The Church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés (French pronunciation: [sɛ̃ ʒɛʁmɛ̃ de pʁe]) is a Catholic parish church located in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés quarter of Paris. It was originally the church of a Benedictine abbey founded in 558 by Childebert I, the son of Clovis, King of the Franks. The abbey was destroyed by the Vikings, rebuilt, and renamed in the 8th century for Saint Germain, a 6th century bishop. It was rebuilt with elements in the new Gothic style in the 11th century, and was given the earliest flying buttresses in the Ile de France in the 12th century. It is considered the oldest existing church in Paris.
Originally located outside the walls of medieval Paris, in the fields and meadows of the Left Bank, known as "les Prés", the church was the center of an important abbey complex, famous for its scholarship and its production of illuminated manuscripts, and was the burial place of Germain, and also of Childebert and other rulers of the Merovingian Dynasty. Most of the Abbey, except for the chapel and the Bishop's palace, was destroyed during the French Revolution. The chapel was subsequently restored and became the parish church.
History
Origins
A Roman temple was located close to the site of the church, and a Roman road, parallel to the Seine, passed by the site, built well above the river to avoid flooding.
The abbey was founded in the 6th century by Childebert I (ruled 511–558), the son of Clovis I, the first King of the Franks. It was built especially to display two important relics acquired by Childebert during the siege of Zaragoza in Spain; a fragment of the True Cross and a fragment of the tunic of the martyr Saint Vincent. The first abbot was Droctovaeus, a pupil of the Bishop Saint Germain.
The abbey was formally dedicated in 558, the same year that Childebert died. His tomb was placed within the church and the Abbey became the first necropolis for the tombs of the early Kings of France, before this function was transferred to the Basilica of Saint-Denis. The basilica and the monastery were first dedicated to the Holy Cross and to Saint Vincent, then, in about 754, to Saint Germain of Paris, a noted bishop of Paris whose tomb was placed in the church in 576. The tombs were later removed, and no medieval tombs remain in the church.
The church and monastery were destroyed twice by the Vikings during their invasions at the end of the 9th century. The abbey church was rebuilt by the Abbé Morard at the 10th century, and the rest of the monastery by the end of the 13th century. The first four levels of the bell tower, the nave and the transept date from this period. A number of carved column capitals and vestiges of frescoes from this period are also found in the church.
The abbey was used by French monarchs to host visiting kings, such as King Edward I of England in 1286 who used it as a base whilst visiting Philip IV of France in the Louvre
Under royal patronage the Abbey became one of the most important centers of scholarship in Europe. In the Eleventh century it housed an important scriptorium which produced scholarly manuscripts which were distributed throughout Europe. It remained a center of spiritual, intellectual and artistic activity until the end of the 18th century.
The Gothic Church
Beginning in the 12th century, the church was updated with elements of the new style of Gothic architecture. The present choir of the church was built in the middle of the 12th century. The newly rebuilt church was consecrated by Pope Alexander III on 21 April 1163, The flying buttresses, the first in the Ile-de-France, were added at the end of the 12th century. The other buildings of the monastery were gradually rebuilt during the 13th century. These included a new Abbey church by architect Pierre de Montreuil inspired by the newly built Saint Chapelle. This new "Lady Chapel" was demolished in 1802, shortly after the end of the French Revolution, though vestiges remain in the small park on Rue de l'Abbaye next to the entrance to the Church.
The abbey church's west end tower was pierced by a portal, completed in the twelfth century, which collapsed in 1604 and was replaced in 1606 by the present classicising portal, by Marcel Le Roy. Its choir, with its apsidal east end, provides an early example of flying buttresses.
The Wall of Philip II Augustus built during the reign of Philip II of France (1200–1214) did not encompass the abbey, leaving the residents to fend for themselves. This also had the effect of splitting the Abbey's holdings into two. A new refectory was built for the monastery by Pierre de Montreuil between 1239 and 1244.
In 1621, a new order of Benedictine Monks, the Congregation of Saint Maur, was founded at Saint-Germain. They were particularly devoted to research and scholarship, They trained monks to collect and study texts on varied subjects and produced very fine illuminated manuscripts, which circulated throughout Europe, and made Paris one of the leading academic centres of the continent.
Until the late 17th century, the Abbey owned most of the land in the Left Bank west of the current Boulevard Saint-Michel and had administrative autonomy in it, most clearly for the part outside the walls of Paris. Louis-César de Bourbon, son of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan, was an abbot here. The tomb of philosopher René Descartes is located in one of the church's side chapels.
The abbey during the Revolution
(see also: September Massacres)
In September 1792, during the French Revolution, a group of about one hundred priests, who refused to sign a declaration of loyalty to the new Revolutionary government, were being held in the Abbey prison, along with aristocrats who had been arrested by the Jacobins, and Swiss Guards who had survived an earlier massacre. In September 1792, news arrived in Paris that a Prussian army was marching toward the city. On September 2 The Revolutionary leader Georges Danton gave a speech to his assembled followers on the Champ de Mars, declaring "We ask that anyone refusing to give personal service or to furnish arms shall be punished with death."
Danton's followers moved immediately to the prison of the Abbey to carry out Danton's proposal. Between September 2 and September 6, the prisoners were rapidly tried; they were asked why they had been arrested, and then quickly sentenced. Those sentenced to death included twenty-two priests, a number of Swiss guards who had survived an earlier massacre at the Tuileries Palace, as well as a number of women, including the Princesse de Lamballe. The prisoners sentenced to death were taken outside one by one, where they were killed by a crowd armed with swords, pikes and axes. Of the Swiss Guard prisoners 135 were killed, 27 were transferred, 86 were set free, and 22 had uncertain fates.
During the rest of the Revolutionary period, The abbey and the church were closed, and the buildings were used for storage and manufacturing gunpowder and arms. Part of the church was turned into a workshop for refining niter, an ingredient of gunpowder. It exploded accidentally, causing serious damage to the church and other abbey buildings.
With the end of the Revolution, The Catholic Church was officially re-established on 31 May 1795, and the ruined building again became a church. In 1802 The Council of Civil Buildings debated whether to simply sell and then demolish the building, which was badly damaged by the saltpetre leaking down into the foundations. Finally, due to the building's long history, they decided to preserve the building, though they declared that the architecture "offers nothing particularly interesting regarding art." The only buildings remaining intact were the church and the palace of the Bishops, next to it. These were formally returned to the church in on 29 April 1803. The Chapel of the Virgin Mary, more seriously damaged, was demolished, though some of the stained glass windows were saved. Some flamboyant arches from the Virgin Chapel can be seen today in the small park next to the church.
After the Revolution, historical excavations resumed. Alexandre Lenoir discovered two Merovingian tombs under the main altar in 1799. These were moved to the Cluny Museum. Other art works were restored to the church, while the Louvre received the marble columns of the altar in 1704. The paintings which had been moved to Versailles, were restored to the church. Other works recovered included the marble statue of the Virgin given to the Louvre by Queen Jeanne d'Evreux.
The saltpetre stored in the church during the Revolution had badly damaged the pilings on the north side, and the nave itself could not be used. The Council of Buildings considered simply demolishing the building, but the inspector-general, Mazois, insisted that the choir could be saved and the nave restored. In the summer of 1822 the upper levels of the towers on the north and south sides of the church, largely in ruins, were demolished down to the roof line, leaving the church with a single tower. The chapels of the disambulatory and the six flying buttresses of the apse were rebuilt in 1823.
Restoration and redecoration
By 1824, the restoring group had assembled marble columns and stained glass windows from other Paris buildings destroyed during the Revolution buildings, which had been fortunately preserved in the Museum of French Monuments. In 1843, the artist Hippolyte Flandrin began the largest project of all, the redecoration of the nave. This was not a restoration, but a re-imagination of a medieval church. For this purpose he employed colourful frescoes illustrating scenes of the Old Testament which announced the coming life of Christ. His work was carried out between 1856 and 1861. The murals themselves were surrounded by very elaborate painted settings, using gold stars against azure backgrounds and painted architecture. During the same period, the architect Baltard commissioned sculptors to make new capitals for the columns of the arcades in the nave, choir and apse, based on the medieval originals stored in the Cluny Museum. The new capitals and column themselves were also brightly coloured. The paintings and decoration dominated the architecture.
Baltard extended the decoration to include the furnishings; he designed new choir stalls, while Lassus designed a new carved wooden enclosure for the apse. The original stained glass windows had been destroyed during the Revolution. The glass artist Gérente designed new stained glass windows for the chevet based on the drawings of Flandrin.
From 1848 to 1853, Baltard restored the top level of the western tower, opening up the bays, and remaking the columns and other architectural features, but leaving nothing of the original 12th century work.
From 2017 to 2020. the City of Paris and the church carried out a major restoration of the interior of the building, particularly the 19th century murals in the nave, whose original colours had faded. This was funded jointly by the French state and donors from the Parish. Between 2021 and 2022, a second phase is underway to restore the paintings in the disambulatory and the chapels at the east end of the church.
Ownership
Like Notre Dame de Paris and all the other churches of Paris built before 1905, the building of Saint-Germain-de-Pres is owned by the French State, with exclusive usage granted to the Catholic Church.
Exterior
At the time of the French Revolution the Church had three bell towers; the present tower of the church and its porch is the only one that remains. It was built beginning in 990, making it one of the oldest bell towers in France. Its square form, with reinforcements at the corners, is in the style of a medieval fortress. The upper level of the tower was rebuilt in a Neo-Gothic style in the 19th century.
The west porch and portico of the church dates to the 17th century, and has little decoration. Within it are some vestiges of the 12th-century entrance of the church, including some columns with sculpture, a sculpture in relief of the Last Supper on the tympanum, and capitals on the columns decorated with sculpted harpies, half-woman, half-bird figures.
On the south side of the church, along Boulevard Saint-Germain, the walls and vaults are supported by a row of flying buttresses from the end of the 12th century, the first in the Ile-de-France region.