As we continue our voyage through the details of the chapels of Notre Dame, today we visit the chapels of Saint Louis and Saint Marcel. Two important saints in the history of Paris, one for the Crown of Thorns and the other for slaying the dragon of the Left Bank.
Louis IX, king of France, was born on April 25, 1214, in Poissy and ruled from November 8, 1226, until his death on August 25, 1270, in Tunis during the Eighth Crusade. He was canonized by Pope Boniface VIII on July 11, 1297, and his feast day is celebrated each year on August 25. Revered for his piety, justice, and devotion to the poor, Saint Louis left an indelible mark on French history and the Catholic Church.
In Notre-Dame de Paris, a chapel was dedicated to his memory—designed by architect Germain Boffrand under the direction of Cardinal Louis Antoine de Noailles. Originally composed of three chapels—Saint Martin, Sainte Anne, and Saint Michel—it became a richly decorated space honoring saints, royalty, and notable ecclesiastics.
High up on the left wall are the figures of Saint Denis, Saint Rustique, and Saint Eleutherus, all third-century martyrs, sculpted by Claude Anthime Corbon around 1864. Corbon, a fascinating figure himself, began as a printer before becoming a sculptor, politician, mayor of the 15th arrondissement of Paris, and a notable participant in the Paris Commune.
The chapel’s walls are adorned with murals based on designs by the famed restorer of Notre-Dame, Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, dating to around 1864. The murals of the left wall depict devout royal women such as Saint Clotilde, queen of the Franks and wife of Clovis, who helped convert the kingdom to Christianity in the late 5th century, and Saint Radegonde, also queen and wife to Clotaire I, son of Clovis, who later became a nun and saint. Also represented is Blessed Isabelle of France, Louis IX’s sister, who was a Poor Clare nun and founder of a monastery just outside Paris. Another notable woman depicted is Saint Jeanne de Valois, daughter of Louis XI and wife of Louis d’Orléans. Although she served as queen for just over eight months, Jeanne returned to religious life after her marriage was annulled and went on to found the Monastic Order of the Annunciation.
A cenotaph and commemorative plaques mark the contributions of Cardinal Louis Antoine de Noailles, Archbishop of Paris from 1695 to 1729. The work was sculpted by Victor Geoffroy-Dechaume in the 1860s. Born in 1651 in Cantal, Noailles was the second son of Anne de Noailles, the first Duke of Noailles, and Louise Boyer, a lady-in-waiting to Queen Marie-Thérèse. He began his clerical career as Bishop of Cahors in 1679 and soon after became Bishop and Count of Châlons-en-Champagne. In 1695, thanks in part to his close relationship with Madame de Maintenon, Louis XIV appointed him Archbishop of Paris.
Noailles played a significant role in the city’s religious landscape. He blessed the first stone of Notre-Dame’s high altar and the first stone of the Église Saint-Louis-en-l’Île. After Louis XIV’s death, the Regent Philippe d’Orléans named him president of the Council of Conscience. Noailles’s tenure was not without controversy. One of the most dramatic episodes involved the Duchess de Berry, daughter of the Regent, who experienced several scandalous pregnancies after her husband’s death in 1714. When she was about to give birth in March 1719, Cardinal Noailles arrived and asked the parish priest of Saint-Sulpice to administer the sacraments, which the priest refused. She survived that birth but died in July of the same year after another pregnancy.
Polarizing in life, Noailles remained so in death. He was buried in several places within Notre-Dame, including having his heart interred in the chapel he had dedicated to Saint Louis. During his time as archbishop, he oversaw substantial renovations of Notre-Dame, including the costly replacement of many stained-glass windows in the south rose.
A stained-glass medallion by Jean Le Vieil from the 1750s bears the arms of Adrien Maurice, Duke of Noailles, Marshal of France, who lived from 1678 to 1766. Another medallion by Le Vieil features the coat of arms of Cardinal Louis Antoine de Noailles. Both are set amid grisaille stained glass windows created in 1862 by master-glazier Antoine Lusson. In total, eighteen members of the Noailles family are buried within this chapel.
A 15th-century tombstone marks the burial of Étienne Yver, canon of both Paris and Rouen, who died in 1468. Also represented through statuary sculpted by Corbon are Christ, the Virgin Mary, and Saint John.
The altar and mural work continue the stylistic vision of Viollet-le-Duc. Saint Louis is naturally featured, alongside Saint Clodoald—also known as Saint Cloud—the grandson of Clovis I who renounced his royal claim to become a monk. There is also a depiction of Saint Louis of Anjou, bishop of Toulouse from 1296 to 1297, and great-nephew of Saint Louis IX. Even Charlemagne, crowned emperor of the West in 814 and later beatified, is featured—emphasizing the chapel's tribute to France’s Christian monarchic legacy.
Though lacking a marked tomb, two notable figures are buried in the vicinity: Thomas de Courcelles, canon, teacher, and dean, and his brother Jean de Courcelles, doctor of canon law. Thomas played a central role in the trial of Joan of Arc. An eager servant of the English occupiers, he read her indictment, proposed torture, and later edited the Latin translation of the trial, conveniently omitting his own name from incriminating votes. Despite his unrepentant stance, he maintained influence at court and even took part in the public rehabilitation celebrations of Joan in 1456, presiding as dean of the chapter of Notre-Dame—a disturbing irony in the long saga of her legacy.
The next chapel tells the story of a lesser-known but legendary bishop: Saint Marcel, the ninth bishop of Paris, who lived in the 5th century. His legacy, though centuries old, is deeply tied to the city’s early identity, marked by acts of compassion, miraculous power, and deep spiritual friendship with Paris’s patroness, Sainte Geneviève.
Born near the Petit Pont in what would later be the heart of medieval Paris, Marcel’s early years are shrouded in mystery. The house where he is said to have been born no longer stands, having been demolished during Baron Haussmann’s vast renovation of the city. Marcel served briefly on the Council of Paris in the 360s and became bishop in 405, guiding the faithful until his death in November of 436. He was buried along the ancient Roman road, where today the Boulevard Saint-Marcel and Avenue des Gobelins intersect.
From his childhood, Marcel was known for miraculous acts. One legend tells of a forger who challenged him to guess the weight of a burning iron bar. The boy calmly lifted it and, astonishingly, remained unscathed. Later, as a subdeacon, he brought water from the Seine to the bishop to wash his hands before mass — and the water turned to wine. But his most dramatic miracle came later in life, while serving as bishop. A woman, shunned by society for her sins, died and was refused burial in the church cemetery. Marcel, filled with mercy, led a small group to carry her body to the Bièvre River. There, a dragon—drawn to claim the soul of the woman—blocked their path. Undeterred, Marcel faced the creature head-on, raised his pastoral staff, and struck it three times—once for each person of the Holy Trinity—defeating it.
Saint Marcel’s story is intimately connected to that of Sainte Geneviève. He entrusted her with the care of the city’s consecrated virgins, and in 451, when Attila the Hun approached Paris and the people refused to heed Geneviève’s call to prayer, it was Marcel who urged them to listen. Though he died decades before her, their connection endured in the rituals of the Church. For centuries, on the feast of Geneviève, a symbolic procession would unfold. Marcel’s relics would be carried from Notre-Dame to meet hers at Saint-Étienne-du-Mont, and together, they would return to the cathedral for mass. Afterward, she would be accompanied back to the edge of the Île de la Cité, a spiritual journey retold year after year.
The chapel where Marcel is honored once consisted of three separate bays, each named for saints: the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist, Saint Eutrope, and Saint Faith. In the 19th century, it was transformed under the guidance of Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, who entrusted its mural decoration to painter Théodore Maillot between 1867 and 1868. Maillot, born in Paris in 1826, was trained at the École des Beaux-Arts under François-Édouard Picot and Martin Drolling. He would later marry Anne Charlotte Duban, daughter of Louvre architect Félix Duban. Beyond Notre-Dame, Maillot also painted the “Miracles of Saint Geneviève” fresco in the Panthéon.
On the left wall of the chapel, Maillot’s major work The Triumph of Saint Marcel depicts the solemn transfer of the saint’s relics from the Church of Sainte-Marie to Notre-Dame, under the leadership of Bishop Eudes de Sully. The procession is made up of dignitaries from the diocese, including Archbishop Darboy and the Abbé La Place. In the vaulted ceiling, Saint Marcel is crowned in heavenly glory.
The chapel honors not only Marcel but other saints deeply linked to the city. Among them is Saint Éloi, bishop of Noyon from 641 to 660, originally a skilled goldsmith. Apprenticed to a master named Bobbon, Éloi crafted two thrones from gold intended for one, impressing King Clotaire II with his honesty and gaining favor at court. He was later appointed to oversee the treasury, mines, and coinage, and served as Minister of Finance under King Dagobert I. In 1212, part of his arm was brought to Notre-Dame, and it remains part of the cathedral’s relic treasury.
Also honored is Saint Aure, abbess of the monastery of Saint-Martial in Paris, who died in 666. Saint Germain, bishop of Paris from 555 to 576, is likewise remembered here, as is Saint Geneviève herself.
The chapel also houses the cenotaph and commemorative plaques of Mgr Hyacinthe-Louis de Quélen, Archbishop of Paris from 1821 to 1839. Sculpted by Victor Geoffroy-Dechaume in 1852, the monument remembers a man known for both his political resilience and charitable heart. Born in 1778 and ordained by Cardinal Fesch—Napoleon Bonaparte’s uncle—Quélen maintained close ties with Kings Louis XVIII and Charles X. He blessed the first stone of the Chapelle Expiatoire, but during the 1830 Revolution, he was twice forced to flee the archbishop’s palace. After a mass commemorating the Duc de Berry in 1831, Republican rioters destroyed his residence. Quélen found refuge at the Convent of the Ladies of the Sacred Heart—now the Rodin Museum. In 1832, during the deadly cholera epidemic, he showed great compassion for the suffering of the city. He died in 1839 and was buried in the chapel of Saint Marcel, beneath the figure of the saint whose life he deeply venerated.
The chapel is illuminated by soft grey-toned stained glass—grisaille—crafted in 1862 by Antoine Lusson, a master glass artist. On one wall hangs a painting known as the Vierge de Pitié—Our Lady of Pity—by Lubin Baugin, dating to around 1650. During the Revolution, the piece was taken by Alexandre Lenoir to the Petits-Augustins for safekeeping. It was restored and returned to Notre-Dame in 1844.
On the chapel’s right side is another monument, the cenotaph of Cardinal Jean-Baptiste de Belloy, Archbishop of Paris from 1802 to 1808. Sculpted in 1818 by Louis-Pierre Deseine, it shows Saint Denis holding a parchment inscribed with Belloy’s name as the cardinal gives alms to two orphan girls. Belloy, born in 1709, had been bishop of Marseille and was later called to lead the diocese of Paris. When Pope Pius VII requested the resignation of all bishops as part of the Concordat with Napoleon, Belloy was the first to step down—an act that earned him Napoleon’s admiration and a seat in the French Senate. It was the emperor himself who ordered the creation of this tomb upon Belloy’s death in 1808 at the age of 98.
This chapel, steeped in miracle and memory, continues to speak of those who shaped the faith and soul of Paris—from dragon-slaying bishops and relic processions to the quiet courage of prelates who stood firm through revolution and plague. It is a space where time collapses and the enduring spirit of the Church carries on, guided still by the pastoral hand of Saint Marcel.
