78 years passed between the start of construction and completion.
Louis XV
had ordered the construction of the parish church of La Madeleine in Paris, then the monarch died of smallpox, his successor was intervened by the French Revolution and lost his head.
Napoleon, who wanted to build a place of glory for his fallen soldiers here, had other things to take care of after the Russian campaign, and so the Madeleine was only consecrated as a church under Louis-Philippe, the citizen king: a gigantic neoclassical shell that reminded of a Roman temple, while inside there are three successive domes.
Requiem masses were held here for Chopin and Offenbach, Josephine Baker and Marlene Dietrich, and when Johnny Hallyday died, President Macron ordered a funeral procession.
While almost a million people lined the way from the Arc de Triomphe to the Madeleine, only a few Parisians gathered in the church on this December evening.
Before the concert begins, an elderly gentleman in corduroy trousers and a pullover appears next to the pulpit, speaks a few words of welcome and recommends buying one or, even better, several CDs as a Christmas present.
Barely two minutes later, the same man in tails stands at the conductor's podium, raises his baton and conducts the orchestra that he founded in the year in which the first post-war festival took place in Bayreuth and President Truman announced the end of the state of war with Germany.
Paul Kuentz, who went to the Conservatoire de Paris in 1947, conducted premieres of Charpentier and Dubois, made guest appearances at Carnegie Hall, and worked with Cocteau and Rostropovich.
Now he conducts Bach.
It's certainly not the best Christmas oratorio Paris has ever heard, but that doesn't matter.
A Mephistopheles on the double bass, fresh out of a jazz hell on the Rive Gauche, drives the Paul Kuentz Choir and the Paul Kuentz Orchestra mercilessly in front of him, the tenor fights like an asthmatic lion, but the first trumpet shines radiantly through the entire church, and the Oboes are a real treat.
After Christmas, on Thursday next week, the ninety-two-year-old will be back at his conductor's podium in the Madeleine.
Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto and Puccini's Messa di Gloria have been announced.
However good or bad the ensemble may be, Paris, the Madeleine and the audience will celebrate Paul Kuentz.