Basilique de Notre-Dame des Victoires

The Basilique de Notre-Dame des Victoires stands on the Place des Petits-Pères in the 2nd arrondissement of Paris, one of the oldest and most quietly revered churches in the city. Founded by Louis XIII in 1629 and completed over more than a century, the basilica became a major centre of Marian devotion in the nineteenth century, drawing pilgrims from across France and beyond. Its interior walls are lined with thousands of votive offerings, a tradition that began after a celebrated novena in 1836 and continues to this day, giving the building an atmosphere unlike almost any other Parisian church.

The basilica sits close to the covered passages of the 2nd arrondissement, those remarkable nineteenth-century arcades of iron and glass that once defined Parisian commercial life. A guided walking tour of the covered passages of Paris departs in this neighbourhood, tracing the history of the Galerie Vivienne, the Passage des Panoramas, and their neighbours through streets that retain much of their Second Empire character.