Catholic Church of the Val-de-Grâce

This guide to the Val-de-Grace church in Paris starts with Anne of Austria, married to Louis XIII in 1615 and still childless more than two decades later, and the vow she made as pressure mounted at court. It follows the church she promised through its 1645 groundbreaking, laid by her own young son, and the architect Francois Mansart, dismissed within a year for refusing to rein in his ambitions. Jacques Lemercier picked up the unfinished project after him. Stand at the center of the nave to take in the full sweep of the dome above.