It takes its name from the "Les Blancs-Manteaux" ("white mantles"), for the cloaks worn by the mendicant Augustinian Order of Servites, who founded the first church 1258.

With the support of King Louis XIII, they moved to Paris, and were given a large plot of land in the Marais district, just outside the city walls, formerly owned by the Order of the Knights Templar.

Soon afterwards, However, in 1274, the Second Council of Lyon, held by the Vatican, decided to dissolve twenty-two different religious orders, including the Serfs de Marie.

In 1796-97, During the French Revolution, all the monastic orders were suppressed; the church was pillaged and sold, and the other buildings of the abbey were demolished.

The architect Victor Baltard added an eighth traverse to the structure facing rue des Blancs-Manteaux, and attached the portal and facade of the Church of Saint-Éloi from the Île de la Cité, which had been demolished to make way for the new Boulevard du Palais.

The nave is lined with classical columns with fluting, or shallow grooves, and topped with capitals in the Corinthian order.

[6] The most striking feature of the nave is the pulpit, of sculpted wood, from which sermons and Biblical texts were read; it was designed so the speaker would be visible and audible to everyone in the church.

The stairway is decorated with medallions depicting scenes from the New Testament, made of marquetry encrusted with ivory and metals.

The organ is a modern instrument made in the north German style by the firm of Kern, inaugurated in 1968.

The tribune was created in 1863 by the architect Varcollier, re-using finely carved woodwork coming from the Abbey of Saint Victor, which was demolished in 1795 during the French Revolution.