Chapelle expiatoire, Religious memorial in 8th arrondissement, Paris, France
The Chapelle Expiatoire is a neoclassical memorial chapel in the 8th arrondissement built between 1815 and 1826. Inside, a central dome overlooks white marble sculptures and a crypt situated below ground level.
Louis XVIII laid the first stone on 21 January 1815, the 22nd anniversary of his brother's execution, after the remains of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were exhumed from the Madeleine Cemetery and moved to Saint-Denis. Pierre-François-Léonard Fontaine designed the chapel, built from 1815 to 1826 and inaugurated under Charles X. The Paris Commune ordered its demolition in May 1871, but the resolution was never carried out.
Every year on the Sunday closest to 21 January, a commemorative mass is held here for Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, and legitimist royalists gather for it. The chapel's name, "expiatoire", was never used officially. Chateaubriand, who presented the 1815 proposal to the Chamber of Peers, called it the most remarkable edifice in Paris.
The entrance is on Rue Pasquier, and the visit begins with a cloister-like courtyard lined with monuments to the Swiss Guards before reaching the chapel itself. The nearest métro stop is Saint-Augustin. A commemorative mass is held each year on the Sunday closest to 21 January.
The chapel's name "expiatoire" was never used officially; Louis XVIII's project was simply a commemorative monument. The site also holds the graves of Charlotte Corday, Olympe de Gouges, Madame du Barry and about a dozen Girondin deputies, thrown into the same mass graves as the royal couple.
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