Chapelle expiatoire

Paris

In the square Louis-XVI, a stone's throw from the boulevard Haussmann, the Chapelle expiatoire stands on the former cemetery of the Madeleine, opened in 1722 on the rue d'Anjou-Saint-Honoré. It was here that some five hundred victims of the guillotine during the Revolution were thrown into the common graves, among them Louis XVI, executed on 21 January 1793, and Marie-Antoinette, on 16 October of the same year; the cemetery, full, closed on 24 March 1794. On 21 January 1815, the anniversary of the king's death, the presumed remains of the royal couple were exhumed and transferred to the basilica of Saint-Denis, and the first stone of the chapel was symbolically laid. Willed by Louis XVIII and supported by the Duchess of Angoulême, the sovereigns' surviving daughter, it was built from 1816 to 1826 by the architect Pierre Fontaine, consecrated on 21 January 1824 and completed under Charles X. Listed as a historic monument in 1914 and managed by the Centre des monuments nationaux, this neoclassical rotunda surrounded by funerary galleries, set upon the earth of the revolutionary graves, remains one of the most moving and least known places of memory in Paris, where history quite literally surfaces beneath the lawns of the square.

Getting there : 29 rue Pasquier / square Louis-XVI, Paris 8th arrondissement; métro Saint-Augustin or Havre-Caumartin; opening hours as set by the Centre des monuments nationaux

Opening times and access details are given as a guide only: check before you set out.

Ambient sound