Houdan, Église Saint-Jacques et Saint-Christophe

State of preservation: All essential parts original.  In particular these are:

–all pipes, with the exception of pipes of the stops Doublette and Plein Jeu
– the slider chests of the manuals
– the manual and pedal keyboards (with French style "knife back" keys in the pedal)
– the key and stop actions
– wind channels and the three bellows.

Louis-Alexandre Clicquot (1684-1760) since 1734 built an organ of 21 stops on 2 manuals plus récit and attached pedal.
Louis-Alexandre Clicquot is of the middle generation of THE French organ makers' family synonymous for "classical" Frennch baroque organ, his father Robert Clicquot (1645-1719) building the organ for Chapelle Royale, Louis Alexandre's son François-Henri (1732–1790) famous for the organs of  Souvigny  and Poitiers.

Building the organ should have been finished by late 1736 but some delays even ended in court where Clicqout lost, so the examination of the completed organ was not before 1739.
The organ was not damaged during the turmoil of the French revolution since the church in 1790 was dedicated to „the supreme Being and the immortality of the soul."

From then organ maintenance was kept to some periodical cleanings! A choir organ acquired in 1873 arrived just in time to keep attentions of "modern" organ sounds off the historical instrument. When in the early 20th century the organ fell out of use the instrument was stored in the early 1930s to introduce repair but further delays prevented it from any severe measures that might have endangered the historical substance. In 1967–72 Robert and Jean-Loup Boisseau reerected the organ and made it playable, with utmost respect and restraint. Another repair in 1994 by Jean-Loup Boisseau and Bernard Cattiaux consisted of cleaning pipes and wind chest.

The Houdan organ is the most completely preserved of all French classical baroque organs.