150 Churches in Paris and elsewhere

Lovely reddish chunky church. In front of it stands a statue of St Charles de Foucauld, canonized just three years ago. He was a 19th century linguist, geographer, cavalry officer fighting for the French Empire, and hermit (not all at the same time). He published, after twelve years in North Africa, the first translation dictionary from Touareg to French. And he was murdered in 1916. Otherwise, his life was very humdrum. He was generally pretty keen on colonialism, and in 1949 someone suggested he be made the patron of colonialists. When he was canonized in 2022, some Touareg personalities objected. The building of this St Peter's church was started in 1888. Before this, Catholics and Protestants had shared the same church in this part of town. There is a lovely pulpit with gold bits, a baptismal font in similar chunky style, and wall paintings above the altar. These show Jesus dying, rising from the dead, etc. Every year in December, they have a mass here for lawyers, on the feast...

The church of “St Louis on the Island” is , well, on the island – one of the two islands in the River Seine, in the centre of Paris, just across the road from the amazing Berthillon ice cream parlour. It was mostly built in the 17 th century for Saint Louis, the only saint to have also had a day job as King of France (in the 13 th century). When he was King he banned trial by ordeal, which is cool, and fought on the seventh crusade, which was less so. Inside there is a twirly pulpit, relics of Saint Louis, and a very fine painting by Jacques Stella of Jesus getting baptized. There are also wooden statues of a series of saints, a beautiful alms box, and a plaque presented by the citizens of the town of Saint Louis over in Missouri, USA. One of the stained glass pieces shows Jesus rising from the dead, waving his flag. They do a mass in English once a week .