The Cantique de Jean Racine was composed at the age of 19 by Gabriel Fauré in 1865, while he was a student at the École Niedermeyer in Paris. The words are a French paraphrase, by the 17th Century dramatist Racine, of a Breviary hymn generally supposed to have been written by the 4th Century bishop St. Ambrose.

Although it was written some time before the Requiem, it has a very similar combination of ancient and modern sounds. Fauré wrote the piece for a competition at the École (which he won), and despite the constraints of the contest and his youth, produced a very distinctive and beautiful short work.