 The Diocese of La Rochelle (Diocese of La Rochelle and Saintes from 1852) was created in 1648 but the first stone of the new cathedral was not laid until 1742, by which time the architect who drew up the plans, Jacques Gabriel, was dead; the work was supervised, from a distance, by his son Ange-Jacques Gabriel.Although still not complete, it was consecrated anyway in 1784.The structure is a rather bare Neo-Classical one.