Paris in 2011: the Saint Eustache Church

NV 4. The Saint Eustache Church

While at Les Halles I took the opportunity to visit the nearby church of Saint Eustache, built in the 16th and 17th centuries, where Louis the XIV’s Holy Communion was celebrated, and where Saint Vincent de Paul served for 10 years, among historical curiosities and achievements. We will come back to Louis XIV when visiting the Chateau de Maintenon in a later side trip.

Saint Eustache is just across a small open area, with some decorative art, from Les Halles:

View from the west side, the wall is where the Les Halles area starts:

View from the east side, where an open air market is doing well it seems, at least in terms of people-traffic:

But let's go inside the church now. I was taken by the three frescoes in the Chapel of the Virgin Mary. It was rebuilt after being destroyed in 1871 during the revolution known as the Commune. The frescoes are, therefore, relatively modern. They are by Thomas Couture, one of whose students was Edouard Manet.

The statue of the Virgin and Child is 18th century, by Pigalle:

These are serious works of art. Let's look at these three frescoes from left to right:

These three frescoes dramatize the power of the Virgin’s intercession. What really struck me was the fact that the angels performing intercessionary duties for the Virgin, taking the souls of the dead on a battlefield up to heaven, or answering the prayers of the powerless, are female!!

This is the first time I have seen female angels, almost all Medieval art I have seen has all angels being male.

But this is not medieval art. I find this both refreshing and fascinating.