Basilica Of Saint Clotilde, Paris.

Basilica of Saint Clotilde, Paris.

Photo: 30 December 2014.

Source: Own work.

Attribution:

Photo by DAVID ILIFF.

Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0.

Author: Diliff

(Wikimedia Commons)

Basilica of Saint Clotilde, Paris.

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The Basilica of Saint Clotilde (Basilique Ste-Clotilde) 

is a Basilica Church located on the Rue Las Cases, in the 

7th arrondissement of Paris. 

It was constructed between 1846 and 1856, and is the first example of a Church in Paris in the Neo-Gothic Style.[1]

The Church takes its name from Saint Clotilde, the wife of 

King Clovis I, the first King of the Franks. She is said to have persuaded him to convert to Christianity as a condition of their marriage in 496 A.D.[2]

The Composer, César Franck, was Organist of this Church for thirty years.

The Church was constructed between 1846 and 1856 on the site of an earlier Carmelite Monastery. The original design was by Architect Franz Christian Gau, a German-born French Architect and archeologist, who made his career in France. 

It was the first example of a Church in the Neo-Gothic Style in Paris.[3] 

Work began in 1846, but Gau died in 1853; the work was continued by Théodore Ballu, who completed the Church in 1857. 

Ballu extended the front of the Church by several metres to give it greater depth, and built the two Towers, to give it the majesty of a small Cathedral. 

It was opened on 30 November 1857 by Cardinal Morlot. 

In 1860, Ballu was named Architect of Religious Buildings for the City of Paris, and completed a series of other Churches in the Neo-Gothic Style.[4]

In 1896, the Church was declared a Minor Basilica by Pope Leo XIII, to commemorate the anniversary of the conversion of Clovis in 496 A.D.[5]

The design of the Basilica was copied by the Architect Léon Vautrin for the construction of the facade of the Sacred Heart Cathedral in Guangzhou, China, between 1863 and 1888.

The Great West Front of the Church is in the Flamboyant Gothic Style; the Spires of the two Towers reach a height of seventy metres (230 feet). 

The facade has three Portals in Bays with high Pointed Arches, and sculpturally-decorated Statues on Thrones on the Great West Front depict Saint Clotilde and Saint Valere, the Bishop of Treves in the 3rd-Century A.D., who each played an important part in the Early-French Christian Church.[6]

The semi-circular Chevet of the Church, at the opposite end from the facade, is ringed by Buttresses and Pinnacles supporting the Walls, modelled after those of a Gothic Cathedral. 

Their presence is decorative, since the structure is built with an Iron Frame designed by Gustave Eiffel.[7]