Home of the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite
Two saints, two architects, two years. St Eugène and St Cécile, Louis-Auguste Boileau and Louis-Adrien Lusson, 1854 and 1855. One extraordinary church. Tucked away in the 9th Arrondisement of Paris, this was the first ecclesiastical building in France to use an entirely metal construction frame. The frame is formed of cast iron columns attached to the masonry of the walls, supporting wrought iron trusses. Even the capitals of the slender columns are moulded in cast iron. This lends a spatial lightness to the interior.
The Second Empire had begun two years earlier and brought a boom in local church building. Once on the periphery of Paris, the area around the church soon developed as the city population doubled from one to two million by the close of the 19th century. Gothic was the style de choix. Louis-Auguste Boileau (1812 to 1896), the younger of the two architects, was a pioneer of iron construction. Even the pews are cast iron in his Basilica St Pierre Fourier of 1853 in Mattaincourt, Vosges. The following year he published La Nouvelle Forme Architecturale which promoted the use of iron frames. Louis-Adrien Lusson (1788 to 1864) would later design St François Xavier’s in the 7th Arrondisement which also has an iron frame but is dressed in the Italianate fashion.
The interior of St Eugène and St Cécile’s is beautifully lit through stained glass windows on all four elevations by master glassmakers Lusson, Gsell and Oudinot. The lower level west facing windows illustrate the Stations of the Cross. Behind the altar, the stained glass depicts the Transfiguration of Christ, the Last Supper and Christ in the Garden of Olives. Woodwork and metalwork is equally accomplished; faded original paintwork and wallpaper is still in place.
Originally dedicated to St Eugène, Patron Saint of Divorce, a century after its 1854 inauguration, St Cécile was added. As befits a church bearing the name of the Patron Saint of Music, it has one of the finest church choirs in the Catholic world. La Conservatoire de Paris, a music college founded in 1795, is located beside the church. Built by Emperor Napoléon III’s decree, his wife Empress Eugénie attended the original dedication of the church. Author Jules Verne was one of the first people to get married in the church.
Saturday morning Mass on XE Dimanche du Temps Ordinaire of 2024 includes Kyrie Pro Europa, Gloria VIII De Angelis, Lecture du Livre de la Genèse, Psaume 129, Lecture de la Deuxième Lettre de St Paul Apôtre aux Corinthiens, Évangele de Jésus Christ Selon St Marc and Agnes Dei VIII. “Chantez au Seigneur un chant nouveau, chantez au Seigneur terre entière, chantez au Seigneur et bénissez son nom!”
