MADELEINE

in full glise Sainte-Madeleine, English Church of St. Mary Magdalen Paris, church designed by Pierre-Alexandre Vignon in 1806. The Madeleine, in the form of a Roman temple surrounded by a Corinthian colonnade, reflects the taste for classical art and architecture that predominated in France during the Empire phase of the Neoclassical movement. Napoleon, who had ordered its design and construction, originally intended the building to be a temple of glory celebrating his Grande Arme. This commemorative role, however, was assumed instead by the Arc de Triomphe (180608), and in 1816 the Madeleine was made a church by the restored Bourbon regime.