[2][3] The church is particularly noted for its very exuberant 18th century chapels decorated with elaborate Baroque murals, sculpture, and architectural detail.

In 1795, during the later states of the French Revolution, the front of the church was the site of the 13 Vendémiaire, when the young artillery officer Napoleon Bonaparte fired a battery of cannon to break up a force of Royalist soldiers which threatened the new revolutionary government.

In the early 18th century, with the beginning of the construction of the Tuileries Palace nearby, the neighbourhood began to grow, and a larger church was needed.

The major painters and sculptors of period, including Étienne Maurice Falconet, Joseph-Marie Vien and Gabriel-François Doyen participated in its decoration.

The sculptor Falconet made a work depicting "Glory" over the arcade behind the altar of the Virgin, modeled after the sculpture of the same subject in Saint Peters Basilica in Rome.

He made two other sculptures, a group depicting the Announcation and a statue of Christ on the Cross in the Calvary Chapel, but these works disappeared during the French Revolution.

It was remodelled twice, and the only remaining portion of the original today is the upper level, as well as a group of paintings and sculptures created for it, now located in the transept.

On 5 October 1795, a large force of royalist soldiers occupied the street and the steps in front of the church, and threatened to seize power in Paris and restore the monarchy, They were confronted by the young Napoleon Bonaparte, who supported the Revolution and commanded a battery of artillery.

Some the art works stolen during the Revolution were returned, while other paintings and sculptures from other churches which were destroyed found a new home at Saint-Roch.

The Council of Trent dictated the form a church should take: "...A church in the form of a Latin cross, with a single nave, surrounded by communicating chapels, with a transept slightly protruding, covered with barrel vaults, high windows, a cupola at the crossing, and a facade with two orders of columns superimposed, of unequal size, topped by a fronton.

One distinctive Baroque element remaining in the nave is a portion of the original pulpit, built by Simon Challe in the 18th century.

Only the sculptural upper portion survives, titled "The Genius of Truth Lifting the Veil of Error" (1752)[16] The transept of the church, following the doctrine of the Council of Trent, did not projet out very far, but was given the illusion of depth through imaginative works of two painters, "The Miracle of the Ardent" by Gabriel-Francois Doyen and "The Vision of Saint Denis", by Joseph-Marie Vien.

[18] The church, particularly the chapels at the north end, has an extensive collection of paintings and sculpture by some of the most prominent French artists of the 18th and 19th centuries.

His other major works include a marble group of the Nativity in the church of Val-de-Grâce, the sculptures of the triumphal arch at the Porte Saint-Denis (c. 1674), which served as a memorial of the conquests of Louis XIV, the decoration of the apartments of Anne of Austria in the old Louvre, and the Chateau of Nicolas Fouquet, Vaux-le-Vicomte.

One unusual window is that devoted to Denys Affre, the Archbishop of Paris, who was killed while trying to negotiate a truce during the June Days uprising of 1848.

[22] One small window, surrounded by Cherubs, is located in the center the "Gloire Divine" sculptural piece which dominates the Chapel of the Virgin.