Saint-Sulpice

Church · Saint-Germain-des-Prés (6th)Paris,France

A vast plain Paris church with a brass noon sunline laid across its floor in 1727 and Delacroix's last paintings in the first chapel.

Saint-Sulpice is an enormous, grey, plain church with two things in it worth crossing Paris for. A brass line runs across the floor of the transept, from a marble plaque in the south to a stone obelisk in the north, and at solar noon a spot of sunlight lands somewhere along it. It was laid in 1727 so the clergy could fix the date of Easter. In the first chapel on the right, Delacroix painted two walls and a ceiling in the last years of his life. He was ill throughout and died two years after the work was unveiled. The building took a hundred and thirty-four years and six architects, and the front shows it. Work started on the choir in 1646; the west facade was not begun until 1732, when Baroque had gone out of fashion. Servandoni gave the church a flat screen of two storeys of columns instead. The two towers were meant to match; only one was finished to the design, which is why the north one is taller and squarer.

Worth knowing

Good to know

Both of the main sights are free and open to walk up to — The Delacroix chapel and the brass line sit in the open church, with no ticket, no barrier and no separate hours.
Solar noon is not twelve o'clock — France runs an hour or two ahead of sun time depending on the season, so the sunlight crosses the line nearer one in winter and two in summer.
A grey day kills the line and helps the paintings — The sun spot needs direct sunlight to appear at all, while the Delacroix chapel reads better when nothing is glaring off the varnish.
Sunday morning is when the organ is played — The instrument is why many people come, and the main service and the recital after it are the reliable times to hear it.
It is a working parish, not just a sight — Services run through the day but the chapels stay open, so you can keep looking if you move quietly round the edges.

Things to do

1
Sit down in the Delacroix chapel and give it ten minutes
The chapel is the first on the right as you come in. Take the bench. On the left wall Jacob wrestles the angel, the two figures almost life size, under a tree painted with the detail of a landscape painting. Then look up at the ceiling, where Saint Michael drives the devil down. Delacroix painted those two figures at a steep angle from below, so that they still read clearly from the floor.
2
Walk the brass line, and be there at solar noon
Start at the marble plaque in the south transept, the short arm of the church to the right of the altar, and walk the brass strip north across the whole width of the building. It ends at a white stone obelisk against the far wall, with marks running up its face for the winter months, the highest being where the spot of light lands in late December. Be there a few minutes before solar noon, the moment the sun stands at its highest rather than twelve on a clock, and look up at the south window. A bright oval of light appears high on the wall, slides down and along until it touches the brass line, and the whole thing is over in about a minute.
3
Read the two towers from the square
Cross to the fountain in the square and turn round. The north tower was finished with a square top and a balustrade. The south tower was never completed and still carries its older, plainer top, so the two do not match. The fountain between you and the church carries statues of four bishops, and none of the four was ever made a cardinal, which is why Parisians call it the fountain of the four cardinal points.