[1] Hussein II Bey authorised the French consul-general to build a cathedral on the site of ancient Carthage, to determine where it would be situated, and to take all the land necessary for the project.

[3]The consul charged his son Jules with this duty, who concluded that the chapel ought to be built on Byrsa Hill, in the centre of the Punic acropolis, where the temple of Aesculapius was once located.

Cardinal Lavigerie dedicated the church to Saint Louis, who died on that approximate spot during the Eighth Crusade in 1270.

In 1964, the Modus Vivendi—a bilateral treaty between Tunisia and the Roman Catholic Church—ceded almost all of the Church's real estate holdings to the Tunisian state, including the Acropolium.

The building, constructed according to the plans of the abbot Pougnet, is inspired by Byzantine, Gothic, and Moorish architectural style, and is in the shape of a Latin cross of 65 meters by 30.