The Church of Saint-Pierre-de-Montmartre is arguing for the right to be called the oldest Church of Paris Saint-Germain-des-Pres. It is located behind the facade of Sacre Coeur and seemingly lost to the eyes of tourists in this majestic canopy. And the Church – very interesting.

It was built as the Church of the Abbey of Montmartre – it was founded in 1153, along with his son, king Louis VII, Adelaide of Savoy. She became the first abbess, one year later died here and are buried. Phenomenon exclusive to Adelaide of Savoy was the Queen, "status" her ashes should rest in Saint-Denis.

The monastery had the unenviable fate. In 1590 Henry VI, laying siege to Paris, took the Montmartre hill. When he raised the siege, almost all the nuns went with a group of Huguenots. In 1790, the revolutionaries destroyed the convent, forty-sixth abbess Louise de Montmorency-Laval was sent to the guillotine in just a few days before Thermidor, which put an end to the terror of the Jacobins.

From the entire monastery survived only in the Church. Gone are the days when specially to Saint-Pierre-de-Montmartre, the great Marc-Antoine Charpentier wrote sacred music. The revolutionaries of the Church is desecrated, and there was arranged a Temple of Reason. Then for some time it was located warehouse.

In 1794 on the Church tower, one of the highest points in Paris, installed optical Telegraph system chappe brothers. This station has received a message of Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo.

Holy Mass in the Church only resumed in 1908. During the Second world war killed an ancient stained-glass Windows, in 1953 they were replaced by neo-Gothic stained glass work glass blower and designer Maurice Max-Ingrina. It is believed that marble columns inside the Church date back to the late antiquity, when this place was a temple dedicated to Mars. Very beautiful survived all the revolutions and wars of the bronze doors of the Church works by the Italian Tommaso Gismondi. On the main gate depicts scenes of the life of the Apostle Peter, the patron Saint of the temple – from the calling of Jesus to execution by crucifixion in Rome.

Near the Church there the smallest in Paris the abandoned cemetery of Calver ("cemetery of the Crucifixion," in 1833, behind the Church, was erected the crucifix). For visitors to the cemetery opens once a year, on 1 November, all saints Day. Lead here magnificent bronze Gates of the resurrection of the work of Tommaso Gismondi.