Cathédrale Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption de Luçon

Luçon

When Armand Jean du Plessis de Richelieu was appointed Bishop of Luçon in 1606, the bishopric he inherited had emerged ruined from the Wars of Religion: arriving in 1608, he could not even live in the bishop's palace, whose east wing, marked with his arms, he had rebuilt. The cathedral had suffered as much as the bishop's house: sacked by Huguenot bands in 1562, 1568 and 1570, it would be sacked again in 1622, at the end of his episcopate, and lose almost all its furnishings. Richelieu left the bishopric in 1623; the following year, he entered the King's Council. In the nave, a portable walnut pulpit, painted with garlands of fruit and flowers on a green ground, is reputed to have been his: tradition, traced back to a notice of 1780, has it that he placed his arms on it and that his successor Pierre Nivelle covered them with his own; recent analyses have not been able to confirm this. The building is much older than its famous bishop. The abbey that preceded it, ravaged by the Normans, was burnt in 1068 by the Count of Poitou; excommunicated, he had to rebuild it, and it was his son William IX who had the Romanesque abbey church raised, begun in 1091 and consecrated in 1121: the north transept arm and its portal still bear traces of it. In 1317, Pope John XXII made the abbey church a cathedral. In 1665, the bell tower collapsed onto the first bay; Bishop Henri de Barillon had the façade rebuilt by the architect François Le Duc, known as Toscane.

Wikipédia — Cathédrale Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption de Luçon ↗

Getting there : Place Leclerc, in the centre of Luçon; the cloister adjoins the south side of the cathedral. Opening times, access to the cloister and free entry to be checked.

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

Ambient sound