Description of the attraction
The Basilica of Notre Dame de Victoire is located on the street of the same name to the north of Pont Neuf and Rivoli. This is one of the five churches of the Paris Archdiocese, which have the honorary status of a minor basilica.
The basilica owes its origin to the military victory of Louis XIII at La Rochelle in 1628. Having won a victory over the Huguenots (and at the same time over the British who supported the Huguenots), the king decided to perpetuate the event by erecting a church dedicated to Our Lady. The temple was planned to be built at the monastery of the barefoot Augustinians near the present street Petit Per ("little fathers", as the Augustinians are called).
The architect Pierre Le Mouet developed the project, choosing the concept of a basilica, a special type of rectangular temple with an odd number of different heights of naves. Louis XIII personally laid the foundation stone of the future church - this happened on December 9, 1629. Archbishop of Paris Jean Francois Gondi (future leader of the Fronde) consecrated the building.
The construction site faced financial difficulties: due to a lack of money in the treasury, work stopped until 1656. Since that time, the project has been consistently led by architects Liberal Bruin, Gabriel Le Duc and Jean Sylvain Carteau. The church was fully completed in 1740.
Half a century later, during the revolution, the monastery of the barefoot Augustinians was closed, the church was plundered. The building housed the National Lottery, which, by the decision of the Convention, was involved in the drawing of property of royalist emigrants who had fled from France. For a while, they even traded in securities here, but in 1802 Napoleon issued a decree on the construction of a new Paris Stock Exchange (Bronyard Palace), and the building at Petit Per was returned to the church.
The church was located in a business district and had few parishioners. In 1836, the parish priest, Fr. Charles Eleanor Dufrichet Destenette dedicated the temple to the Immaculate Heart of the Virgin Mary - from that moment on, pilgrims and believers began to flock here. In 1927, the church received the status of a "minor basilica" of Paris.
In the eastern part of the transept (transverse nave) there is a statue of the Virgin Mary with the Child, to which thousands of people bring their gifts. Here you can also see seven large paintings by Charles-André van Loo, the “first artist” of Louis XV, dedicated to the life of St. Augustine and the siege of La Rochelle.
