Chapelle Saint-Louis de Champ des Martyrs, Memorial chapel in Avrillé, France

The Chapelle Saint-Louis du Champ des Martyrs is a neo-classical chapel built in 1852 by the architect M. Tendron in Avrillé, near Angers. Inside, ribbed arches rise from slender columns to a pointed vault, from which a circular iron chandelier hangs. Three tall pointed stained-glass windows stand above a simple altar table and a lectern, facing rows of plain wooden benches on a dark floor.

The executions at the Haie-aux-Bonshommes park in Avrillé took place in nine fusillades between 12 January and 16 April 1794, after prisoners were judged by military commissions in Angers under representatives Nicolas Hentz and Adrien Francastel. The land, later renamed Champ des Martyrs, became a pilgrimage site from 1795. A first subscription for a chapel was launched in 1817 by Bishop Charles Montault but failed; Abbé Boreau de Roincé revived the project, paying half the cost, and Napoleon III authorised construction, begun in 1851 and blessed on 29 July 1852 by Guillaume Angebault. The chapel was enlarged in 1894.

From 1795, once the Terror had passed, the field became a pilgrimage site where believers came to pray and where healings were reported. A large wooden cross surrounded by ex-votos stood in the open field, and on certain feast days Simon Gruget, who had stayed in Angers throughout the Revolution, celebrated Mass there and recalled the dead. The cross was kept after the chapel was built.

The chapel stands on the Champ des Martyrs in Avrillé, a short distance northwest of Angers in Maine-et-Loire. The site is a necropolis, with some 2,000 executed people resting in twelve large pits, so visitors should keep to the paths and treat the ground as a cemetery. The building was enlarged in 1894 and retains its 1852 core.

The chapel's five stained-glass windows were made in 1895 by Jean Clamens from cartoons by Victor Livache, and each is divided into three registers topped by a quadrilobe. They are listed as monuments historiques. The large wooden cross once surrounded by ex-votos was kept when the chapel was built.