St-Eustache

St-Eustache Review

Built as the market neighborhood's answer to Notre-Dame, this massive church is decidedly squeezed into its surroundings. Constructed between 1532 and 1640, with foundations dating to 1200, the church mixes a Gothic exterior, complete with impressive flying buttresses, and a Renaissance interior. On the east end (Rue Montmartre), Dutch master Rubens' Pilgrims of Emmaus (1611) hangs in a small chapel. Two chapels to the left is Keith Haring's The Life of Christ, a triptych in bronze and white-gold patina: it was given to the church after the artist's death in 1990, in recognition of the parish's efforts to help victims of AIDS. Outside is the gigantic stone head with a hand cupped to its ear: L'Écoute by Henri de Miller. On the Rue Montmartre side of the church, look for the small door to Saint Agnes's crypt, topped with a stone plaque noting the date, 1213, below a curled fish, an indication the patron made his fortune in fish.