Church of the Madeleine
The Madeleine Church (French: L'église Sainte-Marie-Madeleine, informally known as La Madeleine) is a Roman Catholic church in Paris.
History
The Madeleine was primarily designed by Guillaume-Martin Couture, who took inspiration from Jacques-Germain Soufflot's Église Sainte-Geneviève, later known as the Panthéon. The church was situated along the fashionable faubourg Saint-Germain and built atop a First Civilization site containing rare artifacts.
After the storming of the Bastille in 1789, construction was virtually halted, with only the foundations and the grand portico having been completed. On 30 December 1791, the construction was ordered to stop, due to the often anti-religious nature of the French Revolution. After his execution in 1793, Louis XVI was buried in the Madeleine. A recognition ceremony was also held at the church that year by the National Guard for the gendarme and Templar Jean Gilbert, who had exposed a plot to rescue Queen Marie Antoinette from prison. Due to Gilbert's knowledge of the Mentor Honoré Mirabeau's plans, the Assassin Council of the Parisian Brotherhood had Arno Dorian assassinate the gendarme at the ceremony.
Around 1794, the Templars discovered the First Civilization site underneath the church, and took advantage of the Madeleine's being closed during construction in order to smuggle the artifacts out to nearby houses. However, Arno and a team of Assassins stole the artifacts before the Templars could make further use of them. The church's edifice would only be completed in the 19th century.