Sunday, 4 October 2026

Chapel on Rue Barre in Paris turned into a confectionery in 1917

Black-and-white photograph of a soot-darkened vaulted room where a man in an apron, a woman and a girl stand by a stove with large pots.

Did Someone Send for Elena the Flying?

The year is 1917, the First World War at its height. In France, empty churches are turned into workshops, parish buildings into homes, and chapels are fitted out as kitchens. The chapel on the rue des Barres in the Fourth Arrondissement of Paris becomes a confectioner's.

Louis Brochard mentions this in a text of 1938 on the church of Saint-Gervais.

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