Victor Baltard, Paris's chief architect from 1849, built the church during Haussmann's renovation of the city under Napoleon III. Groundbreaking was in 1860, and the infobox gives completion in 1868 while the text says 1871. The infobox calls the style eclectic and Romano-Byzantine, and the text lists Tuscan Gothic, Romanesque and Byzantine elements.
The plan is a trapezoid about 328 feet (100 m) long. The dome lantern rises about 262 feet (80 m), though the design section gives 200 feet (61 m). A visible cast-iron frame combined with stone cut wall thickness and removed the need for heavy external buttresses, and the article calls it the first church in Paris to do so. The columns are painted and gilded.
It is a working Catholic church and a monument historique since 1993.
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