The chapel was constructed on the grounds where King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette had been buried after they had been guillotined, and it is therefore dedicated to them as an expiation for that act.

The chapel was partly constructed on the grounds of the former Madeleine Cemetery, where King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette had been buried after they had been guillotined.

When he blessed the cornerstone of the Chapelle expiatoire, Hyacinthe-Louis de Quélen, Archbishop of Paris, called in vain for an amnesty of the exiled members of the National Convention.

White marble sculptures of the king and queen in ecstatic attitudes were made by François Joseph Bosio and Jean-Pierre Cortot.

There is also a bas-relief by French sculptor François-Antoine Gérard (who also did some of the other carvings) showing the exhumation and removal of the remains of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette to the Basilica of St Denis.