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seventeenth century, prompting scholars to suggest that Louis simply continued the royal support
of his predecessors. 36 The question that arises with the church of the French Oratory is what
prompted the king’s unexpected interest, especially when he had previously shown little interest
in the religious group or in ecclesiastical architecture in general?
Among the motivating factors was the need to provide a royal chapel at the palace of the
Louvre. As recorded in the annals of the congregation, Louis XIII decided “by his own will and
without having been solicited by anyone…to take the church to serve as the chapel of his
castle.” 37 As the palace chapel, the church of the Oratory would fulfill a much needed
component of the Louvre, which had lacked a free-standing chapel capable of serving the court
since 1527 when King François I had demolished the existing one. 38 Although each royal
apartment had a small chapel for private ceremonies, the only facilities available for larger
services were the parish church of Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois and a chapel at the nearby Hôtel
du Petit Bourbon, both of which were located to the east of the Louvre. 39
To make the church part of the royal precinct, the king called for his architect Clément
Métezeau to incorporate it into the urban fabric of the palace. He wanted a design where the
church “could enter into the general plan of the Louvre and to form part of it.” 40 Louis had been
planning to complete the Grand Design of the Louvre, a project initially conceived by King
Henri II and designed by Pierre Lescot between 1551 and 1559 that would quadruple the size of
the medieval palace. Although the plan would only be realized in the 1660s, it consisted of
doubling the existing western wing and then building three additional wings to form a new
square court, or Cour Carrée. The completed structure is visible on the 1739 Plan of Turgot (fig.
12). As seen in the eighteenth-century print, the design called for the extension of the palace to
the north and east, thus bringing the Louvre closer to the church of the Oratory but with existing
buildings continuing to separate physically the two structures. To integrate the new royal chapel
into the overall plan, Louis called for the removal of some of these buildings so that a direct path
would unite the longitudinal axis of the church with the central entrance of the Louvre’s new
northern wing. 41
Although the royal council suspended plans for the completion of the Grand Design in
1626, a move that also prevented the church from being integrated into the palace, the proximity
of the two buildings reinforced their connection. The Church of the Oratory was on a block
adjacent to the grounds of the Louvre and thus a short walk from the palace (fig. 13). Having a
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