Church of Saints Peter and Paul
Church of Saint-Pierre et Saint-Paul, Saint-Pierre-Saint-Paul de Rueil-Malmaison Church
France, Rueil-Malmaison
The Church of Saint-Pierre-Saint-Paul is a church located in Rueil-Malmaison (Haute-Seine). It is particularly famous for containing the graves of Josephine and Hortense Beauharnais.
History of the building
12th century: the first church on this site.
1420-1432: construction of the Romanesque bell tower during the English occupation.
at the end of the Hundred Years' War: the church was practically destroyed
1584: Antoine, pretender to the Portuguese throne in exile, lays the first stone of the new church.
1632-1635: The current façade was erected by order of Richelieu, who lived in the nearby Val castle, under the direction of the architect Jacques Lemercier.
1730: May: consecration of two bells: Catherine and Magdalene Genevieve.
1786: consecration of the bell of Jeanne-Françoise.
1792: the church was looted by the “volunteers” who were in the barracks, benches were broken and torn out, coffins were dug up and emptied, glass roofs were broken, sculptures on the facade were destroyed.
1793: the cemetery was moved outside the village.
1797: organs offered by Richelieu are sold as national treasures to a boilermaker for 588 francs.
1825: July: Victoria Bell replaces Jeanne-Françoise.
1825: 28 September: Josephine's grave erected.
1846: 20 April: official opening of the first Mausoleum of Hortensia (Mausoleum of Bartolini).
1854-1857: restoration of the church, expansion of the transept and reconstruction of the bell tower in the image of a primitive Romanesque bell tower. Napoleon III commissioned the work to his architect Joseph-Eugène Lacroix and partially financed the restoration from his own personal pocket.
1858: 27 June: Official opening of the new Hortense cenotaph (the current one).
1862: The church appears in Prosper Merimee's list.
1862-1864: improvement and expansion of the area, clearing the foundation of the church.
1864: Napoleon III proposes a new organ.
1932: dedication of the new bell: Teresa, Armandine, Emily (middle - 1020 kg)
1941: inclusion in the list of historical monuments2.
1990: restoration of the facade, installation of new statues.
1993
: restoration of the church interior.
Events that happened in the church:
1644: July 3: “Thee, O God, we praise” is an ancient Christian hymn on the occasion of the renewal of the treaty with England in the presence of Louis XIV and Anne of Austria.
1649: 18 April: Hardouin de Perefix, former tutor of Louis XIV, is crowned Bishop of Rodez.
1814: 2 June: funeral of Empress Josephine.
1837: Queen Hortense is buried in the crypt.
1856: funeral of Agustin, Duke of Tarancon, son of the Spanish Queen Maria Cristina, who was in exile at the Castle of Malmaison. He was buried in the old cemetery.
1860: The remains of the Duchess of Alba, sister of the Empress Eugenie, rested in the church for 4 months and were then repatriated to Spain. The Empress comes there several times to meditate.
1863: Funerals of two other sons of the Spanish Queen Maria Cristina: Juan, Count of Recuerdo in April and José, Count of Garcia in December, all also buried in the old cemetery.
1947: 2 September: funeral of 77 of the 89 victims of the Le Select cinema fire.
Exterior
The facade of the church dates from 1633 and is due to Jacques Lemercier, Richelieu's architect, and is very similar to the façade of the Sorbonne chapel, which he also designed. The statues on the facade by the sculptor Sarrazin, which disappeared during the Revolution, were replaced during the restoration in 1990 by modern statues: the apostles Peter and Paul by Louis Lepicard, as well as angels by Jean-Loup Bouvier. On the facade at the top we see the coat of arms of Richelieu, and above the central porch is a souvenir of the French Revolution: the motto “Liberty, equality, fraternity”.
The Renaissance north portal dates from 1603. It was restored by Lacroix in 1857, so it bears two dates: 1603-1857. Lacroix also modified the cornice by adding the imperial coat of arms and the letters J and H of Josephine and Hortense.
The Romanesque bell tower dates back to a 19th-century restoration.
Interior
Nave.
The nave, built around 1600, is 40 meters long. It was restored, like the entire church, in the 19th century; for this occasion, the transept was enlarged on the sides. The vault reaches a height of 13 meters and is supported by 14 columns.
Organ
The organs were donated to the Church of Richelieu after the façade was completed. They were sold in 1797 as a national treasure. The current organ case was donated by Napoleon III on the occasion of the restoration of the church in the 19th century. It is the work of the Florentine sculptor Baccio d'Agnolo and was in the church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence before its purchase by Napoleon III. It was executed between 1490 and 1520. The organs themselves are the work of Cavaillé-Coll. In 2017, they became the subject of a restoration campaign.
Works of art
Behind the choir is a remarkable gilded bronze bas-relief depicting the Descent from the Cross by François Angier.
Created in 1667 and gilded by Deasy, this work was intended for the Val-de-Grâce church in Paris. Napoleon purchased it in 1805 for the chapel of the Malmaison castle. Swedish banker Jonas-Philip Hagerman, owner of the castle in 1837, donated it to the church. Charles Nicolas Lafon's painting "Jacob Dying in Egypt and Blessing the Twelve Children" was rediscovered in the 2000s.
Tombs
In the side chapels of the choir there is Josephine's tomb, as well as the mausoleum of Queen Hortense, buried in a crypt under the church.
The tomb of Empress Josephine is the work of the architect Louis-Martin Berto and the sculptor Pierre Cartelier. Made from Carrara marble, it depicts Josephine praying in the same pose as in the painting “The Rite of David.” The Empress rests in the pedestal of the monument (engraved with the epitaph "Josephine, Eugene and Hortense 1825"), in three coffins made of lead, oak and mahogany.
This tomb was completed in 1825, more than nine years after the death of Josephine, who had meanwhile been placed in the basement of the adjacent presbytery.
Next to Josephine's grave is that of her uncle Robert Marguerite Tacher de la Pagerie, governor of Martinique, who died in Paris in 1806 and was buried in the church at Josephine's request.
The Mausoleum of Queen Hortense is the work of Jean-Auguste Barré, carried out under the direction of the architect Lacroix, to whom Napoleon III entrusted the restoration work of the church. It was opened by Napoleon III and Empress Eugenie in 1858. The sculpture represents a kneeling Hortense, accompanied by an angel. At her feet is a crown, signifying her title as Queen of Holland, and a lyre, symbolizing her talent as a musician.
The previous mausoleum was created by Bartolini in 1846, depicting Hortensia praying kneeling on a cushion, dressed in a sleeveless tunic, with her head covered by a large veil, but Napoleon III abandoned it. It currently resides in the chapel of Arenenberg Castle in Switzerland, where Hortense de Beauharnais died.
Hortense's tomb is not on the monument, but in a crypt behind the church, excavated for her in 1856.
