Place of worship · 1861; 1890s
Church of Saint-Sulpice – Chapel of the Holy Angels (Delacroix)
Address · 2, rue Palatine (place Saint-Sulpice), 75006 Paris
Metro · Saint-Sulpice (4) / Mabillon (10)
Today · Still open. Church open to the public; the chapel is on the right as you enter.
The story
Saint-Sulpice is the largest church on the Left Bank, built between the 17th and 18th centuries. Its first chapel on the right of the entrance, known as the Chapel of the Holy Angels, was decorated by Eugène Delacroix between 1849 and 1861: Jacob Wrestling with the Angel, Heliodorus Driven from the Temple and Saint Michael Vanquishing the Demon. They are among the painter's last major works. The painter worked on them until the end of his life. He painted directly onto the walls.
Churton cites these paintings twice. They fascinated Maurice Barrès, who devoted pages to them that were published after his death, and Péladan saw Delacroix, along with Balzac and Wagner, as one of the intercessors of his aesthetic order. The neighboring seminary is also where Abbé Alphonse-Louis Constant, the future Éliphas Lévi, trained before renouncing the priesthood, which makes Saint-Sulpice a place linked to the origins of French occultism. Lévi had been ordained a deacon there.
The church and the chapel are open to visitors, and the paintings were restored in the early 2010s. Saint-Sulpice's recent fame in mystery novels should not obscure the fact that Churton's book is interested in it for Delacroix and not for any hidden secret. The chapel is immediately on the right as you enter through the main portal, and lighting allows you to see the paintings in detail.