Saint-Patrice Church

Situated on a busy street lined with shops, the majestic Saint-Patrice Church has occupied pride of place in a bustling Rivière-du-Loup neighbourhood since 1855. It sits peacefully next to a park, where lovers skate hand-in-hand in winter, and to an outdoor amphitheatre, where audiences sing along to summer concerts. 

In the 18th century, land development occurred for the most part along the St. Lawrence River. The first chapels were located on the shoreline and in the western part of the seigniory. In the 1820s, the Fraser seigneurs began to divide their estate into lots. The downtown core began to take shape, and the village municipality of Fraserville was founded in 1850, relying on the proximity of the river for its pre-industrial and commercial activities. The area was booming, thanks to the influx of workers at the Caldwell sawmill. After a series of parochial squabbles, the villagers won out over the rural folk, and the Fraser Street church was abandoned. They used wood from the old place of worship to build the sacristy of God’s new house.

A young architectural prodigy, Charles Baillairgé, was entrusted with this project, which was an enormous one at the time. Within a year, the scaffolding was removed. The Neo-Gothic structure, inspired by medieval tradition with its pointed-arch openings and buttresses with pinnacles, was ready in time to celebrate Christmas in 1856. The central bell tower was added in 1870.

Due to funding issues, the interior work was delayed. In 1883, work was underway when a fire caused by the heating system ravaged the building. Montréal painter and art professor Napoléon Bourassa was asked to design the plans to reconstruct the building inside the stone walls that remained standing. He also designed the high altar. Founder of the Canadian Academy of Fine Arts, Napoléon Bourassa was the son-in-law of Louis-Joseph Papineau, an important figure in Quebec nationalism, and he was the father of Henri, founder of the newspaper Le Devoir and an active political figure.

Prolific architect David Ouellet oversaw this second project, adding two new openings to the facade and altering the shape of the bell tower’s buttresses. Joseph Gosselin, a Lévis contractor who later worked on the Saint-Ludger parish church, carried out the project at an estimated cost of $48,000. At about the same time, Ouellet also designed the adjacent presbytery and the Good Shepherd Sisters convent (now the Maison de la culture).

Around 1895, Louis Jobin carved seventeen 1.8-metre-tall apostles and evangelists out of wood. They were nestled high up in the nave, where they discreetly watched believers filing into the confessional. One of his works is now stored in the presbytery cellar. 

Behind the high altar is La Résurrection [The Resurrection], painted in 1901 by Charles Huot, formerly a student of Alexandre Cabanel’s workshops and the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Huot also created the Stations of the Cross, installed in 1902.

In 1895, a Casavant Frères pipe organ was installed at a cost of $3,200, according to an estimate prepared by Gustave Gagnon, organist at the Notre-Dame de Québec Basilica. The case work was designed by Napoléon Bourassa and features an angel musician by Louis Jobin. In 1989, the Guilbault-Thérien company of Saint-Hyacinthe carried out extensive restoration work to improve the instrument’s sound.

In 1997, the church facade was completely renovated by the architectural firm Casgrain et Pelletier and P. B. Maçonnerie. 

The church’s height makes it beautiful, but also fragile. In 2017 and 2019, 100-kilometre-per-hour winds caused the bell tower to sway, making the neighbours uneasy. Emergency work was done to solidify the more than 100-year-old structure. Who knows, maybe the spirits of a few of the craftspeople were summoned from the heavens to keep the tower from falling?