and Marie-Hlne Davies write that the visit to
Martins tomb was the major pilgrimage of the French people at an early period, in fact, the essential
Gallicana peregrinatio. Horton Davies and Marie-Hlne Davies, Holy Days and Holidays: The
Medieval Pilgrimage to Compostela (Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 1982), 60.
16
Jean-Baptiste Duroselle, Les Dbuts du catholicisme sociale en France (1822-1870) (Paris: Presses
universitaires de France, 1951), 198; Grard Cholvy, De lhomme duvre au militant: Une volution
dans la conception du lacat catholique en France depuis le XIXe sicle, Miscellanea historiae
ecclesiasticae 7 (1985): 216-217. For an in-depth look at the Congrgation see Geoffroy de Grandmaison,
La Congrgation (1801-1830) (Paris: Plon, 1889).
258
strengthen the faith of its members.17 At first the group included many young students
and liberals, but during the July Monarchy it was taken over by legitimist notables. In
theory, the society was an outlet for rich lay people to evangelize the poor by personal
acts of charity. In practice, it was also a legitimist-sponsored social club.18
In Tours, the Socit de Saint-Vincent-de-Paul was closely connected to the
uvre de Saint-Martin. Armand Rivire (1822-91), who was mayor of Tours (1879-82),
deputy of Indre-et-Loire on the radical left (1879-89), and perhaps the most vocal
opponent of Baillargs project for the Basilica of Saint-Martin, wrote that the uvre was
becoming une annexe de ce faisceau dassociations religieuses qui se groupent autour
des socits de Saint-Vincent-de-Paul, de Saint-Franois-Rgis, de la Sainte-Enfance.19
Indeed, a former member called the uvre a branche de la Socite de Saint-Vincent de
Paul.20 Dupont himself had been a member of the royalist Congrgation,21 and was one
17
On the formation of the Socit de Saint-Vincent-de-Paul and its affiliation with the Congrgation see
Duroselle, Les Dbuts du catholicisme sociale en France, 173; Ralph Gibson, A Social History of French
Catholicism, 1789-1914 (London: Routledge, 1989), 58; and Steven D. Kale, Legitimism and the
Reconstruction of French Society (1852-1883) (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1992),
156.
18
On the legitimist aspect of the Socit de Saint-Vincent-de-Paul see Austin Gough, The Conflict in
Politics: Bishop Pies Campaign against the Nineteenth Century, in Conflicts in French Society:
Anticlericalism, Education and Morals in the Nineteenth Century, ed. Theodore Zeldin (London: George
Allen and Unwin, 1970), 107-108; Cholvy, De lhomme duvre au militant, 223; Kale, Legitimism and
the Reconstruction of French Society, 81; and Roger Price, The French Second Empire: An Anatomy of
Political Power (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 286.
19
Cette uvre de Saint-Martin . . . se contente dencaisser le plus possible, elle devient une annexe de ce
faisceau dassociations religieuses qui se groupent autour des socits de Saint-Vincent-de-Paul, de SaintFranois-Rgis, de la Sainte-Enfance, des Petits Chinois, des Sanctuaires miraculeux, en un mot du Denier
de Saint-Pierre. Armand Rivire, La Vrit sur lhistoire de la reconstruction de la asili ue de SaintMartin (Tours: E. Arrault, 1885), 31. For Rivires biography see Michel Laurencin, Rivire Armand,
in Dictionnaire biographique de Touraine (Chambray-ls-Tours: CLD, 1990), 510-512.
20
Galembert to Guillaume-Ren Meignan, 3 November 1884. Quoted in full in La Basilique de SaintMartin Tours, La Dfense, 30 November 1884. A clipping of the article is in the Archives nationales, F
19 3779.
21
Dupont was admitted to the Congrgation in 1820. See Grandmaison, La Congrgation, 400.
259
of the founders of the Socit de Saint-Vincent-de-Paul in Tours.22 The president of the
original seven-member Commission de luvre de Saint-Martin that administered the
organization was Bailloud, who was also the president of the branch of the Socit de
Saint-Vincent-de-Paul in Tours cathedral parish.23 In 1861, the president of the
Commission was Andr-Lopold-Jacques Bonin de la Bonninire, marquis de Beaumont
and mayor of the village of Beaumont-la-Ronce. Among other Tours notables, the
marquis was joined on the Commission by the banker Eugne Goin (1818-1909) and the
publisher Ernest Mame (1805-83). Goin was mayor of Tours from 1866 to 1874 and
became a Snateur inamovible in 1875.24 Mame was mayor of Tours from 1849 to 1865
and deputy of Loches from 1859 to 1869.25 The commitment of the uvre to paternalist
charity was motivated by a desire for the maintenance of the status quo, not systemic
social reform.26 It associated the uvre with an interpretation of the life of Saint Martin
that recognized that he was always on the side of institutional power, whether as a soldier
in the Roman army, a monk, or a bishop; and that his act of charity naturalized property
ownership and social hierarchy.27
22
Danviray, Dupont, Lon, 3: col. 1831-1832.
23
Bailloud became president of the Commission in January 1855. See Besse, Le Tombeau de Saint Martin
de Tours, 31-32.
24
For the complete list of Commission members in 1861 see Commission de luvre de Saint-Martin,
Extrait des procs verbaux des deux premires sances, December 1861, Archives nationales, F 19 3779.
For Goins biography see Adolphe Robert and Gaston Cougny, eds., Goin (Eugne), in Dictionnaire
des parlementaires franais, vol. 3 (Paris: Bourloton, 1890), 214-215; and Michel Laurencin, Goin
Eugne in Dictionnaire biographique de Touraine (Chambray-ls-Tours: CLD, 1990), 298-299.
25
For Mames biography see J.-X. Carr de Busserolle, Dictionnaire gographique, historique, et
iographi ue dIndre-et-Loire et de lancienne province de Touraine (1882; reprint Mayenne: Joseph
Floch, 1977), 4: 154.
26
On the distinction between charity and social Catholicism see Duroselle, Les Dbuts du catholicisme
sociale en France, 22-24.
27
Alain Borer, La Coupabilit de saint Martin, in La Lgende de saint Martin au XIXe sicle: Peintures
260
The Destruction of the Eleventh-Century Basilica of Saint-Martin during the Revolution
The proposal of the uvre to build on Martins tomb was suffused with the
symbolism of the previous church on the site and its destruction during the French
Revolution. In the late eighteenth century, the Basilica of Saint-Martin begun in the
eleventh century was in disrepair. The condition of the building worsened after 1794,
when the army requisitioned it as a stable. In 1797, the vaults collapsed and the
municipality demolished the ruins (fig. 116). In 1803, the prefect traced two new streets
in the place of the nave and transept. All that remained of the building were two isolated
towers begun in the late eleventh century: the south tower of the west faade called the
tour de lHorloge, and the north transept tower known as the tour Charlemagne.28
The destruction of Saint-Martin was just one example of a widespread occurrence
during the Revolution that the Abb Henri Grgoire, the leader of the constitutional
Church, designated as vandalisme.29 Grgoire invented the term in 1794 to condemn
widespread attacks against the nationalized property of the clergy, monarchy, and
migrs. He interpreted the attacks as the expression of a counter-revolutionary
conspiracy.30 Je crai le mot pour tuer la chose, he later reflected in his Mmoires.31
Nevertheless, the disfigurement and destruction of buildings offensive to republicans
et dessins, by Philippe Le Leyzour et al. (Tours: Muse des beaux-arts de Tours, 1997), 17-18.
28
Lelong, La Basilique Saint-Martin de Tours, 122-125.
29
Claude Langlois, Les Vandales de la Rvolution, LHistoire 99 (April 1987): 9; Paul Gerbod,
Vandalisme et anti-vandalisme du pouvoir politique de 1789 1795, in Rvolution franaise et
vandalisme rvolutionnaire, ed. Simone Bernard-Griffiths, Marie-Claude Chemin, and Jean Ehrard
(Paris: Universitas, 1992), 293.
30
Catherine Volpilhac, Dany Hadjadj, and Jean-Louis Jam, Des Vandales au vandalisme, in Rvolution
ranaise et vandalisme rvolutionnaire, eds. Simone Bernard-Griffiths, Marie-Claude Chemin, and Jean
Ehrard (Paris: Universitas, 1992), 15, 24.
31
Quoted in Volpilhac, Hadjadj, and Jam, Des Vandales au vandalisme, 15.
261
continued because they signaled an irreversible victory of the people over oppressive
institutions.32
The destruction of Saint-Martin signaled the overthrow of the old order in which
the Church and the monarchy were an inseparable unity. This unity was reinforced by
the coronation of the Frankish King Clovis I at Martins tomb in 507, eleven years after it
was inaugurated by Cloviss baptism at Reims in 496. Albert Lecoy de la Marche,
professor of history at the Institut Catholique de Paris, wrote in his 1881 hagiography of
Martin that from the time of this ceremony la monarchie franaise est dfinitivement
tablie. He added that cest aux pieds de laptre national quelle a reu sa
conscration, cest de lui que son fondateur a voulu tenir linvestiture.33 Following
Cloviss coronation, successive churches on the site remained associated with royal
power owing to Martins status as patron saint of the Merovingian, Carolingian, and
Capetian dynasties.34 During the Revolution, this legacy prevented the basilicas
restoration.35
32
On the symbolism of Revolutionary destruction see Dario Gamboni, The Destruction of Art: Iconoclasm
and Vandalism since the French Revolution (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 32-35; Emmanuel
Fureix, La Ville coupable: LEffacement des traces de la capitale rvolutionnaire dans le Paris de la
Restauration, 1814-1830, in Capitales culturelles, capitales symboliques: Paris et les expriences
europennes XVIIIe-XXe sicles, ed. Christophe Charle and Daniel Roche (Paris: Sorbonne, 2002), 26;
Anthony Vidler, Grgoire, Lenoir et les monuments parlants, in La Carmagnole des muses LHomme
de lettres et lartiste dans la Rvolution, ed. Jean-Claude Bonnet (Paris: Armand Colin, 1988), 132.
33
Albert Lecoy de la Marche, Saint Martin (Tours: Mame, 1881), 388.
34
E. Ewig, Le Culte de saint Martin lpoque franque, Revue dhistoire de lglise de France 44
(1961): 8, 17; Farmer, Communities of Saint Martin, 35.
35
Louis Rau, Histoire du vandalisme: Les Monuments dtruits de lart ranais, rev. ed. (Paris: Robert
Laffont, 1994), 378.
262
The Project of Jacquet-Delahaye-Avrouin to Build on Martins Tomb (1822)
An important precedent for the proposal of the uvre to build on Martins tomb
was the proposal of a lawyer named L. V. M. J. Jacquet-Delahaye-Avrouin, which dated
to the Bourbon Restoration. In 1821 Jacquet-Delahaye published a book titled Du
Rtablissement des glises en France urging construction of a church on the tomb and
announcing the launch of a subscription.36 The next year he republished the book with
two plans for the church by Jules-Jean-Baptiste de Joly (1788-1865), a student of Charles
Percier and Pierre-Franois-Lonard Fontaine, and later the architect of the interior
decoration of the Chamber of Deputies (begun in 1829).37 Jolys first plan is circular
with a temple front on the east side and the tour Charlemagne attached to the west side
(fig. 117). Jacquet-Delahaye compared the plan to Charles Errards Church of the
Assumption in Paris, built from 1670 to 1676.38 The plan also relates to Fontaines
Chapelle expiatoire in Paris, built from 1816 to 1826 on the site where Louis XVI, MarieAntoinette, and nearly one thousand Swiss guards were buried. The Greek-cross layouts
of the Paris churches differ from the circular layout of the proposed Tours church, but all
of them were centrally planned with classical porticos. Jolys second plan is basilican
with a temple front on the west side and the tour Charlemagne attached to the east side
(fig. 118). Its rectangular contour, nave divided into three domed bays, and semicircular
apse embedded within the chevet recall Alexandre-Pierre Vignons Church of the
Madeleine in Paris (1807-45). However, as the plan has a temple front, but not a
36
L. J. D. A. [L. V. M. J. Jacquet-Delahaye-Avrouin], Du Rtablissement des glises en France (Tours:

Association chrtienne, 1821), 82 n. 1.
37
L. V. M. J. Jacquet-Delahaye-Avrouin, Du Rta lissement des glises en France loccasion de la

rdification projete de celle de Saint-Martin de Tours (Paris: A. Egron, 1822).
38
Jacquet-Delahaye-Avrouin, Du Rtablissement des glises en France loccasion de la rdi ication

projete de celle de Saint-Martin de Tours, 123.
263
peristyle like the Madeleine, it also recalls Franois Thrse Chalgrins Saint-Philippe du
Roule (1764-84) and tienne-Hippolyte Goddes Saint-Pierre du Gros Caillou (1822-30),
both in Paris. The essential difference between Jolys two plans is that the first
corresponds to the type of a martyrium, the second to the type of a basilica.
To justify the church, Jacquet-Delahaye wrote that it would signify la conqute
dune uvre religieuse sur un sicle philosophe, une expiation ncessaire, une grande
dette paye par la foi reconnaissante au patron de la France, au saint protecteur de notre
belle patrie.39 His rhetoric fitted the church into the Catholic and counter-revolutionary
narrative of French history as a progression of sins, divine punishments, expiation, and
redemption.40 It drew from the writings of counter-revolutionary authors such as Joseph
de Maistre, Louis de Bonald, and Pierre-Simon Ballanche, who interpreted the execution
of Louis XVI in 1793 as a martyrdom for which the entire French nation must atone.41 In
particular, it drew from Maistres ideas that Christians could redeem the sins of others
and that they could bring about the rebirth of France and the monarchy through their
expiation of the Enlightenment and the Revolution.42
Furthermore, Jacquet-Delahayes discourse of expiation, and King Louis XVIIIs
subscription to the project, grouped the undertaking with projects for counter-
39
Jacquet-Delahaye-Avrouin, Du Rtablissement des glises en France loccasion de la rdi ication

projete de celle de Saint-Martin de Tours, 123 n. 1.
40
Raymond Anthony Jonas, Monument as Ex-Voto, Monument as Historiosophy: The Basilica of SacrCur, French Historical Studies 18, no. 2 (fall 1993): 491.
41
Richard D. E. Burton, Holy Tears, Holy Blood: Women, Catholicism, and the Culture of Suffering in
France, 1840-1970 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004), xvi.
42
Fernand Baldensperger, Le Mouvement des ides dans lmigration ranaise (1789-1815) (Paris: Plon,
1924), 2: 90; Jesse Goldhammer, The Headless Republic: Sacrificial Violence in Modern French Thought
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005), 71-75; Richard D. E. Burton, Blood in the City: Violence
and Revelation in Paris, 1789-1945 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001), 49, 313.
264
revolutionary monuments around the country.43 Some were completed during the
Bourbon Restoration, others were never executed. Chief among them was the Chapelle
expiatoire, paid for by Louis XVIII, brother of Louis XVI.44 In Paris there was also
Fontaines unrealized 1815 project to commemorate the execution of Louis XVI on the
site where it occurred--the Place Louis XV, now the Place de la Concorde.45 In Lyon, an
1817 competition for a monument in memory of the dead of the 1793 siege of the city
was won by Antoine-Marie Chenavard (1787-1884), but the monument was not carried
out.46 In Auray (Morbihan), there was a chapel and mausoleum to commemorate the
dead of the 1795 landing of migrs at Quiberon, built from 1821 to 1829 by AugustinNicolas Caristie (1783-1862).47 In Orange (Vaucluse), Caristie began another chapel in
memory of the dead of the same expedition (1823-30).48 And on the mont des Alouettes
near Les Herbiers (Vende), there was a chapel in memory of the dead of the Vende
43
Jacquet-Delahaye dedicated his work on Saint-Martin to Louis XVIII and listed him as a subscriber in his
Du Rta lissement des glises en France loccasion de la rdi ication projete de celle de Saint-Martin
de Tours, n. p. The group of projects is identified, without mention of Saint-Martin, in Louis Hautecur,
Histoire de larchitecture classique en France, vol. 6 (Paris: A. & J. Picard, 1955), 14-15; and Jacques De
Caso, David dAngers Sculptural Communication in the Age o Romanticism, trans. Dorothy Johnson and
Jacques De Caso (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 63.
44
Jean-Marie Darnis, Les Monuments expiatoires du supplice de Louis XVI et de Marie-Antoinette sous
lEmpire et la Restauration, 1812-1830 (Paris: n. p., 1981), 9.
45
Darnis, Les Monuments expiatoires, 77.
46
See Chenavards plans in Antoine-Marie Chenavard, Recueil des compositions executes ou projetes
(Lyon: Louis Perrin, 1860), 1: plates iii-v.
47
For Caristies plans for the monuments in Auray see Charles Gourlier et al., Choi ddi ices pu lics
projets et construits en France depuis le commencement du XIXme sicle (Paris: Louis Colas, 1837-44),
2: 33, plates 95-97. For a description and analysis of the monuments in Auray, and other counterrevolutionary monuments in the Vende, see Jean-Claude Garcia, Jean-Jacques Treuttel, and Jrme
Treuttel, Monuments contre-rvolutionnaires en Vende (1815-1832), Monuments historiques 144
(1986): 49-56.
48
For Caristies plans for the monument in Orange see Charles Gourlier et al., Choi ddi ices pu lics
projets et construits en France depuis le commencement du XIXme sicle (Paris: Louis Colas, 1825-36),
1: 5, plate 42. See the mention of the monument in Ch. Bauchal, Nouveau dictionnaire biographique et
critique des architectes franais (Paris: Andr, Daly fils, 1887), 619.
265
Wars as a whole (1825-30), built by Amable Macquet (1790-1840).49 All the projects
were Neoclassical, except for Macquets early Gothic Revival chapel. All were supposed
to expiate the deaths of members of the royal family or their supporters, or both, except
for Jacquet-Delahayes project, which was supposed to expiate the destruction of a
building with royalist significance.
The Progress of the uvre during the Second Empire

The proposal of Jacquet-Delahaye failed to materialize and there was no other
initiative to build on Martins tomb until the formation of the uvre de Saint-Martin in
1854. The proposal of the uvre was like the proposal of Jacquet-Delahaye because it
was conceived outside of the Church, but it was unlike that of Jacquet-Delahaye because
it consisted of the reconstruction of the eleventh-century basilica that was demolished
during the Revolution.50 The uvre also made much more progress towards the
realization of its proposal than Jacquet-Delahaye made towards the realization of his. A
defining moment for the group was when the director of the Commission that
administered the uvre conveyed to the archbishop its commitment to the reconstruction.
On the feast of Saint Martin, November 11, 1856, the Abb Jean-Stanislas-Xavier
Verdier (1815-82) expressed to Msgr. Morlot the vu de voir recueillir les pierres
disperses de la basilique et relever le culte du grand thaumaturge des Gaules.51 In
seeking to fulfill the vow, in 1857 the Commission vice-president, Pdre Moisant (d.
1886), purchased three houses on the site where members of the group believed the tomb
49
See the information on Macquet and his chapel in chapter 1, Godefroys Choice of the Gothic Style.
50
51
Quoted in Janvier, Vie de M. Dupont, 1: 386.
266
was buried, to the south of the rue Saint-Martin, now the rue des Halles (fig. 119).52 On
November 12, 1860 Msgr. Joseph-Hippolyte Guibert (1802-86), the archbishop who
succeeded Morlot in 1857, inaugurated a chapelle provisoire on the site.53 Three years
later, Guibert inaugurated a replacement chapelle provisoire that was larger and could
contain fifteen hundred people.54 In 1867 he appointed a group of chaplains. They
belonged to the missionary order of Oblates of Mary Immaculate, like Guibert.55 On
December 14, 1860 workers excavated masonry fragments under the chapelle provisoire
that members of the Commission and the local archaeological society identified as
belonging to Martins tomb and dating to the seventeenth century or earlier. Lon PapinDupont went further: he identified the fragments as belonging to Martins tomb and
dating to the fifth century.56 The chapel and the discovery of the tomb enabled the
revival of the pilgrimage to the site. The first parish pilgrimage arrived in May 1861 and
the feast of Saint Martin that year attracted up to twenty thousand pilgrims.57 In the
winter of 1863-1864 the Commission purchased the remaining houses near the tomb that
52
Janvier, Vie de M. Dupont, 1: 391-392; Lelong, La Basilique Saint-Martin de Tours, 128.
53
Janvier, Vie de M. Dupont, 1: 404-406. The interior of the 1860 chapelle provisoire is depicted in
Commission primitive de la basilique de St Martin, Album de dessins de la basilique, 1902, plate 7,
Archives de la Basilique Saint-Martin.
54
Janvier, Vie de M. Dupont, 1: 427. The 1863 chapelle provisoire is described in BonaventuraTheodorus Poan, Notice sur la chapelle provisoire et le tombeau de saint Martin de Tours (Lille: Descle,
De Brouwer, 1882), 15-29. It was designed by three Commission members: the railroad engineer Stanislas
Ratel (1824-1904), the architect Gustave Gurin (1814-81), and the archaeologist Abb Jean-Jacques
Bourass (1813-72). Besse, Le Tombeau de Saint Martin de Tours, 93.
55
J. Paguelle de Follenay, Vie du cardinal Guibert, archevque de Paris (Paris: Poussielgue, 1896), 2:
269.
56
Commission de luvre de Saint Martin, Notice sur le tombeau de saint Martin et sur la dcouverte qui
en a t aite le 14 dcem re 1860 pu lie par la Commission de luvre de Saint-Martin avec
lappro ation de Mgr larchev ue de Tours (Tours: Mame, 1861), 31, 35; Janvier, Vie de M. Dupont, 1:
408-417.
57
Janvier, Vie de M. Dupont, 1: 419; Besse, Le Tombeau de Saint Martin de Tours, 71, 80.
267
would have to be demolished in order to rebuild the eleventh-century basilica.58
However, the organization had yet to adopt specific plans for the reconstruction, and it
would not do so until the proposal gained momentum after the crisis of 1870-1871.
In the meantime, Msgr. Guibert took control of the planning process. A protg
of Eugne de Mazenod, the bishop of Marseille and founder of the Oblates of Mary
Immaculate, Guibert was a moderate with generally good relations with the government
of Napoleon III.59 He had misgivings about lay initiative in Church affairs and a
potential financial disaster. So, while he encouraged the uvre to help him revive the
pilgrimage and build a church dedicated to Saint Martin, he never committed himself to
its proposal to rebuild the eleventh-century basilica. This caused friction with the
uvre.60 Guibert summed up his position in a letter he wrote to Archbishop Meignan in
1881: La pense de reconstruire lancienne basilique dans toutes ses dimensions est
irralisable. Je lai toujours juge ainsi, et je ne my suis jamais arrt un seul instant.61
His role in planning to build the Basilica of Saint-Martin was a rehearsal for his role in
building the Basilica of the Sacr-Cur on Montmartre after he became archbishop of
Paris in 1871.62 Both projects were initiated by lay Catholics and involved large fundraising campaigns.
58
59
On Guibert see the folder on him in Archives nationales, F 19 2556. See also Paguelle de Follenay, Vie
du cardinal Guibert. There are brief discussions of Guiberts political positions in Austin Gough, Paris
and Rome: The Gallican Church and the Ultramontane Campaign (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1986), 206; and Jacques Gadille, La Pense et laction politi ue des vques franais au dbut de la IIIe
rpublique: 1870-1883 (Paris: Hachette, 1967), 1: 127-129.
60
Paguelle de Follenay, Vie du cardinal Guibert, 2: 238-243.
61
Joseph-Hippolyte Guibert to Guillaume-Ren Meignan, 22 November 1881. Quoted in Paguelle de

Follenay, Vie du cardinal Guibert, 2: 241.
62
See the comparison of Guiberts roles in planning to build Saint-Martin, and building the Sacr-Cur, in
268
Guibert took control of several aspects of the planning process: raising funds,
seeking the approval of the pope and secular authorities, and developing proposals for a
church dedicated to Saint Martin. In 1861 he created a new Commission de luvre de
Saint-Martin that had the same members as the old one, plus himself as president.63 He
referred to the new Commission as la commission qui nous assiste.64 He led a fundraising campaign, bringing in 1.2 million francs by 1870.65 Starting at the local level, he
organized subscriptions, church collections, and door-to-door collections.66 Then in 1862
he traveled to Rome to ask for the approval of Pius IX. The popes response was to give
Guibert the mission of building a church dedicated to Saint Martin in Tours, without
authorizing a specific site or plans.67 Filled with confidence on his return to Tours,
Guibert expanded his campaign to all of France, calling on the financial support of the
episcopate and of the Socit de Saint-Vincent-de-Paul.68
Guibert also asked for the approval of secular authorities, with mixed results. In
1861 he wrote to the Conseil municipal and the Ministre de lInstruction publique et des
Jonas, Restoring a Sacred Center, 118-119.

63
Joseph-Hippolyte Guibert, Mandement de Monseigneur larchev ue de Tours pour la reconstruction de

la basilique de Saint-Martin, no. 48 (Tours: Mame, 6 November 1861), 17-18; Archevch de Tours,
Commission de luvre de Saint-Martin (Tours: Mame, 1861).
64
Guibert referred to the commission this way in his Mandement de Monseigneur larchev ue de Tours
aisant connatre les progrs de luvre de la asili ue de Saint-Martin et rappelant la qute ordonne
pour le jour de la fte, no. 64 (Tours: Mame, 2 October 1863), 8. See also Besse, Le Tombeau de Saint
Martin de Tours, 78.
65
Paguelle de Follenay, Vie du cardinal Guibert, 2: 271.
66
On the subscriptions and collections that Guibert launched in 1859 see Janvier, Vie de M. Dupont, 1:
400. On those that he launched in 1861 see Joseph-Hippolyte Guibert, Mandement de Monseigneur
larchev ue de Tours pour la reconstruction de la asili ue de Saint-Martin, no. 48 (Tours: Mame, 6
November 1861), 16-17.
67
68
Paguelle de Follenay, Vie du cardinal Guibert, 2: 260-265; Janvier, Vie de M. Dupont, 1: 424.
269
cultes with a proposal for the partial reconstruction of the eleventh-century basilica.69
The council voted to expropriate the houses needed and to contribute one tenth of the
building costs. But a backlash soon followed. The minister, Gustave Rouland, saw the
reconstruction as an uvre folle and begged Napoleon III not to donate to it. (It was
Rouland who in 1862 refused to give Bishop Laurence explicit permission to build a
church at the Lourdes grotto.) In line with Roulands view, the prefect refused to sign the
councils resolution and local residents petitioned against it.70 Nevertheless, in 1869 the
emperor subscribed for eighteen thousand francs as a gesture to link his then declining
regime with the Catholic Church.71
Although Guibert did not adopt specific plans for a church dedicated to Saint
Martin, he did advance his own proposals for the church. In the late 1850s he suggested
transferring the cult of Saint Martin to the nearby Church of Saint-Julien rather than
building on Martins tomb, but he abandoned the idea once the tomb was discovered.72
In 1861 he suggested partially reconstructing the eleventh-century basilica on its
remaining foundations. These lay on an east-west axis on the rue Saint-Martin, now the
rue des Halles. He proposed re-establishing the basilicas sanctuary and a part of its nave
and side aisles. And he insisted that the new church should be attached to the tour
Charlemagne and that Martins tomb should be located in the apse of the new church as it
69
Joseph-Hippolyte Guibert to Maire Ernest Mame and the Conseil municipal of Tours, [1861], Archives
diocsaines de Tours, bote 1096.
70
Besse, Le Tombeau de Saint Martin de Tours, 75-82. See also Gustave Rouland to Napoleon III, 1
December 1861, Archives nationales, F 19 3779.
71
72
270
was in the old.73 In 1863 Guibert specified that the new church would be Romanesque
and 65 meters long, compared to the old church, which was 102 meters long.74 Then in
1867, Guibert suggested building the new church on a north-south axis on the rue
Descartes. The idea was a response to opposition to the reconstruction of the eleventhcentury basilica and it anticipated the orientation and site of the church that Laloux began
in 1886.75
Pilgrimage Church Projects and the Discourse of Expiation during and after the Crisis of
1870-1871
In the aftermath of the crisis of 1870-1871 pilgrimage increased to Martins tomb
and other shrines in France, and lay groups besides the uvre de Saint-Martin advanced
proposals for the construction of other pilgrimage churches, namely Notre-Dame de
Fourvire in Lyon (1872-96) and the Sacr-Cur on Montmartre in Paris (1874-1919).
The rise of pilgrimage belonged to a religious revival provoked by the Franco-Prussian
War, the Paris Commune, and the fall of papal Rome.76 French Catholics interpreted
these events within a framework provided by counter-revolutionary historiography.
Within this framework, the Enlightenment, the Revolution, and the Second Empire were
73
Joseph-Hippolyte Guibert to Maire Ernest Mame and the Conseil municipal of Tours, [1861], Archives
diocsaines de Tours, bote 1096; Joseph-Hippolyte Guibert, Mandement de Monseigneur larchev ue de
Tours pour la reconstruction de la basilique de Saint-Martin, no. 48 (Tours: Mame, 6 November 1861), 9.
74
Joseph-Hippolyte Guibert, Mandement de Monseigneur larchev ue de Tours aisant connatre les

progrs de luvre de la asili ue de Saint-Martin et rappelant la qute ordonne pour le jour de la fte,
no. 64 (Tours: Mame, 2 October 1863), 8. For the length of the eleventh-century basilica see Charles
Lelong, Les Basiliques successives de Saint-Martin Tours (Tours: Socit archologique de Touraine,
1984), 8.
75
76
Michel Cinquin, Paray-le-Monial, in Deux plerinages au XIXe sicle: Ars et Paray-le-Monial, by

Philippe Boutry and Michel Cinquin (Paris: Beauchesne, 1980), 179-180.
271
sins; the crisis of 1870-1871 was divine punishment; and pilgrimage and pilgrimage
church construction were expiation.77 Unlike earlier and later governments, the
government in power from 1873 until 1877 presented no obstacles to pilgrimage or
pilgrimage church construction.78 It was called the government of Moral Order because
of its program of ruling according to religious principles as well as restoring the
monarchy and the temporal power of the pope.79 In these favorable conditions Msgr.
Flix-Pierre Fruchaud, who replaced Guibert as archbishop of Tours in 1871, ordered
plans for the reconstruction of the eleventh-century Basilica of Saint-Martin from the
uvre de Saint-Martin. The uvre then commissioned the plans from the architect
Alphonse-Jules Baillarg.80 The reconstruction that Baillarg formulated communicated
the themes of expiation and moral reconstruction that dominated the religious revival and
government of Moral Order. It signified a desire for the expiation of the Enlightenment
and the Revolution as well as for the reconstruction of an ideal Ancien Rgime in which
Church and State were unified and religious practice was almost universal.
Napoleon III declared war on Prussia on July 15, 1870. The pretext for the war
was the candidacy for the Spanish throne of Prince Hohenzollern, a scion of the junior
branch of the Prussian royal family. After Hohenzollern withdrew his candidacy, King
Wilhelm sent a telegram in which he refused to offer the French ambassador further
77
On the soteriological narrative in relation to the Sacr-Cur see Jonas, Monument as Ex-Voto, 490491.
78
On the lack of State opposition to nineteenth-century cults during the mid-1870s see Thomas A.
Kselman, Miracles and Prophesies in Nineteenth-Century France (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers
79
80
Jonas, Monument as Ex-Voto, 485.
Philippe Devillaire, Historique du projet de reconstruction de la basilique de Saint Martin Tours: Les
Plans de la basilique (Tours: Ernest Mazereau, 1875), 12; Janvier, Vie de M. Dupont, 1: 432.
272
guarantees. Then Chancellor Bismarck edited the telegram to sound insulting and
released it. However, the underlying issue was French anxiety about German
unification.81 France was poorly prepared for the war and, after a series of military
losses, Napoleon III surrendered at Sedan on September 2, leading to the fall of the
Second Empire and the proclamation of the Third Republic on September 4. The war had
devastating consequences for the country: 140,000 French soldiers died and Alsace and
Lorraine were ceded to Germany. The war also resulted in the creation of the Paris
Commune in March 1871 by Parisians angry with the war policy of the provisional
government in Versailles. During the suppression of the Commune in May 1871, called
the semaine sanglante, the Versailles side killed over twenty thousand Parisians.82 In
addition, the war resulted in the fall of the papal states. French soldiers had protected
Rome since 1849, but in August 1870 Napoleon III abruptly withdrew the force. All that
remained was the popes own army of ten thousand volunteers called the Papal Zouaves,
many of whom came from France. That September, once the emperor surrendered at
Sedan and there was no chance of French interference, the Italian army overcame the
Zouaves and occupied Rome.83 Meanwhile, Pius IX retreated to the Vatican palace
where he declared himself a prisoner. It was a dramatic turn of events after the
inauguration of the First Vatican Council on December 8, 1869 and the vote for papal
81
D. S. Newhall, Franco-Prussian War, in Historical Dictionary of the Third French Republic, 18701940, ed. Patrick H. Hutton (New York: Greenwood, 1986), 1: 397.
82
83
Burton, Blood in the City, 141.
Owen Chadwick, A History of the Popes, 1830-1914 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1998), 215-217; Raymond A.
Jonas, France and the Cult of the Sacred Heart: An Epic Tale for Modern Times (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2000), 158-159; Philippe Pichot-Bravard, Le Pape ou lempereur Les Catholi ues et
Napolon III, 1848-1870 (Perpignan: Tempora, 2008), 158-160.
273
infallibility by a majority of Catholic bishops on July 18, 1870. The zenith of the popes
spiritual authority was followed by the nadir of his temporal power.84
Pilgrimage and pilgrimage church construction were part of the Catholic response
to the crisis of 1870-1871.85 As has been seen, Catholics understood what had happened
in terms of a narrative of national salvation.86 This salvation could come through public
acts of collective atonement, such as pilgrimage and church construction.87 The
pilgrimage movement reached its high point in 1872-1873, when the Assumptionists
coordinated a circuit of mass pilgrimages to regional and national shrines that included
La Salette, Sainte-Anne dAuray, Chartres, Paray-le-Monial, and Lourdes.88
Also during the early years of the Third Republic, work began on two major
pilgrimage churches in fulfillment of vows of expiation: Notre-Dame de Fourvire in
Lyon and the Sacr-Cur on Montmartre in Paris. Already in 1830, Antoine-Marie
Chenavard had created a Neoclassical design for a new church dedicated to Our Lady of
Fourvire to replace the heavily restored medieval chapel (fig. 120). In 1832, when the
Virgin was credited with sparing Lyon from the cholera epidemic, Msgr. Jean-PaulGaston de Pins promoted the construction of Chenavards design.89 (Pins administrated
84
John McManners, Church and State in France, 1870-1914 (New York: Harper and Row, 1972), 2.
85
Jonas, Monument as Ex-Voto, 500.
86
Jonas, Monument as Ex-Voto, 490-491.
87
Gadille, La Pense et laction politi ue des v ues ranais, 1: 230-231; Jonas, Restoring a Sacred
Center, 96.
88
The mass pilgrimages of 1872-1873 are summarized in Gadille, La Pense et laction politi ue des
vques franais, 1: 234.
89
Jean-Baptiste Martin, Notre-Dame de Fourvire, chap. 1 in Histoire des glises et chapelles de Lyon
(Lyon: H. Lardanchet, 1909), 2: 34; Louis Challat, La Construction de la basilique de Fourvire
travers la correspondance des architectes (1872-1888) (thesis, Universit Lumire, Lyon II, 1990), 1: 2324. Martin writes that De Pins asked for Chenavards plans in 1832, while Challat writes that this
274
the archdiocese while the archbishop was exiled.) However, Chenavards design was
never built. A subscription launched by Pins raised insufficient funds.90
In 1856, Pierre-Marie Bossan (1814-88) presented his design for a new church to
Archbishop Louis-Jacques-Maurice de Bonald (fig. 121).91 Bonald approved Bossans
plans,92 but the idea for the new church did not take off until after the declaration of the
Franco-Prussian War on July 15, 1870. After Bonalds successor Msgr. Jacques-MarieAchille Ginoulhiac was installed on August 11, 1870, he was approached with proposals
to associate a project for Notre-Dame de Fourvire with the suffering and expected
redemption of Lyon and France. On August 27, 1870, members of the Commission de
Fourvire, a lay organization similar to the uvre de Saint-Martin,93 urged the
archbishop to authorize the construction of Bossans plans.94 Following the September 2
surrender of Napoleon III, the September 4 proclamation of the Third Republic, and the
rapid advance of Prussian troops into French territory, on September 12, 1870 a hastily
assembled group of one hundred women expressed to Ginoulhiac leur ardent dsir de
faire un vu Notre-Dame de Fourvire, dans le but dobtenir la dlivrance de la patrie,
happened in 1830. Chenavards plans are dated 1830 and reproduced in his Recueil des compositions
executes ou projetes (Lyon: Perrin, 1860), plates 18-22.
90
J. Jomand, Lyon sauv du cholra par Victor Orsel la basilique de Fourvire, Bulletin des muses et
monuments lyonnais 6 (1977): 51-52.
91
Abb P. Chatelus, La Commission de Fourvire Ses noces dor (1852-1902), notice sur son origine et
ses uvres (Lyon: Vitte, 1903), 27.
92
Elisabeth Hardouin-Fugier, Voir, revoir Fourvire (Hauteville-Lompnes: Lardant, 1988), 26.
93
The Commission de Fourvire was instituted by Msgr. Bonald in 1850 to study the dilapidated bell tower
of the medieval chapel. It was disbanded upon the construction of a new bell tower and reconstituted in
1852 and 1853 to preserve the appearance of the hillside surrounding the chapel and to enlarge the chapel.
Chatelus, La Commission de Fourvire, 9, 17-18, 21-22.
94
Joanns Blanchon, cho de Fourvire 2 (1896): 290, quoted in Hardouin-Fugier, Voir, revoir Fourvire,
105-106.
275
et lloignement des calamits qui menaaient notre ville.95 In the September 24 issue
of the official journal of the Commission, the cho de Fourvire, Commission member
and cho de Fourvire founder Joanns Blanchon (1819-97) formulated the vow as a
vu de prter un gnreux concours la construction dun nouveau sanctuaire
Fourvire, si la trs-sainte Vierge, notre Mre immacule, prserve de lennemi la ville et
le diocse de Lyon.96
In the same article in which Blanchon formulated the vow, he evoked its larger
context. He attached the immediate suffering of the people of Lyon to the ultramontane
cause: La nuit se fait sur le monde. Rome est occupe par larme de VictorEmmanuel. Le Saint-Pre na plus quune libert prcaire et ne communique plus avec
les fidles quau travers des baonnettes pimontaises.97 In the next issue of the cho de
Fourvire, Blanchon interpreted the invasion of France as divine punishment for the
materialism of the Second Empire:
La corruption est monte comme les eaux du dluge; la profanation du
dimanche est habituelle et gnrale; la libert religieuse nexiste ni pour
larme, ni pour les employs des grandes compagnies industrielles; le
blasphme sort de la bouche des enfants; la prosprit matrielle nous a
fait oublier les grands intrts de lEglise; on a eu peur de sacrifier cette
prosprit par une opposition nergique la perscution hypocrite du
pouvoir imprial. . . .
Et maintenant, terribles reprsailles de la justice de Dieu!98
95
Joanns Blanchon, cho de Fourvire 2 (1896): 290, quoted in Hardouin-Fugier, Voir, revoir Fourvire,
106.
96
Joanns Blanchon, Vu Notre-Dame de Fourvire, cho de Fourvire 7, no. 354 (24 September
1870): 414.
97
Joanns Blanchon, Vu Notre-Dame de Fourvire, cho de Fourvire 7, no. 354 (24 September
1870): 414.
98
Joanns Blanchon, Terreurs et prssentiments, cho de Fourvire 7, no. 355 (1 October 1870): 429.
276
Ginoulhiac publicly approved the vow on October 8, 1870, and he expanded its scope to
all of France: Ce nest pas seulement en faveur de notre ville et de notre diocse que
nous implorons la misricorde divine, mais en faveur de la France entire, dont nous
demandons la dlivrance.99 Notre-Dame de Fourvire was begun in 1872 and
consecrated in 1896 (fig. 122). With its castellated silhouette on the colline de Fourvire
above Lyon, the basilica became a symbol of the siege mentality of the embattled
Church. More than a bulwark against the Prussians, Notre-Dame de Fourvire was a
citadel of the Church in defense of the royal pretender and the exiled pope.100
Like their counterparts in the uvre de Saint-Martin and the Commission de
Fourvire, lay members of the Socit de Saint-Vincent-de-Paul generated an ambitious
church-building project to atone for collective crimes. The vu national au Sacr-Cur
was initiated by Alexandre-Flix Legentil (1821-89), Hubert Rohault de Fleury (18281910), and the general president of the Socit de Saint-Vincent-de-Paul, Adolphe
Baudon (1819-88).101 It was fulfilled by the construction of the Basilica of the SacrCur on Montmartre in Paris (1874-1919) by Paul Abadie (1812-84). Baudon was
inspired to emulate the Lyon vow by Eugne Beluze, a member of the Socit de SaintVincent-de-Paul from Lyon. In a letter of November 29, 1870, Baudon asked Legentil
for his opinion: Beluze, en mannonant que Lyon avait fait le vu de rebtir Notre99
Quoted in Chronique lyonnaise, cho de Fourvire 7, no. 357 (15 October 1870): 465.
100
Elisabeth Hardouin-Fugier, Qui a renvers llphant? Constructeurs et dtracteurs de la basilique de

Fourvire (1870-1896), Cahiers dhistoire Lyon, Greno le, Clermont, Saint-Etienne, Chambry 27
(1982): 117-119.
101
Legentil founded a youth fellowship (patronage) in his parish of Saint-Vincent de Paul in Paris and he
was a member of the conseil gnral de la Socit de Saint-Vincent-de-Paul from 1854 until his death.
Jacques Benoist, Le Sacr-Cur de Montmartre De 1870 nos jours (Paris: ditions ouvrires, 1992), 1:
55-56. Hubert Rohault de Fleury was the son of architect Charles Rohault de Fleury and the brother of
archaeologist Georges Rohault de Fleury. Jacques Benoist, Le Vu national au Cur du Christ, in Paul
Abadie: Architecte, 1812-1884, ed. Claude Laroche (Paris: Runion des muses nationaux, 1988), 200.
277
Dame de Fourvire dans le cas o la ville serait pargne, proposerait un vu analogue
pour Paris. Quen pensez-vous?102 Baudon presented the idea in the December 13 issue
of LUnivers: Les catholiques de Lyon ont fait le vu de btir Notre-Dame de
Fourvire une glise splendide dans le cas o leur ville serait prserve du sige qui la
menace, et le diocse de linvasion. Pourquoi les catholiques de Paris ne feraient-ils pas
un vu semblable pour le cas o ils viendraient briser le cercle de fer qui les
enlace?103 Legentil approved of Baudons idea and imprinted the vow with his
conviction that it should be national in scale--involving the atonement and salvation of all
of France--and that it should be dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, not to the
Virgin.104
Legentil was inspired by Msgr. Louis-Franois-Dsir-Edouard Pie, the bishop of
Poitiers from 1849 until his death in 1880. The historian Austin Gough called Pie one
of the most important strategists of ultramontanism and royalism.105 In late October of
1870, Legentil moved his family from Paris to Poitiers to escape the Prussian
occupation.106 Pie had suggested the consecration of France to the Sacred Heart as an act
of national reparation in an October 16, 1870 homily: Nous sommes les citoyens de la
France; la France a commis un crime, qui est un crime public, national, social: faisons
donc au Cur de Jsus une conscration qui soit une rparation nationale, publique; et
faisons-le rgner dans cette terre de France, qui ne serait plus la France le jour o elle ne
102
Abb J. Schall, Un Disciple de saint Vincent de Paul au XIXe sicle: Adolphe Baudon (1819-1888)
(Paris: Bonne Presse, 1897), 559, quoted in Benoist, Le Sacr-Cur de Montmartre, 1: 215.
103
Quoted in Benoist, Le Sacr-Cur de Montmartre, 1: 216.
104
Benoist, Le Sacr-Cur de Montmartre, 1: 216-217.
105
Gough, Paris and Rome, 73.
106
Benoist, Le Sacr-Cur de Montmartre, 1: 213; Jonas, France and the Cult of the Sacred Heart, 153.
278
serait plus la nation chrtienne.107 Pie invoked the Sacred Heart as a symbol not only of
divine mercy,108 but of the counter-revolution and papal defense. Radiating legitimist
and ultramontane meaning, the Sacred Heart was stitched to the uniforms of the Papal
Zouaves, the independent papal army. Recruitment was high in the west of France,
where the Sacred Heart insignia was also worn by the Venden insurgents of 1793.109
Following the surrender of Rome in September 1870, the Zouaves returned to France to
fight the Germans as the Volontaires de lOuest.110 Against the backdrop of Pies homily
and the Zouaves heroism, in January 1871 Legentil came to Pie with his idea of a
national vow for a church in Paris dedicated to the Sacred Heart.111 While Pie reserved
official judgment for the archbishop of Paris, he publicized the vow in his diocesan
bulletin, and offered Legentil his private encouragement.112
The archbishop of Paris who replaced Msgr. Darboy--shot by the Communards in
May 1871--was Msgr. Guibert. As Guibert had resisted the proposal of the uvre de
Saint-Martin to rebuild the eleventh-century basilica of Saint-Martin, he rebuffed the
early overtures of Legentil and other members of the Socit de Saint-Vincent-de-Paul to
build a church in fulfillment of a vu national au Sacr-Cur.113 However, after
revising the vow, so that it was no longer conditional, and insisting that he would choose
107
The occasion of the homily was the closure of a novena dedicated to the Sacred Heart. Quoted in L.
Baunard, Histoire du cardinal Pie, vque de Poitiers (Poitiers: H. Oudin, 1886), 2: 410.
108
Benoist, Le Sacr-Cur de Montmartre, 1: 160.
109
Jonas, France and the Cult of the Sacred Heart, 104.
110
Jonas, France and the Cult of the Sacred Heart, 158-164.
111
Benoist, Le Sacr-Cur de Montmartre, 1: 104.
112
Baunard, Histoire du cardinal Pie, 2: 422; Jonas, France and the Cult of the Sacred Heart, 157.
113
279
the building site, Guibert adopted it in January 1872.114 The definitive vow, first
published that April, was to make amends for the national crimes for which France had
been punished, to free the pope from his captivity, and to bring an end to Frances
ordeals. It was to contribute to the erection in Paris of a sanctuary dedicated to the
Sacred Heart of Jesus.115 There was never any real doubt that the church would be built
in Paris. But other locations in the city were considered before Guibert chose
Montmartre, namely: the site of Charles Garniers unfinished Opra (1862-75), a symbol
of Second Empire decadence; the heights of the Trocadro, which had been heavily
bombarded by Versailles forces; Chaillot, where the cur wanted to rebuild the parish
church; and the rue Haxo in Belleville, where hostages of the Commune, including ten
priests, had been executed.116 Guibert selected Montmartre because of its history as the
place where Saint Denis, the first bishop of Paris, was martyred. He also chose
Montmartre because of its site, which could be seen from all of Paris and from which all
of Paris could be seen, and which was like the sites of Notre-Dame de la Garde in
Marseille--initiated by Guiberts mentor Eugne de Mazenod--and Notre-Dame de
Fourvire in Lyon. Furthermore, Guibert selected Montmartre because its poor, working
population was underserved by the Church--Saint-Pierre de Montmartre was in ruins--and
because there was a vacant lot there that was owned by the city.117
A jury chose the design of Paul Abadie in July 1874 and construction began in
June 1875 (fig. 123). The Sacr-Cur rose above Paris as a symbol of the impulse of
114
115
Benoist, Le Vu national au Cur du Christ, 200.
116
117
280
expiation that dominated the era of Moral Order. The church stood for a double
patriotism for France and Rome.118 It stood for the reactionary politics of the Church in
support of the monarchism of the Ancien Rgime and against the revolutionary
republicanism of the Paris Commune. With stark and pure white marble domes and a
campanile, the Sacr-Cur contrasted with the gilded and polychromed decorative
extravagance of Garniers Opra, a symbol of the vice and impiety of the Second
Empire.119 It also contrasted with the bare iron forms, without historical precedent, of the
Eiffel Tower. Erected as the centerpiece of the 1889 Exposition Universelle, which
marked the centenary of the Revolution, the Eiffel Tower encapsulated faith in
technology and the principles of 1789.120
There is no evidence that Guibert himself connected the construction project with
the discourse of monarchism or that he chose the building site because of its significance
in relation to the Commune. The site was close to the house where the Generals Lecomte
and Clment-Thomas were executed on March 18, the day that the Commune was
proclaimed, and where the Communard leader Eugne Varlin was shot in revenge on
May 28, the last day of the semaine sanglante.121 Nevertheless, owing to the symbolism
of the Sacred Heart and Montmartre, and to the elaboration of the construction project by
others, the Sacr-Cur came to represent the counter-revolutionary and anti-Communard
118
Claude Langlois, Permanence, renouveau et affrontements (1830-1880), in Histoire des catholiques

en France du XVe sicle nos jours, ed. Franois Lebrun (Toulouse: Edouard Privat, 1980), 358.
119
David Harvey, Monument and Myth: The Building of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, in The Urban
Experience (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989), 218.
120
Barry Bergdoll, European Architecture: 1750-1890 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 270;
Richard D. E. Burton, Marble versus Iron: Sacr-Cur and the Eiffel Tower (1871-1914), in Blood in
the City: Violence and Revelation in Paris, 1789-1945 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001), 191.
121
Benoist, Le Sacr-Cur de Montmartre, 2: 860; Jonas, France and the Cult of the Sacred Heart, 231.
281
politics of the Church. There have been frequent echoes of the comment of historian
Daniel Halvy that Cest au sommet de la colline de Montmartre que les communards
avaient vers le premier sang, l donc slveraient lglise expiatrice.122 Indeed, in
1968 and on the centenary of the Commune, demonstrators occupied the basilica and a
pamphlet circulated stating that Le Sacr-Cur a t bti sur les corps des Communards,
pour effacer le souvenir du drapeau rouge qui avait trop longtemps flott sur Paris.123
During the Franco-Prussian War Catholics formulated vows to build churches in
Lyon and Paris; they also assembled in greater numbers at the tomb of Saint Martin,
patron of France and soldiers. From September to December 1870 the provisional
Government of National Defense was established in Tours. Along with the government
delegation, thousands of refugees and soldiers arrived in the city. Every night crowds of
Catholics, particularly the families of soldiers, gathered at the tomb of Saint Martin to say
patriotic prayers. The chaplains of the chapelle provisoire celebrated weekly masses for
the intentions of France and the army, and they heard the confessions of soldiers at all
hours of the day and night.124
A military banner embroidered with Saint Martins name was significant for how
his cult was politicized. The banner started out embroidered with the Sacred Heart by the
Visitationist nuns in Paray-le-Monial. They gave it to Lon Papin-Dupont who in turn
offered the banner to General Athanase de Charette, the great-nephew of the leader of the
Venden insurgency Franois-Athanase de Charette, and the commander of the Papal
122
Daniel Halvy, La Fin des notables (Paris: Bernard Grasset, 1937), 2: 23, quoted in Benoist, Le SacrCur de Montmartre, 2: 852.
123
124
Benoist, Le Sacr-Cur de Montmartre, 2: 854; Harvey, Monument and Myth, 227-228.
Casimir Chevalier, Tours Capitale: La Dlgation gouvernementale et loccupation prussienne (18701871) (Tours: A. Mame, 1896), 34-46; Besse, Le Tombeau de Saint Martin de Tours, 158.
282
Zouaves. The Zouaves came to Tours after the fall of the papal states in September 1870
and, renamed the Volontaires de lOuest, fought with the Army of the Loire against the
Germans. When Dupont decided to give the banner to Charette it was placed in Martins
tomb and embroidered on the back with the words Saint Martin protge la France.125
On December 2, 1870 the Zouaves carried the banner into the ill-fated charge against the
Germans at Loigny (Eure-et-Loir) in which Charette was wounded and more than half the
men involved were killed. The banner connected Saint Martin to the Sacred Heart,
Charette, the Zouaves, and Loigny, and it thereby associated Saint Martin with
monarchism, ultramontanism, and the narrative of national salvation through sacrifice.126
After the war, pilgrimage to Tours grew along with pilgrimages to regional and
national shrines around the country. On the feast of Saint Martin in 1872 the crowds
were too large to fit into the Gothic Cathedral of Saint-Gatien.127 In July 1873, the train
booked by the Assumptionists to bring pilgrims from Paris to Lourdes for the first
Plerinage national stopped in Tours.128 And on the feast of Saint Martin in 1874 at
least six thousand Catholics took part in the procession from the cathedral to Martins
tomb. Pilgrims carried banners from eighty different regions and those from Strasbourg
(Alsace) and Metz (Lorraine) dressed in mourning for the lost provinces, recalling the
125
See the different accounts of the banners creation in Janvier, Vie de M. Dupont, 1: 467-468; and
126
See Jonas discussion of the banner and how it related to the narrative of national salvation in his France
and the Cult of the Sacred Heart, 164-171. The banner may still be preserved in the Church of Loigny-laBataille, now a museum. See the photograph in Benoist, Le Sacr-Cur de Montmartre, 2: n. p.
127
128
Le Plerin, 12 July 1873, n. p.
283
nationalist symbolism of the Plerinage des bannires to Lourdes.129 Indeed, the goal
of Lon Papin-Dupont in seeking to rebuild the eleventh-century basilica was to make the
cult of Saint Martin national and to make Tours the site of a principle shrine like
Lourdes.130
Pilgrimage to Tours increased during and after the Franco-Prussian War owing to
the successful promotion of Saint Martin as patron of France and soldiers. However,
even though pilgrimage to Tours was adapted to nationalism, it did not take off like
Lourdes. The shrine had the relics of Saint Martin, but it lacked a basilica until 1890,
after the pilgrimage movement had declined, and it had no religious resort infrastructure
like Lourdes. The shrine also lacked the exotic setting, idealized peasant visionary, and
miraculous cures that contributed to Lourdes appeal. Instead of the simplicity and
poverty of Bernadette, Martin represented the institutional power of the Church and
State.131
The Project of the uvre to Build on Martins Tomb (1872-74)

At the high point of the pilgrimage movement, the uvre de Saint-Martin
commissioned plans for the reconstruction of the eleventh-century Basilica of SaintMartin from Alphonse-Jules Baillarg. Born in Melun (Seine-et-Marne) in 1821,
129
Besse, Le Tombeau de Saint Martin de Tours, 166-167; Brennan, The Revival of the Cult of Martin of
Tours, 494.
130
Noublions pas les initiatives de M. Dupont en Touraine. Il communique sa dvotion des plerinages
ses amis et ce mouvement des plerinages suscit par lui, organis par ses amis, stendit toute la France.
Son but, en travaillant restaurer la basilique et le culte de saint Martin, a toujours t den faire un
basilique, un culte national, un sanctuaire o les Franais viendraient de partout clbrer les louanges de
Martin et linvoquer. Tours doit tre avec Lourdes un sanctuaire principal o afflueront les plerins.
131
See the analysis of why in the nineteenth century pilgrimage to Cluny did not take off like Lourdes in
Janet T. Marquardt, From Martyr to Monument: The Abbey of Cluny as Cultural Patrimony (Newcastle:
Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007), 7.
284
Baillarg entered the cole des Beaux-Arts and the atelier of Duban in 1839.132 He was
invited to contribute to Charles Nodier and Isidore Taylors Voyages pittoresques in 1843
and, upon leaving the cole des Beaux-Arts in 1845, was named Sous-inspecteur aux
travaux de restauration of the Chteau de Blois, where he worked under the supervision
of Duban on the Franois I wing.133 Baillarg returned to Paris in 1851 to assist Duban in
his position as Architecte du Louvre, then departed for the Touraine after Duban was
replaced in 1854. As Architecte des difices diocsains in the region, he restored
churches at Loches, Beaulieu-ls-Loches, Montrsor, and Preuilly-sur-Claise. He also
enlarged the Abbey of Solemnes (Sarthe), where Dom Prosper Guranger had reestablished the Benedictine order in 1837. And in 1880 he prepared a model for a church
annexed to the house of Lon Papin-Dupont (figs. 124-125).134 Dupont, who died in
1876, had created an oratory in his living room that was a center of devotion to Christs
Holy Face. The model was for a timber-roofed basilica with a side tower; a large, singlestorey narthex that protruded from the faade and was flush with the street; and stone
striping reminiscent of Italian medieval churches. Baillarg was himself a devout
132
The best and earliest source of information on Baillarg is Ledouble, Baillarg (Alphonse-Jules),
Bulletin mensuel de la Socit centrale des architectes, 6 June 1882, 135-137. See also Bauchal, Nouveau
dictionnaire biographique et critique des architectes franais, 603; and M.-T. Dougnac, Baillarg
(Alphonse-Jules), in Dictionnaire de Biographie franaise, ed. Prevost and Roman dAmat, vol. 4 (Paris:
Letouzey et An, 1948), col. 1251-1252.
133
Duban named Baillarg his sous-inspecteur for the restoration of the Franois I wing on July 25, 1845,
on the recommendation of Isidore Taylor. Sylvain Bellenger and Marie-Ccile Forest, Chronologie des
travaux, in Flix Duban 1798-1870 Les Couleurs de larchitecte, ed. Sylvain Bellenger and Franoise
Hamon (Paris: Gallimard, 1996), 96.
134
In the Archives de lOratoire de la Sainte-Face there are eight photographs of the model. These are kept
in an envelope marked Photographies de la maquette de lglise envisage pour la Sainte-Face (Projet
Baillarg). Modle dress par M. Baillarg et excut sur la direction de MM. Ratel et Denex. Stanislas
Ratel was a member of the Commission de luvre de Saint-Martin and an engineer for the Paris-Orlans
railroad company. Denex was an architect attached to the company. There are also plans of the church and
the site as well as a receipt signed by Baillarg on April 7, 1880, for the sum of 250 francs received from
Ratel, in exchange for an etude dun projet de troisime annexe loratoire de la Ste Face.
285
Catholic and he visited the oratory in Duponts house on his last walk before his death in
1881.135
After Flix-Pierre Fruchaud became archbishop of Tours on November 30, 1871
he ordered plans for the reconstruction of the eleventh-century Basilica of Saint-Martin
from the uvre de Saint-Martin.136 The uvre then commissioned a first set of plans
from Baillarg. Working with Stanislas Ratel (1824-1904), a member of the Commission
de luvre de Saint-Martin and railroad engineer, Baillarg submitted the first set of
plans in November 1872. The uvre and Fruchaud accepted the plans in January
1873.137 In March 1873 the uvre commissioned a second set of plans for the
reconstruction from Baillarg.138 Baillarg prepared to draw the plans by studying
Romanesque churches on a trip through central and south-western France. He completed
the second set of plans by November 1874.
The plans Baillarg submitted in November 1872 included a plan of the
Romanesque basilica that was demolished during the Revolution. It indicates, in
different colors, the state of the basilica in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the state of
the basilica in the eighteenth century, and parts of the basilica visible in 1861 or recorded
in excavations (fig. 126). The 1872 plans also included a plan and longitudinal section of
the proposed reconstruction (figs. 127-128). The Basilica of Saint-Martin was the most
important pilgrimage destination in medieval France.139 The Romanesque church
135
Ledouble, Baillarg (Alphonse-Jules), 137.
136
137
138
Poan, Notice sur la chapelle provisoire, 88.
139
Davies and Davies, Holy Days and Holidays, 60.
286
belonged to a group of five pilgrimage churches that included the four churches on the
principal roads from France to Santiago de Compostela--Saint-Martin in Tours, SaintMartial in Limoges, Saint-Sernin in Toulouse, and Sainte-Foi in Conques--as well as the
church in Santiago itself. Baillargs plan of the Romanesque basilica shows that it was
designed to ease pilgrims circulation and access to relics, with a long nave, side aisles, a
wide transept, an ambulatory, and radiating chapels--like the other pilgrimage churches.
His plan also shows that Saint-Martin had five aisles like Saint-Sernin.140 In addition, it
indicates later changes to the basilica. In the twelfth century the barrel vaults were
replaced by rib vaults and flying buttresses were installed.141 In the thirteenth century the
east end was razed and replaced by a Gothic chevet. And in the fourteenth century
chapels were added between the wall buttresses on the south side of the nave.142
Baillargs 1872 plan of the proposed reconstruction resembles his plan of the
state of the basilica in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, with two major exceptions: the
crypt and the apse. There was no crypt in the medieval basilica because of the risk of
flooding posed by the Loire. Martins tomb was located in the apse. However, by the
nineteenth century street level had risen to the point that the tomb was underground. As a
result, in the proposed reconstruction Martins tomb is located in a crypt.143 The tomb is
140
On the Romanesque pilgrimage churches see Kenneth John Conant, The Great Churches of the
Pilgrimage Roads, in Carolingian and Romanesque Architecture, 800 to 1200 (Harmondsworth,
Middlesex, U.K.: Penguin, 1959), 91-103.
141
Lelong, Les Basiliques successives de Saint-Martin Tours, 13.
142
Carl K. Hersey, The Church of Saint-Martin at Tours (903-1150), Art Bulletin 25, no. 1 (March 1943):
39.
143
Alphonse-Jules Baillarg, Basilique de St-Martin de Tours restitue sur ses fondations du XIme sicle,
plan gnral, 11 November 1874, Archives de la Basilique Saint-Martin, Album 2.
287
nevertheless visible from the ambulatory and the sanctuary through a large opening in the
floor of the apse.144
Baillargs 1872 longitudinal section of the proposed reconstruction draws from
the evidence of the Romanesque Basilica of Saint-Martin and resembles the other
churches of the pilgrimage type. The section shows a nave with a two-part elevation of
arcades and galleries, divided into bays by compound piers, and covered by a barrel
vault. The crossing is covered by a dome and the apse is surrounded by a three-part
elevation of arcades, a triforium, and a clerestory. The crypt occupies a space under the
chevet. It is accessed by a staircase that descends from the crossing and it is open to the
apse above. The section also shows a decoration of bright blue, red, and gold interior
polychromy; figurative murals in the dome and apse; and statues in the spandrels of the
nave galleries, on the dome, and at the peak of the apse.
The plans Baillarg submitted in November 1874 included a plan of the main
floor with an explanatory note, a plan of the crypt, elevations, sections, and a birds-eye
view of the proposed reconstruction and the surrounding city. An anonymous leaflet was
published in December with a near-identical explanatory note and estimates for the full
and partial reconstruction. Baillargs 1874 plan differs from his 1872 plan in three ways
(see fig. 129). First, it is nearly symmetrical. The faade and transept towers match,
departing from the evidence of a 1779 plan and the remaining tour de lHorloge and tour
Charlemagne.145 Second, the altar, choir stalls, and crypt stairs are reconfigured in the
sanctuary, also departing from the 1779 plan. Third, the 1874 plan represents the full and
144
Laloux would likewise create a light well between the apse and the crypt in his earliest known plan for
Saint-Martin, but Baillargs opening was semicircular and Lalouxs was circular.
145
The 1779 plan by Jacquemin titled Plan gomtral et dtaill de la noble et insigne Eglise de SaintMartin de Tours is reproduced in Lelong, La Basilique Saint-Martin de Tours, plate IV.
288
partial reconstruction of the eleventh-century basilica. In the full reconstruction the nave
is nine bays long; in the partial reconstruction it is only four bays long. In the full
reconstruction there is a faade portal with wide, splayed jambs and side porches midway
between the faade and transepts. The plan of the crypt may have been influenced by the
crypt of the Basilica of the Immacule-Conception in Lourdes, inaugurated in 1866 (fig.
130).146 It has an ambulatory and radiating chapels, like the Lourdes crypt. And there is
a sketch of the Lourdes crypt conserved in Baillargs sketches from his research trip in
1873--all the other sketches are of Romanesque churches.147 The anonymous leaflet of
December 1874 estimates that the full reconstruction would contain 7,500 people and
cost 2,950,000 francs and that the partial reconstruction would contain 5,000 people and
cost 1,800,000 francs.148 By contrast, the Basilica of the Immacule-Conception in
Lourdes could accommodate 1,000 people and probably cost in the range of 900,000
francs.
Baillargs 1874 elevations draw from Saint-Sernin in Toulouse, which was
restored from 1860 to 1877 according to plans by Eugne-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc.149
Like at Saint-Sernin, in a side elevation by Baillarg, the nave, galleries, and aisles are
divided horizontally by blind arcades and corbelled cornices and divided vertically by
buttresses (fig. 131). Each bay has a round arch window. As at Saint-Sernin, in an east146
Alphonse-Jules Baillarg, Basilique de St-Martin de Tours restitue sur ses fondations du XIme sicle.
Plan de lglise souterraine, 11 November 1874, Archives de la Basilique Saint-Martin, Album 2.
147
Archives de la Basilique Saint-Martin, Portefeuille E, Croquis relevs sur place en 1873 par larchitecte
M. Baillarg Poitiers, Saintes, Lourdes, Toulouse, Clermont, Issoire, etc. pour servir son projet du 11
Novembre 1874 et lexcution.
148
Basilique de Saint-Martin restitue sur ses fondations du XIe sicle: Notice lappui des plans, 14
December 1874, p. 3, Archives de la Basilique Saint-Martin, Album 1.
149
On Viollet-le-Ducs restoration of Saint-Sernin see Marcel Durliat, Toulouse: La Restauration de

lglise Saint-Sernin, de lancien collge Saint-Raymond et du donjon du Capitole, in Viollet-le-Duc, ed.
Bruno Foucart (Paris: Runion des muses nationaux, 1980), 102-111.
289
end elevation by Baillarg, oculi punctuate the apse and transepts and smooth slate roofs
cover the apse and the protruding chapels of the apse and transepts, accentuating their
volumes (fig. 132). The blind arcades and slate roofs at Saint-Sernin were Viollet-leDucs inventions.150 Besides the elevations, there is other evidence of the influence of
Saint-Sernin on Baillarg: conserved in his portfolios in the Archives de la Basilique
Saint-Martin are his sketches of Saint-Sernin from his research trip in 1873, as well as
plans and a photograph of the basilica (fig. 133).151 In his explanatory note, Baillarg
acknowledged the resemblance between his design and Saint-Sernin, and he suggested
that it was evidence that the architect of Saint-Sernin was influenced by the eleventhcentury Basilica of Saint-Martin.152 The architectural references of Baillargs design to
Saint-Sernin and to the Basilica of Saint-Martin destroyed in the Revolution were also
political references to an ideal Ancien Rgime in which throne and altar were mutually
reinforcing.
Baillargs 1874 elevations and sections also draw from Paul Abadies project for
the Basilica of the Sacr-Cur on Montmartre, which was entered into the public
competition for the Sacr-Cur between February 1 and June 30, 1874, and chosen by
the jury on July 28, 1874.153 They were inspired by the same sources as Abadies project:
the Romanesque churches in south-western France that Abadie restored. Among
150
Durliat, Toulouse, 104-105.
151
Baillargs sketches of Saint-Sernin, including two dated March 17, 1873, are conserved in the Archives
de la Basilique Saint-Martin, Portefeuille E. Plans and a photograph are conserved in the Archives de la
Basilique Saint-Martin, Portefeuille D.
152
153
Nele van der Meer, Chronologie, in Paul Abadie: Architecte, 1812-1884, ed. Claude Laroche (Paris:
Runion des muses nationaux, 1988), 253.
290
Baillargs documents in the Archives de la Basilique are photographs of Abadies plans
for the Sacr-Cur dated July 1, 1874.154 Among Stanislas Ratels documents in that
collection are photographs of Saint-Front in Prigueux (restored 1852-83) and SaintPierre in Angoulme (restored 1853-80), sent by Abadie to Ratel in October 1873.155
Baillargs faade for the full reconstruction has a pediment, arched niches containing
figurative relief sculpture, and an arched porch, like the Sacr-Cur (figs. 134-135). In
Baillargs project the porch is surmounted by an equestrian statue of Saint Martin; in
Abadies project it is surmounted by equestrian statues of Saint Martin and Saint
George.156 Baillargs faade for the partial reconstruction is flanked by conical-roofed
turrets, like the Sacr-Cur and Saint-Pierre in Angoulme (fig. 136). The focus of
Baillargs design is a massive crossing dome that tapers to a point. It is topped by a
statue of Saint Martin in one variation and by a conical-roofed turret in another (figs. 134
and 137). Baillarg concluded from a sixth-century text that the fifth-century church of
Saint-Martin had a dome and he supposed that the eleventh-century church had one,
too.157 The crossing dome and the domes over the side porches in Baillargs design also
154
155
The photographs are signed: A Monsieur Ratel homage de respectueuse affection 21 8bre 1873 P.
Abadie. Archives de la Basilique Saint-Martin, Portefeuille D, nos. 4-5.
156
Claude Laroche, Anatomie dune chimre: Gense et fortune du projet Abadie, in Paul Abadie:
Architecte, 1812-1884, ed. Claude Laroche (Paris: Runion des muses nationaux, 1988), 231.
157
Au milieu du transept au dessus de lautel on a prvu un dme dont on indique sur les Elvations deux
variantes. Il serait impossible de dire si ce dme xistait au XIe Sicle ou sil tait remplac par une de ces
tours carres dont les Eglises romanes nous prsentent encore tant dexamples.
Cependant on peut conclure des vers ci-dessous que la Basilique de St-Perpet avait un dme, et
supposer quHerv, dans sa reconstruction, a d conserver une disposition analogue. . . .
Sur le milieu, une minence, en forme de tour se dresse au dessus de la toiture, louvrage dabord
carr se retrcit pour recevoir un couronnement rond. Cest comme une forteresse, qui, par une succession
dtages en arcades slance dans les airs pour ltonnement du spectateur. Elle donne ldifice
lapparance dune montagne qui se termine en pointe. Alphonse-Jules Baillarg, Basilique de St-Martin
de Tours restitue sur ses fondations du XIme sicle, plan gnral, 11 November 1874, Archives de la
Basilique Saint-Martin, Album 2. In fact, the description, written by Fortunatus around 570, is of the
291
refer to the Sacr-Cur and the Romanesque churches that Abadie restored. The
resemblance between Baillargs design for Saint-Martin and Abadies design for the
Sacr-Cur communicated the resemblance between the meanings of the church-building
projects. Both projects were initiated by lay groups as atonement for collective crimes.
In Baillargs birds-eye view of the proposed reconstruction, Saint-Martin dominates
Tours owing to its overwhelming scale--similarly to how the Sacr-Cur dominates Paris
owing to its scale and elevated site--signifying the imposition of the Church on the public
sphere (fig. 132). Baillarg planned the reorganization of Tours in relation to SaintMartin--including the creation of new squares, streets, and houses--signifying the
reorganization of society according to religious principles.158
Baillarg wrote in his November 1874 explanatory note that the 1779 plan of
Saint-Martin and the excavations of 1860 permitted him to reconstruct the Romanesque
basilica accurately. However, he acknowledged that parts of his design strayed from the
evidence, namely: the crypt, the sanctuary, and the extensive program of statues.159 The
program of statues conformed to the taste of the nineteenth century rather than the
eleventh century. Defending it, Baillarg wrote that statues were the most expressive
means of recording the events of national history connected to Saint-Martin.160 Indeed,
Cathedral of Nantes, not the Basilica of Saint-Martin. Baillarg drew it from Jules Quicherat, Restitution
de la basilique Saint-Martin, Revue archologique 19 (1869): 406.
158
See the Notice in the margins of Alphonse-Jules Baillarg, Tours: Vue perspective du quartier des
marchs aprs la reconstruction de la basilique de Saint-Martin, 11 November 1874, Archives de la
Basilique Saint-Martin, Album 2.
159
160
On pourra stonner au point de vue archologique de voir sur un difice roman toute les statues qui le
couronnent, mais on ne doit pas oublier que la Basilique de St Martin est un momument qui appartient plus
que tout autre, lhistoire nationale. Il semble que, pour ce motif, une concession devait tre faite aux
tendances de notre poque, la statuaire tant le moyen le plus expressif denrgistrer tous les faits de notre
292
statues of grands hommes with national and political significance proliferated in the
Third Republic.161 In Baillargs design the statues on the cornice of the apse are popes
with links to Saint-Martin.162 Those on the columns in the crypt are the most famous
pilgrims, popes, bishops, and kings who came to the basilica, chosen by Dom Guranger
(fig. 138).163 Among them are Clovis, Charlemagne, Saint Louis, Saint Radegund (wife
of King Chlothar I), and Sulpicius Severus (writer of a biography of Martin).164 They
represented a Catholic, royalist interpretation of national history and conferred legitimacy
on attempts in the early 1870s to restore the monarchy and the papal territories.
Lon Papin-Dupont and the uvre de Saint-Martin conceived the reconstruction
of the eleventh-century basilica as an act of expiation and as a metaphor for moral
reconstruction: their motivation was communicated by publications written by the uvre
and about Dupont and the uvre. The leaflet Notice lappui des plans published in
December 1874, presumably by the uvre, explicitly connected Baillargs design and
expiation. One of the reasons the leaflet gave for rebuilding the eleventh-century basilica
on its remaining foundations was that La rparation du crime commis, la fin du sicle
dernier, sera plus complte, et la pit plus satisfaite en relevant le mme difice.165 It
histoire qui se rattachent la Basilique et au Tombeau de St Martin. Alphonse-Jules Baillarg, Basilique

de St-Martin de Tours restitue sur ses fondations du XIme sicle, plan gnral, 11 November 1874,
161
On statuomania in the Third Republic see June Hargrove, Shaping the National Image: The Cult of
Statues to Great Men in the Third Republic, in Nationalism in the Visual Arts, ed. Richard A. Etlin
(Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1991), 49-63.
162
163
Poan, Notice sur la chapelle provisoire, 90; Besse, Le Tombeau de Saint Martin de Tours, 426.
164
Gazette de France, 24 May 1875, quoted in Besse, Le Tombeau de Saint Martin de Tours, 175.
165
Basilique de Saint-Martin restitue sur ses fondations du XIe sicle: Notice lappui des plans, 14
December 1874, p. 4, Archives de la Basilique Saint-Martin, Album 1.
293
left open whether the crime was the Revolutionary destruction of the Romanesque
basilica or Revolutionary destruction generally speaking. The Abb Pierre-Dsir
Janvier attributed the link between rebuilding and expiation to Dupont. Janvier wrote in
his 1879 biography of Dupont that some saw rebuilding as a question of religious art and
architecture; others saw it from the points of view of public utility, local interest, and
national glory; but Dupont had as his goal above all lacte dexpiation, luvre
rparatrice. Janvier added that Un outrage satanique, un crime de destruction impie a
t commis contre Notre-Seigneur: pour rparer ce crime, il faut rdifier ce qui a t
dtruit.166 Stanislas Ratel confirmed that Dupont and the other founders of the uvre de
Saint-Martin reprsentaient lide rparatrice qui a t le germe de luvre.167 J.
Paguelle de Follenay suggested in his biography of Msgr. Guibert that for Dupont the
crime was not only the destruction of the eleventh-century basilica, but the Revolution as
a whole; and the act of expiation was not only the material reconstruction of the basilica,
but the moral reconstruction of France. He wrote that in Duponts thinking, la
rparation des impits de la Rvolution par le culte de saint Martin serait la condition et
le signe du rveil religieux de la France.168 Lon Aubineau, a writer for the Catholic
newspaper LUnivers, suggested in his 1878 biography of Dupont that for Dupont the
crime was Frances neglect of its duties as fille ane de lglise, a title acquired in part
(beyond the baptism of Clovis) because of the precedence of Gauls conversion by Saint
Martin. Aubineau added that Lnormit dun pareil crime lui faisait sentir la ncessit
166
167
Stanislas Ratel, Rponse un mmoire historico-juridique sur luvre de St. Martin, Tours, suivi de
59 pices justificatives, 14 August 1895, p. 12, Archives diocsaines de Tours, bote 1096, dossier XXVII.
168
294
dune protection et dune intercession puissantes. L, tait le mobile de sa pit envers
saint Martin.169 Like Baillargs design itself, these publications communicated Dupont
and the uvres understanding of the reconstruction in terms of a narrative of national
salvation.
Baillargs 1874 plans were displayed in Tours and Paris. In Tours they were
exhibited in the main staircase of the archiepiscopal palace. When Msgr. Charles
Thodore Colet arrived in the palace as the new archbishop after the death of Fruchaud in
November 1874, he remarked that the plans were very beautiful and would be more
beautiful when they were executed.170 But in spite of his initial enthusiasm, Colet
postponed construction indefinitely.171 Photographs of the plans were also exhibited in a
passage near the chapelle provisoire.172 Moreover, a maquette of the confessio, the part
of the crypt around the tomb, was commissioned by member of the Commission de
luvre de Saint-Martin Pdre Moisant and displayed to the public in a house on the rue
Saint-Martin.173 In Paris the plans were exhibited at the Salon of 1875, where they won a
gold medal.174 The critic for the Gazette des Beaux-Arts faulted the project for borrowing
from disparate sources: Romanesque, seventeenth-century, and neo-Gothic churches, as
169
Lon Aubineau, Le Saint Homme de Tours (Paris: Victor Palm, 1878), 50-51.
170
Le jour de son arrive, il trouve les plans de M. Baillarg exposs dans le palais archipiscopal: Ces
plans sont fort beaux, dit-il ceux qui lentouraient; ils seront encore plus beaux quand ils seront
excuts. Besse, Le Tombeau de Saint Martin de Tours, 189.
171
172
Poan, Notice sur la chapelle provisoire, 87.
173
Poan, Notice sur la chapelle provisoire, 89-91. The maquette is now in the narthex of the Basilica of
Saint-Martin.
174
Ledouble, Baillarg (Alphonse-Jules), 136.
295
well as Garniers Opra.175 But overall the response of the national press was positive.
The critic for the Gazette de France called the project a remarquable travail.176
Edouard Didron, son of the archaeologist Adolphe-Napolon Didron, wrote of the
material and moral advantages of executing the project.177 And the critic for LUnivers
called it an uvre excellente.178 In addition, the architect Charles Lucas (1838-1905)
praised the project in a lecture on architecture at the Salon of 1875 that he delivered in
the hemicycle auditorium of the cole des Beaux-Arts. However, Lucas said that it
would have been more interesting to reconstruct the fifth-century church of Saint-Martin
that the archaeologist Jules Quicherat had reconstructed on paper in 1869.179 The idea
anticipated Victor Lalouxs project for Saint-Martin, begun in 1884. Lalouxs project
was based on the graphic reconstruction of Quicherat and executed instead of Baillargs
project.
175
Anatole de Montaiglon, Le Salon de 1875, Gazette des Beaux-Arts 12 (1 August 1875): 132.
176
Gazette de France, 24 May 1875, quoted in Besse, Le Tombeau de Saint Martin de Tours, 175.
177
Edouard Didron, Le Monde, 22 June 1875, quoted in Besse, Le Tombeau de Saint Martin de Tours, 181.
178
Claudius Lavergne, Beaux-Arts: Exposition de 1875. Sixime article: Sculpture--Architecture,

LUnivers, 17 July 1875, 1.
179
Besse, Le Tombeau de Saint Martin de Tours, 181-182.
296
The Suppression of the Project of the uvre to Build on Martins Tomb
In the late 1870s there were dramatic changes in the government and the Church
that caused the suppression of the project of the uvre to build on Martins tomb along
with the religious and political ideals that it communicated. In 1876, the National
Assembly dominated by Catholic royalists was succeeded by a majority of Republicans.
In 1879, the Catholic Legitimist President MacMahon resigned and the Republican Jules
Grvy replaced him, ending the program of Moral Order once and for all. The Republic
of Dukes gave way to the Republic of Republicans, which sought to reorganize society
without God or king.180 In 1878, Pope Pius IX (1846-1903) died and Leo XIII (18781903) succeeded him. When Pius IX was elected, he was hailed as a liberal, but after the
revolution of 1848, when his prime minister was assassinated and he fled from Rome, he
became authoritarian and resolutely conservative. Leo XIII was likewise conservative,
but he differed from Pius IX in pursuing a policy of diplomacy and reconciliation with
European powers, particularly France.181 As a result of the changes in Paris and Rome,
the government and a new archbishop, Msgr. Meignan, wrested control of Saint Martins
tomb and the donations for the project of the uvre.
The Anticlerical Campaign of the Opportunist Republicans and the Suppression of the
Project of the uvre in 1883
The Opportunist Republicans who had taken power in 1876 put an end to the
project of the uvre to build on Martins tomb after Msgr. Colet died in November 1883.
180
181
McManners, Church and State in France, 41-46.
James Edward Ward, Franco-Vatican Relations, 1878-1892: The Diplomatic Origins of the Ralliement
(Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms, 1962), 5.
297
On December 3, Flix Martin-Feuille, the Ministre de la Justice et des Cultes, decreed
that the State would administer the assets of the archdiocese while the seat was vacant.182
Martin-Feuille appointed a commissaire provisoire named Henri Godard to carry out the
November 6, 1813 Dcret sur la conservation et administration des biens que possde le
clerg. Article thirty-four of this amendment to the Concordat stated that: Au dcs de
chaque archevque ou vque, il sera nomm par notre Ministre des cultes un
commissaire pour ladministration des biens de la mense piscopale pendant la
vacance.183 Until 1880, the 1813 decree had been ignored and vacant dioceses were
overseen by vicars. Then the government enforced the law in Poitiers following the
death of Msgr. Pie, the outspoken champion of the pope and the Bourbon pretender.184 It
enforced the law in Tours following the death of Msgr. Colet to seize the money and
property of the uvre. The position of the central administration was that the group had
no legal status and therefore its assets belonged to the archdiocese.185 Confiscating the
assets of the uvre was in keeping with the Republicans policy of laicization.186 The
policy included neutralizing contentious churches and disarming lay Catholic
associations, which the government viewed as a political threat, as well as secularizing
182
Flix Martin-Feuille, Ministre de la Justice et des Cultes, Arrt, Archives nationales, F 19 3779,
no. 257.
183
1892), 554.
184
185
Luvre dite de St Martin na aucune existence lgale, et cest avec raison que M. le Commissaireadministrateur a considr que tous les biens dclars comme appartenant cette uvre sont la proprit de
la mense elle-mme. Direction des Cultes, Ministre de la Justice et des Cultes, to Antonin-Charles-Lon
Daunassans, Prfet dIndre-et-Loire, 17 March 1884, Archives nationales, F 19 3779.
186
Gadille, La Pense et laction politi ue des v ues ranais, 2: 109.
298
education, limiting religious processions, and dissolving non-authorized religious
congregations.187
The uvre predicted Martin-Feuilles action and took steps to forestall it.
Already in November 1880, the government removed the chaplains from the chapelle
provisoire at Martins tomb. As Oblates of Mary Immaculate, they were subject to the
decrees of March 29, 1880 by which unauthorized orders were expelled, and were
replaced by secular priests.188 A month later, Msgr. Colet convened the Commission de
luvre de Saint-Martin to safeguard its finances from the government. Commission
member and senator Eugne Goin used the securities held by the uvre, including
French railroad bonds and treasury bills, to purchase British Consols registered to his
name and to the names of fellow prominent Commission members Andr-LopoldJacques Bonin de la Bonninire, the marquis; and Paul Mame, a partner in the Mame
publishing company, whose factory covered nearly two hectares of central Tours.189
When Henri Godard arrived in the archbishops palace he summoned Goin to produce
the donations for the project of the uvre to build on Martins tomb, without success.
Godards inventory of the holdings of the uvre listed eighteen houses purchased for the
construction site, but not the British Consols.190
187
On the governments attitude towards lay Catholic associations see Gadille, La Pense et laction
politique des vques franais, 2: 115.
188
On the Oblates expulsion see Charles Thodore Colet to Antonin-Charles-Lon Daunassans, 6

November 1880, Archives nationales, F 19 3779; and Antonin-Charles-Lon Daunassans to Charles
Thodore Colet, 7 November 1880, Archives nationales, F 19 3779.
189
Besse, Le Tombeau de Saint Martin de Tours, 219. For the biography of the Marquis de Beaumont, see
J.-X. Carr de Busserolle, Beaumont-la-Ronce in Dictionnaire gographique, historique, et biographique
dIndre-et-Loire et de lancienne province de Touraine (Tours: Rouill-Ladevze, 1878; Mayenne: Joseph
Floch, 1977), 1: 176-179. For the biography of Paul Mame, see Claude Savart, Les Catholiques en France
au XIXe sicle: Le Tmoignage du livre religieux (Paris: Beauchesne, 1985), 135-140.
190
Henri Godard to Flix Martin-Feuille, 1 March 1884, Archives nationales, F 19 3779.
299
The suppression of the project of the uvre belonged to an anticlerical campaign
to deconsecrate, dismantle, and otherwise counteract contentious religious buildings.191
The campaign included the re-secularization of the Church of Sainte-Genevive in Paris.
Established by Louis XV as the shrine of the fifth-century patron saint of Paris, SainteGenevive was inaugurated in 1791 by the Revolutionary National Assembly as the
Panthon, a temple to great men. Over the course of the next century it acted as a
lightning rod for the tensions that divided Catholics and anticlericals, monarchists and
republicans. Jacques-Germain Soufflots building served as a church and mausoleum
under the Empire, as a basilica during the Bourbon Restoration, as a symbol of
Revolutionary principles under the July Monarchy, and as a basilica under the Second
Empire. The Republican majority elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1876 was eager
to reclaim it. On July 20, 1876 a bill was introduced to convert Sainte-Genevive back
into a civic temple, but nothing was done until the death of Victor Hugo in May 1885.
Then the Chamber voted to deconsecrate the basilica, to rededicate it to the cult of great
men, and to bury Hugo there. In doing so, the Republic of Republicans reclaimed the
Panthon as a symbol of Revolutionary values.192
In addition to secularizing the Church of Sainte-Genevive, the Chamber of
Deputies debated bills to destroy the Chapelle expiatoire and the Sacr-Cur on
Montmartre. On January 21, 1882 Jules Roche, a deputy on the far left, defended a bill
seeking the destruction of the Chapelle expiatoire. He argued that un gouvernement
191
Evelyn Martha Acomb, The French Laic Laws (1879-1889): The First Anti-Clerical Campaign of the
Third French Republic (New York: Octagon, 1967), 211-216.
192
Barry Bergdoll, Le Panthon/Sainte-Genevive au XIXe sicle: La Monumentalit lpreuve des

rvolutions idologiques, in Le Panthon, sym ole des rvolutions De lglise de la nation au temple des
grands hommes (Paris: Picard, 1989), 175-233.
300
rpublicain et national ne peut laisser subsister le monument lev par Louis XVIII, pour
faire expier la France, comme un crime, un acte de justice.193 On June 29, 1882 the
Chamber of Deputies voted to consider a law proposed by the Radical deputy Eugne
Delattre and forty-six of his colleagues that would revoke the 1873 authorization to build
the Sacr-Cur of the government of Moral Order.194 The deputies also considered an
order to cease work as a means to prevent the domination of Paris by a symbol of
reactionary monarchism.195 In Tours, the Opportunist-led Republican government seized
the assets of the uvre to prevent it from carrying out a church-building project that was
interpreted much like the Chapelle expiatoire and the Sacr-Cur.
Pope Leo XIIIs Policy of Appeasement and the Arrival of Archbishop Meignan in 1884
The suppression of the project of the uvre was the outcome of Leo XIIIs policy
of appeasement, expressed in his encyclicals.196 In Nobilissima Gallorum gens (February
8, 1884), Leo XIII instructed French Catholics, who were tied to monarchism, to lay to
rest their anti-republican sentiments in the interest of self-preservation and to uphold the
Concordat as the best available means of negotiation between the Church and the
193
Quoted in E. Lecanuet, Lglise de France sous la troisime Rpu li ue, vol. 2, Pontificat de Lon XIII,
1878-1894 (Paris: Poussielgue, 1910), 193. For Roches biography see Adolphe Robert and Gaston
Cougny, eds., Roche (Jules), in Dictionnaire des parlementaires franais, vol. 5 (Paris: Bourloton,
1891), 171-172; and Jean Jolly, ed., Roche (Jules, Antoine), in Dictionnaire des parlementaires franais,
vol. 8 (Paris: Presses universitaires franaises, 1977), 2877-2878.
194
Lecanuet, Lglise de France sous la troisime Rpu li ue, 2: 193; Benoist, Le Sacr-Cur de
Montmartre, 2: 778-781. For Delattres biography see Adolphe Robert and Gaston Cougny, ed., Delattre
(Paul-Eugne), in Dictionnaire des parlementaires franais, vol. 2 (Paris: Bourloton, 1890), 310.
195
196
Harvey, Monument and Myth, 203, 218.
Alexander Sedgwick, The Ralliement in French Politics, 1890-1898 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
301
Republic.197 In Immortale Dei (November 19, 1885), he taught them that the right to rule
did not derive from a particular form of government, but from God.198 Leo XIIIs policy
of appeasement caused a shift towards liberalism in the French episcopate. The popes
nuncios in Paris chose bishops such as Msgr. Meignan, who seemed to share his views
and were agreeable to republicans.199
Guillaume-Ren Meignan (1817-96) was born into a working-class family with
Jansenist traditions and trained for the priesthood at the Le Mans seminary, then directed
by the Gallican Jean-Baptiste Bouvier.200 In 1842-1843, he studied in Berlin and
Munich, where he was exposed to contemporary German philosophy and theology,
including the latest works of biblical criticism.201 He held a series of teaching and
pastoral posts in Paris and in 1861 was named a professor of scripture at the Sorbonne.
Meignan became one of the leading French clerical intellectuals, publishing M. Renan
rfut par les rationalistes allemands in 1863, a refutation of Ernest Renans Vie de Jsus
of the same year, and Les vangiles et la critique au 19e sicle in 1864.202 He then
197
Ward, Franco-Vatican Relations, 27; A. Debidour, Lglise catholi ue et ltat sous la troisime
Rpublique (1870-1906) (Paris: Flix Alcan, 1906), 1: 339.
198
Lecanuet, Lglise de France sous la troisime Rpu li ue, 2: 313.
199
McManners, Church and State in France, 57.
200
Michel Laurencin, Meignan Guillaume-Ren, in Dictionnaire biographique de Touraine (Chambrayls-Tours: CLD, 1990), 404; Michel Laurencin, Un Prlat entre le Ralliement et la Rpublique: Le
Cardinal Meignan, Archevque de Tours (1884-1896), Mmoires de lAcadmie des arts, des sciences, et
des belles-lettres de Touraine 7 (1994): 141-143. For Meignans complete biography see Abb Henri
Boissonnot, Le Cardinal Meignan (Paris: Victor Lecoffre, 1899). On Bouviers Gallican training see
Gough, Paris and Rome, 42.
201
Harry W. Paul, In Quest of Kerygma: Catholic Intellectual Life in Nineteenth-Century France,

American Historical Review 75, no. 2 (December 1969): 415.
202
Guillaume-Ren Meignan, M. Renan rfut par les rationalistes allemands (Paris: C. Douniol, 1863);
Guillaume-Ren Meignan, Les vangiles et la critique au 19e sicle (Bar-le-Duc: L. Gurin, 1864). Les
vangiles et la critique au 19e sicle would be interesting to analyze, as it considers the role of archaeology
in interpreting the Gospels and includes an essay by the archaeologist Melchior de Vgu. Meignans
302
joined the episcopate. Meignan was picked for the diocese of Chlons-sur-Marne in
1865, the diocese of Arras in 1882, and the archdiocese of Tours in January 1884. A
liberal who belonged to the circle around the theologian Henri Maret,203 and a Gallican
who voted against the infallibility of the pope at the Vatican Council in 1870,204 Meignan
never expressed republican sentiments, but, like Leo XIII, he supported negotiation with
the Republican government.205
Meignans Proposal for a chapelle de secours (1884)

Soon after Meignan arrived in Tours in May 1884, he tried to broker a deal
between the uvre, who still controlled the donations for its project to build on Martins
tomb, and the government, which had seized Martins tomb and the surrounding houses.
On June 1, Meignan approached the prefect with his idea to break the deadlock. A
church would be built on part of the site of the eleventh-century Basilica of Saint-Martin
with the funds held by the uvre, the surrounding houses seized by the government
would be demolished, and squares would be created in their place. The squares would
reveal the excavated foundations of the eleventh-century basilica, like the squares next to
the Htel de Cluny in Paris, which reveal the ruins of the Gallo-Roman baths known as
stature is assessed in Gibson, A Social History of French Catholicism, 85.
203
Jean-Rmy Palanque, Catholiques libraux et gallicans en France face au Concile du Vatican, 18671870, Annales de la Facult des Lettres, no. 34 (Aix-en-Provence: Ophrys, 1962), 144.
204
205
Palanque, Catholiques libraux et gallicans en France, 142; Gough, Paris and Rome, 263.
Il faut remarquer cependant que M. Meignan ne va pas jusqu exprimer des sentiments rpublicains.
Il parat vouloir seffacer autant que possible et viter soigneusement les dmonstrations. Extrait dun
rapport de M. le Procureur Gnral prs la Cour dAppel dOrlans, 15 July 1888, Archives nationales, F
19 2589. Lglise nest pas davantage lennemie daucune forme de gouvernement. . . . Bien plus, on ne
rprouve pas en soi que le peuple ait sa part plus ou moins grande au gouvernement: cela mme, en
certains temps et sous certaines lois, peut devenir non seulement un avantage, mais un devoir pour les
citoyens. Here Meignan is quoting Leo XIII. Guillaume-Ren Meignan, Lon XIII pacificateur:
LEncycli ue Immortale Dei (Paris: Dentu, 1886), 41, Archives nationales, F 19 2589.
303
the Thermes de Julien.206 By 1863, Napoleon III had enclosed the ruins of the Thermes
de Julien within gardens.207 Meignan would have known them well from his time at the
nearby Sorbonne. The church Meignan proposed would be built on a north-south axis on
the rue Descartes, overlapping the foundations of the chevet and south transept arm of the
eleventh-century basilica, as Guibert had suggested in 1867 (fig. 139).208
The church would also meet the governments demand that it should have a legal
status under the Concordat. In contrast to the chapelle provisoire built on Martins tomb
in 1860, which was tolerated but never authorized, the church Meignan proposed would
have the legal status of a chapelle de secours.209 According to a circular of July 4, 1882,
a chapelle de secours could be granted to a neighborhood far from the nearest parish
206
Une glise serait construite, exclusivement aux frais de luvre, sur une portion de
lemplacement occup autrefois par la basilique; cette glise deviendrait la proprit de la fabrique qui
serait constitu, ou mme de la fabrique de la paroisse de St Julien. Le surplus des valeurs restes
disponibles serait constitu aussi en proprit de la fabrique.
Quant aux immeubles non compris dans le perimtre de la nouvelle construction, qui ne
modifierait pas sensiblement les alignements des rues existantes, ils seraient dmolis et le terrain cd
gratuitement la ville, sous la seule rserve den faire des squares dans le genre de ceux des thermes de
Julien, Paris, o lon conservait toutes les anciennes constructions prcieuses au point de vue
archologique et qui proviennent de la basilique de St Martin les fidles trouveraient ainsi leur
disposition, dfaut du monument tout entier, un lieu de plerinage avec les traces toujours visibles du
passage du grand thaumaturge des Gaules.
Cette proposition, sauf la partie que jai mise entre guillemets, ne me parait pas inacceptable, bien
quelle puisse soulever de trs graves objections de la part de la municipalit, qui certainement ne voudra
pas prter son concours ltablissement dun centre de plerinage et daction religieuse qui ont toujours
t le but poursuivi par les organisateurs de luvre de St Martin (Daunassans emphasis). AntoninCharles-Lon Daunassans to Flix Martin-Feuille, 2 June 1884, Archives nationales, F 19 3779.
207
Amde Gabourd, Histoire de Paris depuis les temps les plus reculs jus u nos jours (Paris: Gaume
Frres et J. Duprey, 1863), 1: 53.
208
Mense archipiscopale de Tours, Note sur les dcouvertes archologiques auxquelles a donn lieu la
recherche du Tombeau de St Martin, 8 June 1884, Archives dpartementales dIndre-et-Loire, 5 V 4 326.
209
On the status of the chapelle provisoire, see Antonin-Charles-Lon Daunassans to Flix Martin-Feuille,
5 January 1885, Archives nationales, F 19 3779. Daunassans emphasized that the chapelle provisoire was
never legally opened. Meignan wrote of lindigente chapelle leve provisoirement sur le Tombeau,
chapelle, soit dit en passant, jusquici tolere, non autorise, et qui dans cet tat reste la merci dun arrt
prfectoral (Meignans emphasis). See Guillaume-Ren Meignan, Lettre de Mgr larchevque de Tours
aux vques de France, Journal dIndre-et-Loire 88, no. 22 (26-27 January 1885): 1. See the clipping in
the Archives nationales, F 19 3779.
304
church.210 In this case, the nearest parish church was that of Saint-Julien-Saint-Franois.
The chapelle de secours would be owned by its vestry and served by its parish priest.
Meignan assured the government that after construction, the vestry would absorb the
remaining funds of the uvre de Saint-Martin, and the uvre would be disbanded.211
There were religious and archaeological reasons for creating the squares that
Meignan proposed. The archbishop suggested that in the squares, among the excavated
foundations of the eleventh-century basilica that stood on Martins tomb, Catholics would
find, dfaut du monument tout entier, un lieu de plerinage avec les traces toujours
visibles du passage du grand thaumaturge des Gaules.212 Meignan put forward the idea
of the squares with the foundations as a consolation for not rebuilding the eleventhcentury basilica. In lieu of the reconstruction, the foundations would offer a physical link
to Saint Martin. Meignans idea did not persuade the uvre to relinquish its funds, but it
did appeal to the Comit des Travaux Historiques et Scientifiques. Created in 1834 by
the politician and historian Franois Guizot, the Comit was mandated to conserve the
material vestiges of the Ancien Rgime as the evidence of national history.213 It
unanimously favored Meignans idea. Following up on the groups judgment, in
December 1884 the Ministre de lInstruction publique et des Beaux-arts urged the
210
On the circular of 4 July 1882, see Flix Martin-Feuille to Guillaume-Ren Meignan, 17 May 1884,
Archives nationales, F 19 3779: Je serais tout dispos distraire, de la proposition dalination dont le
Conseil dEtat est saisi toute partie dimmeuble qui rpondrait un besoin rel et lgal, tel que
ltablissement dune Chapelle de Secours etc [sic]. For the legal definition of a chapelle de secours see
1891), 678.
211
Les dpots des qutes seront absorbs & le comit dissous, son uvre termine. Guillaume-Ren
Meignan to mile Flourens, 14 July 1884, Archives nationales, F 19 3779.
212
Daunassans set off this passage in quotation marks to identify its content as Meignans alone. AntoninCharles-Lon Daunassans to Flix Martin-Feuille, 2 June 1884, Archives nationales, F 19 3779.
213
Laurent Theis, Guizot et les institutions de mmoire, in Les Lieux de mmoire, ed. Pierre Nora, vol. 2,
bk. 2 (Paris: Gallimard, 1986), 584-588.
305
Directeur gnral des cultes to study the matter, but he was ignored.214 The Ministre de
la Justice et des Cultes accepted the idea of the chapelle de secours, but it rejected the
squares because Tours anticlerical Conseil municipal interpreted them as a way for
Catholics to reserve the site for the reconstruction of the eleventh-century basilica.215
Meignans idea failed to break the deadlock between the government and the
uvre. Instead, in July 1884 Flix Martin-Feuille extended Henri Godards term as
commissaire provisoire and in January 1885 he auctioned the houses on the foundations
214
Dans sa dernire sance le Comit des Travaux Historiques et Scientifiques a mis, lunanimit,
un vu que jai lhonneur de vous communiquer:
Le Comit,
Considrant lintrt historique et archologique quil y aurait oprer des fouilles mthodiques
sur lemplacement de lancienne basilique de St-Martin de Tours,
Considrant que ces fouilles sont impossibles tant que des maisons particuliers slvent sur cet
emplacement,
Considrant que M. larchevque de Tours, propritaire de plusieurs maisons sises sur
lemplacement du chur et du transept de lancienne basilique, paratrait dispos les cder gratuitement
lEtat ou la Ville, la condition quon les remplacerait par un square dans lequel on conserverait toutes
les constructions que les fouilles faire pourraient mettre dcouvert,
Emet, lunanimit, lavis quil y a lieu de prier instamment ladministration de faire toutes les
dmarches ncessaires auprs des pouvoirs comptents, pour que cette question reoive au plus tt une
solution conforme aux vux du Comit et de toutes les personnes qui sintressent lhistoire et aux
monuments de notre pays.
Permettez-moi, Monsieur le Directeur Gnral, dattirer sur cette question votre attention toute
particulire et dinsister vivement auprs de vous pour quelle soit tudie aussi promptement que possible
avec tout lintrt dont elle est digne. Il sagit, en effet, de mettre en lumire des documents prcieux de
notre archologie nationale et tout fait prvoir que des rsultats considrables rpondraient notre attente.
Je suis persuad que linitiative du Comit des Travaux Historiques et Scientifiques rencontrera
prs de vous le plus bienveillant accueil, et je compte, en cette circonstance, sur le dvou concours que
vous avez bien voulu mettre tant de fois au service de mon administration. Clment-Armand Fallires to
mile Flourens, 22 December 1884, Archives nationales, F 19 3779.
215
Quant la proposition de ltablissement dun square autour de la Tour de Charlemagne, je dclarai au

vicaire gnral que je la considrais comme dfinitivement carte par le Conseil municipal de Tours.
Antonin-Charles-Lon Daunassans to Flix Martin-Feuille, 7 August 1884, Archives nationales, F 19
3779. Indeed, the following summer, in a vote that one councilor stressed must be franchement
anticlrical, members of the municipal council voted unanimously against the construction of Lalouxs
church. Chapelle Saint-Martin: Reconstruction, enqute, avis, rapport de M. Ducrot, Bulletin municipal
de la ville de Tours 2, no. 9 (28 August 1885): 498-545, Archives diocsaines de Tours, bote 1096,
dossier XXV.
306
of the eleventh-century basilica around the proposed chapelle de secours.216 Meignan
feared that the sale would provoke reprisals.217 Indeed, long-standing member of the
Commission de luvre de Saint-Martin Pdre Moisant purchased a house on the site of
the proposed chapelle de secours, specifically to block construction (fig. 139).
Moreover, the auctioned houses on the foundations of the eleventh-century basilica were
purchased by a certain Socit anonyme immobilire de Touraine, which was secretly
composed of members of the Commission de luvre.218
Cest la rvolution dans lglise:219 Archbishop Meignans Struggle for Catholic Unity
Meignans ability to negotiate a deal between the government and the uvre de
Saint-Martin was undermined by covert real estate purchases as well as by articles in a
local royalist newspaper that discredited the archbishop.220 The Journal dIndre-et-Loire
voiced suspicion that Meignan was nominated to Tours because of the intervention of
Meignans mentor Henri Maret, who happened to be the uncle of the prefect, Antonin-
216
The decree stipulated that [Godard] est autoris, ds prsent, aliner aux enchres publiques, tous
les immeubles appartenant cet tablissement et ne concourant pas directement au but en vue duquel il a
t reconnu. Flix Martin-Feuille, Direction gnrale des Cultes, Ministre de la Justice et des Cultes,
Dcret, 5 July 1884, Archives nationales, F 19 3779. In response, the archbishop warned: Ces mesures,
Monsieur le Ministre, si elles taient excutes avec rigueur contribueraient certainement pour leur part
diminuer le respect envers le gouvernement et affaiblir le sentiment de la confiance. Guillaume-Ren
Meignan to Flix Martin-Feuille, 28 July 1884, Archives nationales, F 19 3779.
217
Je crains des actes qui seraient dsagrables au gouvernement & de nature agiter les catholiques.
Guillaume-Ren Meignan to mile Flourens, 14 July 1884, Archives nationales, F 19 3779.
218
Antonin-Charles-Lon Daunassans to Flix Martin-Feuille, 5 January 1885, Archives nationales, F 19

3779.
219
Guillaume-Ren Meignan to Joseph-Hippolyte Guibert, 31 December 1884. Quoted in Boissonnot, Le

Cardinal Meignan, 406.
220
On the editorial stance of the Journal dIndre-et-Loire, see the entry on the newspapers editor JulesAugustin Delahaye in Jean Jolly, ed., Delahaye (Jules-Augustin), in Dictionnaire des parlementaires
franais, vol. 4 (Paris: Presses universitaires franaises, 1966), 1296-1300. See also Gadille, La Pense et
laction politi ue des v ues ranais, 1: 190.
307
Charles-Lon Daunassans.221 The newspaper also insinuated that Meignan had entered
into a conspiracy with the government, when he should have been defending the interests
of the uvre.222 The attacks on Meignans reputation in the Journal dIndre-et-Loire
belonged to a larger campaign against liberal Catholics that was waged by the royalist
press, particularly the national Catholic newspaper LUnivers.223
Meignan interpreted the actions of the uvre de Saint-Martin to block the
proposed chapelle de secours, and the actions of the Journal dIndre-et-Loire to discredit
him, as part of a national threat to the unity of the Church. He wrote in a letter to the
bishops of France: lEglise de France est envahie par laction et linfluence illgitime
du lacisme et du journalisme (Meignans emphasis). He added an ominous warning:
Je ne vois pas sans apprhension cette mnace schismatique qui se dresse devant
lpiscopat non soumis au journalisme et au lacisme dominants.224 This echoed Leo
XIIIs exhortation of writers in particular to respect the authority of bishops.225 Meignan
also addressed the threat to his diocese in his 1885 Lenten pastoral letter titled Sur
lunit dans lglise et lunion entre catholiques. He instructed lay people to submit to
the clergy, particularly concerning the construction of a church: De la part de simples
fidles, personne ne songera soustraire cette affaire lvque, ce serait une des
usurpations signales par les canons. Personne ne prtendra la diriger souverainement, ce
221
Journal dIndre-et-Loire, 30 December 1883, quoted in Casimir Chevalier, Mmoire historico-juridique

sur luvre de saint Martin de Tours, suivi de pices justificatives (Tours: E. Mazereau, 1885), 53.
222
Journal dIndre-et-Loire, 10 December 1884; 21 December 1884, quoted in Chevalier, Mmoire

historico-juridique, 55.
223
Gadille, La Pense et laction politi ue des v ues ranais, 1: 244-246, 263.
224
Guillaume-Ren Meignan, Lettre de Mgr larchevque de Tours aux vques de France, Journal
dIndre-et-Loire 88, no. 22 (26-27 January 1885): 1. See the clipping in the Archives nationales, F 19
3779.
225
Lecanuet, Lglise de France sous la troisime Rpublique, 2: 216.
308
serait un empitement du laque sur lecclsiastique.226 Meignans appeal for unity,
implicitly directed at the uvre de Saint-Martin, was an application of Leo XIIIs policy
of conciliation among Catholics as a defense against the enemies of the Church.227
The Papal Judgment of 1885: Rome parl, la cause est finie228

Finally in July 1885, Leo XIII compelled the uvre de Saint-Martin to surrender
the donations for its building project to Msgr. Meignan. In 1862, Msgr. Guibert had
asked Pius IX to approve the undertaking of building a church on Martins tomb, which
he did. In 1885, Msgr. Meignan asked Leo XIII to arbitrate the stand-off between him
and the government on one side and the uvre de Saint-Martin on the other. He asked
Leo XIII: Les dpositaires sont-ils tenus verser entre nos mains, au fur et mesure de
nos besoins, les fonds ncessaires pour lexcution des travaux de la petite
basilique . . .?229 The pope responded: Les dtenteurs ou dpositaires des valeurs
recueillis qui composent le trsor . . . sont tenus de fournir larchevque les sommes qui
226
Guillaume-Ren Meignan, Lettre pastorale de Monseigneur larchev ue de Tours sur lunit dans
lglise et lunion entre catholiques et mandement pour le Carme de lan de grce 1885, no. 8 (Tours:
Alfred Mame, 29 January 1885), 14.
227
Quand, au sein de cette nation, des sectes et des ennemis de tout genre sunissent pour assaillir de toute
manire la religion, lglise du Christ, et ne ngligent rien pour liminer de tous les organes de la vie
sociale sa salutaire influence, quel est pour elle le suprme intrt? Cest que ses enfants cessent de
consumer leur temps et leurs forces saccuser et se combattre, laissant ainsi leurs adversaires toute
facilit de pousser toujours plus avant leurs dessins impies. Leo XIII to Papal Nuncio Msgr. di Rende, 4
November 1884, quoted in Guillaume-Ren Meignan, Mandement de Monseigneur larchev ue de Tours
portant condamnation dun article du Journal dIndre-et-Loire (Tours: Ernest Mazereau, 22 November
1888), 6. See also Lillian Parker Wallace, Leo XIII and the Rise of Socialism (Durham, NC: Duke
228
Guillaume-Ren Meignan, Lettre circulaire et mandement de Monseigneur larchev ue de Tours

portant publication de la dcision pontificale relative la basilique de Saint-Martin, no. 11 (Tours: Alfred
Mame, 29 August 1885), 11.
229

Mame, 29 August 1885), 9.
309
lui seront ncessaires pour la pieuse uvre de Saint-Martin au fur et mesure de ses
besoins. . . .230 Obliged by the judgment of Leo XIII, Eugne Goin yielded the British
Consols of the uvre to Msgr. Meignan, with the stipulation that his surrender remain
confidential, permitting him to maintain his reputation in Tours as a Catholic royalist
senator.231 Owing to the coercion of the Republican government and of a bishop and
pope eager to reconcile with the government, the project of the uvre to rebuild the
eleventh-century basilica on Martins tomb was suppressed. Instead of that project,
which implicitly condemned republican values, Meignan executed the design of Victor
Laloux. But at least one member of the uvre remained diehard in his commitment to
the project of the uvre. Stanislas Ratel wrote in 1887, after digging began for Lalouxs
church: Ils ne dtruiront pas lide rparatrice de M. Dupont. Elle germera dans les
fondations mutiles; ils lui prparent un plus beau triomphe. Des mains chrtiennes
retrouveront, quelque jour, la vieille Basilique travers ces pierres accumules avec tant
dartifice pour la faire oublier.232
230

Mame, 29 August 1885), 10.
231
For the prefects characterization of Goin see Antonin-Charles-Lon Daunassans to Ren Goblet, 20
December 1885, Archives nationales, F 19 3779. For Goins biography see Adolphe Robert and Gaston
Cougny, eds., Goin (Eugne), in Dictionnaire des parlementaires franais, vol. 3 (Paris: Bourloton,
1890), 214-215; and Michel Laurencin, Goin Eugne, in Dictionnaire biographique de Touraine
(Chambray-ls-Tours: CLD, 1990), 298-299. For Daunassans biography see Henri Jouve, ed.,
Dictionnaire biographique . . . du dpartement dIndre-et-Loire (Paris: Henri Jouve, 1895), n. p.; and Ren
Bargeton, Dictionnaire biographique des prfets, septembre 1870-mai 1982 (Paris: Archives nationales,
1994), 182.
232
Stanislas Ratel, Note sur la cession dune maison provenant de la succession du Comte Pdre Moisant
(Poitiers: Oudin, 1887), 7.
310
The Politics of Christian Archaeology and the Basilica of Saint-Martin in Tours by Victor
Laloux
Georges Rohault de Fleury (1835-1904)--an architect, architectural historian, and
third order Dominican who was the brother of Hubert, one of the initiators of the SacrCur on Montmartre--commented in 1883 on the increasing synergy between
archaeology and the Church. In the introduction to an eight-volume book on the
archaeology of the Catholic mass, he wrote that: Larchologie devient de plus en plus
une science religieuse, elle fait de lhistoire de lglise un bloc unique o dix-neuf sicles
sont relis par un ciment invincible.233 His observation draws attention to two
seemingly contradictory aspects of late nineteenth-century archaeology. First, the
discipline was seen as a science. Methodologies used in the study of natural phenomena
were applied to historical artifacts.234 Second, archaeology was employed by the Church
to lend historical authenticity to late nineteenth-century dogma and liturgy. The Church
offered finds from early Christian burial sites and places of worship as evidence that it
remained true to its origins. The historian Philippe Boutry has called the approach
archologie apologtique.235 In Tours, Msgr. Meignan offered a design for a church on
Martins tomb that was based on the archaeology of a church built on the tomb in 471.
Lalouxs design, which was influenced by Jules Quicherats reconstruction of the early
233
Georges Rohault de Fleury, Avertissement, in La Messe: tudes archologiques sur ses monuments,
by Charles Rohault de Fleury, ed. Georges Rohault de Fleury (Paris: V. A. Morel, 1883), 1: i. For
Georges Rohault de Fleurys biography see Bauchal, Nouveau dictionnaire biographique et critique des
architectes franais, 720; E. Delaire, Les Architectes lves de lcole des eau -arts, 2nd ed. (Paris:
Librarie de la Construction moderne, 1907), 392; and Benoist, Le Sacr-Cur de Montmartre, 1: 62.
234
Jean Nayrolles, LInvention de lart roman lpo ue moderne (XVIIIe-XIXe sicles) (Rennes: Presses
universitaires de Rennes, 2005), 19-21.
235
Philippe Boutry, Les Saints des catacombes: Itinraires franais dune pit ultramontaine (18801881), Mlanges de lcole Franaise de Rome Moyen Age, temps modernes 91, no. 2 (1979): 918-919.
311
Christian church, imparted historical authenticity to Meignans ideas on the authority of
bishops and the role of the modern Church.236
Casimir Chevalier: Lme de lentreprise237

Msgr. Meignan worked in Tours to improve the quality of priests educations and
he surrounded himself with scholarly priests.238 He contributed to the revival of religious
learning initiated by Leo XIII. The pope worked to improve the quality of priests
educations by returning the study of Saint Thomas Aquinas to seminary curricula and he
opened the Vatican archives to scholars.239 Chief among Meignans group of scholarly
priests was Msgr. Casimir Chevalier (1825-93).240 While training for the priesthood in
the Grand Sminaire de Tours, Chevalier was captivated by the classes of the Abb JeanJacques Bourass (1813-72). In 1839, Bourass inaugurated the second French seminary
chair in archologie sacr. The first one was at the Grand Sminaire de Beauvais. 241
236
The fifth-century Basilica of Saint-Martin is referred to here as early Christian rather than Merovingian
because it was built in 471 and Clovis, the Merovingian king of the Franks, did not conquer the Touraine
until 507. See Charles Grandmaison, Tours archologique: Histoire et monuments, part 2, Bulletin
monumental 39, no. 1 (1873): 351; and Patrick J. Geary, Before France and Germany: The Creation and
Transformation of the Merovingian World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 86-87.
237
. . . Mgr Chevalier, historiographe du diocse et clerc national du Sacr-Collge pour la France. Sans
son intervention active, intelligente, la basilique de Saint-Martin, peut-tre, serait construire. Il fut lme
de lentreprise. Boissonnot, Le Cardinal Meignan, 408.
238
Jacques Gadille, Meignan, in Dictionnaire de spiritualit, vol. 10 (Paris: Beauchesne, 1980), 938.
239
Lillian Parker Wallace, Leo XIII in a Scientific World, in Leo XIII and the Rise of Socialism (Durham,
NC: Duke University Press, 1966), 212-215.
240
My analysis of Chevaliers role in planning the Basilica of Saint-Martin is published in: Jessica
Basciano, Lme de lentreprise: Casimir Chevalier et la basilique Saint-Martin de Tours de Victor
Laloux, Mmoires de lAcadmie des sciences, arts et elles-lettres de Touraine 23 (2010): 401-426.
241
Casimir Chevalier, LAbb Bourass, in Archologie chrtienne ou prcis de lhistoire des

monuments religieux du moyen ge, by Jean-Jacques Bourass, ed. Casimir Chevalier, 9th ed. (Tours:
Alfred Mame et fils, 1886), 6; Guy-Marie Oury, La Vitalit de la foi au milieu du XIXe sicle, in
Histoire religieuse de la Touraine, ed. Guy-Marie Oury (Tours: CLD Normand, 1975), 274.
312
One of many provincial archaeologists within the orbit of the influential Norman
archaeologist Arcisse de Caumont, Bourass was interested in making Christian
archaeology widely accessible rather than advancing the field.242 When Chevalier
became a priest, Archbishop Morlot asked him to master both ecclesiastical and natural
sciences so he could defend the Church on all grounds.243 Fulfilling Morlots request,
Chevalier published on geology, history, and archaeology. Morlots successor Msgr.
Guibert was prejudiced against Chevalier and all educated priests, and he marginalized
them in the diocese.244 In 1869 Chevalier was also slandered because of his connections
to Chenonceaux, where he had written a history of the chteau, particularly because of his
acquaintance with the owners son, the leftist deputy of Loches Daniel Wilson.245 In
1875 Msgr. Colet named Chevalier the historiographe du diocse in recognition of his
242
Nous navons jamais eu la prtention de faire avancer la science; nous avons essay de la rendre
accessible tous. Jean-Jacques Bourass, Archologie chrtienne ou prcis de lhistoire des monuments
religieux du moyen ge, ed. Casimir Chevalier, 9th ed. (Tours: Alfred Mame et fils, 1886), 16. For
Bourasss biography and a list of his publications see J.-X. Carr de Busserolle, Bourrass (JeanJacques), in Dictionnaire gographi ue, histori ue, et iographi ue dIndre-et-Loire et de lancienne
province de Touraine (Tours: Rouill-Ladevze, 1878; reprint, Mayenne: Joseph Floch, 1977), 1: 340344. On Bourass in the context of provincial archaeology see Jean Hubert, Archologie mdivale, in
Histoire et ses mthodes, ed. Charles Samaran (Paris: Gallimard, 1967), 299.
243
Je dsire, lui dit-il, que vous meniez de front les sciences ecclsiastiques et les sciences naturelles.
Lglise a besoin dhommes qui puissent la dfendre sur tous les terrains. Il faut que vous soyez lun de
ces hommes. Verger, Monseigneur Casimir Chevalier, 15.
244
Ce nest un secret pour personne quil ne fut pas apprci sa valeur par lminent prlat qui
gouvernait alors lglise de Tours. Mgr Guibert avait t prvenu contre lui ds dans le diocse, et il ne lui
arriva que rarement de donner au cur de Civray des marques de bienveillance. Verger, Monseigneur
Casimir Chevalier, 71. Guibert, homme minent dautres titres, avait dinstinct lhorreur des
supriorits; il rlguait quelque Pathmos tout prtre suspect dtude ou de science; il dcapita le
diocse. Boissonnot, Le Cardinal Meignan, 397.
245
Verger, Monseigneur Casimir Chevalier, 73. Wilson was later caught trafficking the Lgion dhonneur,
which led to the forced resignation of his father-in-law President Jules Grvy in 1887. Adolphe Robert et
al., eds., Wilson (Daniel), in Dictionnaire des parlementaires franais, vol. 5 (Paris: Bourloton, 1891),
562-569.
313
impressive publishing record.246 And in 1885 Msgr. Meignan named him chanoine
dhonneur de notre glise mtropolitaine de Tours.247
Beyond the diocese, Chevalier gained experience in politics and archaeology in
Rome. He had a reputation for good relations with the government,248 so in 1878 he was
given the position of clerc national du sacr Collge et de secrtaire consistorial pour la
France by the archaeologist William Henry Waddington (1826-94), then the Ministre
des Affaires trangres.249 Chevalier arrived in Rome to start the job in February 1879
and two months later Leo XIII promoted him to camrier secret, which came with the
title of Monsignore.250 The official role of clerc national had been reduced since the
establishment of permanent embassies to the Holy See. Nevertheless, Chevalier used the
position to work to improve Franco-Vatican relations. He defended the interests of
France in Rome against Germany and the interests of the Church in France against
anticlericalism.251
In Rome, Chevalier combined his job as clerc national with studies in Christian
archaeology. His teacher was Giovanni-Battista De Rossi (1822-94). One turn-of-thetwentieth-century biography of De Rossi hails him as le prince de larchologie
246
Verger, Monseigneur Casimir Chevalier, 121.
247
248
Ladministration civile recourait volontiers ses lumires et son zle. Jamais labb Chevalier ne lui
a refus son concours, persuad que lharmonie entre les deux pouvoirs est dsirable et que les
ecclsiastiques et les laques gagnent se rapprocher et se mieux connatre. Verger, Monseigneur
Casimir Chevalier, 79 n. 1.
249
Benot Yvert, ed., Dictionnaire de ministres de 1789 1989 (Paris: Perrin, 1990), 639-640.
250
251
Avec la perscution, disait-il, la France perdra le droit dagir auprs du pape par voie de conseils
bienveillants, lAllemagne prendra sa place et finera par germaniser toute lItalie. Verger, Monseigneur
Casimir Chevalier, 161.
314
chrtienne au XIXe sicle,252 another credits him with transforming Christian
archaeology from an amateur pastime to a science.253 With subsidies from Pius IX, De
Rossi systematically explored the Roman catacombs.254 He thereby established new
chronologies and topographies for the history of religion and the history of art.255 The
purpose of his work was to substantiate the traditional, Catholic history of the early
Church and its continuity and development through the Middle Ages.256 In Rome,
Chevalier was elected as associ dhonneur tranger, socio di onore, de lAcadmie
pontificale darchologie de Rome, dont lillustre M. J.-B. de Rossi tait prsident.257
He absorbed De Rossis work by reading his numerous publications and attending his
public tours of the catacombs. Politically astute and steeped in Christian archaeology,
Chevalier returned to Tours to become Meignans most trusted advisor in meeting the
challenge of building a church on the tomb of Saint Martin.258
252
Joseph Tixeront, Le Prince de larchologie chrtienne au XIXe sicle Jean-Baptiste de Rossi (Lyon:
Emmanuel Vitte, 1901).
253
Paul Allard, Jean-Baptiste de Rossi, tudes dhistoire et darchologie (1899): 142.
254
Tixeront, Le Prince de larchologie chrtienne au XIXe sicle, 16-17.
255
Thophile Roller, Jean-Baptiste de Rossi, Revue de lhistoire des religions 30 (1894): 199.
256
Cest vers lhistoire que tendait son uvre multiple: prciser davantage lhistoire de lglise romaine
primitive, de sa doctrine, de sa hirarchie, de sa liturgie, de son art et en montrer la continuit et le
dveloppement travers tout le Moyen Age, voil le rsultat dernier de ses efforts, voil ce qui lui a valu sa
renomme universelle. Jean Guiraud, Jean-Baptiste de Rossi. Sa personne et son uvre, Revue
historique 58 (May-August 1895): 62.
257
258
Au milieu de ses douloureux embarras, larchevque trouva dans un des membres les plus
remarquables de son clerg, un conseiller sr et un ami immuablement fidle: Mgr Chevalier,
historiographe du diocse et clerc national du Sacr-Collge pour la France. Boissonnot, Le Cardinal
Meignan, 408.
315
Meignan and Chevalier: Planning the Basilica of Saint-Martin before Laloux
Meignan and Chevalier began to discuss the design for a church on Martins tomb
when Meignan was still waiting for the governments permission to build a chapelle de
secours (it came in December 1885) and the uvre de Saint-Martin was still aggressively
fighting him. On September 19, 1884, Chevalier wrote to Meignan to tell him that he had
sketched a plan that resolved the problems of the proposed rue Descartes site, meaning
that the plan reconciled the fixed tomb and the sites north-south orientation: Jai rdig
un plan de basilique, lchelle dun centimtre pour mtre. Tous les problmes
soulevs par lemplacement spcial de la future chapelle y sont rsolus. Je porterai ce
plan votre Grandeur. Je serais heureux quil obtient votre approbation.259 Meignan
notified Flix Martin-Feuille, the Ministre de la Justice et des Cultes, the next day: Jai
dj entre les mains un plan de la Chapelle lever, sorte davant projet que je me
propose de vous soumettre pour arriver un plan dfinitif.260
The plan he referred to is probably an unsigned, undated sketch conserved in the
Archives diocsaines de Tours, which is a prototype for the Basilica of Saint-Martin by
Victor Laloux (fig. 140).261 Chevaliers letter of September 19, the plan, and a
preliminary written program, also unsigned and undated, are in a collection of documents
that Chevalier left to the Abb Paul Athanase Verger (1841-1914), his biographer, and
259
Casimir Chevalier to Guillaume-Ren Meignan, 19 September 1884, Archives diocsaines de Tours,

bote 2953, Dossier reserv: Basilique St Martin.
260
Guillaume-Ren Meignan to Martin-Feuille, 20 September 1884, Archives dpartementales dIndre-etLoire, 5 V 4 326; Archives nationales, F 19 3779.
261
In the sketch, the text in red at top, below the word place, reads: maisons de luvre abattre pour
agrandir la place et la rue. The text in blue, spiraling around the word tombeau, reads: dme
exactement sur lancienne crypte reconquise par un change du pt des maisons rouges. Below, the text
in red reads: Devant ce dme imit de celui de Boulogne sur mer et occupant les fondations de lancienne
crypte (terrain national et historique) se trouve cette chapelle spcial au dme et de plain pied avec lui. At
the bottom, the blue text reads: Marches ou escalier de la chapelle du dme. Archives diocsaines de
Tours, bote 2953, Dossier reserv: Basilique St Martin.
316
which Verger in turn gave to the Archives diocsaines.262 The plan conforms to
Meignans June 1, 1884 proposal. The church overlaps the site of the eleventh-century
Basilica of Saint-Martin and there is a square next to the tour Charlemagne.263 Contained
within the maximum area that the government would allow, the church is bordered by the
rues Saint-Martin, Descartes, and Baleschoux.264 It is labeled glise paroissiale, which
gives it a legal status.265 The most striking feature of the church is the dome. The center
of the dome is the tomb and the circumference stands on the foundations of the former
crypt. The text in the plan states that the dome imitates that of the Cathedral of NotreDame in Boulogne-sur-mer (1839-56). Meignan knew the cathedral, which is in the
diocese of Arras, from when he was the bishop of Arras (1882-84).266 The Abb Benoit
Agathon Haffreingue (1785-1871) built the cathedral on the site of a Gothic cathedral
demolished in 1798, as part of an effort to revive the pilgrimage of Notre-Dame de
Boulogne.267 The dome that covers the cathedral is elevated by two superimposed drums
262
Mgr Chevalier ma lgu en mourant toute sa correspondance, ses notes, souvenirs et mmoires, et
gnralement tous ses papiers, pour en disposer ma guise. Verger, Monseigneur Casimir Chevalier, 5.
Inside bote 2953, which contains the letter, plan, and project description, a slip of paper identifes its
contents: Envoi de Monsieur Le chanoine Verger / VI / Affaires de Saint Martin Correspondances
Documents--1884-1885--trs Confidentiel.
263
Antonin-Charles-Lon Daunassans to Flix Martin-Feuille, 2 June 1884, Archives nationales, F 19

3779.
264
Jinsistai pour que larchevque fut bien convaincu quen prsence du Dcret du 5 juillet, le maximum
de concessions quil tait possible dobtenir du Gouvernement, serait la conservation des maisons qui
existent autour de la chapelle provisoire construite sur le tombeau de St Martin. Ce pt de maisons est
circonscrit par les rues St Martin, Descartes et Baleschoux. La superficie du terrain est suffisante pour y
lever une chapelle de secours trs convenable, en restant dans lalignement de ces rues. AntoninCharles-Lon Daunassans to Flix Martin-Feuille, 7 August 1884, Archives nationales, F 19 3779.
265
On the legal definition of a parish and a parish church during the period of the Concordat see JeanMichel Leniaud, LAdministration des cultes pendant la priode concordataire (Paris: Nouvelles ditions
latines, 1988), 48-49.
266
Boissonnot, Le Cardinal Meignan, 392.
267
Yves-Marie Hilaire, La Vie religieuse dune cit en expansion, in Histoire de Boulogne-sur-mer, ed.
317
more than one hundred meters above the remaining foundations of the former
cathedral.268
Meignan soon told the diocese about his ideas for the church on Martins tomb.
He said that the church would provide un service paroissial rclam depuis longtemps
par les fidles dun quartier populeux et trop distant de toute glise.269 He explained that
the parish service was the only way to guarantee the legal and peaceful ownership of the
new church.270 But he neglected to mention that the church would be a chapelle de
secours rather than a full-fledged parish church. He said that he wanted un sanctuaire
dfinitif et rappelant autant que possible la gloire des difices dtruits au commencement
de ce sicle.271 He said that he sought la satisfaction dlever sur le tombeau de saint
Martin une glise qui, par son architecture et ses proportions, rappellera les ges du saint
Thaumaturge.272 And he insisted that he would not be stopped by les regrets
Alain Lottin (Lille: Presses universitaires de Lille, 1983), 289-292.

268
Jacques Thibaut, Les difices religieux, in Histoire de Boulogne-sur-mer, ed. Alain Lottin (Lille:
Presses universitaires de Lille, 1983), 303-308.
269
Guillaume-Ren Meignan, Lettre pastorale et mandement de Monseigneur larchev ue de Tours

loccasion de la te de Saint Martin, no. 6 (Tours: Alfred Mame, 13 October 1884), 4.
270
. . . nous proposons dtablir dans le futur temple de saint Martin un service paroissial rclam depuis
longtemps par les fidles dun quartier populeux et trop distant de toute glise. En mme temps que nous
rendrons service une population laborieuse qui le mrite, nous crerons ainsi des garanties de possession
lgale et paisible que nous chercherions vainement dans une autre combinaison. Guillaume-Ren
Meignan, Lettre pastorale et mandement de Monseigneur larchev ue de Tours loccasion de la te de
Saint Martin, no. 6 (Tours: Alfred Mame, 13 October 1884), 4.
271
Nous voudrions, N. T. C. F., que, dans cette fte de saint Martin, un sanctuaire dfinitif et rappelant
autant que possible la gloire des difices dtruits au commencement de ce sicle, souvrt dans une jeunesse
radieuse la dvotion des fidles. Guillaume-Ren Meignan, Lettre pastorale et mandement de
Monseigneur larchev ue de Tours loccasion de la te de Saint Martin, no. 6 (Tours: Alfred Mame,
13 October 1884), 4.
272
Ne pouvant faire tout ce que nous souhaitons, nous ferons ce que nous pouvons. Nous aurons du moins
la satisfaction dlever sur le tombeau de saint Martin une glise qui, par son architecture et ses
proportions, rappellera les ges du saint Thaumaturge. Guillaume-Ren Meignan, Lettre pastorale et
mandement de Monseigneur larchev ue de Tours loccasion de la te de Saint Martin, no. 6 (Tours:
Alfred Mame, 13 October 1884), 4.
318
honorables et touchants de ceux qui avaient espr la reconstruction de la grande
basilique du XIe sicle273 Rather than rebuild the basilica destroyed in the Revolution,
Meignan wanted to evoke the historical period in which Martin lived. Earlier, in his first
pastoral letter as archbishop of Tours of June 15, 1884, Meignan had compared the
nineteenth century with the fourth century, and himself with Martin. Referring to Martin,
he said that les armes de son apostolat sont encore les ntres, et lon peut dire que ses
combats sont aussi nos combats. Lidoltrie, il est vrai, a chang de forme, et les idoles
de nom; mais notre sicle en est-il moins paen? La richesse, la volupt, lorgueil,
lambition, la fausse science sont encore des dieux trop bien servis et beaucoup trop
honors.274 By choosing the early Christian style for the church on Martins tomb,
Meignan further connected post-Revolutionary France with pre-Christian Gaul and
himself with Martin.
Chevalier was the ideal person to help Meignan realize the church in the early
Christian style. After the tomb of Saint Martin was excavated in 1860, Chevalier
published a book titled Figure historique de Saint Martin: tude sur son rle et sur son
influence, in which he argued that Martin played a pivotal role in the emergence of
French Christian civilization.275 In 1869, Chevalier and his former teacher Bourass cowrote a book titled Recherches historiques et archologiques sur les glises romanes en
273
Nous ne pourrions, N. T. C. F., tre arrt dans notre projet par les regrets honorables et touchants de
ceux qui avaient espr la reconstruction de la grande basilique du XIe sicle. Guillaume-Ren Meignan,
Lettre pastorale et mandement de Monseigneur larchev ue de Tours loccasion de la te de Saint
Martin, no. 6 (Tours: Alfred Mame, 13 October 1884), 5.
274
Guillaume-Ren Meignan, Lettre pastorale et mandement de Monseigneur larchevque de Tours

loccasion de la prise de possession du sige archipiscopal [sic], supplement to the Messager dIndre-etLoire, 15 June 1884, 2.
275
. . . saint Martin, dans ces luttes suprmes, se lve toujours au milieu de nos rangs, comme le champion
de la France, et comme le sauveur de la civilisation. Casimir Chevalier, Figure historique de saint
Martin: tude sur son rle et sur son influence (Tours: Bouserez, 1862), 11.
319
Touraine. They dedicated a chapter to churches predating the seventh century and
deliberately challenged the established view that nothing remained of these structures.276
According to his biographer Verger, Chevalier dreamed of rebuilding the fifth-century
church that had stood on Martins tomb already when he was in Rome. To that end, he
studied the style basilical in depth.277 Several early Christian basilicas in and around
Rome had been restored with papal support earlier in the nineteenth century, including
San Paolo fuori le mura (restored beginning in 1823), SantAgnese fuori le mura
(restored from 1855 to 1864), and San Lorenzo fuori le mura (restored from 1862 to
1865).278 The result of Chevaliers studies was that in 1878 he wrote a manuscript that
contained detailed descriptions of early Christian basilicas in Rome. The manuscript was
published posthumously in 1896 as a book titled Rome et ses pontifes.279
276
Cest mme une espce daxiome en archologie quil ne subsiste presque rien des monuments les plus
anciens, . . . nous protestions involontairement contre lopinion communment accrdite. Jean-Jacques
Bourass and Casimir Chevalier, Les glises de Touraine antrieures au VIIe sicle, in Recherches
historiques et archologiques sur les glises romanes en Touraine, du VIe au XIe sicle (Tours: Ladevze,
1869), 1-2.
277
Il tait persuad que le clerg de Touraine aurait un jour dire son mot sur la question du tombeau de
saint Martin, et, sans souponner encore la part que la Providence lui rservait dans cette uvre, il rvait,
au lieu dune glise romane du XIe sicle, une basilique qui reproduist autant que possible celle de saint
Perpet. Il tudia donc fond le style basilical, afin den parler avec comptence quand lheure serait
venue. Verger, Monseigneur Casimir Chevalier, 166.
278
On the restoration of San Paolo fuori le mura and San Lorenzo fuori le mura see Terry Kirk, The
Architecture of Modern Italy (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2005), 1: 172-174, 220. On the
restoration of San Lorenzo fuori le mura and Sant Agnese fuori le mura see Suzanne Mulder, Image
Building by Means of Church Restorations: Conservation of Ancient Monuments, Evangelic Diligence,
and Church Policy under the Pontificate of Pius IX during the Years 1850-1870, in The Power of Imagery:
Essays on Rome, Italy, and Imagination, ed. Peter van Kessel (Rome: Apeiron, 1992), 85-89, 277 n. 2.
279
Louvrage de Mgr Chevalier, compos Rome en 1878, se terminait la mort de Pie VII. Il a paru
convenable de la complter en y ajoutant lhistoire des derniers papes. Abb Paul Verger, Le pouvoir
temporel et les socits secrtes, 1823-1895, chap. 27 in Rome et ses pontifes, histoires, traditions,
monuments, by Casimir Chevalier (Tours: A. Mame, 1896), 383.
320
Returning pensionnaire Victor Laloux
By October 1884, Chevalier had asked Victor Laloux (1850-1937) to work with
him to design the new Basilica of Saint-Martin. Born in Tours to a family of carpenters,
Laloux trained for two years in the office of Lon Rohard (1836-82), the architect of the
Thtre Municipal in Tours (1868).280 Chevalier first met him at Chenonceaux when
Chevalier was the historian of the chteau and Laloux was a student, probably in the late
1860s.281 In 1869 Laloux entered the cole des Beaux-Arts and the atelier of Jules
Andr, the architect of the Musum dhistoire naturelle in Paris (starting in 1872).282
After eight years of study interrupted by the war of 1870-1871, Laloux won the Grand
Prix de Rome of 1878 for his design of a cathedral in an important diocese.283 Charles
Questel, who built Saint-Paul at Nmes (1835-40), suggested the program. He had
already suggested it unsuccessfully in 1873, 1875, and 1877. The choice can be
understood in the context of the 1874 competition for the Sacr-Cur.284 The program
called for naves, a choir, chapels, sacristies, and a feature of special relevance to Lalouxs
future project for Saint-Martin: Une crypte, pour la spulture des vques, sous le
280
F.-B. Chaussemiche, Notice sur la vie et les travaux de Victor Laloux (Paris: Albert Moranc, n. d.), 4.
For Rohards biography see Michel Laurencin, Dictionnaire biographique de Touraine (Chambray-lsTours: CLD, 1990), 512.
281
La mission dlever la Basilique de Saint-Martin sur le tombeau quinze fois centenaire de lAptre des
Gaules lui vint de lamiti de Monseigneur Chevalier quil avait vu Chenonceaux et que, plus tard, il avait
mieux connu Rome, lors de son sjour en la Ville Eternelle. Chaussemiche, Notice sur la vie et les
travaux de Victor Laloux, 11.
282
For Andrs biography see Julien Guadet, Notice sur la vie et les uvres de M. Andr, LArchitecture
3, no. 35 (30 August 1890): 417-420; no. 36 (6 September 1890): 429-431.
283
Chaussemiche, Notice sur la vie et les travaux de Victor Laloux, 5.
284
Crosnier Leconte, Victor Laloux, 8.
321
sanctuaire.285 Lalouxs design has a Latin-cross plan, a vast lower church, and a
gigantic dome that was a reference to Saint Peters in Rome (figs. 141-143).286
Chevalier and Laloux met again at the Villa Medici when Chevalier was a clerc
national at the Vatican and Laloux was a pensionnaire at the Acadmie de France
Rome.287 While he was a pensionnaire Laloux traveled extensively in Italy, from Sicily
to Venice, and to Greece, Constantinople, and Egypt.288 He traveled alone, except on a
long trip to Venice in 1880, where he was accompanied by Paul-Henri Nnot (18531934), the Grand Prix winner of 1877.289 Lalouxs third-year envoi of 1882 was a
restoration study of the Temple of Venus and Rome in the Roman Forum, already twice
285
cole nationale des Beaux-Arts, Les Grands pri de Rome darchitecture de 1850 1900:
Reproduction en phototypie des 1ers, 2mes, 2mes seconds Grands Prix avec les programmes des concours:
Sujets donns par lacadmie des eau -Arts (Paris: Armand Gurinet, 1904), 1: 6.
286
287
In 1885, in a deposition to a municipal commission, Chevalier explained how he knew Laloux in Rome
and how he and Meignan came to choose him as the architect of the Basilica of Saint-Martin:
M. Chevalier termina en racontant comment il fut amen prsenter M. Laloux comme architecte
de la Chapelle Mgr Meignan. Cest un Tourangeau, un artiste minent.
M. Chevalier lavait vu travailler Rome, il connaissait son talent. Depuis de grands travaux
excuts en Grce lavaient mis beaucoup en vue et sa restitution du temple dOlympie, qui lui valut au
salon la mdaille dhonneur, consacra son mrite et justifia le choix quil avait inspir.
Ce choix saccordait dailleurs avec lintention de lArchevque, qui avait dcid quon
nemploierait que des ouvriers de Tours, afin que la ville profitt des normes dpenses faire. Ville de
Tours, Commission de lInstruction publique, Dposition de M. labb Chevalier: Reconstruction de la
Chapelle de St-Martin: Sance du Mardi 7 Juillet 1885, p. 18, Archives nationales, F 19 3779. Paul
Verger also explained how Chevalier knew Laloux and other artists from the Touraine in Rome:
A la villa Mdicis, dirige dabord par M. Cabat, puis par M. Hbert, il trouva en arrivant, parmi
les pensionnaires de la France, deux jeunes artistes: M. Laloux, architecte, qui commenait se faire
connatre par dadmirables restitutions des monuments romains, en attendant quil devnt le constructeur de
Saint-Martin, et M. Grasset, sculpteur. Celui-ci, fils dun simple maon ou pltrier de Preuilly, qui stait
lev par ses seuls efforts jusqu devenir un bon sculpteur, avait de brillantes facults et promettait une
illustration de plus notre province: une mort imprvue, due limplacable fivre typhode, lenleva le 15
novembre 1880. La Touraine la remplac depuis la villa Mdicis par un autre sculpteur, M. Sicard,
comme pour affirmer la fcondit de son gnie artistique. Verger, Monseigneur Casimir Chevalier, 139.
288
Lalouxs biographers do not make clear the order of his travels. Chaussemiche, Notice sur la vie et les
travaux de Victor Laloux, 7; Charles Lemaresquier, Notice sur la vie et les travaux de Victor Laloux (18501937) (Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1938), 7-9; H. Bartle Cox, M. Laloux: The Man and His Work, The
Architects Journal 51 (1921): 556.
289
Lemaresquier, Notice sur la vie et les travaux de Victor Laloux, 8 n. 1.
322
the study of fourth-year envois by Lon Vaudoyer (1830) and Ernest Coquart (1863).290
Lalouxs subject for his fourth-year envoi of 1883 was more original: it was the panHellenic pilgrimage site of Olympia in Greece.
Abel Blouet started to excavate Olympia in 1829, as part of the More expedition,
and published his findings from 1831 to 1838.291 The cole franaise dAthnes tried to
resume Blouets work but was blocked by a treaty signed by Germany and Greece in
1874 that authorized Germany to spend the equivalent of more than one million francs to
dig in the area. Between 1875 and 1881, a German team unearthed the remains of
buildings and walls, as well as inscriptions, coins, and sculptures in marble, bronze, and
terracotta.292 Then in 1882 the German government gave Laloux permission to examine
the site.
Judging from his graphic reconstructions and two books based on his studies,
LArchitecture grec ue of 1888 and Restauration dOlympie LHistoire--les
monuments, le culte et les ftes of 1889 (written in collaboration with Paul Monceaux, a
former student of the cole franaise dAthnes),293 Laloux was interested in the temples
290
The subjects of Lalouxs envois are as follows:

En 1880.--Envoi de 1re anne: Entablements corinthiens emprunts la Basilique Ulpia, au
Temple du Soleil et au Forum Transitorium.
En 1881.--2e anne: Dessins daprs le Panthon. Le monument du comte Ugo en lglise de la
Badia;--Palais Pessaro et Palais de lAncienne Bibliothque Saint-Marc Venise.
En 1882.--3e anne: Essai de restauration du Temple de Vnus Rome et un trs beau relev du
plafond du Palais Farnse.
En 1883.--4 anne: Deux dessins dOlympie. Lemaresquier, Notice sur la vie et les travaux de
Victor Laloux, 9 n. 1. On Lalouxs envois see also Crosnier Leconte, Victor Laloux, 10.
291
Abel Blouet, Expdition scientifique de More, ordonne par le gouvernement franais: Architecture,
sculptures, inscriptions, et vues du Ploponse, des Cyclades et de lAtlanti ue, 3 vols. (Paris: Firmin
Didot, 1831-38). See also Victor Laloux and Paul Monceaux, Restauration dOlympie (Paris: Quantin,
1889), 42-46.
292
Laloux and Monceaux, Restauration dOlympie, 46-47.
293
323
as well as the artifacts of the pilgrimage site, some of which he called ex-votos (fig.
144).294 Laloux used vivid language to evoke how pilgrims experienced the complex:
La foule des plerins et les processions solennelles dfilaient entre une double haie de
monuments, de bosquets, de tribunes, de sculptures, dautels, dex-voto de tout genre. Et
partout les curieux ou les dvots, accourus au grand plerinage, voyaient briller en
marbre ou en bronze la majest de Zeus.295 Charles Lemaresquier, a student of Laloux,
suggested that with his graphic reconstruction of Olympia, Laloux linked the ancient
Greek religion with modern Catholicism: il a reforg lanneau de la chane rompue,
reli la foi antique aux croyances des temps modernes et fait revivre, pour nous, les
Dieux morts, en droulant, sur les sables voisins de lAlphe, le linceul de pourpre o
Ernest Renan avait tent de les ensevelir au pied de lAcropole.296
When Laloux returned to France he launched his career in Tours instead of Paris,
because competition was less intense there.297 Laloux was an obvious choice for the
position of architect of the Basilica of Saint-Martin because he was from Tours, he had
won the prestigious Grand Prix de Rome, and Chevalier knew him already.298 Moreover,
there was a parallel between Olympia, the pan-Hellenic pilgrimage site, and the Basilica
of Saint-Martin, a pilgrimage site that Chevalier described as le plus rvr des Gaules,
294
Laloux and Monceaux, Restauration dOlympie, 152-153.
295
Laloux and Monceaux, Restauration dOlympie, 131.
296
Lemaresquier, Notice sur la vie et les travaux de Victor Laloux, 10.
297
298
It is unclear what role religion played in Chevaliers choice of Laloux. The architect had been a member
of a freemasons lodge from 1873 to 1876, but also had a strong attachment to the basilica he built. He
personally paid for the plantings of the parvis and his funeral service was held in the church. Conversely,
the ardent faith of Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy and Hippolyte Durand was a decisive factor in their
selection for pilgrimage church commissions. See Crosnier Leconte, Victor Laloux, 13, 18, and 74 n. 38.
324
le plus clbre du monde aprs les sanctuaires de Jrusalem et de Rome.299 After
Laloux designed Saint-Martin, he went on to enjoy a long and successful career in Tours
and Paris. He built major public buildings, including the Gare de Tours (1895-98), the
Htel de Ville of Tours (1897-1904), and the Gare dOrsay in Paris (1898-1900), now the
Muse dOrsay. He also ran a large teaching atelier for students of the cole des BeauxArts (opened in 1890).
Msgr. Meignan commissioned Chevalier and Laloux to study un projet de
chapelle pour St-Martin, sur le modle des basiliques latines du Ve-VIe sicle. In
response, on October 27, 1884 the two sent Meignan a letter, a project description, and
les croquis, tel que nous les avons discuts avec vous plusieurs reprises, et tels que
vous avez daign les approuver.300 They urged Meignan to submit the project to the
Ministre des Cultes for his approval, avant daller plus loin et de poursuivre les tudes
une plus grande chelle.301 The sketches are lost, but the accompanying letter and
project description survive. The project description offers insight into how the project
was informed by archaeology and the history of architecture. It begins as follows: La
chapelle de St-Martin porte le nom de basilique [sic] sur les plans, parce quelle affecte la
forme des basiliques antiques. On sest appliqu suivre aussi exactement quil a t
299
Dans ce sanctuaire, le plus rvr des Gaules, le plus clbre du monde aprs les sanctuaires de
Jrusalem et de Rome, accouraient des multitudes de plerins, qui venaient puiser ce foyer sacr lardeur
de lesprit chrtien. Chevalier, Figure historique de saint Martin, 13.
300
Chargs par Votre Grandeur dtudier un projet de chapelle pour St-Martin, sur le modle des
basiliques latines du Ve-VIe Sicle, nous avons lhonneur de vous remettre les croquis, tels que nous les
avons discuts avec vous plusieurs reprises, et tels que vous avez daign les approuver. Casimir
Chevalier and Victor Laloux to Guillaume-Ren Meignan, 27 October 1884, Archives nationales, F 19
3779.
301
Avant daller plus loin et de poursuivre les tudes une plus grande chelle, nous vous prions de
soumettre lavant-projet lexamen de M. le Ministre des Cultes, pour savoir si la principe mme obtient
son approbation. Casimir Chevalier and Victor Laloux to Guillaume-Ren Meignan, 27 October 1884,
325
possible le projet de restitution de la basilique btie par S. Perpet au Ve sicle, tel quil a
t expos avec tant de pntration par M. Quicherat, lminent professeur
darchologie.302
Hypothetical Reconstructions of the Fifth-Century Basilica of Saint-Martin

Jules Quicherat (1814-82), an archaeologist who became the director of the cole
des Chartes in 1871, was one of many nineteenth- and twentieth-century scholars who
tried to reconstruct--in words, in pictures, or both--the basilica built on Martins tomb in
471 and destroyed by fire in 994. The key evidence that they drew from is the Historia
francorum written by Saint Gregory of Tours (538-94) between 575 and 594. Attempts
to reconstruct the basilica include those of Charles Lenormant and Albert Lenoir (in
1836),303 Heinrich Hbsch (in 1862-63),304 Quicherat (in 1869),305 Stanislas Ratel (in the
302
The whole project description reads:

La Chapelle de St-Martin.
La chapelle de St-Martin porte le nom de basilique [sic] sur les plans, parce quelle affecte la
forme des basiliques antiques. On sest appliqu suivre aussi exactement quil a t possible le projet de
restitution de la basilique btie par S. Perpet au Ve sicle, tel quil a t expos avec tant de pntration par
M. Quicherat, lminent professeur darchologie.
Le chevet de la chapelle prsente au dehors des dispositions fort irrgulires savoir un pan coup
et lobliquit de la rue St Martin sur la rue Descartes. Il est impossible dchapper au dehors ces
irrgularits, le tombeau, qui est la partie capitale de ldifice, ne pouvant tre dplac.
Mais lintrieur ces irrgularits sont marques: dans la chapelle, par labside et par les deux
sacristies qui la flanquent;--et dans la crypte par ltablissement dun second pan coup droite, pour y
mnager une petite sacristie infrieure.
La crypte a reu un certain dveloppement, pour conserver les fondations et un massif qui
prsentent un grand intrt pour lhistoire et pour larchitecture. On y trouve, en effet, la petite cella btie
par S. Brice sur le tombeau de S. Martin vers lan 400 (elle est figure au plan par une courbe absidale
teinte en rose);--les fondations du chevet de la basilique btie par S. Perpet vers lan 470;--une partie du
chevet et des absidioles de lglise btie par Herv au commencement du XIe sicle;-- et enfin le chevet du
XIIIe sicle. Toutes ces parties seront traduites soigneusement par les dessins du dallage et pourront servir
de document. Casimir Chevalier and Victor Laloux to Guillaume-Ren Meignan, 27 October 1884,
303
Charles Lenormant, claircissemens [sic] sur la restitution de lglise mrovingienne de Saint-Martin

de Tours, in Histoire cclesiastique des Francs, by Gregory of Tours, trans. J. Guadet and N. R. Taranne,
Socit de lhistoire de France (Paris: J. Renouard, 1836), 1: 377-381.
304
Heinrich Hbsch, Die altchristlichen irchen nach den auden malen und lteren eschrei ungen und
326
1880s and 1890s),306 Casimir Chevalier (also in the 1880s and 1890s),307 Robert de
Lasteyrie (in 1891),308 mile Mle (in 1950),309 and Kenneth John Conant (in 1959).310
These archaeologists, historians, and historians of art and architecture disagreed on the
form of the basilica, but they generally agreed that it was of great significance in
architectural history.
Each contribution to the debate on the fifth-century basilica drew from the eyewitness account of Gregory of Tours in book 2, chapter 14 of his Historia francorum.
Gregory was the bishop of Tours from 573 to 594 and his Historia francorum is the most
authoritative contemporary history of early Merovingian Gaul.311 The account is
supplemented by a handful of other texts, notably Gregorys De virtutibus beati Martini
der Ein luss des altchristlichen austyls au den irchen au aller sp teren Perioden, 2 vols. (Karlsruhe:
W. Hasper, 1862-63); Heinrich Hbsch, Monuments de larchitecture chrtienne depuis Constantine
jus u Charlemagne, trans. Abb V. Guerber (Paris: A. Morel, 1866), plate XLVIII.
305
Jules Quicherat, Restitution de la basilique Saint-Martin, Revue archologique 19 (1869): 313-324,

403-414; 20 (1869): 1-13, 81-90.
306
These include Stanislas Ratel, Les Basiliques de Saint-Martin Tours Fouilles e cutes loccasion
de la dcouverte de son tombeau (Tours: Pricat, 1886); and Stanislas Ratel, Les Basiliques de SaintMartin Tours: Note supplmentaire en rponse une note complmentaire de Mgr Chevalier sur les
fouilles de Saint-Martin de Tours (Tours: L. Pricat, 1891).
307
These include Casimir Chevalier, Les Fouilles de Saint-Martin de Tours: Recherches sur les six
basiliques successives leves autour du tombeau de saint Martin (Tours: Pricat, 1888); and Casimir
Chevalier, Les Fouilles de Saint Martin de Tours: Note complmentaire (Tours: Pricat, 1891).
308
Robert de Lasteyrie, Lglise de Saint-Martin de Tours: tude critique sur lhistoire et la forme de ce
monument du Ve au XIe sicle, Mmoires de lAcadmie des inscriptions et elles-lettres 34, no. 1
(1891): 1-52.
309
mile Mle, La Fin du paganisme en Gaule et les plus anciennes basiliques chrtiennes (Paris:
Flammarion, 1950), 42.
310
Kenneth John Conant, Carolingian and Romanesque Architecture, 800 to 1200 (Harmondsworth, U.K.:
Penguin, 1959), 10, plate IB. For summaries of the hypothetical reconstructions see Tours, in
Dictionnaire darchologie chrtienne et de liturgie, ed. F. Cabrol and H. Leclercq (Paris: Letouzey et
An, 1953), 15: pt. 2, col. 2636-2638; May Vieillard-Troiekouroff, Les Monuments religieux de la Gaule
daprs les uvres de Grgoire de Tours (Paris: H. Champion, 1976), 323-324; and Lelong, La Basilique
Saint-Martin de Tours, 139 n. 29.
311
O. M. Dalton, introduction to The History of the Franks, by Gregory of Tours, trans. O. M. Dalton
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1927), 1: v, 36.
327
episcopi.312 Physical evidence gathered from the excavations of 1860 and 1886 proved
inconclusive.313 The basilica was built by Saint Perpetuus, who was the bishop of Tours
from 458 to 488. Gregorys account begins with Perpetuuss installation:
In the city of Tours, upon the death of Eustochius in the
seventeenth year of his episcopate, Perpetuus was consecrated as fifth in
succession from the blessed Martin. Now when he saw the continual
wonders wrought at the tomb of the saint, and observed how small was the
chapel erected over him, he judged it unworthy of such miracles. He
caused it to be removed, and built on the spot the great basilica which has
endured until our day, standing five hundred and fifty paces from the city.
It is one hundred and sixty feet long by sixty broad; its height to the
ceiling is forty-five feet. It has thirty-two windows in the sanctuary and
twenty in the nave, with forty-one columns. In the whole structure there
are fifty-two windows, a hundred and twenty columns, and eight doors,
three in the sanctuary, five in the nave.314
Gregory claimed that Perpetuus built the basilica because the previous chapel seemed
insufficient. Beyond this explanation, Perpetuuss motivations were similar to
Meignans: to promote the cult of Saint Martin and to connect it with episcopal
authority. Perpetuus built the basilica as part of his effort to replace the image of Martin
the monk with the image of Martin the bishop and to transfer control of the cult of Saint
Martin from the monks of the abbey of Marmoutier to himself and future bishops of
Tours.315 He also built the basilica as part of his campaign to develop Tours as a major
religious metropolis.316
312
Vieillard-Troiekouroff, Les Monuments religieux de la Gaule, 311-323.
313
Lelong, La Basilique Saint-Martin de Tours, 15.
314
Gregory of Tours, The History of the Franks, trans. O. M. Dalton (Oxford: Clarendon, 1927), 2: bk. 2,
chap. 14.
315
Raymond Van Dam, Saints and Their Miracles in Late Antique Gaul (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1993), 18.
316
Pietri, La Ville de Tours du IVe au VIe sicle, 139; Farmer, Communities of Saint Martin, 22-23.
328
The hypothetical reconstructions of Lenormant, Lenoir, and Quicherat are the
most important for understanding the project of Chevalier and Laloux, but it is worth
mentioning a few others that ascribe great significance to the fifth-century basilica. In
Die altchristlichen Kirchen nach den Baudenkmalen und lteren Beschreibungen of
1862-63 and its French translation of 1866, the German architect and architectural
historian Heinrich Hbsch (1795-1863) proposed that the basilica had vaults and a Latincross plan with a trilobated chevet (fig. 145).317 The supposition reinforced Hbschs
argument that early Christian churches were not copies of classical pagan buildings but
rather had innovative vaulting systems and plans.318 In LArt religieu du XII sicle en
France of 1924 the French art historian mile Mle (1862-1954) called Saint-Martin un
de ces monuments-types qui expliquent toute une architecture.319 In La Fin du
paganisme en Gaule et les plus anciennes basiliques chrtiennes of 1950, he proposed
that the fifth-century basilica had double side-aisles, transepts elevated by tribunes, and
towers above the entrance and the altar.320 And in Carolingian and Romanesque
Architecture: 800 to 1200 of 1959, the American art historian Kenneth John Conant
(1894-1984) called the fifth-century basilica proto-medieval because its two axial
towers transformed radically and for good the basic Roman basilica theme.321
317
Hbsch, Monuments de larchitecture chrtienne, plate XLVIII.
318
De la consciencieuse comparaison des premiers monuments chrtiens avec larchitecture classique

paenne il ressortira que les premiers ne sont pas une copie servile des formes antiques. Hbsch,
Monuments de larchitecture chrtienne, vi.
319
mile Mle, LArt religieu du XIIe sicle en France tude sur les origines de liconographie du
moyen ge, 2nd ed. (Paris: Armand Colin, 1924), 299.
320
321
Mle, La Fin du paganisme en Gaule, 42.

Conant, Carolingian and Romanesque Architecture, 10.
329
The nineteenth-century debate over how to interpret Gregorys account of the
fifth-century basilica was launched by Charles Lenormant (1802-59) in 1836.322 At the
time, the historian Augustin Thierry was popularizing sixth-century Gaul in a series of
articles published together in his Rcits des temps mrovingiens of 1840, using Gregory
of Tours as his main source of information.323 Lenormant was a professor of history at
the Sorbonne, whose desirable social position (he married the niece of Mme Rcamier)
and prolific publications on a range of subjects, from Egyptian hieroglyphics to
contemporary painting, laid him open to charges of dilettantism.324
He published his ideas on the fifth-century basilica as a note appended to a
translation of Gregorys Historia francorum, titled claircissemens [sic] sur la
restitution de lglise mrovingienne de Saint-Martin de Tours.325 The translation was
among the first publications of the Socit de lhistoire de France, which Franois Guizot
established in 1834 with the goal of using original documents to make national history
322
Lelong refers to one earlier hypothetical reconstruction, in P. Hieronymus de Prato, Sulpici Severi Opera
(Verona, 1741), 1: 400. See Lelong, La Basilique Saint-Martin de Tours, 139 n. 29.
323
Thierry wrote of the caractre particulier de ma principale source dinformation, lHistoire

ecclsiastique des Franks, par Grgoire de Tours. Augustin Thierry, Rcits des temps mrovingiens
prcds de considrations sur lhistoire de France (Paris: Tessier, 1840), 1: 5. Thierrys Nouvelles
lettres sur lhistoire de France appeared as articles in the Revue des deux mondes from 1833 to 1836
before they were published as Rcits des temps mrovingiens in 1840. Rulon Nephi Smithson, Augustin
Thierry: Social and Political Consciousness in the Evolution of a Historical Method (Geneva: Droz,
1972), 222-224. On Thierrys popularization of the Merovingian epoch see Xavier Barral I Altet, Les
tapes de la recherche au XIXe sicle et les personnalits, in Naissance des arts chrtiens: Atlas des
monuments palochrtiens de la France, by Nol Duval et al. (Paris: Ministre de la Culture, 1991), 348.
324
On Lenormant see H. Delaborde, Ncrologie: M. Charles Lenormant, Gazette des Beaux-Arts 4

(1859): 321-326; and Henri Leclercq, Lenormant (Charles et Franois), in Dictionnaire darchologie
chrtienne et de liturgie, ed. Fernand Cabrol and Henri Leclercq, vol. 8 (Paris: Letouzey, 1929), col. 25232526.
325
Lenormant, claircissemens [sic] sur la restitution de lglise mrovingienne de Saint-Martin de

Tours, 1: 377-381.
330
accessible.326 To illustrate his ideas, Lenormant requested a plan and section from the
architect Albert Lenoir (1801-91) (fig. 146). The plan shows a circular, colonnaded
sanctuary, linked to a rectangular nave with side aisles. The section shows the tomb in
the sanctuary, ringed by two levels of arcades, and covered with a conical wooden roof.
Lenormant was struck by the disproportion that existed in Gregorys account
between the number of columns in the nave, forty-one, and the number of columns in the
sanctuary, seventy-nine. He deduced from the greater number of columns in the
sanctuary that the sanctuary was the larger component of the basilica.327 The reason for
this, which Lenormant drew from Gregorys text, was that the previous chapel was too
small to contain the pilgrims who crushed around Martins relics. Lenormant guessed
that the plan of the sanctuary was circular: Il fallait, en effet, un grand espace pour
contenir la foule des plerins [sic] qui se pressaient autour des reliques miraculeuses du
saint, et un plan circulaire, pareil celui des premiers baptistres, rpondait mieux que
tout autre ce besoin.328 What reinforced Lenormants conjecture was the similar
arrangement of Constantines Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, which dated to
the mid-fourth century.329 Lenormant imagined that, like the Church of the Holy
326
Theis, Guizot et les institutions de mmoire, 579-580.
327
Si lglise consacre saint Martin avait t une basilique ordinaire, le chur ou labside,
comparativement trs peu dvelopp, naurait pu recevoir quun petit nombre de colonnes, et ici nous
trouvons soixante dix-neuf colonnes dans laltarium, et quarante-une seulement dans la nef. Il faut donc
admettre une disposition dans laquelle laltarium, ou le chur, ait jou le rle principal, et o la nef ait t
entirement subordonne. Lenormant, claircissemens [sic] sur la restitution de lglise mrovingienne
de Saint-Martin de Tours, 378.
328
Lenormant, claircissemens [sic] sur la restitution de lglise mrovingienne de Saint-Martin de

Tours, 378.
329
Ce qui nous a confirm dans la conjecture que nous avions faite cet gard, cest la disposition
exactement semblable de lglise du Saint-Spulcre, telle quon la trouve dans les voyageurs [sic], et
particulirement dans louvrage du P. Amico (Trattato delle piante de sacri edi i ii di Terra Santa;
Florence, 1620, p. in-fol. chap. xxii et suiv.) Lenormant, claircissemens [sic] sur la restitution de
331
Sepulchre, the Basilica of Saint-Martin was a combination of a basilica and a rotunda
supported by multiple orders of columns and arcades. At the center of the Anastasis
Rotunda of the Holy Sepulchre was the tomb of Jesus Christ; at the center of the
sanctuary of the Basilica of Saint-Martin was the tomb of Saint Martin.330
Lenoir was the son of Alexandre Lenoir, the founder of the Muse des
Monuments franais.331 He trained as an architect in the atelier of Franois Debret and
entered the cole des Beaux-Arts in 1820. However, after twice entering unsuccessfully
en loge for the Grand Prix de Rome, Lenoir went to Rome independently of the
Acadmie and turned his attention to archaeology. When he came back to Paris, Lenoir
exhibited a project at the Salon of 1833 for the conversion of the Palais des Thermes and
the Htel de Cluny into a museum of medieval art. In 1834 he won a prize from the
Acadmie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres for an essay on architecture in France and
Italy between the fourth and thirteenth centuries.332 Then in 1836 Lenoir traveled
throughout the eastern Mediterranean to expand his knowledge of Byzantine
archaeology.
lglise mrovingienne de Saint-Martin de Tours, 378.

330
Of the Holy Sepulchre, Lenormant wrote: Dans ce dernier difice, qui a t renouvel diverses
poques, mais qui a d conserver dans la partie voisine du spulcre sa disposition primitive, on trouve une
rotonde soutenue par plusieurs ordres de colonnes et darcades, au centre de laquelle est le tombeau de
Jsus-Christ, et cet arrangement saccorde parfaitement avec la description que Grgoire nous a laisse de
laltarium de Saint-Martin de Tours. Lenormant, claircissemens [sic] sur la restitution de lglise
mrovingienne de Saint-Martin de Tours, 378. On the Holy Sepulchre see Richard Krautheimer, Early
Christian and Byzantine Architecture (Harmondsworth, U.K.: Penguin, 1975), 62-63.
331
On Lenoir see G. Duplessis, Notice sur M. Albert Lenoir, Bulletin de la Socit des amis des
monuments parisiens (1891): 79-91; and Barry Bergdoll et al., Al ert Lenoir Historien de larchitecture
et archologue (Paris: Institut national dhistoire de lart, 2005).
332
Barry Bergdoll, Lon Vaudoyer: Historicism in the Age of Industry (New York: Architectural History
Foundation, 1994), 122-123.
332
Also in 1836, Lenoirs plan and section of Saint-Martin was first published in
Lenormants claircissemens. Lenoirs plan was reprinted, reversed and without the
section, in several later publications. It appeared in 1839 in the article Monuments
chrtiens: Style latin in the series tudes darchitecture en France, which was written
by Lenoir and Lon Vaudoyer for the Magasin pittoresque. The text that accompanied it
repeats the comparison to the Holy Sepulchre made by Lenormant.333 The plan
resurfaced in 1852 in the first volume of Architecture monastique, Lenoirs most
important book.334 And it appeared again in 1857 in a book subtitled Architecture galloromaine et architecture du moyen-ge, under the heading Basiliques latines, with a
paraphrase of the text in the Magasin pittoresque.335
Only in Architecture monastique did the plan appear under the heading of
Byzantine architecture and only there was it accompanied by original commentary by
Lenoir: De lItalie, le style byzantin passa en France. La premire inspiration de cet art
quon y voit paratre est la grande basilique leve par Perpetuus auprs de Tours, sur le
tombeau de saint Martin; Grgoire de Tours, qui la dcrit, nous apprend quelle tait
compose, comme le Saint-Spulcre, dune partie circulaire, dcore de nombreuses
333
Il arriva quelquefois aussi que la forme circulaire se combina avec les nefs carres prcdemment
dcrites. Le temple lev par Perptuus sur le tombeau de saint Martin, auprs de Tours, fut sur le sol des
Gaules le plus bel exemple de cette disposition curieuse, inspire sans doute par un souvenir du SaintSpulcre. Le plan no 1 joint cet article est une restauration du tombeau de saint Martin, faite daprs la
description de Grgoire de Tours. Albert Lenoir and Lon Vaudoyer, tudes darchitecture en France,
Magasin pittoresque 7 (1839): 197.
334
This assessment is that of Robin Middleton, The Rationalist Interpretations of Classicism of Lonce
Reynaud and Viollet-le-Duc, A. A. Files 11 (spring 1986): 37.
335
Quelquefois mme ces formes se combinrent entre elles, et plus dune basilique primitive prsenta une
nef carre prcdant un sanctuaire compltement circulaire. Le temple lev par Perptuus sur le tombeau
de saint Martin, auprs de Tours, fut, sur le sol des Gaules, le plus bel exemple de cette disposition
curieuse, inspire peut-tre par un souvenir du Saint-Spulcre. Albert Lenoir, [Charles] Lenormant,
Auguste Leprvost, and [Prosper] Mrime, Instructions du Comit histori ue des arts et monuments:
Architecture gallo-romaine et architecture du moyen age (Paris: Imprimerie impriale, 1857), 91.
333
colonnes isoles et formant le sanctuaire (altarium) et dune partie quadrangulaire
(capsum), contenant les nefs qui le prcdaient.336 Lenoirs analysis expanded on
Lenormants comparison of the fifth-century Basilica of Saint-Martin to the Holy
Sepulchre and fitted Saint-Martin into a new historical narrative. Lenoir grouped SaintMartin with a succession of churches that were partially or wholly centrally planned. He
extrapolated from the round sanctuary of Saint-Martin that it was the first church in
Europe north of the Alps that was influenced by Byzantine architecture. In Lenoirs
narrative, the first church in the Western Roman Empire that was influenced by
Byzantine architecture was Constantines Basilica of Santi Marcellino e Pietro in Rome,
which combined an oblong hall and cylindrical mausoleum like the Holy Sepulchre.
After gaining a foothold with Santi Marcellino e Pietro, the Byzantine style spread
throughout Italy, including to the circular Santa Constanza in Rome (ca. 350) and the
octagonal San Vitale in Ravenna (547). During the same period, the style crossed the
Alps to Tours. It then spread to churches throughout France and Germany. Some
examples Lenoir gave are Saint-Germain lAuxerrois in Paris (which Lenoir dated to the
sixth century), Charlemagnes Palatine Chapel in Aachen (ca. 790-805), Saint-Bnigne in
Dijon (1001-1018), and Saint-Front in Prigueux (rebuilt after 1120).337
In Lenoirs narrative, the fifth-century Basilica of Saint-Martin exemplifies the
interaction between the style latin and style byzantin that was critical to his dialectical
history of architecture. Lenoir claimed that the two styles, which emerged from the
336
337
Albert Lenoir, Architecture monastique, vol. 1 (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1852), 383.
Lenoir, Architecture monastique, 1: 384, 387, 388. A more recent source on Saint-Germain dismisses
claims that it existed before the reign of Charlemagne as traditions lgendaires et contradictoires. See
Maurice Eschapasse, glise Saint-Germain-lAuxerrois, in Dictionnaire des glises de France, ed.
Jacques Brosse, vol. 4 (Paris: Robert Laffont, 1968), sect. C: 74.
334
Western and Roman Empires, synthesized to form the Romanesque and then the
Gothic.338 The transition from antique to Medieval architecture in the West was brought
about by the combination of the Roman basilican plan and Byzantine vaulting
techniques.339 Saint-Martin did not have a dome, but it combined a Roman basilican plan
and Byzantine rotunda. It was the first in a series of experiments in northern Europe that
progressed from juxtaposing axial and central plans, to replacing Latin ceilings and roofs
with Byzantine domes and vaults.340
In 1869, Jules Quicherat (1814-82) added his own hypothesis to Lenormants and
Lenoirs speculation on the fifth-century basilica. An archaeologist, historian, and
teacher, Quicherat published on diverse and sometimes controversial subjects, such as the
mission of Joan of Arc and the excavation of the Gallo-Roman settlement of Alsia.341 A
follower of the historian Jules Michelet, Quicherat was appointed chair of archaeology at
338
Middleton, The Rationalist Interpretations of Classicism, 37-40; Bergdoll, Lon Vaudoyer, 122-123.
339
Ladjonction du dme la basilique fut une cause de progrs pour lart des Byzantins; place au centre
de la croix, la coupole ncessita la construction de quatre piliers pais pour la porter, on relia entre eux ces
piliers par des arcs doubleaux et des pendentifs pour complter les moyens de support direct; le poids du
dme conduisit voter les transepts, puis la nef principale, pour offrir contre les pousses une force
suffisante et une liaison intime entre toutes les parties; et ce besoin supprima les colonnades continues de la
basilique latine. Labandon des charpentes et des plafonds employs dans les glises dOccident fut la
consquence de ces innovations obliges. Lenoir, Architecture monastique, 1: 254.
340
Au huitime sicle, une transformation se prparait pour larchitecture monastique. Ce ne fut pas par
une cration immdiate et complte dabord: suivant la marche ordinaire, elle fut la consquence dune
suite dessais, qui constituent la priode de transition entre le style latin, auquel se joignirent quelques
formes byzantines, et larchitecture nouvelle qui tendait se formuler dans les rgions septentrionales de
lEurope. Albert Lenoir, Architecture monastique, vol. 2 (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1856), 1.
341
On Quicherat see Arthur Giry, Jules Quicherat, Revue historique 19 (May-August 1882): 241-264;
Robert de Lasteyrie, Notice sur la vie et les travaux de J. Quicherat, in Mlanges darchologie et
dhistoire Anti uits celti ues, romaines, et gallo-romaines, by Jules Quicherat, ed. Arthur Giry and
Auguste Castan (Paris: Alphonse Picard, 1885), 1-35; and Henri Leclercq, Quicherat (Jules), in
Dictionnaire darchologie chrtienne et de liturgie, ed. Fernand Cabrol and Henri Leclercq, vol. 14 (Paris:
Letouzey et An, 1948), pt. 2, col. 2027-2032. On Quicherats thesis of the national mission of Joan of Arc
and its exploitation by the Left see Christian Amalvi, Le got du Moyen ge (Paris: Plon, 1996), 98-100.
On his attention to digs at Alsia and Bibracte see Albert Grenier, La Tradition de larchologie galloromaine: Essai de bibliographie gnrale, historique, et raisonne, introduction to Manuel darchologie
gallo-romaine, vol. 1 (Paris: A. Picard, 1931), 65-67.
335
the cole des Chartes in 1846. In this position, Quicherat was the first in France to offer
a course of instruction in art history.342 He became the director of the school in 1871.
After Quicherat died, one biographer credited him with creating the science of medieval
archaeology.343 Indeed, Jean Nayrolles has argued recently that Quicherat transformed
the study of the architecture of the Middle Ages by inventing a system of classification
based on structural criteria rather than superficial appearances, as in the system of Arcisse
de Caumont.344
Quicherat refuted Lenormants and Lenoirs theory that the sanctuary was a
rotunda and suggested instead that Saint-Martin was built on a rectangular basilican plan
(fig. 147). He argued that neither the sanctuary nor the nave in Lenoirs plan
corresponded to the sixty-foot width measured by Gregory.345 Lenormant had admitted
to the discrepancy himself.346 Quicherat also argued that Lenormant misinterpreted
Gregorys text, and that the majority of the columns were in the nave, not the sanctuary
342
Germain Bazin, Histoire de lhistoire de lart de Vasari nos jours (Paris: Albin Michel, 1986), 467.
343
Archologue, il a cr la science de larchologie du moyen ge. Giry, Jules Quicherat, 241.
344
Jean Nayrolles, Sciences naturelles et archologie mdivale au XIXe sicle, in LArchitecture, les
sciences et la culture de lhistoire au XIXe sicle (Saint-Etienne: Universit de Saint-Etienne, 2001), 3839; Nayrolles, LInvention de lart roman, 160-161.
345
Lide de M. Lenormant est ingnieuse. Elle sduit au premier abord; mais examine de prs, elle
donne prise lobjection la plus grave.
En effet, lglise de Tours, avec un sanctuaire rond et une nef allonge, aurait eu deux largeurs;
par consquent, la mesure unique mentionne par Grgoire ne concernait que lune des deux parties
lexclusion de lautre. Or, si les soixante pieds de large staient appliqus la rotonde, la nef, moins de
supprimer les bas-cts et par consquent les colonnades, aurait t dune troitesse impossible; et si les
mmes soixante pieds nous reprsentaient la largeur de la nef, alors le diamtre de la rotonde aurait t tel,
que la nef naurait plus assez de longueur pour y tablir le nombre voulu de colonnes. Quicherat,
Restitution de la basilique Saint-Martin, 19 (1869): 314.
346
Ce plan est aussi conforme que possible la description de Grgoire; toutefois, M. Lenoir . . . a modifi
le texte de lhistorien en ne donnant que 50 pieds au lieu de 60 la largeur de la nef. Ce nombre de
soixante est en effet difficile combiner avec le reste de la disposition. Si on attribue ce diamtre la
rotonde, cette partie de ldifice semble beaucoup trop troite; si on reporte la mesure au capse, le capse est
videmment trop large et pour la rotonde, et pour sa propre hauteur au-dessous du plafond, qui nest que de
45 pieds. Lenormant, claircissemens [sic] sur la restitution de lglise mrovingienne de Saint-Martin
de Tours, 379.
336
(fig. 148).347 However, even the way Quicherat interpreted Gregorys text, there were
plenty of columns (forty-one) in the sanctuary. To accommodate these, Quicherat placed
an ambulatory in the hemicycle of the apse, which he separated from the tomb by a
colonnade (fig. 149). To make room for the thirty-two windows that Gregory counted in
the sanctuary, Quicherat covered the crossing with a lantern tower.348 In Quicherats
section of the sanctuary, the lantern tower consists of a cylindrical drum that rises on
pendentives above the crossing and is covered by a conical roof. In Quicherats text, he
admitted he lacked evidence for the use of pendentives at Saint-Martin, sixty years before
the construction of the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople (532-37), and he recognized that
the tower could have been square.349
Quicherat inserted Saint-Martin into a new historical narrative that was
completely different from that of Lenoir. Lenoir had interpreted Saint-Martin as a
landmark in the interaction between Latin and Byzantine architecture. Conversely,
Quicherat interpreted it as proof of the emergence already in the fifth century of an
adaptation of the Latin basilica that was particular to Gaul. He wrote that the fait capital
et nouveau en archologie qui dcoule de ma restitution was that il faut faire remonter
au cinquime sicle la disposition si particulire la Gaule des glises qui ont leur chevet
347
Dans lhypothse dune rotonde, le plus grand nombre appartient forcment au sanctuaire, et le plus
petit reste pour la nef. Mais dans lhypothse laquelle je me suis arrt, dune basilique de forme
ordinaire, cest le contraire qui a lieu. Voyons si ce dernier rsultat ne saccorde pas mieux avec lordre
dides qui a dtermin la construction de la phrase. Quicherat, Restitution de la basilique Saint-Martin,
19 (1869): 317.
348
La tour-lanterne recevra une partie des fentres dont le nombre a si fort embarrass M. Lenormant.
Quicherat, Restitution de la basilique Saint-Martin, 19 (1869): 407.
349
Je nai aucun renseignement direct sur ce point; mais la forme ronde ma sembl indique . . . Toutefois
une tour carre, je me hte de le reconnatre, conviendrait galement. Aussi en laisserai-je le choix ceux
qui trouveraient que cest trop oser que de supposer lemploi de pendentifs antrieurement la construction
de Saint-Sophie de Constantinople. Quicherat, Restitution de la basilique Saint-Martin, 19 (1869): 411.
337
mont sur une colonnade et leur transept couronn dune tour.350 Quicherat maintained
in his lectures at the cole des Chartes that Romanesque architecture imitated Byzantine
sources only when it reached maturity.351 What the narratives of Lenoir and Quicherat
have in common is that they both locate Saint-Martin at the threshold of the architecture
of the Roman Empire and that of the European Middle Ages.
The idea of using Quicherats hypothetical reconstruction as the basis for
designing a new church was suggested long before Chevalier and Laloux set to work.
Louis Courajod (1840-96), who studied with Quicherat and became a historian and
curator of French sculpture, proposed it already in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts in 1871.352
Courajod argued that the fifth-century basilica of Saint-Martin was one of the first
examples of distinctly French architecture.353 And he proposed Quicherats
reconstruction as a starting point for designing a new church: Luvre mme est
tellement pratique, que si un architecte voulait prter un corps ce devis qui semble
attendre de nouveau lexcution, il pourrait sans frais dimagination nous donner une fort
belle glise et qui ferait trs-bonne figure au milieu des pastiches ddifices de toutes les
poques dont le besoin de monuments religieux et labsence de toute architecture
contemporaine ont couvert Paris et les grandes villes de France. Pourquoi Paris, qui a des
chantillons de larchitecture de tous les ges, naurait-il pas aussi une basilique
350
351
Jules Quicherat, Fragments dun cour darchologie, in Mlanges darchologie et dhistoire

Archologie du moyen age, ed. Robert de Lasteyrie (Paris: Alphonse Picard, 1886), 433.
352
For Courajods biography see Andr Michel, Louis Courajod, Gazette des Beaux-Arts 16 (1896):
203-217; Albert Marignan, Un Historien de lart ranais Louis Courajod (Paris: . Bouillon, 1899); and
Genevive Bresc-Bautier, ed., Un Combat pour la sculpture: Louis Courajod (1841-1896) historien dart
et conservateur (Paris: cole du Louvre, 2003).
353
Louis Courajod, Un Monument de larchitecture franaise du Ve sicle, Gazette des Beaux-Arts 39

(1871): 242.
338
mrovingienne?354 The idea was a response to churches built recently in Paris such as
Victor Baltards Saint-Augustin (1860-71), which evokes both Italian Renaissance and
Byzantine architecture,355 and Thodore Ballus La Trinit (1862-67), which combines
references to French and Italian Renaissance architecture.356 It conveyed a desire to
return to the origins of French architecture. Charles Lucas suggested the idea again in
1875, when he expressed regret that Baillarg had not modeled his design for a church on
Martins tomb on Quicherats hypothetical reconstruction of the fifth-century basilica.357
Quicherats Hypothetical Reconstruction (1869) and the Avant-Projet by Chevalier and

Laloux (1885)
There is an interesting parallel between the way Quicherat and Courajod
interpreted the role of the Basilica of Saint-Martin in architectural history and the way
Catholic historians interpreted the role of Martin, the monk and bishop, in religious and
national history. Quicherat and Courajod saw the basilica as a key monument in the
emergence of French architecture. Similarly, Catholic historians saw Martin as a crucial
figure in the emergence of French Catholicism and French nationhood. Chevalier wrote
in his 1862 book on Martin that, based on the account of Gregory of Tours, La Gaule
entire t vanglise et convertie par saint Martin. He added that Martin was le
354
Courajod, Un Monument de larchitecture franaise du Ve sicle, 242.
355
Jean Colson and Marie-Christine Lauroa, eds., Dictionnaire des monuments de Paris (Paris: Hervas,
1992), 657-658.
356
Louis Hautecur, Histoire de larchitecture classi ue en France, vol. 7 (Paris: A. et J. Picard, 1957),
144-148.
357
339
tuteur de notre nationalit naissante, le sauveur de notre civilisation.358 The theme was
taken up by Albert Lecoy de la Marche, the professor of history at the Institut Catholique
de Paris. In his 1881 hagiography, Lecoy de la Marche called Martin the grand aptre
sans lequel nous ne serions aujourdhui, sans doute, ni catholique ni franais.359 By
choosing to model their project on Quicherats hypothetical reconstruction, Chevalier and
Laloux associated it with an understanding of the fifth-century basilica in architectural
history that corresponded with Chevaliers understanding of the fourth-century saint in
religious and cultural history. Their project would evoke the sources of both French
architecture and Catholic France.
Since the sketches that accompanied Chevalier and Lalouxs project description
of October 1884 are lost, the only corresponding plan is one signed by Laloux three
months later, on January 21, 1885 (fig. 150).360 Like Quicherats plan, it represents a
basilica with a central nave separated from single side aisles by simple columns, a
crossing separated from implied transepts by massive piers, and a semicircular apse
embedded within a polygonal chevet. Also like Quicherats plan, the tomb is emphasized
by its relation to a circle inscribed within the apse, whose circumference overlaps the
crossing. In Lalouxs plan the circle is formed by a light well open to the tomb and crypt
below; in Quicherats plan it is formed by the colonnade between the tomb and the
ambulatory, and by the balustrade between the tomb and the altar. Furthermore, both
358
Chevalier, Figure historique de saint Martin, 10.
359
Lecoy de la Marche, Saint Martin, viii. For a summary of Lecoy de la Marches thesis on Martin see
Bruno Foucart, LIconographie de saint Martin au XIXe sicle ou leffort dun renouveau, in La Lgende
de saint Martin au XIXe sicle: Peintures et dessins, by Philippe Le Leyzour et al. (Tours: Muse des
Beaux-Arts, 1997), 11-12.
360
Victor Laloux, Chapelle de St Martin de Tours: Plan au Niveau du Sol de la Nef, 21 January 1885,
340
basilicas face onto atria. In Lalouxs plan the Clotre ou Atrium des Plerins is
enclosed by a Chapelle du catchisme and rooms for the chaplain and concierge.361 In
Quicherats plan, the atrium is enclosed by four porticos, as well as by lodgings for
pilgrims and the basilica guardian (fig. 151). Rtablissons dabord devant la faade de
ldifice latrium . . . , Quicherat wrote, primitivement il formait un carr spacieux
environn de portiques. . . . Des plerins se tenaient des journes et des semaines entires
sous les galeries. Il y avait des cellules o quelques-uns taient admis passer la nuit.
Ldituus ou gardien de la basilique avait son logement prs de lentre.362 The atrium
proposed by Laloux recalled that of Quicherats hypothetical reconstruction. It also
recalled the atria of other early Christian basilicas, such as the Holy Sepulchre in
Jerusalem and San Ambrogio in Milan (385-86). The atria were provided for segregated
groups of catechumens and penitents. They disappeared when these groups were no
longer segregated.363
Lalouxs plan follows Quicherats reconstruction within the limits of the building
site and in accord with nineteenth-century religious practices. Laloux fitted four
confessionals into the transepts and fourteen side altars into the aisles in order to facilitate
the reception of the sacraments of penance and the Eucharist by groups of pilgrims led by
priests. The ample liturgical furnishings reflect how in the nineteenth century pilgrimage
361
This feature was conceived already in November 1884. Meignan wrote then that the vestry would need
to purchase the property at the corner of the rue Descartes and rue Baleschoux, because larchitecte veut
placer cet endroit latrium oblig des basiliques avec la chapelle des catchismes & le presbytre
[underlining Meignans]. Guillaume-Ren Meignan to Flix Martin-Feuille, 30 November 1884,
362
363
On atria see the Abb Martigny, Atrium, in Dictionnaire des antiquits chrtiennes, 2nd ed. (Paris:
Hachette, 1877), 62-63; Henri Leclercq, Basilique, in Dictionnaire darchologie chrtienne et de
liturgie, ed. Fernand Cabrol, vol. 2 (Paris: Letouzey et An, 1910), pt. 1b, col. 588-590; and Krautheimer,
Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture, 41.
341
was clericalized and oriented towards the celebration of mass and the reception of the
sacraments.364 Laloux also reconciled an irregular lot with the tomb fixed at the northern
edge. The obtuse angle and chamfered corner of the rue Saint-Martin and rue Descartes
imposed the asymmetrical exterior contour of the chevet, which contrasts with the
rectangular east end of Quicherats plan. As Chevalier and Laloux explained in the
project description: Le chevet de la chapelle prsente au dehors des dispositions fort
irrgulires savoir un pan coup et lobliquit de la rue St Martin sur la rue Descartes.
Il est impossible dchapper au dehors ces irrgularits, le tombeau, qui est la partie
capitale de ldifice, ne pouvant tre dplac.365 Lalouxs plan also reconciled the fixed
tomb with a six-meter change in ground level.366 Whereas in Quicherats plan the tomb
is level with the high altar, in Lalouxs plan the tomb is sunken in a crypt below the
sanctuary. To maximize the visibility of the tomb in spite of its depth, Laloux planned a
staircase, as wide as the nave, descending from the nave to the crypt in front of an
elevated sanctuary; and he proposed the circular light well in the floor of the sanctuary.
Laloux devised the arrangement to create clear lines of sight from the nave and the
sanctuary to the tomb, the focus of the church and the cult of Saint Martin.
In addition to Chevalier and Lalouxs project description and Lalouxs plan, three
texts provide a more detailed picture of the initial project: first, Chevaliers Mmoire
historico-juridi ue sur luvre de Saint-Martin Tours, to which Meignan gave his
364
Alphonse Dupront, Formes de la culture des masses: De la dolance au plerinage panique, du XVIIIe
au XXe sicle, in Niveaux de culture et groupes sociaux (Paris: Mouton, 1967), 161; Gibson, A Social
History of French Catholicism, 142.
365
Casimir Chevalier and Victor Laloux to Guillaume-Ren Meignan, 27 October 1884, Archives
nationales, F 19 3779.
366
On the geology of the site see Chevalier, Les Fouilles de Saint-Martin de Tours: Recherches sur les six
basiliques successives, 21-24.
342
imprimatur in May 1885; second, the transcript of Chevaliers deposition in July to a
municipal commission formed to study the project; and third, the critique of the Comit
des inspecteurs gnraux des travaux diocsains in October. Chevaliers Mmoire
historico-juridique gives measurements and hints about the elevation: La basilique
projete par Mgr Meignan ayant 26 mtres de large sur 52 mtres de longueur, occupera
1,350 mtres, et si lon y ajoute la vaste crypte et les galeries suprieures semblables
celles de Sainte-Agns-hors-les-murs, on aura une surface utilisable denviron 2,200
mtres carrs.367 The reference to SantAgnese fuori le mura (314-37), on the Via
Nomentana outside Rome, was calculated to sway the pope in favor of his and Lalouxs
project. Chevalier sent the Mmoire historico-juridique to Leo XIII before the pope
arbitrated between Meignan and the uvre in July 1885. The full restoration of
SantAgnese was commissioned by Pius IX and carried out by Andrea Busiri-Vici
between 1855 and 1864.368
Conversely, Chevaliers deposition to the municipal commission was calculated
to convince the Radical and anticlerical mayor and like-minded councilors that building
his and Lalouxs project would use up the funds of the uvre de Saint-Martin.369
Chevalier explained that the proposed church would not have vaults because elles ne
sont pas compatibles avec une glise de style latin, but it would have des ornements,
des peintures, une foule de choses dun haut prix qui absorberont des sommes
367
Chevalier, Mmoire historico-juridique, 32.
368
On the restoration of Sant Agnese see Mulder, Image Building by Means of Church Restorations, 277
n. 2; and Armanda Pastorino and Laura Pastorino, I restauri delle chiese ad impianto basilicale a Roma
durante il pontificato di Pio IX, in Revival paleocristiani (1764-1870): Architettura e restauro,
linterpreta ione delle asiliche di Roma (Roma: La Nuova Italia Scientifica, 1995), 62-63.
369
On the mayor of Tours at the time see Michel Laurencin, Fournier Alfred-Andr-Auguste, in
Dictionnaire biographique de Touraine (Chambray-ls-Tours: CLD, 1990), 263-264.
343
considrables. . . . On mettra des mosaques comme dans les belles glises de Rome et
Ravenne, des peintures artistiques, des dcorations, voil quoi passeront et le capital &
les revenus.370 The proposed decoration would be as rich as that of Quicherats
hypothetical reconstruction. Quicherat speculated that the fifth-century Basilica of SaintMartin was plain on the outside except for a mosaic on the faade.371 On the inside the
decoration of the nave consisted of white, red, and green marble veneer372 and exposed
wooden trusses.373 The decoration of the apse included mosaics or wall paintings, blue
glass windows, and a gilded cross motif.374 The mayor and councilors remained
skeptical. Despite Chevaliers assurances and their admiration for Lalouxs plans,375 they
voted unanimously to oppose Chevalier and Lalouxs project.376
Then in October 1885, Chevalier and Lalouxs project was severely critiqued by
the Comit des inspecteurs gnraux des travaux diocsains, made up of the architects
370
Ville de Tours, Commission de lInstruction publique, Dposition de M. labb Chevalier:

Reconstruction de la Chapelle de St-Martin: Sance du Mardi 7 Juillet 1885, p. 12-13, Archives
371
Le dehors des basiliques fut partout dune simplicit extrme. Le plus grand luxe quelles aient
comport consistait en un revtement de mosaque sur la faade. Saint-Martin possda une dcoration de
ce genre. Quicherat, Restitution de la basilique Saint-Martin, 20 (1869): 81.
372
Pour la nef, lornement consistait en un revtement de marbre blanc, rouge et vert . . . Quicherat,
Restitution de la basilique Saint-Martin, 20 (1869): 13.
373
Il ntait pas plafonn. Les fermes du comble taient apparentes et revtues dune dcoration dont le
percement du fronton favorisait leffet. Quicherat, Restitution de la basilique Saint-Martin, 20 (1869):
324.
374
La rgion du tombeau devait son effet des sujets reprsents sur les murailles, aux fentres incrustes
de verre bleu, et une dcoration souvent rpte de croix quon avait figures avec des lames dor . . .
375

XXV.
376

XXV.
344
Anatole de Baudot (1834-1915), mile Vaudremer (1829-1914), and douard Corroyer
(1835-1915). The committee was overseen by the Directeur gnral des cultes, and was
responsible for assessing architects plans and estimates for parish and diocesan
buildings.377 The committee members first complaint about Chevalier and Lalouxs
project was that it lacked the caractre de simplicit et de modestie que comporte la
pense religieuse quil sagit de raliser.378 Their second objection was that the twomillion franc estimate attached to the project was too low and it would force the use of
ersatz materials to achieve the effects pictured in the sections. Their third complaint was
that the proposed church was too large. The committee members refused to approve the
project until it was simplified. In particular, they demanded the reduction of the height of
the dome, the simplification of the nave gable, the elimination of the gallery that was
377
Jean-Michel Leniaud, Les Cathdrales au XIXe sicle: tude du service des difices diocsains (Paris:
Economica, 1993), 109-110, 124.
378
The whole Avis reads:

Le Comit des Inspecteurs gnraux des travaux diocsains, appel donner son avis au sujet du
Projet de Monument lever sur lemplacement de lancienne Eglise St-Martin de Tours, estime que
ltude qui lui est soumise ne possde pas le caractre de simplicit et de modestie que comporte la pense
religieuse quil sagit de raliser, et quelle exigerait, dailleurs, pour sa ralisation, une somme bien
suprieure celle prvue au Devis, qui ne slve qu deux millions.
On ne pourrait attendre le but quen ayant recours des procds de faux luxe que le Comit ne
saurait approuver et dont lexamen des coupes du Projet lui fait dj, particulirement, pressentir le
dplorable emploi.
Dautre part, il y a lieu de faire remarquer que le monument prend lextrieur une importance
injustifie et que certaines dispositions qui nont, dans le cas prsent, de raison dtre qu lintrieur
viennent saffirmer dune faon trop significative, sans, dailleurs, racheter ce manque dpropos par une
valeur artistique quelconque.
En consquence, le Comit est davis, pour les motifs qui prcdent, de napprouver le projet que
lorsquil aura t simplifi, conu dans un esprit plus modeste et plus franc dans les rapports tablir entre
la structure et la dcoration.
En outre, il demande en tout tat de choses:
1.-La diminution, dans une notable mesure, de la hauteur du Dme, qui peut tre clair dans sa
partie suprieure par des baies en pntration, comme dans la partie circulaire du chevet.
2.-La simplification du motif formant bas-relief plac la pointe du pignon de la nef.
3.-La suppression de la loge qui accuse sur la voie publique, la galerie du premier tage.
4.-La rduction, sinon la suppression, de la porte latrale sur la rue; lenlvement de la grille projete
et son remplacement par une clture pleine en bois, si la baie est conserve comme porte. Anatole de
Baudot, mile Vaudremer, and Edouard Corroyer, Avis, 28 October 1885, Archives nationales, F 19
3779.
345
accentuated on the exterior by a loggia--perhaps like at the Italian Romanesque cathedrals
of Bari and Bitonto--and the reduction or elimination of the side door that led to the rue
Descartes. They paid no attention to the relationship of the project to the fifth-century
church on Martins tomb.
The Reworked Project by Laloux and the Completed Church (1886-1925)

In the winter of 1885-1886 Laloux reworked his design so that it met the demands
of the Comit des inspecteurs gnraux, and so that it related less to Quicherats
hypothetical reconstruction. While the January 1885 plan shows the floor level of the
sanctuary and transepts elevated high above the nave, the February 5, 1886 plan that
Laloux completed in response to the committees criticism shows a more modest rise in
the floor level of the north end of the church (fig. 152).379 And, while in the earlier plan a
visual axis between the nave and the tomb is created by the staircase as wide as the nave
descending from the nave to the crypt under the sanctuary, in the later plan the crypt is
hidden from the nave and accessed by two narrow sets of steps.380 In the later plan,
Laloux removed the walls separating the chapels in the aisles and he transformed the
exterior porch into an interior narthex. He departed from Quicherats hypothetical
reconstruction by proposing arcaded aisles and coupled clerestory windows instead of a
tripartite elevation with a gallery (fig. 153). Furthermore, Laloux departed from
379
Victor Laloux, glise de Saint Martin: Chapelle de secours de St. Julien, plan gnral, 5 February
1886, Archives dpartementales dIndre-et-Loire, V 9.2.6.
380
The difference in effect is made plain in L. Messire, LUnivers, 18 February 1889: Notre seul objet,
aujourdhui, est de faire connatre la crypte. On y descend par deux escaliers parallles, de dix-sept
marches, que spare une sorte de pile de pierre. Cette disposition, empche dapercevoir, ds lentre,
lautel et le saint tombeau, inconvnient qui naurait pas exist avec le plan de Mgr Chevalier; car son vaste
escalier unique aboutissait la nef principale, et le regard et aussitt plong librement jusqu la
Confession de saint Martin. Quoted in Besse, Le Tombeau de Saint Martin de Tours, 422.
346
Quicherats reconstruction by incorporating references to Byzantine architecture into his
later project, references such as the hieratic representations of Christ, Mary, and Joseph in
the chevet, and the dome that tapers to a point (fig. 154). As a result of these changes,
Chevalier distanced himself from the project.381
Although Msgr. Meignan proposed the idea of a chapelle de secours at the corner
of the rue Saint-Martin and the rue Descartes in June 1884, and Chevalier and Laloux
sent their project to Meignan in October 1884, it was not until December 30, 1885 that
the government authorized construction. Specifically, the Direction des Cultes, part of
the Ministre de lInstruction publique, des Beaux-Arts et des Cultes, authorized
Meignan to hand over to the vestry of Saint-Julien-Saint-Franois the money and
property collected by the uvre de Saint-Martin for its building project. The Direction
des Cultes authorized the vestry to use the money as needed to build a chapelle de
secours, sous le vocable de Saint Martin, daprs des plans et devis rgulirement
approuvs par les autorits religieuses et civiles.382 Despite the governments decision,
the deadlock with the uvre dragged on. Commission de luvre member Pdre
Moisant refused to sell the house he owned on the building site. The delay caused
Laloux to become impatient. In February 1886 he wrote to the Abb Juteau, the parish
priest of Saint-Julien-Saint-Franois: Quon construise ou non la chapelle provisoire
381
Dans lhiver de 1885-1886 M. Laloux refit ses dessins dans le style byzantin. Le projet primitif, il est
vrai, avait t conserv dans ses lignes principales, mais la dcoration avait t change dans son caractre.
tait-ce une modification heureuse? Cest aux archologues le dire. Je me contente dobserver, en
historien fidle, que Mgr Chevalier fit ses rserves et refusa dsormais de sassocier lentreprise de M.
Laloux,--ce qui ne lempcha pas dadmirer hautement luvre de larchitecte. Verger, Monseigneur
Casimir Chevalier, 196.
382
Direction des cultes, Dcret, 30 December 1885, Archives dpartementales dIndre-et-Loire, 5 V 4

326.
347
jattends vos ordres.383 When Moisant died in March, the house was inherited by
Stanislas Ratel, the Commission member who worked with Baillarg on the plans for the
reconstruction of the eleventh-century Basilica of Saint-Martin, and he likewise refused
to sell.384
Nevertheless, on May 4, 1886 Msgr. Meignan laid the first stone of the new
church.385 In July, the buildings between Moisants house and the corner of the rue
Saint-Martin and rue Descartes were demolished and ground was broken.386 Chevalier
then started four months of archaeological excavations (fig. 155). He was thrilled by his
findings, which became the basis for speculations on the fifth-century Basilica of SaintMartin. Quelle joie de voir renatre peu peu sous nos yeux et sortir de son linceul la
partie la plus sainte de la basilique historique de Perpet, avec ses formes latines si
intressantes et si inattendues! he later recalled.387 At last in November 1887, Ratel sold
the house to the vestry of Saint-Julien-Saint-Franois, with the promises of the vestry
that, among other things, the axis of the fifth-century basilica would be represented in the
crypt of the new church, parts of the fifth-century basilica that had been excavated would
383
Laloux seems to have confused the terms chapelle provisoire and chapelle de secours. The entire body
of his letter reads:
Jai dpos aujourdhui le devis du crypte et estimatif de la dpense faire pour construire sur la
partie autorise par le dcret cest dire jusqu la maison de M. Moisant.
Il rsulte des conversations que jai eu avec le chef de cabinet qui sest occup de laffaire depuis
le commencement quon desire vivement voir commencer les travaux--on croit quon ferait une grande
impression en procedant de suite aux dmolitions et que partir de ce moment on ne trouverait plus toutes
les hostilits que les retards apports font natre autour du projet [Lalouxs emphasis].
Quon construise ou non la chapelle provisoire jattends vos ordres. Laloux to Abb [AugusteHubert Juteau], 10 February 1886, Archives de la Basilique Saint-Martin.
384
Ratel, Note sur la cession dune maison, 1-5.
385
Vestry of Saint-Julien-Saint-Franois, Pose de la premire pierre de la Chapelle St Martin: Procs

Verbal, 11 November 1899, Dlibrations de la fabrique: 1856-1903, pt. 2, p. 62, Archives diocsaines de
Tours, bote 1096.
386
387
Chevalier, Les Fouilles de Saint-Martin de Tours: Recherches sur les six basiliques successives, vi.
348
be conserved, parts that had been destroyed would be represented, and a bronze ciborium
donated by Moisant would be placed in the upper sanctuary of the new church over the
tomb in the crypt--promises that were kept.388 With the sale, the last barrier to
construction was lifted. The four-year stalemate between Meignan and the government
on one side, and the uvre de Saint-Martin on the other, finally ended. To supporters of
Lalouxs project, it seemed that, as Chevalier said to the municipal commission: Le
petit projet enterrera le grand jamais, personne ny songera plus; ce sera une affaire
irritante rgle dfinitivement.389
Once ground was broken in July 1886, work advanced quickly. By December
most of the foundations were laid and by January 1888 work had begun on the crypt.390
Meignan inaugurated the crypt in November 1889 and the upper church in November
1890. By then the apse and transept were built, but the crossing dome was unfinished
and the nave was truncated.391 Almost all the funds raised by the uvre de Saint-Martin
for its project and surrendered to Msgr. Meignan--totaling 1.8 million francs--had been
spent on the new church.392 Construction stopped, and did not start again for nearly a
388
Besse, Le Tombeau de Saint Martin de Tours, 388; Ratel, Note sur la cession dune maison, 1, 4.
389
Ville de Tours, Commission de lInstruction publique, Dposition de M. labb Chevalier:

Reconstruction de la Chapelle de St-Martin: Sance du Mardi 7 Juillet 1885, p. 16, Archives nationales, F
19 3779.
390
Vestry of Saint-Julien-Saint-Franois, Sance extraordinaire du 8 dcembre 1886, Dlibrations de la

fabrique: 1856-1903, 140, Archives diocsaines de Tours, bote 1096; Vestry of Saint-Julien-SaintFranois, Sance du 1er dimanche de janvier 1888, Dlibrations de la fabrique: 1856-1903, 158,
Archives diocsaines de Tours, bote 1096.
391
Jacques Sadoux, Saint Martin de Tours: Fallait-il reconstruire la grande basilique? (Tours: Guillon,
1978), 22-23.
392
. . . larchevque de Tours ma fait savoir que la somme de 1.800.000 francs provenant de luvre dite
de St Martin et qui tait place en Angleterre avait t employe presque entirement la construction de la
chapelle de secours et quil ne restait quune somme denviron 160.000 Fs. insuffisante pour lachvement
de cette chapelle. Charles-Frdric Dumay, Directeur des cultes, to Prfet dIndre-et-Loire, 11 February
1889, Archives dpartementales dIndre-et-Loire, 5 V 4 326.
349
decade. The partial church looked stunted to some, and inspired the epithet, Chalet
rpublicain. Ren Boylesve used the term in his 1896 novel Mademoiselle Cloque,
which centers on the affaire de Saint-Martin.393 Meanwhile, Meignan collected
donations.394 Work resumed in 1899 with the completion of the nave, faade, and parvis-the atrium was abandoned. In 1925 Saint-Martin was consecrated and given the
honorific title of basilique mineure by a papal bull of Pius XI.395
The completed church conforms essentially to the February 1886 project,
although Laloux made minor changes to the design, particularly to the faade, the dome,
and the decoration. In composing the design Laloux drew from Italian Romanesque
churches that he had seen when he was a pensionnaire. The overall composition of the
church, with a crossing covered by a dome, is that of Pisa cathedral (1063-1272) (figs.
156-157).396 The rich abstract geometric and vegetal ornamentation was inspired by
Norman churches in Sicily, especially the cathedral of Monreale (begun 1174) and the
Palatine Chapel in Palermo (1132-89), which were inspired in turn by Byzantine and
Islamic architecture.397 The basilica is unified by the identical gables of the faade,
transept, and termination: their apexes are accentuated by stone crosses, their ends are
393
Le mot de chalet, vritable trouvaille, fut saisi, relanc; il revint, bondit nouveau; chacun le voulut
prononcer son tour. On lunit lpithte jaillie la veille de la colre de mademoiselle Cloque, et lglise
future fut ds lors stigmatise du nom de Chalet rpublicain. Ren Boylesve, Mademoiselle Cloque
(Chambray-ls-Tours: CLD, 1985), 65. See also Sadoux, Saint Martin de Tours, 23.
394
Guillaume-Ren Meignan, Lettre pastorale et mandement de Monseigneur larchev ue de Tours

loccasion des tes de Saint Martin de lanne 1891, no. 53 (Tours: Alfred Mame, 18 October 1891), 7.
395
Lelong, La Basilique Saint-Martin de Tours,130; Jean-Claude Tarrin, Les asili ues aujourdhui
LHistoire--le titre--lhonneur, toutes les asili ues de France, toutes celles de Rome, les dernires
mondiales (Paris: Letouzey et An, 1998), 199, 239.
396
Georges Gromort, The Basilica of St. Martin of Tours, Architectural Review 11, no. 2 (February
1904): 115.
397
Gromort, The Basilica of St. Martin of Tours, 115-117.
350
emphasized by acroteria-like plinths, and their sides are emphasized by bas-relief arches
framing alternating lozenges and paterae. The basilica is also unified by the repetition of
Corinthian columns, narrow round arch windows, and the ornamental motifs of
denticulated cornices; brackets; bas-relief lozenges, paterae, and crosses; rinceau scrolls;
and jagged zigzag and hood moldings. The ornamentation is concentrated on the upper
portions of the church, so that at street level, particularly at the corner of the rue des
Halles and rue Descartes, the church appears forbidding.
An undated elevation drawing shows how Laloux conceived the faade, masked
by an atrium to nearly the height of the side aisles (fig. 158).398 The elevation was
presumably sketched after February 1886, since it shows the copper dome that was built
rather than the stone dome of the February 1886 project. Above the atrium, the faade is
articulated in the same way as the end walls of the transept arms, with three round arch
windows framed by engaged columns and a blind arch framed by a gable. In the built
church, the faade is articulated in a more pronounced way, with a portico. Two engaged
Corinthian columns support clusters of four squat colonettes. These in turn support
entablatures, an arch, and a broken-bed pediment. The portico frames heavy wooden
doors completed by the architect Maurice Boille in 1925, a tympanum, and a bas-relief
quatrefoil.399 With its portico and graduated heights, the faade resembles that of San
Zeno in Verona (1123-35). The portico above the side door on the rue Descartes is a
more modest version of this, with columns on brackets supporting an arch and pediment.
The church faces onto a small parvis likewise designed by Boille, and inaugurated in
398
[Victor Laloux], Chapelle de Secours de [S]aint Martin Tours: Faade sur la rue Baleschoux,
undated, Archives diocsaines de Tours.
399
Saint Martin, 397-1997: Guide du plerin (Tours: Denis Jeanson, 1996), 131.
351
1928 (fig. 159). It has a balustrade and a Calvary by the sculptor Henri Varenne
representing the charity of Saint Martin with Perpetuus and Gregory.400 On the south
side of the parvis is the rue Baleschoux, a narrow lane, and a block of houses. Houses
also hem in the church and the parvis on the east side.
The volumes of the north end of the church are clearly articulated on the exterior
(fig. 157). At street level, the walls of the crypt and sacristies are flush with the edge of
the lot and the sidewalk. Above these walls the chamfered sides of the apses relate to the
chamfered corner of the lot. Above the roofs of the apses of the nave and side aisles are
the walls of the termination and transept, and above these is the dome. The dome in the
February 1886 project is stone, sits on a drum with widely spaced round arch windows,
and is surmounted by a cross. In contrast, the built dome is copper, sits on a drum ringed
by round arch windows separated only by columns, and is surmounted by a bronze statue
of Saint Martin. Whereas the stone courses of the planned dome emphasize horizontality,
the ridges rising from the base to the apex of the built dome emphasize verticality. The
built dome is taller than the dome in the 1886 project. It rises above the surrounding
rooftops, to a height of fifty-one meters, and competes with the tour de lHorloge and
tour Charlemagne. The statue is by Jean Hugues, Grand Prix winner of 1875.401 Hugues
represented Saint Martin as a bishop with his miter and crosier, bnissant la ville et tous
les pays quil a christianiss, as Meignan put it.402
400
Saint Martin, 397-1997: Guide du plerin, 131; Crosnier Leconte, Victor Laloux, 18.
401
Crosnier Leconte, Victor Laloux, 19, 75 n. 43.
402
Meignan evoked how pilgrims would experience the dome under construction:
Les plerins qui, cette anne, auront la pit de venir prendre leur part de nos ftes de novembre
pourront dj voir, on me lassure, au haut de limposante coupole difie sur le tombeau du saint de
Touraine, illustrant le sol o tant de sicles se sont agenouills, la statue du grand aptre bnissant la ville
et tous les pays quil a christianiss.
352
The interior of the built church differs from that of the February 1886 project in
that the sanctuary and side chapels are raised higher above the nave and aisles, by ten
steps rather than by five (figs. 160-161). It also differs because the baptistery protruding
from the east end of the narthex has been replaced by a doorway. In the built church, the
aisle walls are articulated by a dado, a frieze, and round arch stained glass windows. The
arcades that separate the aisles from the nave are raised on fourteen monolithic columns
of grey Vosges granite. The medium-grey columns and brown ceiling contrast to the
light-grey stone used for the rest of the church. The column capitals are Corinthian with
wide splayed abaci like those at Monreale and are carved with symbols of Saint Martin
and portraits of saints, kings, and other historical figures associated with Martins cult.403
Square stone bas-relief plaques decorate the spandrels. Above them, a frieze runs the
length of the nave, and above it, coupled round arch windows illuminate the nave. The
exposed wooden ceiling and trusses resemble those of San Miniato in Florence (finished
in 1062). Indeed the entire nave elevation recalls Italian Romanesque churches such as
San Miniato and the Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta in Torcello (ca. 1008).
From the nave, the eye is led up to the sanctuary by the fan-shaped staircase and
by the bronze ciborium donated by Moisant and designed by the architect Pierre Aymar
Verdier (1819-80) in 1866, in a thirteenth-century style.404 The sanctuary is accentuated
by the light that streams through the dome windows and by rich stone work and wall
Ds maintenant, en voyant de loin les anciennes tours dessinant sur le ciel leur silhouette noire et
leurs lignes gigantesques, auprs du dme dor qui sest lev jusqu leur hauteur, on dirait la vieille
collgiale relevant sont front rajeuni au milieu de lantique Martinopole. Guillaume-Ren Meignan, Lettre
pastorale et mandement de Monseigneur larchev ue de Tours loccasion de la te de Saint Martin, no.
42 (Tours: Alfred Mame, 11 October 1889) 4, Archives nationales, F 19 2589.
403
Saint Martin, 397-1997: Guide du plerin, 137-138.
404
353
paintings of figures and abstract vegetal patterns that use sinuous Art Nouveau forms
(figs. 162-163). The colonnades on either side of the crossing resemble those in
Quicherats reconstruction of the fifth-century basilica. The candelabra and goblets
between the columns call to mind the ex-votos in Lalouxs reconstruction of Olympia
(fig. 144). In sum, the completed church conforms to the 1886 project, with minor
changes. By raising the dome and the sanctuary and embellishing the faade, Laloux
reverted to his design that was critiqued by the Comit des inspecteurs gnraux des
travaux diocsains.
As Lalouxs student Georges Gromort observed in a review of Saint-Martin, the
same Italian Romanesque sources that inspired Lalouxs church had inspired
Vaudremers design for Saint-Pierre de Montrouge in Paris (1864-72), almost twenty
years earlier. And as Gromort pointed out, Laloux achieved a very different effect than
Vaudremer.405 Laloux did this by coupling the clerestory windows, raising the sanctuary
above a fan-shaped staircase, covering the crossing with a dome instead of a tower with a
pitched roof, and decorating the church with exuberance. While Saint-Pierre is dark,
solemn, and invites contemplation, Saint-Martin is bright, animated, and sets the stage for
the theatrical performance of the liturgy.
For darkness, visitors to Saint-Martin must descend to the crypt. This was the
focus of Msgr. Meignans strategy to connect his own episcopate with that of Martin and
other early bishops of Tours (figs. 164-165). Accessed by two staircases of thirteen steps
on either side of the fan-shaped staircase that leads from the nave to the sanctuary, the
405
Gromort, The Basilica of St. Martin of Tours, 117.
354
crypt occupies a surface area of 360 square meters under the sanctuary and transepts.406
The space is divided into three naves by short columns of red Scottish marble with
extremely wide-splayed Corinthian capitals that express the weightiness of the vaults.
The three naves are groin vaulted; the aisles are barrel vaulted. The tomb of Saint Martin
at the north end of the crypt is framed by a half-dome, as is the tomb of Msgr. Meignan at
the south end (fig. 166). Natural light enters only through two windows behind the tomb,
back lighting it. The floor is inlaid with areas of abstract patterns in tiles, with a metal
line indicating the axis of the fifth-century basilica, and with lines of red cement
representing its foundations (figs. 164-165). The metal and cement lines fulfilled
Stanislas Ratels conditions for the sale of Pdre Moisants house. More importantly,
they associated Meignan with Martin and his early cult.
In their 1884 project description, Chevalier and Laloux told Meignan that the
foundations of the fifth-century basilica would be conserved and represented in the crypt:
Toutes ces parties seront traduites soigneusement par les dessins du dallage et pourront
servir de document.407 As the ground breaking approached, Laloux promised the Abb
Juteau that he would stick to the initial project: le sol de la basilique de St Perpet sera
respect dans la crypte projet et la dlimitation de labside et les restes seront
parfaitement visibles. Cest de ce sens quest compris le projet et cest l le point de
depart de la composition. Nayez donc ce sujet aucune crainte.408 In keeping with his
406
See the descriptions of the crypt in Guide du plerin la basilique et au tombeau de Saint-Martin de
Tours, imprimatur Guillaume-Ren Meignan (Tours: Saint-Joseph, n. d.), 29-30; and Saint Martin, 3971997: Guide du plerin, 152-153.
407
Casimir Chevalier and Victor Laloux to Guillaume-Ren Meignan, 27 October 1884, Archives
408
Victor Laloux to Abb [Auguste-Hubert Juteau], 13 April 1886, Archives de la Basilique Saint-Martin.
355
promise, the red cement lines represent the foundations of two apsidioles buried below.409
Chevalier was convinced that in the 1886 excavations he had uncovered the foundations
of a chevet with an ambulatory and five radiating chapels dating to the fifth century, and
he therefore no longer accepted the arrangement of the chevet in Quicherats
reconstruction.410 Chevalier thought his discovery was important for architectural
history, as it was une chorea complte, cest--dire une abside intrieure, un atrium ou
dambulatoire tout autour et cinq chapelles absidales rayonnantes, forme architecturale
savante et vraiment monumentale, dont jusquici on rejetait une poque bien postrieure
lintroduction en France.411 He arbitrarily named the absidioles represented by the
cement lines the Chapelle Saint-Brice and Chapelle Saint-Euphrne. He named them
after Brictius of Tours, the bishop who succeeded Martin and built the first oratory on his
tomb between 437 and 444, and Euphronius of Autun, the bishop who sent Perpetuus
some of the marble for Martins tomb.412 The absidioles can be seen in a photograph of
the excavations (fig. 155).
In addition to reflecting the remnants of two chapels of a pentachore chevet with
cement lines, the crypt displays the remnants of two other chapels. The axial chapel is
beyond a grill in the north-east corner of the crypt--Chevalier named it the Chapelle
Saint-Perpet--and a baptistery is beyond a door in the south-west corner--he named it the
409
Guide du plerin la basilique, 30.
410
Quicherat na pas admis cette explication; mais sil avait pu assister nos fouilles, il aurait . . . reconnu
avec nous labside de lglise. Chevalier, Les Fouilles de Saint-Martin de Tours: Recherches sur les six
basiliques successives, 36.
411
Casimir Chevalier, Le Plan primitif de Saint-Martin de Tours, daprs les te tes et les ouilles (Paris: n.
p., 1892): 4.
412
Vieillard-Troiekouroff, Les Monuments religieux de la Gaule, 313, 318, and fig. 65.
356
Chapelle Saint-Grgoire (figs. 165 and 167).413 Chevalier named the axial chapel after
Perpetuus because in Perpetuuss will (a document whose authenticity has been
contested) he requested that he be buried at Martins feet.414 In 1887 Meignan arranged
the translation of Perpetuuss relics from Solero, Italy, to the chapel, thereby promoting
Perpetuuss cult. Aprs avoir pri saint Martin, vous pourrez prier saint Perpet,
Meignan urged in a pastoral letter after the translation.415 Chevalier named the baptistery
after Gregory of Tours because Gregory mentioned the baptistery in his writings.416
Chevalier proposed that it would be the tomb chamber for the archbishops of Tours.417
This would re-establish the Basilica of Saint-Martin as Tours episcopal burial place.418
The representation of the fifth-century apse, and the dedications of chapels to fifth- and
sixth-century bishops of Tours who promoted Martins cult, communicated that
413
De cette construction, il nous reste lhumble chapelle de Saint-Perpet, et plus loin le baptistre
mentionn par saint Grgoire de Tours. Les autres portions du mme monument, enfouies jamais sous les
uvres modernes, seront dessines sur le dallage par des marbres de couleurs varies. Chevalier, Les
Fouilles de Saint-Martin de Tours: Recherches sur les six basiliques successives, 126. See also p. 133.
414
Nous avons . . . donn la chapelle du chevet le nom de chapelle de Saint-Perpet, en raison du clbre
testament par lequel lillustre fondateur de la basilique demandait tre enseveli aux pieds de saint Martin .
. . Chevalier, Les Fouilles de Saint-Martin de Tours: Recherches sur les six basiliques successives, 36.
415
lpoque des invasions normandes, les moines de Saint-Martin avaient mis en sret dans lglise
collgiale de Solero, au diocse dAlexandrie (haute Italie), le corps de saint Perpet. Cette glise relevait
alors de notre grande abbaye. Le Chapitre de Solero a bien voulu jusque dans nos temps modernes se
souvenir de son antique parent, et gracieusement consentir nous donner une partie dun trsor devenu sa
possession.
Un fragment considrable de ces reliques, sera transport aussi religieusement et aussi
honorablement quil sera possible dans la chapelle absidale retrouve, dsormais ddie la mmoire de
saint Perpet. Guillaume-Ren Meignan, Lettre pastorale et mandement de Monseigneur larchev ue de
Tours loccasion de la te de Saint Martin, no. 26 (Tours: Alfred Mame, 13 October 1887), 5.
416
Chevalier, Les Fouilles de Saint-Martin de Tours: Recherches sur les six basiliques successives, 126.
417
Quelle joie aussi de pouvoir sauver, dfaut de lensemble de lantique et monumental dambulatoire,
tout au moins deux petites chapelles du Ve sicle qui seront relies la crypte, lune pour restituer aux
reliques du pieux fondateur de la basilique, providentiellement revenues de leur exil dix fois sculaire de
Solero, leur place primitive aux pieds de saint Martin, lautre pour offrir aux archevques de Tours une
tombe privilgie prs du spulcre de leur glorieux prdcesseur! Chevalier, Les Fouilles de Saint-Martin
de Tours: Recherches sur les six basiliques successives,vi.
418
Vieillard-Troiekouroff, Les Monuments religieux de la Gaule, 320.
357
Meignans church rested on the foundations of its first prototype, and that Meignans
promotion of Martins cult rested on the authority of his earliest predecessors.
Martins tomb is the centerpiece of the crypt and the church (fig. 165). Masonry
fragments of Martins tomb and relics of Martins body can be seen through a grill in the
base of a massive reliquary made of red Vosges sandstone inlaid with mosaics.419 Laloux
composed the reliquary of a pedimented canopy carried by ten columns with bronze
capitals on a rectangular sarcophagus base. It recalls the tombs in the form of temples
that Laloux illustrated in his manual on Greek architecture.420 The strong, simple shapes
and solid materials reflect the antiquity and stability of Martins cult. Opposite the crypt
from the reliquary in the conch of the apse is Meignans tomb monument, set into its own
conch between the stairs leading to the nave (fig. 166). Before his death in 1896,
Meignan expressed the desire to be buried in this exact place.421 In 1900, the tomb was
enhanced with a statue of Meignan in prayer, facing Martins tomb. The base was
designed by Laloux, and the statue was sculpted by Franois Sicard (1862-1934), a native
of Tours and Grand Prix winner of 1891.422 Meignans request to be buried in the crypt
opposite Martins tomb was his last initiative to appropriate the saints cult.
419
Guide du plerin la basilique, 31.
420
Victor Laloux, LArchitecture grec ue (Paris: Quantin, 1888), 252-253.
421
See the authorization of the vestry of Saint-Julien-Saint-Franois: Le conseil aprs en avoir dlibr.
Vu le dsir exprim par le vnr dfunt. Vu lautorisation ministrielle accorde cet effet par lettre en
date du 21 janvier 1896, et voulant donner une dernire marque de vnration et de reconnaissance
lillustre prlat fondateur du magnifique difice lev la gloire de St Martin, dcide que le corps de son
minence le Cardinal Meignan archevque de Tours sera inhum dans la crypte de St Martin, entre les
deux escaliers donnant accs lglise suprieure, endroit que son minence avait elle-mme dsign.
Vestry of Saint-Julien-Saint-Franois, Sance extraordinaire du 22 janvier 1896, Dlibrations de la
fabrique: 1856-1903, pt. 2, n. p., Archives diocsaines de Tours, bote 1096.
422
358
Conclusion
It is clear that Laloux changed the project so that the finished building does not
share as much with Quicherats reconstruction as the initial plan. The finished building
incorporates references to Italian Romanesque churches that Laloux saw when he was a
pensionnaire. Georges Gromort wrote in his review of Saint-Martin that Laloux worked
less as a true archaeologist . . . and more as a modern and living interpreter of the forms
which time has slowly evolved . . .423 H. Bartle Cox, another student of Laloux, wrote
in a biography of Laloux that he is no admirer of modern archaeological architecture,
nor of the designing of buildings in the so-called styles, except for restoration work, or
when an historical style is demanded by the client. He believes in the handling of
composition in a modern spirit, giving to it a living character and adapting the
architecture entirely to the requirements of the programme.424 The completed church
nevertheless evokes the church erected on Martins tomb in 471, with its basilican forms-especially its nave separated from side aisles by monolithic columns, its semi-circular
apse, its exposed wooden trusses, and the emphasis given to its crossing--as well as with
its conservation and representation of remnants of the fifth-century church in the crypt.
Lalouxs design contrasts strikingly with the project of Baillarg and the uvre
de Saint-Martin, owing to these references, as well as its north-south orientation, site
overlapping only the apse and the south transept of the destroyed eleventh-century
church, and small size in relation to the destroyed church. Baillargs reconstruction of
the Romanesque Basilica of Saint-Martin was planned to recall the unique privileges of
423
Gromort, The Basilica of St. Martin of Tours, 117.
424
Bartle Cox, M. Laloux: The Man and His Work, 610.
359
the Church during the Ancien Rgime, when Catholicism was the single State religion.425
Conversely, the iconographical references in Lalouxs church to Martin and the fifth- and
sixth-century bishops who promoted Martins cult, as well as the archaeological
references to the fifth-century church and to Latin basilicas in general, linked Meignan to
Martin and his successors. Furthermore, they connected the Catholic Church of the latenineteenth century with the Church of late antiquity. 426 In particular, they drew a parallel
between the missionary status of the Church in late Roman Gaul and the role of the
Church under the Concordat as one public service among others in a pluralistic society.
Despite the opposition to Lalouxs church of the uvre and its supporters, the
pilgrimage centered on Martins tomb continued to thrive after the churchs construction.
The meaning of the devotion became once again bound up with the defense of the nation,
as it had been during the Franco-Prussian War. Martins appeal grew along with that of
other patrons associated with war, such as Saint Michael the Archangel, Saint Genevive,
and Joan of Arc (not canonized until 1920).427 While Meignan had emphasized Martins
role as a bishop, Meignans successor Ren-Franois Renou (1896-1913) emphasized his
role as a soldier. Renou, who was a liberal like Meignan, spoke of the relationship
between Martins cloak and the French tricolor flag, thereby linking Martin with
patriotism, and republicanism.428 During the First World War the pilgrimage to the tomb
425
On the basic changes in the legal status of the Church from the Ancien Rgime to the Concordat era see
Leniaud, LAdministration des cultes, 17-18; and Gibson, A Social History of French Catholicism, 30, 4749.
426
Jonas compares and contrasts the Church in these two periods in Jonas, Restoring a Sacred Center,
120.
427
Brennan, The Revival of the Cult of Martin of Tours, 500; Jean Chlini and Henry Branthomme, Les
Chemins de Dieu: Histoire des plerinages chrtiens (Paris: Hachette, 1982), 346.
428
Brennan, The Revival of the Cult of Martin of Tours, 497-499.
360
of the soldier-saint surged. Then, when the armistice was signed on November 11, 1918,
Martins feast day, many Catholics attributed it to the intercession of the saint.429
429
Brennan, The Revival of the Cult of Martin of Tours, 499-501.
361
Conclusion
This dissertation has revealed how in the nineteenth century the French Catholic
clergy used architecture as an essential tool to promote and transform pilgrimage. The
embrace of popular religion by the clergy belonged to the strategy of the institutional
Church to adjust to the challenges of modernity.1 Pilgrimage and building pilgrimage
churches served to construct a national community of Catholics in an era when religion
was a matter of individual choice rather than of conformity at the local level, as it had
been under the Ancien Rgime.2 By the fact of building a pilgrimage church, priests
showed that they were in control of the associated pilgrimage, and were putting in place a
program of post-Revolutionary re-Christianization. By the form of the church, priests
made the pilgrimage acceptable to them. Practical facilities enabled a shift from
superstitious rituals to the liturgy and sacraments. Iconographical programs directed
attention from local cults to the general canon of Catholic beliefs, particularly papal
dogma and policy. Pilgrimage churches also served to re-Christianize the French
landscape. In the nineteenth century the Church enjoyed far less control over public
space than it had before the French Revolution.3 To counteract the reduction of the
number and extent of Church properties, the clergy increased the visibility of religious
architecture, especially by building pilgrimage churches.4 With their highly visible sites,
Thomas A. Kselman, Miracles and Prophesies in Nineteenth-Century France (New Brunswick, NJ:
Rutgers University Press, 1983), 193.
2
Ralph Gibson, A Social History of French Catholicism (London: Routledge, 1989), 235; Kselman,
Miracles and Prophesies in Nineteenth-Century France, 196-197, 199.
3
Raymond A. Jonas, Restoring a Sacred Center: Pilgrimage, Politics, and the Sacr-Cur, Historical
Reflections/Rflexions historiques 20, no. 1 (1994): 120-121.
4
Maurice Halbwachs, La Mmoire collective (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1968), 160-161.
362
often on a hill above a town or city, and highly visible architectural forms--their
monumental faades, bell towers, domes, and statues--pilgrimage churches asserted
themselves on the landscape and announced the clergys hoped-for command of society.5
In addition, pilgrimage churches seemed to proclaim the growth and consolidation of the
national community of the Catholic faithful.6
As the clergy embraced popular religion, they linked it with Catholic political
claims.7 Pilgrimage churches embodied the political positions of Catholics as opposed to
seculars, of one of the Two Frances.8 Throughout the nineteenth century, the Church
was led by clergy and laypeople on the Right. This was a reflection of the hierarchical
organization of the Church. It was also the legacy of the integration of the Church and
the monarchy under the Ancien Rgime and the violent conflict between Catholics and
revolutionaries during the French Revolution.9 When the antagonism between Catholics
and seculars was strongest, after 1870, the two camps competed for the visibility of their
symbols in the public realm.10 Statues of Mary opposed statues of Marianne,
personification of the Republic, statues of saints counterbalanced statues of republican
grands hommes, and pilgrimage churches opposed republican monuments. The most
See the discussion of the re-Christianization of the cityscape of Marseille in Rgis Bertrand, De la
toponymie la statuaire: Les Formes de christianisation du paysage Marseillais depuis le XVIIIe sicle,
Annales du Midi 98, no. 173 (January-March 1986): 95.
6
Halbwachs, La Mmoire collective, 163.
Kselman, Miracles and Prophesies in Nineteenth-Century France, 200.
Claude Langlois, Catholics and Seculars, in Realms of Memory: Rethinking the French Past, ed. Pierre
Nora, trans. Arthur Goldhammer, vol. 1 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996): 111.
9
10
Langlois, Catholics and Seculars, 124-125.
363
important of these juxtapositions was that of the Sacr-Cur and the Eiffel Tower in
Paris.11
If pilgrimage churches drew attention to the division between Catholics and
seculars, they also highlighted the division between Catholics of different political
cultures, and they mirrored how Catholic attitudes towards church-state relations evolved
over time. In contrast to other churches that were permitted by the Concordat and that
stood as the representation of the government, pilgrimage churches expressed the
political positions of the priests who planned them and the national constituencies of
donors who funded them. Planned by a cur who belonged to the industrial bourgeoisie,
and paid for by an alliance of Orlanist bourgeois and Legitimist nobles, Notre-Dame de
Bonsecours embodied the coalition of notables in the latter years of the July Monarchy,
when the notables domination was threatened by rapid industrialization and social
upheaval. The alliance of donors also reflected a shift in church-state relations. After the
initial anticlericalism of the regime of Louis-Philippe, in the mid-1830s the ruling elite
turned towards the Church, attracted by Catholicisms usefulness as an instrument of
social control, and the clergy reciprocated with their support of the regime.
While Notre-Dame de Bonsecours was funded by an alliance of notables with
various political loyalties, the prominent donors who contributed to the Basilica of the
Immacule-Conception in Lourdes represented an extreme ultramontane and legitimist
faction among French Catholics. And while the church in Rouen signaled the
rapprochement between the clergy and the government of the July Monarchy, the church
11
Maurice Agulhon, Politics, Images, and Symbols in Post-Revolutionary France, in Rites of Power:
Symbolism, Ritual, and Politics Since the Middle Ages, ed. Sean Wilentz (Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 1985), 183; Langlois, Catholics and Seculars, 125; Ruth Harris, Lourdes: Body and
Spirit in the Secular Age (London: Penguin, 1999), 248.
364
in Lourdes indicated the increasing dissatisfaction of Catholics with the Roman policy of
Napoleon III towards the end of the Second Empire. The bishop of Lourdes supported
the devotion to Our Lady of Lourdes and planned the church on the grotto, and the
donors paid for it, in order to reinforce the dogma of the Immaculate Conception,
promulgated by Pope Pius IX in 1854. The dogma was political, as it was declared
unilaterally, with little input from bishops, and because it contrasted Marys spotlessness
with humanitys imperfection, thereby condemning liberal democracy.
Dom Jean Martial Besse, the author of Le Tombeau de Saint Martin de Tours,
understood all of France in terms of conflict between two opposing camps: La France
royaliste et catholique, et la France rvolutionnaire et athe.12 He likewise interpreted
the affaire de Saint-Martin in terms of conflict. Describing the internal struggle
between Catholics over building a church on the tomb of Saint Martin in Tours, Besse
wrote that les catholiques franais sous le coup de la perscution taient en proie des
divisions profondes. Les uns voyaient le salut dans une rsistance courageuse; ctaient
les intransigeants, les ultramontains; les autres le plaaient dans la modration et les
concessions, ctaient les libraux.13 The members of the uvre de Saint-Martin were
intransigents; Archbishop Meignan and his advisor Msgr. Chevalier were liberals: Deux
forces ennemies se trouvaient donc face face devant la basilique en projet de saint
Martin. Le conflit saggrava ainsi de toutes les ardeurs dune lutte de politique
12
Dom Jean Martial Lon Besse, Veillons sur notre histoire (Paris: Librairie des Saints-Pres, 1907), 10.
Quoted in Claude Langlois, Catholiques et lacs, in Les Lieux de mmoire, ed. Pierre Nora, vol. 3, bk. 1
(Paris: Gallimard, 1992), 144.
13
1854-1893 (Paris: E. Champion, 1922), 444.
365
religieuse.14 Thus the affaire encapsulates national debates among French Catholics
concerning the appropriate role of the Church in nineteenth-century French society. The
failure of the uvre to build its project, and Meignans subsequent success in
constructing his, reflected the transformation of church-state relations in the early Third
Republic, from the government of Moral Order and its program of ruling according to
religious principles, to the policy of laicization of the Republic of Republicans and the
concurrent shift towards liberalism in the French episcopate. Beyond the obvious
confrontation between Catholics of different political cultures, the historian Norman
Ravitch has proposed another intriguing framework for interpreting nineteenth-century
French Catholicism, as a struggle between those desiring to have the Church support the
status quo and those with a more utopian vision of what the Church should be in the
world.15 Within this framework, Meignan stands for the maintenance of order, and the
uvre for prophesy.16
Pilgrimage churches embodied Catholic political positions because of their
association with the priests who planned them and the faithful who funded them.
Moreover, with their incorporation of historical architectural forms, pilgrimage churches
constructed Catholic collective memories, thereby serving the ends of the Church. Priests
and the lay Catholic elite drew from the past as a source of authority for the
implementation of their political programs in the present.17 The Gothic forms of Notre-
14
15
Norman Ravitch, The Catholic Church and the French Nation, 1589-1989 (London: Routledge, 1990),
62.
16
17
Ravitch, The Catholic Church and the French Nation, 61.
Ceri Crossley, French Historians and Romanticism: Thierry, Guizot, the Saint-Simonians, Quinet,
Michelet (London: Routledge, 1993), 1.
366
Dame de Bonsecours and the Basilica of the Immacule-Conception in Lourdes evoked
an idealized vision of the Middle Ages, imagined as the era in which the Church enjoyed
its greatest influence. The clerical patrons of these churches used the Gothic to promote a
return to a medieval past organized around the throne and altar, in which society was
stable, hierarchical, and cohesive. At Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, in the midst of the
accelerated industrialization of Rouen, donors portraits and inscriptions reinforced the
association of the pilgrimage with a medieval social network, in which people were
bound together by mutual responsibilities.18 At the Basilica of the ImmaculeConception, the architect Hippolyte Durands use of austere, twelfth-century forms and
his repetition of the same forms he had employed in his other churches in the south-west,
stemmed from his concern with economy and his innovative development of model
churches. Owing to its likeness to mass-produced consumer goods, the basilica was a
fitting complement to the foremost modern pilgrimage, promoted and operated on a mass
scale by the clergy using modern technologies.
In Tours, the two competing projects to build a church on the tomb of Saint
Martin expressed the narratives of French history of two competing Catholic political
cultures. The project of the uvre to rebuild the Romanesque basilica that stood on
Martins tomb until its destruction in the French Revolution was a metaphor for the
expiation of that particular act of sacrilege, as well as for the Revolution as a whole. The
Romanesque basilica was linked with royal power because Martin was the patron saint of
medieval royal dynasties. For the intransigent, legitimist members of the uvre, it
recalled not the near Ancien Rgime of the Enlightenment and the beginning of de-
18
France (Aldershot, U.K.: Ashgate, 2003), 219-220.
367
Christianization, but a far-off Middle Ages in which France, the fille ane de lglise,
was true to its Catholic vocation. The uvre members understood their reconstruction
project in terms of the counter-revolutionary narrative of French history of Joseph de
Maistre, as atonement for Frances disavowal of its vocation, leading to national
salvation, much like lay members of the Socit de Saint-Vincent-de-Paul understood
their project for the Basilica of the Sacr-Cur on Montmartre. Conversely, the project
of the liberal archbishop, Msgr. Meignan, incorporated architectural references to the
early Christian church that had stood on Martins tomb prior to the Romanesque basilica.
The completed basilica recalled the authority of Martin and other early bishops, and it
commemorated Martins contribution to the conversion of France to Christianity. In
evoking Martins authority, the basilica legitimized Meignans attempts to impose unity
among Catholics, divided by the affaire de Saint-Martin and by the national debates
between intransigent and liberal Catholics that the local controversy represented. In
conjuring the missionary status of the Church in late Roman Gaul, the basilica also
legitimized Meignans willingness to accept the relativization of Catholicism in late
nineteenth-century France, and to reconcile the Church with modern democracy and
industrial society. In sum, pilgrimage churches designed in historical architectural
idioms constructed pasts that Catholics wished to restore in the present, and they
promoted Catholics who belonged to different political cultures as the rightful heirs of
these pasts.
This dissertation has detailed the planning and building of pilgrimage churches
under the leadership of the clergy in order to illuminate how these churches
institutionalized popular religion, and how they embodied Catholic political positions, as
368
well as to shed light on a form of nineteenth-century French architectural patronage that
has received little attention from architectural historians. Motivated to put an end to
superstitious practices at pilgrimage sites and to shape the meaning of the cults that were
centered there, priests took control of every aspect of the realization of the three
pilgrimage churches that I have focused on. They brought energy and ideas to the
projects they managed: Godefroy had been a textile manufacturer before he came to
Bonsecours, Laurence had revived other shrines in the Pyrenees before he developed
Lourdes, and Meignan was a leading French biblical scholar. Each of these priests took
charge of the design of the church, the choice of style, the choice of architect and
decorative artists, and the iconographical program. The history of Notre-Dame de
Bonsecours shows the importance of a Catholic context for the French Gothic Revival, a
context distinct from the secular setting of Viollet-le-Duc and the government
architectural services.19 Under the influence of Catholic advisors and Catholic theories of
Gothic architecture, Godefroy chose a thirteenth-century style for the church. He
coordinated an ambitious program of decoration, including mural painting and stained
glass, making a significant contribution to the resurgence of these art forms. In realizing
the decoration, Godefroy put the basilica at the forefront of the national revival of
religious art. This revival was part of the revival of Catholicism that began in the 1830s,
as well as the effort to recover from the neglect and destruction of ecclesiastical buildings
19
Barry Bergdoll has argued that in France, although many members of the clergy were to be won over to
the Gothic cause--as recent studies of provincial architecture in nineteenth-century France are just starting
to make clear--the theoretical apparatus of the Gothic Revival was defined in a largely secular, and in
Viollet-le-Ducs case, even anticlerical, context. Here I am drawing attention to the importance of a
Catholic context for one landmark building of the French Gothic Revival. More research is needed to
assess the impact of Catholicism on the French movement as a whole. See Barry Bergdoll, The Ideal of
the Gothic Cathedral in 1852, in A. W. N. Pugin: Master of the Gothic Revival (New Haven: Yale
369
during the Revolution.20 The Basilica of the Immacule-Conception illustrates that
Catholic theories of Gothic architecture remained influential in the 1860s. In contrast,
the Basilica of Saint-Martin shows the influence of Christian archaeology on the clergy.
Meignan chose an early Christian style for Saint-Martin against the backdrop of the
exploration of the catacombs and restoration of early Christian basilicas in Rome with
subsidies from Pope Pius IX. Meignans advisor Msgr. Chevalier, who studied and
published on Christian archaeology, designed the church together with Laloux. In Tours,
as in Rome, the institutional Church used archaeology to offer evidence of its continuity,
and thereby legitimized its authority.
Priests who constructed pilgrimage churches also sought government permission
to build, concocting ingenious plans to deal with the failure of the Concordat to recognize
the function of churches as sites of pilgrimage. As a result of the Concordats disregard
of pilgrimage churches, the three pilgrimage churches examined here were paid for by
private gifts that the clergy solicited, rather than government contributions. In a 2005
article that deals with nineteenth-century French pilgrimage churches as a group, the only
publication that does so critically, the architectural historian Jean-Michel Leniaud has
presented a thesis about the effect of the legal irregularity of pilgrimage churches on their
form:21 since these churches were not subject to the architectural judgment of the central
administration, they are distinguished by a greater freedom of design.22 Indeed,
20
On the revival of religious art see Bruno Foucart, Le Renouveau de la peinture religieuse en France
(1800-1860) (Paris: Arthna, 1987), 2-9. On the revival of Catholicism see Gibson, A Social History of
French Catholicism, 229-230.
21
Jean-Michel Leniaud, Les Basiliques de plerinage en France et leur architecture (XIXe-dbut XXe
sicle), Mlanges de lcole ranaise de Rome Italie et mditerrane 117, fascicle 2 (2005): 489-490.
22
Leniaud writes that les basiliques sen distinguent, . . . par une plus grande libert dcriture. Leniaud,
Les Basiliques de plerinage en France et leur architecture, 495.
370
Leniauds idea is upheld by Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, which Godefroy built in a
thirteenth-century style beginning in 1840, just as the Gothic Revival was emerging as an
architectural movement in France. Godefroy consistently minimized the extent of his
plans, because they were out of scale with the requirements of a parish. He therefore
evaded the scrutiny of the Conseil des btiments civils, which in 1840 rejected Gothic
plans for Saint-Nicolas in Nantes and Sainte-Clotilde in Paris, and he was able to execute
a precocious Gothic design that was complete and unified. However, the Basilica of the
Immacule-Conception and the Basilica of Saint-Martin tell a different story. The church
in Lourdes was free of government bureaucracy because of its legal status as a chapelle
domestique, but Durand was still an Architecte diocsain, employed by the
Administration des cultes, and his design for the church was hardly original, but repeated
forms he had used in plans for parish churches over fifteen years earlier. Conversely, the
government did intervene in the planning to build the church in Tours, by seizing the
money and property of the uvre and authorizing construction of a chapelle de secours.
In addition, the Comit des inspecteurs gnraux des travaux diocsains forced Laloux to
radically simplify his plans. The projects to build the three pilgrimage churches
described here were overseen personally by priests, paid for by private donations, and
less determined by the central administration than projects to restore and build cathedrals
and parish churches without pilgrimages. Priests managed the projects in relative
freedom, but, except in the case of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, this did not result in
freedom of design. However, the case studies presented here suggest that, as a
consequence of their patronage model, pilgrimage churches as a group more clearly
expressed Catholic political claims than other nineteenth-century French churches.
371
Furthermore, they expressed national Catholic politics, because they mobilized national
constituencies of the faithful, not only to gather in mass assemblies, but to contribute
financially. The patronage model of pilgrimage churches was an aspect of the
modernization of popular religion, as the clergy promoted and organized pilgrimage on a
national scale, using industrial technologies. It reflects the broader modernization of
religion, which entailed the transition from a Catholicism of conformity to one of
individual choice, and a shift from local to national Catholic group identity.23
In 1905, the Law of Separation abolished the Concordat, putting an end to the
legal framework for the French Church that had been in place for over one hundred years.
The separation of church and state was the culmination of a series of anticlerical laws
whose application at Saint Martins tomb has been presented here. With it, the conflict
between Catholics and seculars that had escalated as the result of the anticlerical laws of
the 1880s, the Dreyfus affair of the 1890s, and the laws against religious congregations of
1901 reached a crisis point. At stake was the legal recognition of the Church, as well as
the future of over four hundred million francs worth of Church property.24 The Law of
Separation stipulated that existing churches would remain in the possession of the State
and of municipalities, but new ones would belong to lay associations, be financed by the
private donations of Catholics, and be independent of government architectural control.25
23
Gibson, A Social History of French Catholicism, 235; Kselman, Miracles and Prophesies in NineteenthCentury France, 196-197.
24
Maurice J. M. Larkin, The Vatican, French Catholics, and the Associations Cultuelles, Journal of
Modern History 36, no. 3 (September 1964): 298.
25
J. Brugerette, Le Prtre franais et la socit contemporaine, vol. 2, Vers la Sparation de lglise et de

ltat (1871-1908) (Paris: P. Lethielleux, 1935), 559; Adrien Dansette, Religious History of Modern
France (Freiburg: Herder, 1961), 2: 340; Jean-Michel Leniaud, Rassembler, prier, prcher, clbrer, in
Architecture religieuse du XXe sicle en France, ed. Cline Frmaux (Rennes: Presses universitaires de
Rennes, 2007), 67.
372
Therefore, priests building pilgrimage churches in the post-Separation period no longer
faced the obstacles that were overcome by their Concordat-era forebearers. While the
separation of church and state was a crisis in the struggle between Catholics and seculars,
the First World War brought about the reconciliation of the Two Frances in the union
sacre against the enemy.26 Then in 1924 the Vatican came to an understanding with
Paris on the separation, which it had initially opposed as a blow to its prestige.27 With
religion now a private matter, it ceased to occupy center stage in French politics as it had
since the Revolution.28
After its peak in 1872-1873, the pilgrimage movement declined as the mood of
atonement of the Moral Order years faded and the pressure of the anticlerical laws
intensified.29 Nevertheless, the practice of pilgrimage continued with remarkable vitality
in France in the twentieth century. This study has described how the pilgrimages to
Notre-Dame de Bonsecours and the Basilica of Saint-Martin grew during the First World
War, and it has examined how the Lourdes shrine was expanded and modernized to
accommodate increasing crowds. Compared to 140,000 Catholics who came to Lourdes
by train in 1873, the year of the first national pilgrimage organized by the
Assumptionists, 4.8 million came in total in 1958, the centenary of the apparitions.30
26
John McManners, Church and State in France, 1870-1914 (New York: Harper and Row, 1972), 175.
27
Larkin, The Vatican, French Catholics, and the Associations Cultuelles, 308.
28
29
Grard Cholvy and Y.-M. Hilaire, Histoire religieuse de la France contemporaine, 1800-1880
(Toulouse: Privat, 1985), 196; Jean Chlini and Henry Branthomme, Les Chemins de Dieu: Histoire des
plerinages chrtiens (Paris: Hachette, 1982), 333-336.
30
Stphane Baumont, ed., Histoire de Lourdes (Toulouse: Privat, 1993), 291.
373
Churches constructed at two other shrines in the twentieth century suggest the
legacy of nineteenth-century pilgrimage churches. The Basilica of Sainte-Thrse in
Lisieux, Normandy (1929-54) was built to foster the new devotion to Saint Thrse of the
Child Jesus and the Holy Face (1873-97), a Carmelite nun whose message of childlike
trust in the love of God spread rapidly through the publication of her autobiography after
she died at the age of twenty-four in 1897 (fig. 168).31 Designed by the cole des BeauxArts-trained, Lille-based architect Louis-Marie Cordonnier (1854-1940), under the
supervision of the bishop, the Directeur des plerinages, and the Carmelite convent where
Thrse had lived, the Basilica of Sainte-Thrse shows the influence of the Sacr-Cur
on Montmartre, with its massive scale, domes and cupolas reminiscent of Romanesque
churches in south-western France, arcuated porticos, and campanile--an influence that has
already been seen in the project of the uvre for Saint-Martin.32 Thus, while the
immense appeal of Thrses message reflected a shift away from the theology of
expiation that had permeated French Catholicism in the nineteenth century, towards an
emphasis on Gods love,33 Thrses basilica was entrenched in the architectural tradition
of the church of national reparation. The Basilica of Sainte-Thrse likewise resembles
nineteenth-century pilgrimage churches in its patronage model, consisting of the
31
Barbara Corrado Pope, A Heroine without Heroics: The Little Flower of Jesus and Her Times, Church
History 57, no. 1 (March 1988): 50.
32
The similarity between the Basilica of Saint-Thrse and the Sacr-Cur has been pointed out by
Franois Loyer. See Franois Loyer, Une Basilique synthtique, in Paul Abadie: Architecte, 1812-1884,
ed. Claude Laroche (Paris: Runion des muses nationaux, 1988), 193.
33
Richard D. E. Burton, Holy Tears, Holy Blood: Women, Catholicism, and the Culture of Suffering in
France, 1840-1970 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004), 38; Gibson, A Social History of French
Catholicism, 253-254, 266-267.
374
donations of a national, even international community of Catholics.34 A new feature of
its patronage was the close involvement of the pope, Pius XI, in its design and
promotion.35 The basilica was linked to the strengthening of the authority of the Vatican
over the French Church following the Separation,36 a tie reinforced by the attendance at
its 1937 benediction of Cardinal Pacelli, the papal legate and future Pope Pius XII.37
An icon of modern architecture, the Chapel of Notre-Dame du Haut at Ronchamp
in the Vosges (1950-55), was also built as a pilgrimage church (fig. 169). Le Corbusier
(1887-1965) was persuaded to accept the commission by the Pre Marie-Alain Couturier
(1897-1954),38 a Dominican who promoted the creation of a sacred art of pure forms, free
from academicism, and invited major modern artists--Catholic or not--to produce works
for the Church.39 To understand Notre-Dame du Haut, it must be considered in relation
to nineteenth-century pilgrimage churches. The chapel was the third church on the site:
the first was built in the Middle Ages and altered in the nineteenth century; the second
34
Carmel de Lisieux, Rapport relatif la basilique de Ste Thrse de LEnfant-Jsus Lisieux, undated,
p. 13, Archives du Carmel de Lisieux; [Carmel de Lisieux], Premier projet de la basilique: Pourquoi il a
t abandonn--projet actuel, undated, p. 10, Archives de la Basilique, Direction du Plerinage SainteThrse, Lisieux.
35
In 1927 Pius XI critiqued Cordonniers project and the architect modified it accordingly. See Carmel de
Lisieux, Rapport relatif la basilique de Ste Thrse de LEnfant-Jsus Lisieux, undated, p. 13,
Archives du Carmel de Lisieux. Furthermore, the official publications of the shrine frequently published
the popes blessing of the project. See, among others, Pius XI, Prcieuse bndiction accorde par le
Souverain-Pontife aux Souscripteurs de la Basilique de Lisieux, Annales de Sainte Thrse de Lisieux 3,
no. 12 (1 December 1927): 177 and between 184 and 185.
36
Jean-Marie Mayeur, La Sparation de lglise et de ltat (Paris: Ren Julliard, 1966), 192.
37
Ren Fontenelle, Sa Saintet Pie XI (Paris: Spes, 1937), 128-135; Franois Charles-Roux, Huit ans au
Vatican (1932-1940) (Paris: Flammarion, 1947), 223-225.
38
Valerio Casali, Marie-Alain Couturier et le Corbusier, in Marie-Alain Couturier (1897-1954): Un

Com at pour lart sacr, by Franoise Causs et al. (Nice: Serre, 2005), 92, 104-105.
39
Franoise Causs, Marie-Alain Couturier: Un engagement dans lart sacr, in Marie-Alain Couturier
(1897-1954) Un Com at pour lart sacr, by Franoise Causs et al. (Nice: Serre, 2005), 23-24.
375
was built in the 1920s and destroyed in World War II.40 It was the focus of a regional
pilgrimage dating to the Middle Ages that assembled its largest crowds in 1873, at the
high point of the pilgrimage movement.41 And the majority of the chapels cost was
covered by the donations of pilgrims and other private gifts.42 Yet although Notre-Dame
du Haut shares the history and patronage model of nineteenth-century pilgrimage
churches, its architecture embodies a change after the Vichy regime in how French
Catholics understood their history and their place in the modern world.43 Medieval
revival pilgrimage churches built in the nineteenth century evoked an ideal Ancien
Rgime, and belonged to a coordinated effort to restore a golden age of Catholicism. In
contrast, Le Corbusiers chapel, with the archaic, even prehistoric associations of its
dolmen and cave-like forms, suggests Catholics embrace of political pluralism.44 It
recalls the way in which Lalouxs Basilica of Saint-Martin conveyed a liberal Catholic
acceptance of the Republic by referring to early Christian churches. Furthermore, the
simplicity and poverty of the shapes and materials of Notre-Dame du Haut express an
awareness that France had been de-Christianized.45 Thus, while nineteenth-century
40
Danile Pauly, Ronchamp Lecture dune architecture (Paris: Ophrys, 1980), 22, 25; Robert Coombs,
Mystical Themes in Le Cor usiers Architecture in the Chapel Notre-Dame-du-Haut at Ronchamp: The
Ronchamp Riddle (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 2000), 1, 42.
41
Pauly, Ronchamp, 22; Notre-Dame du Haut, Ronchamp (Haute-Sane), Le Plerin 1, no. 8 (30
August 1873): 146; M.-R. C. [M.-R. Capellades], Le Plerinage, LArt Sacr 1-2 (September-October
1955): 26.
42
The remainder of the cost was paid for by war damage credits and parish funds. Pauly, Ronchamp, 26 n.
10, 57 n. 6.
43
44
James F. McMillan, France, in Political Catholicism in Europe, 1918-1965, ed. Tom Buchanan and
Martin Conway (Oxford: Clarendon, 1996), 34.
45
On the Pre Couturiers aesthetic of simplicity and poverty see Hartwig Bischof, Pauvret spirituelle et
esthtiques de la modernit: lments dune thologie de limage, in Marie-Alain Couturier (1897-1954):
Un Com at pour lart sacr, by Franoise Causs et al (Nice: Serre, 2005), 194. See also how the Pre
376
pilgrimage churches represented a continued belief in Frances vocation as fille ane de
lglise, reaffirmed by Cardinal Pacelli at the benediction of the Basilica of SainteThrse,46 Notre-Dame du Haut gives form to the perception of Catholics in the midtwentieth century that France had become a pays de mission.47
Rgamey, who edited the journal LArt Sacr with the Pre Couturier, contrasted this aesthetic with that of
the Basilica of Sainte-Thrse, in Pre Rgamey, Art sacr au XXe sicle? (Paris: Cerf, 1952), 245.
46
Il dit son admiration des basiliques franaises, de celles quil ne connaissait pas encore, uvres
fameuses des grands sicles de foi qui vivent dans la France, fille ane de lglise, . . . Charles-Roux,
Huit ans au Vatican, 223.
47
377
Fig. 1. Church of Saint-Lger-du-Bourg-Denis, near Rouen, 1500s. Photograph by the

author.
378
Fig. 2. Alexandre Frdric Pinchon, Maison diocsaine de Bonsecours, 1837, postcard.

Fig. 3. Alexandre Frdric Pinchon, chapel interior, Maison diocsaine de Bonsecours,

1837, postcard. Postcard courtesy of M. and Mme Labergre.
379
Fig. 4. [Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy], Plan 11, Faade nord: Dessin, Ancienne

glise, [1842], Archives paroissiales de Bonsecours, Plans de Bonsecours.
Fig. 5. Church of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, 1200s, demolished 1842-43, postcard.

380
Fig. 6. Church of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, 1200s, demolished 1842-43, postcard.

Fig. 7. Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy. Reprinted from Pierre Chirol, J.-E. Barthlmy:

Architecte diocsain, 1799-1882 (Rouen: Lain, 1947), facing p. 1.
381
Fig. 8. Abb Charles-Louis-Napolon Robert, Institution ecclsiastique, Yvetot, 183941, destroyed. Photograph courtesy of Emile Canu, mayor, Yvetot.
382
Fig. 9. Abb Charles-Louis-Napolon Robert, upper chapel, Institution ecclsiastique,

Yvetot, 1839-41, destroyed. Photograph courtesy of Emile Canu, mayor, Yvetot.
Fig. 10. Abb Charles-Louis-Napolon Robert, crypt, Institution ecclsiastique, Yvetot,

1839-41, destroyed. Photograph courtesy of Emile Canu, mayor, Yvetot.
383
Fig. 11. Arthur Martin, Chapelle Sainte-Genevive, 1853, Saint-tienne-du-Mont, Paris.

384
Fig. 12. [Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy], Plan 18, Projet de Plan, undated, [22 January
1840?], Archives paroissiales de Bonsecours, Plans de Bonsecours.
385
Fig. 13. Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy, Plan, Eglise de N. D. de Bon Secours, 12

February 1840, Archives municipales de Bonsecours, 2 M 200 1.
386
Fig. 14. [Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy], Plan 23, Plan du sol, 11 April 1840, Archives
387
Fig. 15. [Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy], Plan 33, Coupe transversale et coupe

longitudinale, 11 April 1840, Archives paroissiales de Bonsecours, Plans de Bonsecours.
388
Fig. 16. [Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy], Plan 83, lvation du ct du nord, 11 April

1840, Archives paroissiales de Bonsecours, Plans de Bonsecours.
Fig. 17. [Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy], Plan 84, lvation ct, undated, Archives
389
Fig. 18. [Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy], Plan 82, lvation faade et plans, undated,
390
Fig. 19. Plan, Basilica of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, Conservation rgionale des

monuments historiques de Haute-Normandie, Dossier de Recensement. Plan courtesy of
Lionel Dumarche, Charg dtudes documentaires, Conservation rgionale des
monuments historiques.
391
Fig. 20. Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy, north elevation, Basilica of Notre-Dame de

392
Fig. 21. Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy, west faade, Basilica of Notre-Dame de

393
Fig. 22. Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy, west faade, Basilica of Notre-Dame de

394
Fig. 23. Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy, interior view towards the east end, Basilica of
Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, 1840-44. Donors coats of arms are visible at the tops of the
column shafts, just below the capitals. Photograph by the author.
395
Fig. 24. Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy, Chapelle funraire, 1844, Chteau du Plessis, near
Bouquelon. The photograph shows the condition of the chapel in 1983. Photograph
Eric Lemouton, Service inventaire et patrimoine, Rgion Haute-Normandie.
Fig. 25. Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy, Chapelle funraire, 1844, Chteau du Plessis, near
Bouquelon. The photograph shows the condition of the chapel in 1983. Photograph
Eric Lemouton, Service inventaire et patrimoine, Rgion Haute-Normandie.
396
Fig. 26. Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy, Basilica of Notre-Dame de la Dlivrande, Douvres

la Dlivrande, 1853-78. Photograph courtesy of Florence Muller, Mairie de Douvres la
Dlivrande.
Fig. 27. Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy, Basilica of Notre-Dame de la Dlivrande, Douvres

la Dlivrande, 1853-78. Photograph courtesy of Florence Muller, Mairie de Douvres la
Dlivrande.
397
Fig. 28. Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy, Church of Saint-Denis, Sainte-Adresse, 1874-77.

Reprinted from Jean-Paul Bouland, Les glises de Sainte-Adresse (N. p.: Petite presse, n.
d.), cover.
398
Fig. 29. Cover, subscription book, Archives paroissiales de Bonsecours, Carton 16.
399
Fig. 30. Caspar Gsell and Arthur Martin, stained glass window in the easternmost bay of
the south aisle, Basilica of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, probably mid to late 1840s. In
the lower panes are portraits of the donors: Henri Barbet and his wife, Marguerite
Angran, and their daughters. Photograph courtesy of Philippe Chron, Ingnieur
dtudes, Service rgional de linventaire de Haute-Normandie.
400
Fig. 31. [Caspar Gsell], Plan 159, Dessins de vitraux, undated, Archives paroissiales
de Bonsecours, Plans de Bonsecours.
401
Fig. 32. Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy, sanctuary and high altar, Basilica of Notre-Dame
de Bonsecours. Photograph by the author.
402
Fig. 33. Guillaume Fulconis, tympanum, north side portal, Notre-Dame de Bonsecours.
Fig. 34. Guillaume Fulconis, tympanum, south side portal, Notre-Dame de Bonsecours.
403
Fig. 35. Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy, east end, Basilica of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours,

1840-44, postcard. Visible at the peak of the apse is a statue of the Virgin and Child by
Ferdinand Marrou of 1878, which has since been removed. Postcard courtesy of M. and
Mme Labergre.
404
Fig. 36. Jean-Bernard Duseigneur and Charles-Claude Fontenelle, left portal, west
faade, Basilica of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, 1851. Photograph by the author.
Fig. 37. Jean-Bernard Duseigneur and Charles-Claude Fontenelle, right portal, west
faade, Basilica of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours. Photograph by the author.
405
Fig. 38. Jean-Bernard Duseigneur and Charles-Claude Fontenelle, tympanum, central

portal, west faade, Basilica of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours. Photograph by the author.
Fig. 39. Jean-Raimond-Hippolyte Lazerges, nave arcade spandrel angels, Basilica of

Notre-Dame de Bonsecours. Photograph by the author.
406
Fig. 40. Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy, south side of sanctuary, Basilica of Notre-Dame de

Fig. 41. Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy, north side of sanctuary, Basilica of Notre-Dame de

407
Fig. 42. [Arthur Martin], Plan 159, Fentre 21, undated, Archives paroissiales de
Fig. 43. Reprinted from Arthur Martin and Charles Cahier, Monographie de la
cathdrale de Bourges / par les PP. Arthur Martin et Charles Cahier, de la Compagnie
de Jsus. Premire partie. Vitraux du XIIIe sicle (Paris: Poussielgue-Rusand, 184144), plate xxix.
408
Fig. 44. Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy, Chapelle de la Sainte Vierge, Basilica of NotreDame de Bonsecours. Photograph by the author.
Fig. 45. Detail of the altar, Chapelle de Saint Joseph, Basilica of Notre-Dame de
409
Fig. 46. Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy, interior view towards the west end, Notre-Dame de
Bonsecours, postcard. The choir stalls are visible in the middleground and the organ can
be seen attached to the west wall. Postcard courtesy of M. and Mme Labergre.
Fig. 47. Guillaume Fulconis, Lavoie, and Kreyenbielt, pulpit, Notre-Dame de

Bonsecours, around 1860, postcard. Postcard courtesy of M. and Mme Labergre.
410
Fig. 48. Guillaume Fulconis, north-side stoup relief, Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, 1872,
Fig. 49. Guillaume Fulconis, south-side stoup relief, Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, 1872,
411
Fig. 50. Kreyenbielt and Victor Fulconis, confessional, Basilica of Notre-Dame de

Bonsecours, begun 1875. The tympanum depicts the return of the prodigal son. The
statuettes in front of the pilasters represent Saint John the Baptist, Judas, and Saint Paul.
Fig. 51. Edmond Bonet and Ferdinand Marrou, baptismal font, Basilica of Notre-Dame
de Bonsecours, completed by 1886. From this angle, only the top of the lid support is
visible. Photograph by the author.
412
Fig. 52. The Casino, funicular station, basilica, and Monument Jeanne dArc on the crest
of the plateau des Aigles, postcard. Below is the tram and funicular track. Postcard
Fig. 53. Basilica of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours and Monument Jeanne dArc, postcard.
413
Fig. 54. Juste Lisch, Monument Jeanne dArc, 1890-94. As seen from in front of the
Basilica of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours. Photograph by the author.
Fig. 55. Juste Lisch, Monument Jeanne dArc, 1890-94. As seen from the side of the
escarpment. Photograph by the author.
414
Fig. 56. Juste Lisch, Notre-Dame-des-Soldats, chapel inside the Monument Jeanne
dArc, 1890-94. The photograph was taken in June 2003. Since then, the chapel has
been restored. Photograph courtesy of Lionel Dumarche, Charg dtudes
Fig. 57. Juste Lisch, detail of the apse, Notre-Dame-des-Soldats, chapel inside the
Monument Jeanne dArc, 1890-94. The photograph was taken in June 2003. Since then,
the chapel has been restored. Photograph courtesy of Lionel Dumarche, Charg dtudes
415
Fig. 58. A ceremony on the parvis in front of the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours,
postcard. A pencil note on the reverse identifies the scene as Bonsecours 1er jour du
vu de la guerre 1914. Postcard courtesy of M. and Mme Labergre.
416
Fig. 59. A ceremony on the platform of the Monument de Jeanne dArc, postcard. The
statue of Our Lady of Bonsecours is displayed on the left side of the stage. Postcard
417
Fig. 60. The grotto of Massabieille at the time of the apparitions. Reprinted from
Lonard-J.-M. Cros, Histoire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes daprs les documents et les
tmoins, 2nd ed., vol. 1 (Paris: Beauchesne, 1925), facing p. 128.
Fig. 61. The grotto of Massabieille after the apparitions. Reprinted from E. Bordes and
A. Mialeret, Guide-souvenir des plerins Notre-Dame de Lourdes (Bordeaux: .
Crugy, 1892), cover. This photograph was taken after changes were made to Laurences
initial alterations, but it provides some sense of how the shrine looked in its authorized
state.
418
Fig. 62. Joseph-Hugues Fabisch, statue of Notre-Dame de Lourdes in the grotto of

Massabieille, 1864. Photograph by the author.
419
Fig. 63. Joseph-Hugues Fabisch, statue of Notre-Dame de Fourvire, Lyon, 1852, on top
of the bell tower of the old Chapel of Notre-Dame de Fourvire, next to the Basilica of
Notre-Dame de Fourvire (1872-96) by Pierre-Marie Bossan. Photograph by the author.
420
Fig. 64. Henry Esprandieu, Monument de lImmacule Conception, corner of the

boulevard Voltaire and rue des Hros, Marseille, 1855-57. Photograph by the author.
421
Fig. 65. Photograph of Hippolyte Durand. Archives et patrimoine des sanctuaires de

Notre-Dame de Lourdes, I B 3.
422
Fig. 66. Eglise de Village.--Plan et lvation. Reprinted from Hippolyte Durand,

Quelques considrations sur lart religieux du XIIIe sicle: Devis dune glise de
village en style du XIIIe sicle, LArt et larchologie en province 9 (1849): n. p.
423
Fig. 67. Maitre Autel. Eglise de Village. Reprinted from Hippolyte Durand,
Considrations sur lart religieux. De la dcoration et du mobilier des glises de
villages, LArt et larchologie en province 9 (1849): n. p.
424
Fig. 68. Eglise dun chef-lieu de canton.--Elvation principale. Reprinted from

Hippolyte Durand, Projet dglise en style ogival du XIIIe sicle, pour un chef-lieu de
canton dune population de 3500 mes, LArt et larchologie en province 9 (1849): n.
p.
425
Fig. 69. Hippolyte Durand, Chteau de Monte-Cristo, Le Port Marly, Yvelines, 1844-47.
Reprinted from Alain Decaux, Quand Alexandre Dumas construisait le chteau de
Montecristo, Monuments historiques 1 (1974): 103.
Fig. 70. Hippolyte Durand, Villa Eugnie, Rsidence Impriale, Biarritz, PyrnesAtlantiques, 1854-55. Photograph taken by V. Jaime in 1862. Reprinted from Genevive
Mesuret and Maurice Culot, Architectures de Biarrit et de la c te as ue De la elle
po ue au annes trente (Lige: P. Mardaga, 1990), 40.
426
Fig. 71. Hippolyte Durand, exterior, parish church of Saint-Jacques, Tartas, Landes,
1849-54. Reprinted from Muriel Mauriac, Llan Nogothique de Saint-Jacques,
LA uitaine monumentale (September 2004): 68.
Fig. 72. Hippolyte Durand, interior, parish church of Saint-Jacques, Tartas, Landes,
1849-54. Reprinted from Muriel Mauriac, Llan Nogothique de Saint-Jacques,
LA uitaine monumentale (September 2004): 71.
427
Fig. 73. Hippolyte Durand, exterior, Church of Saint-Martin, Peyrehorade, Landes,

designed in 1846, built from 1852 to 1857. Reprinted from Catherine Lahonde and
Bertrand Charneau, Peyrehorade, glise paroissiale Saint-Martin, Inventaire gnral du
patrimoine culturel dAquitaine (1995), Rf. Mrime IA40000170, fig. 1.
Fig. 74. Hippolyte Durand, interior, Church of Saint-Martin, Peyrehorade, Landes,

designed in 1846, built from 1852 to 1857. Reprinted from Catherine Lahonde and
Bertrand Charneau, Peyrehorade, glise paroissiale Saint-Martin, Inventaire gnral du
patrimoine culturel dAquitaine (1995), Rf. Mrime IA40000170, doc. 13.
428
Fig. 75. Hippolyte Durand, east faade and south elevation, Basilica of the ImmaculeConception, Lourdes, 1862-72. Photograph by the author.
429
Fig. 76. Hippolyte Durand, plan, Basilica of the Immacule-Conception, Lourdes.

Reprinted from J. O., Chapelle Lourdes, Le Moniteur des architectes (1869): plate
17.
430
Fig. 77. Hippolyte Durand, interior view towards the apse at the west end, Basilica of the
Immacule-Conception, Lourdes, 1862-72. The sacristy walls are visible between the
furthest nave chapel and the apse. Photograph by the author.
431
Fig. 78. [Hippolyte Durand], Inv. 300.5, Plan gnral projet non-ralis faades
latrales nord, undated, 40.5 x 75 cm, Archives et patrimoine des sanctuaires de NotreDame de Lourdes, Plans. This is the north elevation. The grotto is visible below the bell
tower.
Fig. 79. [Hippolyte Durand], Inv. 10, Plan au sol, 1er projet, undated, 35 x 63 cm,
Archives et patrimoine des sanctuaires de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, Plans. The grotto and
river are at the bottom of the page, to the north of the church.
432
Fig. 80. Henry Esprandieu, Basilica of Notre-Dame de la Garde, Marseille, 1853-64.

433
Fig. 81. Hippolyte Durand, Inv. 103, Plan Chapelle Notre-Dame de Lourdes, coupe au
sol, 1 May 1864, 45.5 x 79 cm, Archives et patrimoine des sanctuaires de Notre-Dame
de Lourdes, Plans. The church faces east. If the grotto were shown, it would be below.
Fig. 82. Hippolyte Durand, Inv. 300.2, Plan gnral projet non-ralis, undated, 32 x
70 cm, Archives et patrimoine des sanctuaires de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, Plans. The
grotto and river are at the bottom of the page, to the north of the church.
434
Fig. 83. Hippolyte Durand, Inv. 4, Faade latrale, 1 May 1864, 52 x 68 cm, Archives
435
Fig. 84. Hippolyte Durand, Inv. 3, Faade principale, 1 May 1864, 44 x 78 cm,
Archives et patrimoine des sanctuaires de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, Plans.
436
Fig. 85. Hippolyte Durand, Inv. 1, Coupe longitudinale, 1 May 1864, 51 x 68 cm,
Fig. 86. Hippolyte Durand, Inv. 2, Coupes transversales, ct du clocher et ct de

labside, 1 May 1864, 49 x 65 cm, Archives et patrimoine des sanctuaires de NotreDame de Lourdes, Plans.
437
Fig. 87. The retaining wall above the grotto around 1864, painted photograph, undated,
21 x 27 cm, Archives et patrimoine des sanctuaires de Notre-Dame de Lourdes,
Iconographie Archives, Cote (ic) D 01, Casier 4.
Fig. 88. Hippolyte Durand, exterior view of the grotto, crypt, and lower part of the
basilica from the far bank of the Gave de Pau, Basilica of the Immacule-Conception,
438
Fig. 89. Hippolyte Durand, north elevation, Basilica of the Immacule-Conception,

Fig. 90. Hippolyte Durand, south elevation, Basilica of the Immacule-Conception,

439
Fig. 91. Hippolyte Durand, east faade, Basilica of the Immacule-Conception, Lourdes,
440
Fig. 92. Upper church pulpit and south side chapels after the execution of the pulpit in
1873, Basilica of the Immacule-Conception, sepia photograph, undated, 5 x 15.5 cm,
Archives et patrimoine des sanctuaires de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, Iconographie
Archives, Cote (ic) D 22/01, Casier 4.
Fig. 93. Hippolyte Durand, interior view of the easternmost side chapel on the north side
of the basilica, looking west, Basilica of the Immacule-Conception, Lourdes, 1862-72.
441
Fig. 94. Hippolyte Durand, interior view of the choir, ambulatory, and radiating chapels,
442
Fig. 95. Hippolyte Durand, crypt, Basilica of the Immacule-Conception, Lourdes, 186272. Joseph-Hugues Fabischs 1865 statue of the Virgin and Child is visible above the
high altar. Photograph by the author.
Fig. 96. Hippolyte Durand, view of the north side corridor of the crypt, looking east,
443
Fig. 97. [Hippolyte Durand], Inv. 89, Plan de lElvation dune chapelle de la Crypte
no. 7, undated, 27 x 51 cm, Archives et patrimoine des sanctuaires de Notre-Dame de
Lourdes, Plans.
444
Fig. 98. Hippolyte Durand, Chapelle de Saint-Jean lEvangliste, crypt, Basilica of the
Immacule-Conception, Lourdes, 1862-66. The statue and mosaics date to 1899.
445
Fig. 99. Hippolyte Durand, Inv. 75, Autel du Sacr Cur, Tombeau[,] Retable et statue
(projet), undated, 35.5 x 23 cm, Archives et patrimoine des sanctuaires de Notre-Dame
de Lourdes, Plans.
Fig. 100. [Hippolyte Durand], Inv. 83, Autel Saint Joseph, undated, 40 x 27.5 cm,
446
Fig. 101. Hippolyte Durand, north wall of choir, Basilica of the Immacule-Conception,
Fig. 102. Hippolyte Durand, north arcades, Basilica of the Immacule-Conception,

447
Fig. 103. Hippolyte Durand, east wall and organ, Basilica of the Immacule-Conception,
448
Fig. 104. Hippolyte Durand, nave after the execution of the pulpit in 1873, Basilica of
the Immacule-Conception, sepia photograph, undated, 33.5 x 42 cm, Archives et
patrimoine des sanctuaires de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, Iconographie Archives, Cote (ic)
D 06/01, Casier 4.
449
Fig. 105. Hippolyte Durand, the Basilica of the Immacule-Conception after its
completion in 1872 and before work began on the Basilica of Notre-Dame du Rosaire in
1883, sepia photograph, undated, 34 x 44 cm, Archives et patrimoine des sanctuaires de
Notre-Dame de Lourdes, Iconographie Archives, Cote (ic) D 08/01, Casier 4. The
Maison des Missionnaires (built in 1866) can be seen in front of the terrace and staircase
(built in 1872).
450
Fig. 106. [Hippolyte Durand], Inv. 301.1, Escaliers daccs au parvis de la Crypte
(projet en partie ralis), undated, 36 x 25 cm, Archives et patrimoine des sanctuaires de
Notre-Dame de Lourdes, Plans.
451
Fig. 107. [Hippolyte Durand], lvation de la faade principale du Rosaire (maquette),

sepia photograph, 1880, 55 x 72.5 cm, Archives et patrimoine des sanctuaires de NotreDame de Lourdes, Iconographie Archives, Cote (ic) E 06/01, Casier 5.
Fig. 108. [Hippolyte Durand], Plan de lglise du Rosaire, sepia photograph, 1880, 20
x 24.5 cm, Archives et patrimoine des sanctuaires de Notre-Dame de Lourdes,
Iconographie Archives, Cote (ic) E 01/10, Casier 5.
452
Fig. 109. Maquette of the Basilica of the Immacule-Conception and the Basilica of
Notre-Dame du Rosaire, sepia photograph, 1880, 43 x 34.5 cm, Archives et patrimoine
des sanctuaires de Notre-Dame de Lourdes, Iconographie Archives, Cote (ic) E 08,
Casier 5.
Fig. 110. Lopold-Amde Hardy, Basilica of Notre-Dame du Rosaire, Lourdes, 188389. Photograph by the author.
453
Fig. 111. Lopold-Amde Hardy, crossing and apse, Basilica of Notre-Dame du

Rosaire, Lourdes, 1883-89. Photograph by the author.
454
Fig. 112. Pierre Vago, exterior view looking west from the fortress, Basilica of Pie X,
Fig. 113. Pierre Vago, interior, Basilica of Pie X, Lourdes, 1956-58. Photograph by the
author.
455
Fig. 114. Delbarre de Bay, Church of the Sacr-Cur, Lourdes, 1875-1903. The
eleventh-century Church of Saint-Pierre (demolished in 1904) stood on the site of the
square and cenotaph in the foreground. Photograph by the author.
456
Fig. 115. Map of Lourdes, by J. Metteix. Reprinted from Joseph Camoreyt, Histoire des
trois belles glises de Lourdes, 2nd ed. (Tarbes: Orphelins-Apprentis, 1939), 208.
457
Fig. 116. Basilica of Saint-Martin, Tours, begun 1000s, postcard, Archives

dpartementales dIndre-et-Loire, 10 Fi 261 8. After a wash drawing by Pinguet of 1798
called the Lavis dit de Ligug. On the left is the tour de lHorloge and on the right is
the tour Charlemagne.
458
Fig. 117. Jules-Jean-Baptiste de Joly, plan for a circular church. Reprinted from L. V.
M. J. Jacquet-Delahaye-Avrouin, Du rta lissement des glises en France, loccasion
de la rdification projete de celle de Saint-Martin de Tours: Ddi au Roi (Paris:
Egron, 1822), plate 6.
Fig. 118. Jules-Jean-Baptiste de Joly, plan for a basilican church. Reprinted from L. V.
M. J. Jacquet-Delahaye-Avrouin, Du rta lissement des glises en France, loccasion
de la rdification projete de celle de Saint-Martin de Tours: Ddi au Roi (Paris:
Egron, 1822), plate 7.
459
Fig. 119. Commission primitive de la basilique de St Martin, Album de dessins de la

basilique, 1902, plate 5, Archives de la Basilique Saint-Martin. The illustration shows
the view from the south, in 1861, of the tour Charlemagne, the houses above the tomb,
and the vestiges of the former basilica.
460
Fig. 120. Antoine-Marie Chenavard, Projet dglise de Notre-Dame de Fourvire

Lyon: Abside, 1830, Archives de la Fondation de Fourvire.
Fig. 121. Pierre-Marie Bossan, Eglise de Fourvire, labside, 18 May 1858, Archives
de la Fondation de Fourvire.
461
Fig. 122. Pierre-Marie Bossan, Notre-Dame de Fourvire, Lyon, 1872-96. Photograph

by the author. Above is Notre-Dame de Fourvire, below is the Cathedral of Saint-Jean.
Fig. 123. Paul Abadie, Basilica of the Sacr-Cur, Paris, 1874-1919. Photograph by the
author.
462
Fig. 124. Alphonse-Jules Baillarg, faade view, maquette of a church proposed for the
Sainte-Face.
Fig. 125. Alphonse-Jules Baillarg, apse view, maquette of a church proposed for the
Sainte-Face. On the right is a representation of Lon Papin-Duponts living room.
463
Fig. 126. [Alphonse-Jules Baillarg], Basilique de St Martin de Tours aux XIe et

XVIIIe Sicles. Plan gnral de la basilique et de ses abords, 11 November 1872,
Archives de la Basilique Saint-Martin, Portefeuille F, no. 6. The adjacent legend
explains that blue indicates parts of the basilica dating to the eleventh and twelfth
centuries, pink indicates parts of the basilica dating to the eighteenth century, and black
and grey designate parts of the basilica visible in 1861 or recorded in excavations.
464
Fig. 127. [Alphonse-Jules Baillarg], Basilique de St Martin de Tours aux XIe et XIIe
Sicles. Plan: Esquisse dun projet de rdification sur les Fondations anciennes, 11
November 1872, Archives de la Basilique Saint-Martin, Portefeuille F, no. 7. Black
indicates parts of the medieval basilica that survive. Pink indicates the proposed
reconstruction.
465
Fig. 128. [Alphonse-Jules Baillarg], Basilique de St Martin de Tours aux XIe et XIIe
Sicles. Coupe longitudinale: Esquisse dun projet de rdification sur les Fondations
anciennes, 11 November 1872, Archives de la Basilique Saint-Martin, Portefeuille F, no.
8.
466
Fig. 129. Alphonse-Jules Baillarg, Basilique de St-Martin de Tours restitue sur ses
fondations du XIme sicle. Plan gnral, 11 November 1874, photograph of the original
plan, Archives de la Basilique Saint-Martin, Album 2.
Fig. 130. Alphonse-Jules Baillarg, Basilique de St-Martin de Tours restitue sur ses
fondations du XIme sicle. Plan de lglise souterraine, 11 November 1874, photograph
of the original plan, Archives de la Basilique Saint-Martin, Album 2.
467
Fig. 131. [Alphonse-Jules Baillarg], Basilique de St-Martin de Tours restitue sur ses
fondations du XIe sicle. Elvation longitudinale, [11 November 1874], photograph of
the original plan, Archives de la Basilique Saint-Martin, Album 2. Statues are visible
above the cornices of the nave and apse.
468
Fig. 132. Alphonse-Jules Baillarg, Tours: Vue perspective du quartier des marchs
aprs la reconstruction de la basilique de Saint-Martin, 11 November 1874, Archives de
la Basilique Saint-Martin, Portefeuille F.
Fig. 133. Exterior view of the apse, Basilica of Saint-Sernin, Toulouse, ca. 1070,
photograph, Archives de la Basilique Saint-Martin, Portefeuille D, no. 1.
469
fondations du XIe sicle. Elvation principale, [11 November 1874], photograph of the
Fig. 135. Paul Abadie, Eglise du Vu national au Sacr-Cur. Projet pour le concours.
Vue perspective depuis le sud-est, 1 July 1874, photograph of the original plan,
470
Fig. 136. [Alphonse-Jules Baillarg], Porte principale: Etude, [11 November 1874],
Archives de la Basilique Saint-Martin, Portefeuille F, no. 26.
fondations du XI sicle. Coupe transversale, [11 November 1874], photograph of the
471
Fig. 138. [Alphonse-Jules Baillarg], Basilique de St Martin de Tours restitue sur ses
fondations du XI sicle: Eglise souterraine. Dveloppement des Arcades de lAbside.
(Confession de St Martin), [11 November 1874], Archives de la Basilique Saint-Martin,
Portefeuille F, no. 21.
Fig. 139. The plan of the church proposed by Msgr. Meignan is marked A. The squares
he envisioned were to be on either side of the Tour Charlemagne, marked B. The house
purchased by Pdre Moisant to block Meignans proposal is indicated by a shaded area
between the rue Saint-Martin and the rue Baleschoux. Reprinted from Stanislas Ratel,
Note sur la cession dune maison provenant de la succession du Comte Pdre Moisant
(Poitiers: Oudin, 1887), 1, Archives diocsaines de Tours.
472
Fig. 140. Projet de Basilique, Archives diocsaines de Tours, bote 2953.
Fig. 141. 1878. Laloux--Une Cathdrale. Reprinted from cole nationale des BeauxArts, Les Grands pri de Rome darchitecture de 1850 1900, vol. 2 (Paris: Armand
473
Fig. 142. 1878.--Laloux.--Une Cathdrale. Reprinted from cole nationale des BeauxArts, Les Grands pri de Rome darchitecture de 1850 1900, vol. 2 (Paris: Armand
Fig. 143. 1878.--Laloux.--Une Cathdrale. Reprinted from cole nationale des BeauxArts, Les Grands pri de Rome darchitecture de 1850 1900, vol. 2 (Paris: Armand
Gurinet, 1904), plates 190-191.
474
Fig. 144. Detail of Faade gnrale de lAltis (restauration). Reprinted from Victor
Laloux and Paul Monceaux, Restauration dOlympie (Paris: Quantin, 1889), 157.
Fig. 145. Fig. 6 et 7. Basilique de Saint-Martin Tours; plan et coupe transversale

composs daprs la description dtaille que Grgoire de Tours nous a laisse de ce
monument (Hist. Franc., lib. II, cap. 14). Reprinted from Heinrich Hbsch, Monuments
de larchitecture chrtienne depuis Constantine jus u Charlemagne, trans. Abb V.
Guerber (Paris: A. Morel, 1866), plate XLVIII.
475
Fig. 146. Plan and section of the fifth-century Basilica of Saint-Martin, by Albert Lenoir.
Reprinted from Charles Lenormant, claircissemens [sic] sur la restitution de lglise
mrovingienne de Saint-Martin de Tours, in Histoire cclesiastique des Francs, by
Gregory of Tours, trans. J. Guadet and N. R. Taranne, Socit de lhistoire de France
(Paris: J. Renouard, 1836), 1: 381.
476
Fig. 147. Basilique de St. Martin de Tours: Plan. Reprinted from Jules Quicherat,
Restitution de la basilique Saint-Martin, Revue archologique 20 (1869), plate XIII.
477
Fig. 148. Basilique de Saint Martin: Coupe longitudinale de la nef restitue.

archologique 19 (1869), plate IX.
Fig. 149. Basilique de St. Martin de Tours: Coupe longitudinale du sanctuaire restitu.
archologique 19 (1869), plate XII.
478
Fig. 150. Victor Laloux, Chapelle de St Martin de Tours: Plan au niveau du sol de la
nef, 21 January 1885, Archives nationales, F 19 3779, Mense archipiscopale de
Tours.
479
Fig. 151. The atrium is marked A. Basilique de St. Martin de Tours: Plan des
dpendances de lglise. Reprinted from Jules Quicherat, Restitution de la basilique
Saint-Martin, Revue archologique 20 (1869), plate 14.
480
Fig. 152. Victor Laloux, glise de Saint Martin, Chapelle de secours de St. Julien: Plan
gnral, 5 February 1886, Archives dpartementales dIndre-et-Loire, V 9.2.6.
481
Fig. 153. Victor Laloux, glise de Saint Martin, Chapelle de secours de St. Julien,
Tours: Coupe longitudinale, 5 February 1886, Archives dpartementales dIndre-etLoire, V 9.2.9.
Fig. 154. Victor Laloux, glise de Saint Martin, Chapelle de Secours de St. Julien,
Tours: Coupe transversale, 5 February 1886, Archives dpartementales dIndre-etLoire, V 9.2.10.
482
Fig. 155. The excavations of the Basilica of Saint-Martin at the end of July 1886. In the
lower right corner is the tomb of Saint Martin, enclosed in a hut; in the center is the
Chapelle Saint-Euphrne, and to its left is the Chapelle Saint-Brice. Reprinted from
Casimir Chevalier, Les Fouilles de Saint-Martin de Tours: Recherches sur les six
basiliques successives leves autour du tombeau de saint Martin (Tours: Pricat, 1888),
fig. 1.
Fig. 156. Victor Laloux, south faade, Basilica of Saint Martin, 1886-1925. The Tour
Charlemagne is on the left. Photograph by the author.
483
Fig. 157. Victor Laloux, north end, Basilica of Saint-Martin, 1886-1925, postcard,
Archives dpartementales dIndre-et-Loire, 10 Fi 261/1010.
Fig. 158. [Victor Laloux], Chapelle de Secours de [S]aint Martin Tours: Faade sur la
rue Baleschoux, undated, Archives diocsaines de Tours.
484
Fig. 159. Maurice Boille, calvary in the parvis, 1928, Basilica of Saint-Martin.
Fig. 160. Victor Laloux, interior view towards the apse at the north end, Basilica of
Saint-Martin, 1886-1925. Photograph by the author.
485
Fig. 161. Victor Laloux, interior view towards the south end, Basilica of Saint-Martin,
Fig. 162. Victor Laloux, crossing and dome, Basilica of Saint-Martin, 1886-1925.
486
Fig. 163. Victor Laloux, crossing, Basilica of Saint-Martin, 1886-1925. Photograph by

the author.
487
Fig. 164. Victor Laloux, crypt, view looking west, Basilica of Saint-Martin, 1886-1925.
The red contour of an absidiole can be seen on the floor. Photograph by the author.
Fig. 165. Victor Laloux, tomb of Saint Martin, Basilica of Saint-Martin, 1886-1925. The
metal line indicating the axis of the former basilicas can be seen in the floor to the left of
the tomb. The entrance to the Chapelle Saint-Perpet can be seen behind the tomb.
488
Fig. 166. Victor Laloux, tomb monument of Archibishop Meignan, crypt, Basilica of
Saint Martin, 1886-1925. Photograph by the author.
Fig. 167. Victor Laloux, Chapelle Saint-Grgoire, crypt, Basilica of Saint-Martin, 18861925. Photograph by the author.
489
Fig. 168. Louis Cordonnier, exterior view from the base of the campanile, Basilica of
Sainte-Thrse, Lisieux, 1929-54. Photograph by the author.
Fig. 169. Le Corbusier, exterior view of the east side, Chapel of Notre-Dame du Haut,
Ronchamp, 1950-55. Photograph by the author.
490
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492
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7 B 1: Autorisation de construire la basilique (1861-1862).
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2 M 200 5: Monument de Jeanne dArc.
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493
F 19 2556: folder on Msgr. Joseph-Hippolyte Guibert.
F 19 2572: folder on Msgr. Gustave-Maximilien-Juste Cro-Solre.
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531
Appendix 1: Barthlemys Restorations and New Buildings
Below are listed places where Barthlemy worked, with information about the relevant
church or churches at each site. The most important source on Barthlemys work is
Pierre Chirol, J.-E. Barthlmy [sic]: Architecte diocsain, 1799-1882 (Rouen: Lain,
1947), 18 n. 7.
Amfreville: (There are many towns by this name.)
Anglesqueville: (There are many towns by this name.)
Bar-sur-Aube, Aube.
Bernay, Eure.
Bertheauville, Seine-Maritime: The parish church of Notre-Dame was restored in the
nineteenth century. See Abb Jean Cochet, ed., Rpertoire archologique du
dpartement de la Seine-Infrieure (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1871), col. 476.
Beuzeville: (There are many towns by this name.)
Blangy: (There are many towns by this name.) The parish church of Notre-Dame in
Blangy-sur-Bresle, Seine-Maritime, was restored around 1864. See Cochet, ed.,
Rpertoire, col. 176-177.
Bouquelon, Eure: Barthlemy built the Chapelle funraire on the grounds of the Chteau
du Plessis in 1844. See chapter 1, Barthlemys Later Church-Building
Projects; and Chirol, J.-E. Barthlmy, 16-17.
Bourdainville, Seine-Maritime: The parish church of Saint-Pierre was rebuilt in a Gothic
style in 1851 and 1852. See Cochet, ed., Rpertoire, col. 550-551.
La Bretque. The location of this town is unknown.
Brionne, Eure.
Caudebec-ls-Elbeuf, Seine-Maritime: The portal of the sixteenth-century parish church
of Notre-Dame was replaced in the nineteenth century. See Cochet, ed.,
Rpertoire, col. 326.
Cideville, Seine-Maritime: In 1850 Barthlemy gave the parish church of Saint-tienne
and Saint-loi a wooden tower. See Abb Jean Cochet, Les glises de
larrondissement dYvetot (1852; reprint, Saint-Pierre-de-Salerne: G. Monfort,
1975), 2: 239; and Cochet, ed., Rpertoire, col. 551.
Clres, Seine-Maritime: The parish church there is dedicated to Saint-Waast and SaintNicolas. See Cochet, ed., Rpertoire, col. 281.
Cormeilles: (There are many towns by this name.)
La Croix-Saint-Leuffroy, Eure.
Darntal, Seine-Maritime: The parish church of Saint-Jacques was demolished in 1853
and rebuilt in the Romanesque style. See Ch. Bauchal, Nouveau dictionnaire
biographique et critique des architectes franais (Paris: Andr, Daly fils, 1887),
606; and Cochet, ed., Rpertoire, col. 295.
Douvres-la-Dlivrande, Calvados: Barthlemy rebuilt the Basilica of Notre-Dame de la
Dlivrande between 1853 and 1878. See chapter 1, Barthlemys Later ChurchBuilding Projects; and Chirol, J.-E. Barthlmy, 25-26.
532
Elbeuf, Eure:
- The Church of lImmacule-Conception was restored by Barthlemy. See Bauchal,
Nouveau dictionnaire biographique, 606.
- The parish church of Saint-Jean dated to the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. See
Cochet, ed., Rpertoire, col. 327.
Goderville, Seine-Maritime: The parish church of Sainte-Madeleine was demolished in
1865 and rebuilt in stone in a twelfth-century Romanesque style. See Cochet, ed.,
Limpiville, Seine-Maritime: The parish church of Notre-Dame dated to the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries. See Cochet, ed., Rpertoire, col. 541.
Maromme, Seine-Maritime: The parish church of Saint-Martin was demolished from
1854 to 1867 and rebuilt in a thirteenth-century style. See Cochet, ed.,
Mont-Cauvaire, Seine-Maritime: The parish church of Saint-Martin dated to the
sixteenth century, and had modern modifications. See Cochet, ed., Rpertoire,
col. 284.
Neuville-Champ-dOisel, Seine-Maritime: The vaults of the thirteenth-century parish
church of Notre-Dame were rebuilt by Barthlemy before 1852. See Cochet, Les
glises de larrondissement dYvetot, 2: 9; and Cochet, ed., Rpertoire, col. 269.
Oissel, Seine-Maritime: From 1852 to 1864 Barthlemy demolished the sixteenth- and
seventeenth-century parish church of Saint-Martin and rebuilt it in an early Gothic
style. See Cochet, Les glises de larrondissement dYvetot, 2: 9; Cochet, ed.,
Rpertoire, col. 336; and Bauchal, 606.
Rouen, Seine-Maritime:
- Monastre de la Providence. See Bauchal, Nouveau dictionnaire biographique, 606.
- Notre-Dame Cathedral: Barthlemy restored the portail des Libraires (1855-61), the
portail de la Calende, and the Chapelle absidiale de la Vierge (1866) of the Gothic
cathedral. He also designed a tomb monument for Cardinal Cro that was
installed in the Chapelle absidiale de la Vierge, and he completed the iron spire in
1876 and from 1878 to 1884. See the discussion of Barthlemys work on the
cathedral in chapter 1, Godefroys Choice of the Gothic Style, as well as M.
Simon, Notice, Prcis des travau de lacadmie de Rouen (1881-82): 592593; Nictas Periaux, Dictionnaire indicateur et historique des rues et places de
Rouen: Revue de ses monuments et de ses tablissements publics (1870; reprint,
Brionne: Grard Monfort, 1972), 98; Cochet, ed., Rpertoire, col. 434; Chirol, J.E. Barthlmy, 23-24; and Jean-Philippe Desportes, Alavoine et la flche de la
cathdrale de Rouen, Revue de lart 13 (1971): 59 n. 36.
- Saint-Clment. See Simon, Notice, 592.
533
- Saint-Gervais: The parish church was demolished in 1869 and rebuilt in a Romanesque
style with three nave aisles and a bell tower above the main entrance. See Cochet,
ed., Rpertoire, col. 395.
- Saint-Maclou: Barthlemy gave this Flamboyant Gothic parish church a new spire in
1868. See Cochet, ed., Rpertoire, col. 404; Chirol, J.-E. Barthlmy, 22; and
Franois Lemoine and Jacques Tanguy, Rouen aux 100 clochers: Dictionnaire
des glises et chapelles de Rouen (avant 1789) (Rouen: PTC, 2004), 66.
- Saint-Patrice: Barthlemy restored the portal of this parish church built in the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries. See Simon, Notice, 592; Abb Sauvage,
Description de lglise de Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, in Notre-Dame de
Bonsecours, by Abb Julien Loth and Abb Sauvage (Rouen: E. Aug, 1891), 7;
and Lemoine and Tanguy, Rouen aux 100 clochers, 81.
- Saint-Romain: Barthlemy designed the lead bell tower that was added in 1877 to this
seventeenth-century church. See Lemoine and Tanguy, Rouen aux 100 clochers,
112.
Saint-Aubin-ls-Elbeuf, Seine-Maritime: The parish church of Saint-Aubin-ls-Elbeuf,
formerly called Saint-Aubin-Jouxte-Boulleng (opposite the Seine from Elbeuf)
was built in a thirteenth-century Gothic style from 1844 to 1846 and 1863 to
1864. See Cochet, ed., Rpertoire, col. 330.
Saint-Denis-sur-Scie, Seine-Maritime: The parish church dated to the twelfth-century
except for its seventeenth-century bell tower. See Cochet, ed., Rpertoire, col.
88.
Saint-Jean-du-Cardonnay, Seine-Maritime: The parish church of Saint-Jean dated almost
entirely to the twelfth century. See Cochet, ed., Rpertoire, col. 347.
Saint-Valery-en-Caux, Seine-Maritime: Barthlemy restored the vaults of the sixteenthcentury parish church of Saint-Valery either before 1852 or in 1854. See Cochet,
Les glises de larrondissement dYvetot, 2: 9 and Cochet, ed., Rpertoire, col.
536.
Sainte-Adresse, Seine-Maritime: The parish church of Saint-Denis was built by
Barthlemy from 1874 to 1877. See the description in chapter 1, Barthlemys
Later Church-Building Projects; Simon, Notice, 593; and the brochure JeanPaul Bouland, Les glises de Sainte-Adresse (N. p.: Petite presse, n. d.), n. p.
La Saussaye, Eure.
Sotteville, Seine-Maritime: The seventeenth-century parish church of Notre-Dame was
replaced beginning in 1861 and completely demolished in 1863. See Simon,
Notice, 592; Bauchal, Nouveau dictionnaire biographique, 606; and Cochet,
ed., Rpertoire, col. 340-341.
Thil-Manneville, Seine-Maritime: The parish church of Saint-Sulpice dated from the
eleventh century to the sixteenth century. See Cochet, ed., Rpertoire, col. 8.
Torcy-le-Grand, Seine-Maritime: The parish church of Saint-Ribert was built in the
sixteenth century. See Cochet, ed., Rpertoire, col. 53.
Varengeville-sur-Mer, Seine-Maritime: The parish church is dedicated to Saint-Valery.
See Cochet, ed., Rpertoire, col. 83.
534
Vascueil, Seine-Maritime.
Ventes-Saint-Rmy, Seine-Maritime: The parish church of Saint-Rmy was newly built
of brick and rough stone in a Romanesque style either before 1846, or from 1847
to 1849. See Abb Jean Cochet, Les glises de larrondissement du Havre, 2
vols. (1845-46; reprint, 2 vols. in 1, Saint-Pierre-de-Salerne: G. Monfort, 1977),
xix n. 1; Cochet, ed., Rpertoire, col. 264; and Chirol, J.-E. Barthlmy, 16.
Vibeuf, Seine-Maritime: The parish church of Saint-Martin was restored in 1850. See
Cochet, ed., Rpertoire, col. 554.
Ybleron, Seine-Maritime: The parish church of Saint-Lger was built in the twelfth
century. See Cochet, ed., Rpertoire, col. 520.
Yville-sur-Seine, Seine-Maritime: The parish church of Saint-Lger and Saint Louis
dated from the twelfth to the seventeenth century. See Cochet, ed., Rpertoire,
col. 323.
535
Appendix 2: Donors Recognized in the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours
Below are listed the donors of specific, personalized parts of the basilica, with
biographical information. The most important source is [Victor Godefroy], glise NotreDame de Bonsecours prs Rouen, dont les fondements ont t jets en 1840 (Paris:
Sagnier et Bray; Rouen: Fleury, 1847), 9-21.
Rose Window
Auguste Bourdon.
Apse Windows (North to South)
1. Gustave-Maximilien-Juste, prince de Cro-Solre (1773-1844): archbishop of Rouen.
2. Baron Henri-Jean-Pierre Antoine Dupont-Delporte (1783-1854) and his wife JeanneBernarde de Siruge, baronne Dupont-Delporte: The baron was the prefect of the
Seine-Infrieure from 1830 to 1848. See Robert Eude, Les Prfets de la SeineInfrieure (Rouen: Lain, 1946), 33-34.
3. Marquis Godard de Belbeuf and his wife Batrix Terray, marquise de Belbeuf: The
marquis was a magistrate and a Pair de France. See G. Vapereau, Dictionnaire
universel des contemporains (Paris: L. Hachette, 1858), 152; and Prevost and
Roman dAmat, eds., Dictionnaire de biographie franaise, vol. 5 (Paris:
Letouzey et An, 1951), col. 1304.
4. Eugne Marie Jean Le Bourgeois: mayor of Bonsecours.
5. Pierre Dutuit: owner of textile factories in Rouen. See Jean-Pierre Chaline, Les
Bourgeois de Rouen: Une lite urbaine au XIXe sicle (Paris: Presses de la
fondation nationale des sciences politiques, 1982), 111.
North Aisle Windows (West to East)
1. Frre Philippe: suprieur gnral de linstitut des frres des coles chrtiennes. See
2. M. and Mme Ribard: The Ribards were a very religious and legitimist bourgeois
family in Rouen. They donated the window in gratitude for the recovery from
illness of their daughter, the baronne dHeudires. See Jean-Pierre Chaline, Les
Bourgeois de Rouen, 267.
3. Charles-Emmanuel-Henri, vicomte Dambray (1785-1868) and his wife LouiseCharlotte Deshayes, vicomtesse Dambray: The vicomte was named a Pair de
France in 1815 and he served as grand matre des crmonies des ordres du roi
during the Bourbon Restoration, succeeding his father. In 1830, he refused to
swear an oath of allegiance to Louis-Philippe and had to leave the Chambre des
pairs. Following his participation in the legitimist plot of the Duchesse de Berry,
he lived in retreat. See [Godefroy], glise Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, 11; and
Roman dAmat and R. Limouzin, eds., Dictionnaire de biographie franaise, vol.
10 (Paris: Letouzey et An, 1965), col. 42.
4. Donor unknown. Three women are shown praying in the quatrefoil at the top of this
window over the north side entrance.
5. Widow of Jean-Baptiste Hbert: of Rouen.
536
6. Antoinette-Franoise-Sidonie de Choiseul-Gouffier, duchesse de Fitz-James: The FitzJames family belonged to the legitimist aristocracy. Is this the same person as
Antoine-Sydonie de Choiseul-Gouffier, who married douard II, fifth duc de FitzJames (1776-1838) in 1819? See Roman dAmat, ed., Dictionnaire de biographie
franaise, vol. 3 (Paris: Letouzey et An, 1975), col. 1419.
7. Armand, comte de Biencourt and A.-E.-M. Aurlie de Montmorency, comtesse de
Biencourt.
8. E.-M.-C. Amde, comte de Lachtre and A.-J.-M. Sidonie de Montmorency, comtesse
de Lachtre: The Lachtres were one of the oldest families of the Berry region.
See Michaud, ed., Biographie universelle ancienne et moderne, new ed. (Paris:
Ch. Delagrave, n. d.), 22: col. 354.
9. Flicit-Sophie Dedun-Dyrville, widow of baron de Septmanville: The baron served in
the royal navy and emigrated in 1791 along with the rest of the officers corp of
the royal navy. He became mayor of Evreux in 1813 and was elevated to the
grade of contre-amiral in 1815. See Michaud, Biographie universelle ancienne et
moderne, 39: col. 82.
10. An anonymous donation in memory of Louis-Hyacinthe Qulen, archbishop of Paris
(1778-1839).
11. (This window is behind the altar in the Chapelle de la Sainte Vierge.) CharlesEdouard Huet-Baroche and Anne-Ccile Godefroy, dame Baroche: Dame
Baroche was the Abb Godefroys sister. See Msgr. Prudent, Notre-Dame de
Bonsecours (Rouen: Henri Defontaine, 1924), 41.
South Aisle Windows (West to East)
1. M. Ricard: juge au tribunal de Beauvais. See [Godefroy], glise Notre-Dame de
Bonsecours, 19.
2. This window was given by the Manufacture de Choisy-le-Roi.
3. Abb Picard: chanoine de Rouen, archiprtre de la mtropole. See [Godefroy],
4. This window, above the south aisle door, is not personalized.
5. M. Blanquart de la Motte: vicaire gnral de Rouen, chanoine de la mtropole. See
[Godefroy], glise Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, 17. Godefroy seems to have
confused the donors of this window and the adjacent one donated by the Marquise
de Mortemart.
6. Marquise de Mortemart, ne de Montmorency.
7. M. Dominique Mouchet: the former mayor of Darntal.
8. Victor Grandin (1797-1849) and his wife, Charl. Fouqier-Long, dame Grandin:
Grandin was a textile manufacturer and the deputy for Elbeuf from 1839 to 1848.
The couples sons, Victor, Gustave, and Alfred Grandin, are also pictured in the
donor portrait. See Edgar Bourloton, Gaston Cougny, and Adolphe Robert,
Dictionnaire des parlementaires franais, vol. 3 (Paris: Bourloton, 1891), 234.
9. Abb Mac-Cartan: cur de Saint-Ouen de Rouen and chanoine de la mtropole.
See [Godefroy], glise Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, 16.
10. Henri Barbet (1789-1875) and his wife Marguerite Angran, dame Barbet: Henri
Barbet was the consummate grand notable. He was a textile manufacturer,
served as mayor of Rouen from 1830 to 1847, and was a deputy from 1831 to
537
1842 and in 1844. See [Godefroy], glise Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, 15;
Andr-Jean Tudesq, Les Grands notables en France (1840-1849): tude
histori ue dune psychologie sociale (Paris: Presses universitaires de France,
1964), 1: 9; Jean-Pierre Chaline, Les Bourgeois de Rouen, 106-108; and Prevost
and Roman dAmat, Dictionnaire de biographie franaise, vol. 5 (Paris:
Letouzey et An, 1951), 276-277.
11. (This window is behind the altar in the Chapelle de Saint Joseph.) Abb Cathelin:
professeur au sminaire Saint-Nicolas, chanoine de lglise de Paris. See
North Clerestory Windows (West to East)
1. Guillaume Chevalier or Chevallier: of Rouen. See [Godefroy], glise Notre-Dame de
Bonsecours, 20; and Alexandre Fromentin, Notre-Dame de Bonsecours:
Plerinage religieux et artistique (Rouen: P. Roussel, 1855), 13.
2. Students of the Collge de Juilly.
3. Paul Ansoult: of Darntal.
4. Mlle de Widbien: of Rouen.
5. Mlle de Giverville: of Fcamp.
6. Abb Mayeux: cur of Grenelle, near Paris.
7. Baron de Septmanville: of Evreux. See Fromentin, Notre-Dame de Bonsecours:
Plerinage religieux et artistique, 13.
8. Mre Javouhey: Suprieure gnrale de la congrgation de Saint-Joseph de Cluny et
directrice de lmancipation de Mana en faveur des ngres. See [Godefroy],
9. Abb Joliclerc: Chef dinstitution Montrouge, prs de Paris. See [Godefroy],
South Clerestory Windows (West to East)
1. Abb Ch. L. . . : cur from the Paris region. See [Godefroy], glise Notre-Dame de
Bonsecours, 20.
2. M. Monnet, Moinet, or Mounet: notary in Rouen. See [Godefroy], glise Notre-Dame
de Bonsecours, 20; Fromentin, Notre-Dame de Bonsecours: Plerinage religieux
et artistique, 13; and Sauvage, Description de lglise, 67.
3. Abb Vincent: former cur in Fcamp and chanoine de la mtropole de Rouen. See
4. Charles Busquet de Caumont.
5. Abb Valle: former cur in Thil, chanoine honoraire de Rouen. See [Godefroy],
6. Students of the Collge royal de Rouen or the Lyce de Rouen. See [Godefroy], glise
Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, 20; and Fromentin Notre-Dame de Bonsecours:
Plerinage religieux et artistique, 13.
7. Mme Bnard, widow: of Darntal.
8. Mme Gomets, widow of Lain: of Darntal or dtoutteville. See [Godefroy], glise
Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, 20; and Sauvage, Description de lglise, 67.
9. Abb Tissot: chaplain of the Htel-Dieu de Paris. See [Godefroy], glise Notre-Dame
de Bonsecours, 20.
538
The following is a list of the nave column donors, in the order they are listed in
[Godefroy], glise Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, 20-21. All information is from
Godefroy unless otherwise specified.
Nave Columns
1. Charles-August-Marie-Joseph de Forbin-Janson (1785-1844): named bishop of Nancy
in 1823. This column is at the corner of the sanctuary and the Chapelle de la
Sainte Vierge. Sauvage, Description de lglise, 41-42.
2. Joseph-Armand Gignoux (1799-1878): named bishop of Beauvais 1841. This column
is at the corner of the sanctuary and the Chapelle de Saint Joseph. Sauvage,
Description de lglise, 42.
3. Abb de la Bouillerie: former vicaire gnral de Paris, coadjuteur de Bordeaux
and bishop of Carcassonne.
4. Flix Dupanloup (1802-78): vicaire gnrale de Paris and named bishop of Orlans
in 1849.
5. Abb Grsil: cur of Saint-Maclou in Rouen, chanoine honoraire.
6. Abb Valle: cur of Sainte-Madeleine in Rouen.
7. Abb Dumnil: cur of Saint-Vincent de Rouen.
8. Abb Lefebvre: doyen of Darntal, chanoine honoraire de Rouen.
9. Abb Lecur: chanoine de Rouen.
10. Abb Beuzelin: cur of Sainte-Madeleine in Paris.
11. Abb Souquet de Latour: cur of Saint-Thomas dAquin in Paris.
12. Pierre de Dreux-Brz (1811-93): became the bishop of Moulins in 1849.
13. Abb de Richomme: cur de . . .
14. Comte de Brissac and Madame Henriette de Montmorency, comtesse de Brissac,
baronne Van de Werde de Schilde: of Antwerp.
15. Mme de Nagu, marquise de Mortemart.
16. Mme Edouard Labrire: of Rouen.
17. M. Law de Lauriston: former receveur gnral de Cahors.
18. M. Haulon: of Rouen.
19. M. Delamarre-Deboutteville, of Rouen.
20. MM. H. . . . brothers: of Rouen.
539
Appendix 3: Hippolyte Durands Salon Exhibitions
The source, unless otherwise noted, is mile Bellier de la Chavignerie and Louis Auvray,
Dictionnaire des artistes de lcole ranaise (1882-1885; reprint, New York: Garland,
1979), 2: 496.
1827
- A cathedral (glise mtropolitaine): student projects. See M.-J. Legathe,
Recherches sur la basilique suprieure de Lourdes (mmoire de matrise,
Universit de Pau et des Pays de lAdour, 1997), 1: 175.
- Region of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Yvelines: sepia view.
1833
- Chteau de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Yvelines: watercolor view.
- Region of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Yvelines: watercolor and sepia views.
- A chteau in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Yvelines: project.
1837
- Church of Saint-Remi, Reims, Marne: four restoration drawings.
1838
- Basilica of Notre-Dame de lpine, Lpine, Marne: three drawings.
- Theater for Tournay, Hautes-Pyrnes: project for a competition composed of eight
drawings.
1839
- Portal of Notre-Dame-de-lpine, lpine, Marne: sepia drawing for the Statistique
monumentale du Dpartement de la Marne.
1841
- Church of Saint-Menoux, Saint-Menoux, Allier: current-state and restoration drawings.
- Porte Mars, Reims, Marne: a drawing of the restoration underway on the Roman arch.
- Durand received a third-class medal for his submissions this year.
1842
- Theater for Moulins, Allier: plans, sections, an elevation, and a detail forming Durands
winning entry to a competition for a theater held by the city of Moulins.
1844
- The Htel de Jacques-Cur, Bourges, Belgium: watercolor view.
- The Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem: watercolor view.
- The Church of Saint-Etienne-du-Mont: view.
- The Church of Saint Martin in Cologne: view.
1845
540
- Parallle de projet[s] dglises en style ogival du XIIIe sicle.
1866
- Cathedral of Notre-Dame de la Sde, Tarbes, Hautes-Pyrnes: ten drawings for the
enlargement and restoration of the cathedral.
1872
- Basilica of the Immacule-Conception, Lourdes, Hautes-Pyrnes. See Ch. Bauchal,
Nouveau dictionnaire biographique et critique des architectes franais (Paris:
Daly, 1887), 648.
541
Appendix 4: Hippolyte Durands Projects, Restorations, and New Buildings
The most important source is M.-J. Legathe, Notice biographique de larchitecte, in
Recherches sur la basilique suprieure de Lourdes (mmoire de matrise, Universit de
Pau et des Pays de lAdour, 1997), 1: 175-177.
Dated Works (Arranged Chronologically)
March Couvert, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Yvelines, 1832-34, destroyed in 1886. See
Catherine Gueissaz and Roselyne Bussire, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, March
Couvert, Inventaire du patrimoine du canton de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, le-deFrance (1998), Rf. Mrime IA78000014.
Church of Saint-Remi, Reims, Marne, restoration project displayed at the Salon of 1837.
See Jean-Michel Leniaud, Les Cathdrales au XIXe sicle: tude du service des
difices diocsains (Paris: Economica, 1993), 679.
Basilica of Notre-Dame de lpine, Lpine, Marne, restoration project displayed at the
Salon of 1838. See Leniaud, Les Cathdrales au XIXe sicle, 679.
Church of Saint-Menoux, Saint-Menoux, Allier, choir restored from 1842 to 1847, under
the control of the Commission des monuments historiques. See Patricia Duret,
LAncienne glise abbatiale de Saint-Menoux, in Congrs archologique de
France: 146e session, 1988, Bourbonnais (Paris: Socit franaise
darchologie, 1991), 354.
Thtre de Moulins, Moulins, Allier, designed in the Neoclassical style in 1842, built in
1853. See Allgemeines Knstlerlexikon, vol. 31 (Munich: K. G. Saur, 2002),
144.
Chteau de Monte-Cristo, Le Port Marly, Yvelines, 1844-47. See Louis Hautecur,
Histoire de larchitecture classi ue en France, vol. 6 (Paris: A. & J. Picard,
1955), 316-319; and Alain Decaux, Quand Alexandre Dumas construisait le
chteau de Montecristo, Monuments historiques 1 (1974): 103-105.
Primary School, Paris, 15 rue Neuve Saint-Pierre, 1845. See Anne-Marie Chtelet, Paris
lcole, ui a eu cette ide olle. . . (Paris: Picard, 1993), 285.
Chapelle funraire, Chteau de Beaumont, 4 km west of Agonges, Allier, designed in
1845, built by 1847. See [Adolphe-Napolon Didron], glise et chapelle
nouvelles en style du XIIIe sicle, Annales archologiques 3 (July 1845): 59;
and Adolphe-Napolon Didron, Renaissance du moyen age, Annales
archologiques 6 (January 1847): 6.
Church of Saint-Jacques, Tartas, Landes, designed in 1846, built from 1849 to 1856. See
Tartas, glise paroissiale Saint-Jacques, Inventaire gnral du patrimoine culturel
542
dAquitaine (1997), Rf. Mrime PA40000022; and Muriel Mauriac, Llan
Nogothique de Saint-Jacques, LA uitaine monumentale (September 2004):
68-71.
Church of Saint-Martin, Peyrehorade, Landes, designed in 1846, built from 1852 to 1857.
See Catherine Lahonde and Bertrand Charneau, Peyrehorade, glise paroissiale
Saint-Martin, Inventaire gnral du patrimoine culturel dAquitaine (1995), Rf.
Mrime IA40000170; and Ministre des affaires culturelles, Inventaire gnral
des monuments et des richesses artistiques de la France, Commission rgionale
dAquitaine, Landes: Canton Peyrehorade (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1973),
1: 78-80; 2: pl. 434-464.
Church of Saint-Andr, Bayonne, Pyrnes-Atlantiques, designed in 1847, built from
1856 to 1869, with Hippolyte Guichenn. See Adolphe-Napolon Didron,
Mouvement archologique, Annales archologiques 18 (1858): 364-365;
Adolphe-Napolon Didron, Mouvement archologique, Annales
archologiques 23 (1863): 175; Jean-Philippe Maisonnave and Herv Padrino,
Bayonne, glise paroissiale Saint-Andr, Inventaire gnral du patrimoine
culturel dAquitaine (1991), Rf. Mrime IA64000722; Leniaud, Les
Cathdrales au XIXe sicle, 681; and M.-J. Legathe, Recherches sur la basilique
suprieure de Lourdes (mmoire de matrise, Universit de Pau et des Pays de
lAdour, 1997), 1: 175.
Cathdrale Notre-Dame, Bayonne, Pyrnes-Atlantiques, restored from 1849 to 1852,
with Hippolyte Guichenn. See Legathe, Recherches sur la basilique suprieure
de Lourdes, 1: 32-34.
Cathdrale Notre-Dame de la Sde, Tarbes, Hautes-Pyrnes, enlarged beginning in
1850, restored in 1866. See Legathe, Recherches sur la basilique suprieure de
Lourdes, 1: 176-177.
Primary School, Paris, 9 rue de Moussy, 1852. See Chtelet, Paris lcole, 285.
Church of Eyres-Moncube, Landes, underway in September 1853. See [AdolpheNapolon Didron], LOgive fait le tour du monde, Annales archologiques 13
(September-October 1853): 270.
Church of Plaisance, Gers, design for the spire completed by September 1853. See
[Didron], LOgive fait le tour du monde, 270.
Church, Saint-Clar, Gers, design completed by September 1853. See [Didron], LOgive
fait le tour du monde, 270; and Legathe, Recherches sur la basilique suprieure
de Lourdes, 1: 177.
Church of Saint-Pierre, Lourdes, Hautes-Pyrnes, restored in 1854. See Legathe,
Recherches sur la basilique suprieure de Lourdes, 1: 176.
543
Hospice pour vieillards et infirmes, Camp-de-Pratz or Cam de Prats, Bayonne, PyrnesAtlantiques, around 1854. Legathe, Recherches sur la basilique suprieure de
Lourdes, 1: 176.
Htel de Ville, Saint-Esprit, Bayonne, Pyrnes-Atlantiques, around 1854. Legathe,
Villa Eugnie, Rsidence Impriale, Biarritz, Pyrenes-Atlantiques, 1854-55, continued
by Auguste-Dodat Couvrechef in 1855. See David Van Zanten, AugusteDodat Couvrechef, in The Second Empire, 1852-1870: Art in France under
Napoleon III (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1978), 45-46.
Chapelle du Petit Sminaire de Saint-P, Saint-P-de-Bigorre, Hautes-Pyrnes, 1856-59.
See L. Dantin, Lv ue des apparitions Mgr Laurence v ue de Tar es, 18451870 (Paris: Spes, 1931), 333-334.
Project for a Monument to the Immaculate Conception, Places des Quinconces,
Bordeaux, 1857. See Lonard-J.-M. Cros, Histoire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes
daprs les documents et les tmoins, 2nd ed., vol. 3 (Paris: Beauchesne, 1926),
32-34.
Project for a Monument to the Immaculate Conception, Madrid, submitted to a contest
opened by the Queen of Spain in 1859. See Ren Laurentin, Bernard Billet, and
Paul Galland, Lourdes: Documents authentiques, vol. 6 (Paris: Lethielleux,
1961), 163 n. 2.
Primary School, 30 rue Louis Arago, Paris, expanded in 1860. See Chtelet, Paris
lcole, 288.
Church of Sainte-Marie, Le Havre, Seine-Maritime, designed in 1862. See Legathe,
Primary School, 35 rue Godefroy-Cavaignac, Paris, 1862. See Chtelet, Paris lcole,
286.
Sminaire, Tarbes, Hautes-Pyrnes, 1862-69. See Jean-Baptiste Laffon, Le Monde
religieux bigourdan: 1800-1962 (Lourdes: uvre de la grotte, 1984), 121;
Basilica of the Immacule-Conception, Lourdes, Hautes-Pyrnes, 1862-72.
Church of Saint-Pierre, Soustons, Landes, built with Hippolyte Guichenn, 1863-67. See
Catherine Lahonde, Soustons, glise paroissiale Saint-Pierre, Inventaire gnral
du patrimoine culturel dAquitaine, 2005, Rf. Mrime IA40001323.
544
Church of Saint-Jean, Tarbes, unexecuted project for the bell tower, 1864. See Legathe,
Collgiale dIbos, Landes, restored chapels in 1864. See Legathe, Recherches sur la
basilique suprieure de Lourdes, 1: 176.
Htel de Ville, Peyrehorade, Landes, designed with Hippolyte Guichenn in 1864, built
in 1868. See Ministre des affaires culturelles, Inventaire gnral des monuments
et des richesses artistiques de la France, Commission rgionale dAquitaine,
Landes: Canton Peyrehorade (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1973), 1: 81; 2: pl.
467-470.
Church of Saint-Pierre, Cauneille, Landes, reconstructed from 1865 to 1874. See
Catherine Lahonde and Bertrand Charneau, Cauneille, glise paroissiale SaintPierre, Inventaire gnral du patrimoine culturel dAquitaine, 2002, Rf. Mrime
IA40000028.
Htel de Ville, Le Havre, Seine-Maritime, 1865. See Legathe, Recherches sur la
Project for a new Htel de Ville, Tourcoing, Nord, placed forty-fifth in the competition,
1865. See Legathe, Recherches sur la basilique suprieure de Lourdes, 1: 176.
Church, Ad, Hautes-Pyrnes, 1866. See Legathe, Recherches sur la basilique
suprieure de Lourdes, 1: 177.
Hospice de Vieillards, Barges, Hautes-Pyrnes, 1866. See Legathe, Recherches sur la
Church, Bordes, Hautes-Pyrnes, 1866. See Legathe, Recherches sur la basilique
Church, Larroque, Hautes-Pyrnes, 1866. See Legathe, Recherches sur la basilique
Church, Mauvezin, Hautes-Pyrnes, 1866. See Legathe, Recherches sur la basilique
Church, Sariac-Magnoac, Hautes-Pyrnes, 1866. See Legathe, Recherches sur la
Church of Notre-Dame-des-Neiges, Trie-sur-Base, Hautes-Pyrnes, 1866. See Legathe,
Collgiale de Castelnau-Magnoac, Hautes-Pyrnes, porch reconstructed in 1866. See
545
Church of Saint-Michel, Sabres, Landes, expanded in 1868-69. See Jean-Philippe

Maisonnave, Sabres, glise paroissiale Saint-Michel, Inventaire gnral du
patrimoine culturel dAquitaine, 2008, Rf. Mrime IA40001386.
Cathdrale Saint-Pierre, Condom, Gers, restored the bell tower and gave the west portal a
new tympanum in 1869-70. See Jacques Brosse, ed., Dictionnaire des glises de
France, vol. 3 (Paris: Robert Laffont, 1967), sect. A: 49; and Legathe,
Church of Saint-Orens, also known as Notre-Dame-de-Sescas, Bourisp, Hautes-Pyrnes,
restored in 1871. See Pierre-Yves Corbel, Bourisp, glise paroissiale SaintOrens, Notre-Dame-de-Sescas, Inventaire gnral du patrimoine culturel de MidiPyrnes, 1994, Rf. Mrime IA00126567.
Chapelle dhospitaliers de Saint-Jean-de-Jrusalem Saint-Pierre, Agos, Hautes-Pyrnes,
restored from 1873 to 1875. See Pierre-Yves Corbel, Agos, Chapelle
dhospitaliers de Saint-Jean-de-Jrusalem Saint-Pierre, Inventaire gnral du
patrimoine culturel de Midi-Pyrnes, 1994, Rf. Mrime IA00126605.
Church of Saint-Martin, Barrancoueu, Hautes-Pyrnes, restored and expanded from
1877 to 1880. See Pierre-Yves Corbel, Barrancoueu, glise paroissiale SaintMartin, Inventaire gnral du patrimoine culturel de Midi-Pyrnes, 1997, Rf.
Mrime IA65000119.
Collgiale de Saint-Nicolas, Nogaro, Gers, restoration of bell tower commissioned
around 1878, realized around 1900. See Legathe, Recherches sur la basilique
Undated Works
Prieur des Ursulines, Auch, Gers. See Leniaud, Les Cathdrales au XIXe sicle, 680.
Cathdrale Sainte-Marie, Auch, Gers, restored. See Legathe, Recherches sur la
Church of Saint-Michel, Condom, Gers, built. See Legathe, Recherches sur la basilique
Church, Estang, Gers, restored. See Legathe, Recherches sur la basilique suprieure de
Lourdes, 1: 177.
Church, Saint-Paul-ls-Dax, Gers, built. See Legathe, Recherches sur la basilique
546
Church, Saint-Vincent-de-Tyrosse, Gers, built. See Legathe, Recherches sur la
Church, Seissan, Gers, built. See Legathe, Recherches sur la basilique suprieure de
Lourdes, 1: 177.

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Architecture and Popular Religion: French Pilgrimage Churches of the Nineteenth

Jessica Ruth Basciano

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the

Architecture was essential to the radical transformation of pilgrimage by the

mass production, thereby complementing the clergys promotion of the pilgrimage to

Chapter 1: The Basilica of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours (1840-44)

ii. Deciding to Build

iii. Planning and Building

vi. Conclusion: The Afterlife of the Pilgrimage Site

Chapter 2: The Basilica of the Immacule-Conception in Lourdes (1862-72)

ii. Authorizing the Devotion and Deciding to Build

iv. Building and Decorating

v. The Emergence of Modern Pilgrimage at Lourdes

vi. Conclusion: The Criticism of the Basilica by mile Zola and

Chapter 3: The Basilica of Saint-Martin in Tours (1886-1925)

a) The Anticlerical Campaign of the Opportunist Republicans

1. Church of Saint-Lger-du-Bourg-Denis, near Rouen, 1500s. Photograph by the

15. [Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy], Plan 33, Coupe transversale et coupe longitudinale,

28. Jacques-Eugne Barthlemy, Church of Saint-Denis, Sainte-Adresse, 1874-77.

95. Hippolyte Durand, crypt, Basilica of the Immacule-Conception, Lourdes, 1862-72.

108. [Hippolyte Durand], Plan de lglise du Rosaire, sepia photograph, 1880, 20 x

121. Pierre-Marie Bossan, Eglise de Fourvire, labside, 18 May 1858, Archives de la

145. Fig. 6 et 7. Basilique de Saint-Martin Tours; plan et coupe transversale

In nineteenth-century France, pilgrimage was dramatically reinvigorated by the

Jonathan Sperber, Popular Catholicism in Nineteenth-Century Germany (Princeton: Princeton University

Chlini and Branthomme, Les Chemins de Dieu, 298-299, 313-316.

Gibson, A Social History of French Catholicism, 51-53.

Christian Amalvi, Le Got du moyen ge (Paris: Plon, 1996), 128.

Gildea, The Past in French History, 10.

Eric Hobsbawm, introduction to The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: University of Cambridge,

Stphane Rials, Plerinages et politique au XIXe sicle, in Rvolution et contre-rvolution au XIXe

Chapelle Saint-Martin: Reconstruction, enqute, avis, rapport de M. Ducrot, Bulletin municipal de la

Gibson, A Social History of French Catholicism, 145.

Gibson, A Social History of French Catholicism, 139.

Bernard Plongeron, propos des mutations du populaire pendant la Rvolution et lEmpire, in La

Gibson, A Social History of French Catholicism, 141.

Claude Langlois, Sociologie religieuse historique et religion populaire, in La Religion populaire:

Turner and Turner, Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture, 49.

Nolan and Nolan, Christian Pilgrimage in Modern Western Europe, 111-113.

Cholvy, Expressions et volution du sentiment religieux populaire, 303.

Cholvy, Expressions et volution du sentiment religieux populaire, 2: 301; Alphonse Dupront,

Marrus, Cultures on the Move, 205-206.

Marrus, Cultures on the Move, 212-215.

Marrus, Cultures on the Move, 215-216, 219-220.

Quoted in Latourette, The Nineteenth Century in Europe, 278.

Gadille, La Pense et laction politi ue des v ues, 1: 234.

Lagre, La Bndiction de Promthe, 234-235.

Turner and Turner, Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture, 172.

Stanley (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 6.

Jonas, France and the Cult of the Sacred Heart, 206-207.

Jonas, Monument as Ex-Voto, Monument as Historiosophy, 490-491.

Jonas, France and the Cult of the Sacred Heart, 5.

Bouvier, letter 5, 101.

Gibson, A Social History of French Catholicism, 141.

Franois-Auguste-Ren de Chateaubriand, Gnie du Christianisme (Paris: Garnier-Flammarion, 1966),

Lagre, Religion populaire et populisme religieux au XIXe sicle, 170.

Abb Victor Godefroy, Vie de M. la

Le e vre, doyen de Darntal (Rouen: Fleury, 1854), 104.

Perry and Echeverra, Under the Heel of Mary, 91-96.

Bouvier, letters 8 and 9, 195.

[Godefroy], glise Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, 1.

Quoted in Bouvier, letter 10, 191.

Bouvier, letter 11, 231.

Gibson, A Social History of French Catholicism, 142-143.