Damaged by the bombings, work around the Cathedral was quickly started. Auguste Perret’s idea was to give it prominence by creating a square around it.
As a historic symbol, this church, become Cathedral in 1974 when Le Havre was granted a bishop, remains a rare witness of the founding of the city by Francis the 1st in 1517. The church, as seen today, is however more recent: the bell tower and the nave date back to the sixteenth century but the portals - the western one included - were added in the following century. Greatly damaged by the bombings, witness the impacts which can still be seen on the tower, the church was restored thirty years later, as well as the organ offered by Richelieu and the nineteenth century stained-glass windows relating the story of the city. A reminder of pre-war ground level, the Cathedral square sits lower than the rest of the street.
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