This choir organ was awarded to the Saint-Étienne Cathedral by the Minister for Religion in office at the time. The Works Committee discussed the matter on the 22nd of January and the 6th of April 1868, before awarding the contract to Aristide Cavaillé-Coll. Charles-Marie Widor took delivery on the 26th of May of the same year. The invoice from the woodworker who installed the instrument in its current position is still extant. The stalls which were removed to make room for the organ are now in the cathedral's weekday Chapel known as the Chapelle de l'Agonie. When Théodore Puget refurbished the organ in 1879, he removed the harmonic plein jeu ranks II to IV leaving just 37 pipes for an 8-foot principal. He also revised the harmonic flute, shifting some pipes and adding the Puget signature. In 1975, Claude Armand completely renovated the instrument and reinstated the missing plein jeu. The instrument was inaugurated by Xavier Darasse on 28th of October 1975. The neo-Gothic case encloses an instrument with twelve stops seated on a single wind chest. The instrument is divided between two manuals however, the grand-orgue and the récit expressif with extra channels inserted in the wind chest for the borrowed pedal stops.