Saint-Eustache Church

One day we walked down the Rue de Petit Carreaux all the way to the Seine (and then back on the Rue Saint-Denis), stopping at the huge, mostly underground Les Halles Forum shopping center, but also at the Saint-Eustache church. We'd briefly visited this church twice before, in 2014 and then in 2019. It's the largest church around, actually larger than Notre Dame, if interior height counts. Although a parish church had been on the site from the middle ages, St. Eustache as we now know it is from the 16th century--one almost wants to call it neo-Gothic--and "blends" the Gothic with Renaissance and classical elements. Most people don't like this church, because of its apparent confusion of styles. I can't say I like it, but I have always found it intriguing, and worth a stop. Since Notre Dame de Paris burned two years ago, many of the larger ecclesiastical activities have moved to Saint-Eustache. Oh yes, Saint Eustache is the one about the guy on a hunting trip who saw a cross between a deer's antlers and thus converted to Christianity. Perhaps he was pre-disposed. Strangely, this reminds me of the adage that, once you see Cookie Monster, you can't unsee Cookie Monster. Perhaps I had too many digestive cookies in Britland.

One of the initial attractions for me was the prospect

of seeing this Emmaus painting, now merely

"attributed" to Rubens

In the ambulatory, great height

Among the windows, the education of Saint Louis

Sybils still very much in fashion, though not the twisty ones

Perhaps another reason people don't like this

church: it's not cruciform; also, it's not a Mary

church (that name had already been taken...)

Polychrome Pieta

Knave view: great height

Altar and choir

The great organ

Rose window

Up closer

Color coded...

One of the larger, higher sun dials we've seen