Cathédrale Saint-Louis-et-Saint-Nicolas de Choisy-le-Roi

Choisy-le-Roi

Before being ‘le Roi’, Choisy was ‘Mademoiselle’. A mere hamlet of the parish of Thiais, the village obtained in 1207 the right to build a chapel of Saint-Nicolas, which became a parish in 1224. Between 1680 and 1686 Mademoiselle de Montpensier built a château there and paid for the rebuilding of the church's choir. Louis XV bought the estate in 1739 and intended to make it a true royal residence: from 1746 a new village laid out on a grid was planned, and for it a church at once parish and royal, dedicated to Saint Louis and to Saint Nicholas, the former patron of the place. Ange-Jacques Gabriel, inspector general of the King's Buildings, put forward two designs for it in 1748; on 4 July of that year Louis XV himself laid the foundation stone. The building work, in stone from Saint-Maur and Charenton, in local millstone rubble and in brick, lasted until 1760, and the old church was demolished in 1759. On 21 September 1760 the church was consecrated in the presence of the King and his court by Mgr de Beaumont, Archbishop of Paris, surrounded by twelve bishops. Gabriel did without the architectural orders here: the sober monumentality arises solely from the treatment of the surfaces, over three barrel-vaulted vessels. At the chevet, a small pedimented pavilion looked out onto the gardens of the château, so that the King could go directly to the church; the bell tower, standing apart on the right, only ever had two of the three planned levels, to the detriment of the bells' reach. Inside, two statues by Jacques Bousseau, dated 1729, depict Saint Louis and Saint Maurice.

Wikipédia — Cathédrale Saint-Louis-et-Saint-Nicolas de Choisy-le-Roi ↗

Getting there : Place de l'Église, Choisy-le-Roi (Val-de-Marne). Public transport, opening times and visiting conditions to be checked; parish church, free entry outside services to be checked.

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

Ambient sound