Church of Saint-Etienne

The current site of the cathedral has been used as the seat of a bishopric since the 6th century. It is likely that it was built in place of an older sanctuary. The old building was completely replaced by a Gothic church in the 12th century. In 1490, the tower and the western facade of the Gothic church collapsed. An endless reconstruction of the western massif was undertaken, which lasted 163 years and resulted in the granite facade that we know today, which is largely in the classical style.

Behind its 18th-century façade in the Gesu style, this church of recollection displays numerous devotional ex-voto's, in particular one dating from the fire of 1720, and remarkable furniture such as canopies, pulpit, baptismal font and organs from the 17th and 18th centuries.

Building built in the 19th century from 1884 to 1904; emblematic building from the religious, architectural and urban planning point of view. This monumental project, whose design and construction took nearly 40 years to complete, inevitably evokes its implicit reference to cathedrals. The choice of the "Gothic" style, introduced in Rennes by Jacques Mellet for the construction of the Missionaries' chapel (destroyed), as early as 1841, is here an eclectic approach, to which Abbot Millon subscribes, in the Semaine Religieuse, and which he qualifies as the "ogival style", considering "that it is preferable to choose with a wise and prudent eclecticism, the beauties of several styles of the same period, rather than slavishly copying a known work.