Legendary history records an assemblage of the first Christians of Lutetia in the fields where now runs the Rue S. Jacques, listening to the preaching of S. Denis, and strengthening themselves against the persecution which loomed in the distance. And legend further relates that a chapel was built upon this spot. But leaving the realms of tradition, we find an authentic account of a church in the 8th century which, in the next hundred years, was served by the Benedictine monks of Marmoutier. This remained the headquarters of a priory for about six hundred years. In 1604, Cardinal BÉrulle introduced the Carmelite order as reformed by S. Theresa, and the nuns began to rebuild. The church they left intact with its 13th century porch, and its great statues of S. Denis, Moses, Aaron, David, and Solomon. This building disappeared, and a modern one arose in its stead, more to the West; but the crypt is supposed to be under the level of the street; and according to the abbÉ Leboeuf, a second subterraneous burial-ground of Gallo-Roman origin was discovered still lower down, with fragments of tombstones, slabs, pottery, and the like. The present church contains a few dÉbris of its former grandeur, a statue by Sarazin, of Cardinal de BÉrulle, being the principal one.

The monastery was celebrated, during the 17th century, as the asylum of many distinguished ladies who sought a refuge from their troubles; amongst others, of the blessed Soeur Louise de la MisÉricorde, who died there in 1710, in the odour of sanctity. In her mundane career this Madeleine da la Cour was Mdlle. de la ValliÈre, and she is said to have posed to Le Brun for his terrible picture of La Madeleine pÉnitente renonce À toutes les vanitÉs de la vie, which was painted for M. de Camus as an adornment of this Carmelite church. It is now in the Louvre, which it in nowise adorns. Lebrun, as a decorative artist, painting allegories and battles, is bearable; but his religious pictures are only gross exaggerations of the Italian Eclectics. This Madeleine de la ValliÈre is in a tortuous state of agony at the thought of the vanities she enjoyed. With eyes turned up, with her flowing locks, and swathed in rich satin garments, which are blown by a gust of wind coming in at the open casement on the top of a cloud, she looks thunder-struck; it is astonishment at the discovery of her sinfulness, revealed by the heavens opening, and the Divine voice addressing her. Surely the moderns, the BÉrauds, the Lhermites, the Dagnan-Bouverets, Uhde, Hitchcock, Pierce, and their followers, have far more religious feeling, although they clothe their personages as Parisian workpeople, and paint their Madeleines, like Henner, in the pastures (apparently) of the Bois de Boulogne—backgrounds, considering the subject, not altogether inappropriate.