St-Paul-St-Louis

St-Paul-St-Louis Review

The leading Baroque church in the Marais, its dome rising 180 feet above the crossing, was begun in 1627 by the Jesuits, who modeled it after their Gesù church in Rome. Newly cleaned on the outside but dark and brooding inside, it contains Delacroix's Christ on the Mount of Olives in the transept and a shell-shape holy-water font at the entrance, which was donated by Victor Hugo. Hugo lived in nearby Place des Vosges, and his beloved daughter Léopoldine was married here in 1843—though she met a tragic end less than seven months later, when she fell into the Seine and drowned, along with her husband Charles, who tried to save her.