Cathédrale Saint-Louis de Blois

Blois

On the night of 6 to 7 June 1678, a hurricane struck Blois: at the church of Saint-Solenne, the stained-glass windows shattered, the vault collapsed, the pillars gave way. Only the façade and the tall Renaissance bell tower, begun in 1544 and capped with its dome at the beginning of the 17th century, remained standing. The church was venerable: a chapel of Saint-Pierre already existed here in the Merovingian period, and around 977 Countess Liutgarde de Vermandois, widow of Thibaud I, had had a crypt added for the relics of Saint Solenne, Bishop of Chartres in the time of Clovis; its remains can be visited beneath the choir. To raise the building again, the lieutenant general of the bailiwick, Jacques Belot, had the project taken all the way up to Colbert, whose wife came from Blois; Louis XIV granted full funding, and two master masons of the town, Jean Habert and Jean Jacquet, rebuilt the nave in Gothic, keeping parts of the earlier church. The building work was not yet finished when a new destiny opened up for it. In 1697, a bull of Innocent XII detached Blois from the diocese of Chartres, to strengthen the Church in a region with a strong Protestant presence. The first bishop, Nicolas de Bertier, passed over the abbey church of Saint-Laumer and chose Saint-Solenne, on its hillside overlooking the Loire; on 26 June 1698, nearly six hundred priests filed in procession before the church, renamed Saint-Louis in honour of the king. The king gave the high altar, then the organ case, and Bertier had his palace and its terraced gardens built at the chevet, answering the château on the other side of the lower town.

Wikipédia — Cathédrale Saint-Louis de Blois ↗

Getting there : Place Saint-Louis, at the top of the hillside; République or Jean-Jaurès bus stops (to be checked). Open all year round, free entry (Blois-Chambord tourist office); opening times to be checked. Guided tour of the crypt on Sundays from June to September, after the 10.30 am mass. The Jardins de l'Évêché stretch out behind the chevet.

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

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