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unsuccessful in their attempt, a failure that resulted from Louis XIII’s changing foreign policy
and not from Notre-Dame-des-Victoires’ dependence upon the Jesuit church.
The Augustins Déchaussés were a reformed order of the Grand Augustinians, originating
in Portugal around 1565. 5 They first established themselves in France in 1595 in the diocese of
Grenoble, obtaining in 1607 permission to found a house in Paris. The following year
Marguerite de Valois, who had made a vow to establish a monastery in Paris, invited the fathers
to the capital, offering to build a church for them. 6 After the princess’ patronage dissolved in
1612, forcing the Augustins Déchaussés to return to southern France, the religious group was
able to locate permanently in Paris in 1619, settling on the right bank outside the city walls near
the porte Montmartre. 7 In 1628 the group moved closer to the center of Paris, purchasing a
house near the faubourg Saint-Honoré, just to the north of the future Place des Victoires (fig. 83).
At this time work began on a monastery, designed by François Galopin, while construction of
Notre-Dame-des-Victoires on the plans of Pierre Le Muet started one year later in December
1629.
Due to the congregation’s constant struggle to secure funding, completion of the church
only occurred in 1740. Following the first interruption in construction in 1632, work resumed for
brief intervals in 1642, 1656, and 1663. 8 In 1737 the fathers received authorization to borrow up
to two hundred thousand livres to finish the church, which was achieved in 1740 under the
direction of the architect Jean-Sylvain Cartault. Although the building suffered cosmetic
damages during the French Revolution and again in the Commune of 1871, the structure
remained largely intact, functioning throughout the nineteenth century as a parish church. In
1927 Pope Pius XI raised it to the title of minor basilica.
Although Pierre Le Muet’s involvement with Notre-Dame-des-Victoires only lasted from
1629 to 1632, scholars agree that the architect’s original plan remained largely unchanged during
the subsequent building campaigns. 9 The limited alterations during the building’s long
construction history and the lack of modifications to the structure since its completion are
significant because no record of Le Muet’s original design exists. Thus a reconstruction of the
seventeenth-century plan is based on the current building along with archival documents
recording the order’s history in Paris. Today the church consists of a single nave of four bays
bordered by communicating side chapels, followed by non-projecting transepts at the crossing,
and a choir of three bays terminated by a polygonal apse (fig. 84). Flanking each side of the
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