Builders must surely be looking at the vast area at Cathedral Square, where stands majestically the St Louis Cathedral ,with regret and remorse for not being able to erect a sky scraper in front of the church. And now the square harbours an inoffensive parking lot that does not alter the precious landscape, and that place has given free flow to the ideas of some developers. A major project with a view to soothing the parking problem in the city was recently unveiled whereby a multi-layered parking lot would be dug below the surface of the existing one, thus promising not to alter the existing landscape. Quite ambitious isn’t it? Happen whatever may, they better not change the course of history and lay their hands on the unique bicentenarian lion-head fountain at the cathedral square that was an initiative of Viscount de Souillac.

Another passive witness of that area remains the statue of St Louis dating back to 1950 that replaced a previous statue of St Louis that was initially erected in 1896. The site where the cathedral stands today was originally earmarked in the 1750 after the departure of Mahé de Labourdonnais. During his gouvernership, he had chosen to erect the cathedral at a place where now stands the Supreme Court. However, his proposal was modified down later because there was not much scope for further development of the cathedral and its compound because the place was restricted on one side by the river Butte-a-Thonnier and the straight stretch of road known at that time as Rue du Champ de Mars and now Pope Hennessy street.

The present cathedral was inaugurated in 1933 and it is the fourth structure that has been erected successively at the same place with the first dating back to 1774 during the reign of Louis XV. It became the catholic cathedral of Saint Louis when the diocese was founded in 1847.

It is interesting to note that the structure was not only used as a place of worship but for military purposes as well during the Seven Years War (1756-1763). The cathedral was seriously damaged by two violent cyclones that struck the island in 1760 and 1773 respectively. As the frame of the cathedral was not completely lost, the authorities at that time decided to carry on repair works that were entrusted to Chief Engineer Jevigny. He brought about some modifications to the original structure of the cathedral. However, even after repair works were completed, the cathedral harboured part of the Royal-Cambresis regiment that landed in Port Louis in July 1760.

There were wide cracks that appeared on the walls of the cathedral that led to its temporary closure in 1795. At the time the country changed hands in 1810 and went under British authority, the structure of the cathedral was in tatters. Sir Robert Farquhar, first British Governor of Mauritius, took over the responsibility to restore the cathedral. Reconstruction works that kicked off in 1814 were confided to two architects, Pierre Poujade and Joseph Marie Dayot. In all its splendour, Saint Louis church acceded to the appellation of cathedral on December 7, 1847 at the time when Port Louis moved to the rank of diocese.

As cyclones were common occurrences in this part of the Indian Ocean, the structure of the cathedral gave in again and it was demolished in 1928. Five years later, in August 1933, a brand new cathedral was inaugurated by Mgr James Leen.