Saint-Jacques du Haut-Pas (French pronunciation: [sɛ̃ ʒak dy o pɑ]) is a Roman Catholic parish church in Paris, France.

[1] The church is named for Saint-Jacques Du-Haut-Pas," (in English Saint James the Minor), a cousin of Christ and the first bishop of Jerusalem, who was martyred in the year 60 A.D.

[3] In 1572 the Queen of France, Catherine de' Medici gave the hospital and its chapel to a community Benedictine monks who have had been expelled from their abbey of Saint-Magloire.

[4] The population of the neighbourhood grew quickly and growing numbers became accustomed to praying in the chapel of the Benedictines.

The celebrated poet and fable-writer Jean de La Fontaine briefly attended the seminary.

In 1630 Gaston, Duke of Orléans, brother of Louis XIII, donated funds to start the enlargement of the church.

When funding ran short, the workers donated their services one day a week without pay.

[7] He founded a hospital to receive indigent patients, for which he laid the foundation stone on 25 September 1780 in the Faubourg Saint-Jacques.

The nave was used by the Roman Catholic Church, while the use of the choir was granted to the followers of a new religion called of Theophilanthropy.

After the Concordat of 1801 proposed by Napoleon, the Catholic Church regained exclusive use of the entire building.

Auguste Barthelemy Glaize, a student of Achille and Eugène Devéria, redecorated the chapel of the Virgin in 1868.

[7] The funeral of the French mathematical physicist Henri Poincaré on 19 July 1912 took place in this church.

The Church interior was also renovated in the 20th century, following the Second Vatican Council, most notably with the total removal of the historic high altar.

The current main altar now a simplistic table in the crossing of the Church, on a temporary carpeted platform.

The furnishings typical of the choir in a French Church such as this were also completely removed, leaving the building lacking the clear architectural focus that the original altar arrangement had.

The tomb of the Italian-born French astronomer Giovanni Domenico Cassini (1625-1712) is found in the church.

[13] The original organ was replaced by other instruments, including one that the Abbé Courcaut, the parish priest, installed himself in 1733.

One of the oldest works in the church, found in the disambulatory, is statue of Saint James the Great, one of the first disciples and martyrs, depicting him a pilgrim, holding a copy of the scripture.