In 1720 the French Garrison erected a wooden chapel on the Place d’Armes, but a powerful gale blew it down. A replacement, completed in 1727, burned along with much of the city in the Good Friday fire of 1788. a year later work commenced on a third place of worship, replaced in 1851 by the Cathedral of St. Louis, America’s oldest continuously active cathedral.

The cathedral’s three slate-roofed neoclassic steeples were the signature of architect J.N.B. de Pouilly, who was fired during construction when the centre one collapsed. Architect Alexander Sampson finished the job, which was tinkered with in 1872 by Erasmus Hurnbrecht.

Behind the cathedral, at the foot of Orleans Street, is Saint Anthony’s Garden, laid out in 1848 and shaded by oaks, sycamores, and magnolias. Though closed to the public, it can be viewed through its wrought-iron fence. The central urn-topped white-marble obelisk commemorates 30 officers and men of the 80-man Imperial French Navy corvette Tonnerre; they died of yellow fever during an epidemic in August 1857.