The devastating fire at Notre Dame Cathedral, the soul of Paris, means it will be closed to the public for several years. So what to see instead?
Paris has many beautiful and historic churches. The Sainte-Chapelle, just a stone’s throw from Notre-Dame, is even older. The Sacré-Cœur in Montmartre is extraordinarily pretty. And the Basilica of Saint-Denis is the final resting place of many kings and queens of France…
Saint-Denis, Paris
Take metro line 13 to the northern outskirts of the city. The Basilique de Saint-Denis stop is about 300 meters from the cathedral and if you are lucky you can go on a day when the open-air market is in full swing. (Open Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays from 7:30 am to 1:30 pm). Fresh fruit and vegetables, cheeses, halal meat, jewelry, fabrics, shoes and clothes of all kinds, from skimpy lingerie to long, shapeless coats, attracted hundreds of customers to the market. As I walked from one stall to the next, I was overwhelmed by the smells of spices, the colors of the produce, the barking of the street vendors and the bargains being struck by the shoppers. It is a large market, with about 300 stalls.
I broke away from the crowd and turned toward the basilica. The vibrant atmosphere of the market extended to the steps of the church. Inside, the long, narrow nave was bathed in a sublime colored light, so different from the wild reds, greens, and yellows of the market. The cacophony of the modern world was behind me, traded for ancient calm. I marveled at the spectacularly high vaults and the whisper-thin columns. Since the choir was open to the ambulatory, the altar stood in simple elegance, devoid of dark wood and gilding.
Basilica of Saint Denis
According to the story, Saint Denis was sent from Italy to Gaul to convert the Parisians to Christianity, between the first and third centuries. The most popular legend has it that the Romans beheaded him and two of his disciples at the highest point of the neighborhood, now Montmartre. With his head in his hands, he walked 10 km north, preaching all the way before dying. The Basilica of Saint-Denis marks the spot where he finally succumbed.
The older, but lesser-known, account of his martyrdom, written in 500 AD, tells a slightly different story. After Denis was beheaded, Catulla, a Roman woman, rescued the bodies of Denis and his two disciples from the Seine. She buried the three bodies with their heads on her property north of the city. Later, a church was built in their memory.
The basilica claims to be the first Gothic-style church ever built. At the 12th In the 15th century, the architect Abbot Suger replaced his small, dark Romanesque church with ribbed vaults and heavy columns with a much larger one. It boasted narrow columns, pointed arches, buttresses and coloured light streaming through the stained glass windows of the clerestory, apse and rose windows. Its delicate beauty is astonishing.
Saved from destruction
But if it hadn’t been for a quick-witted and selfish man, you might have seen something totally different. Maybe a ruin or maybe an apartment building.
In 1793, the revolutionaries decided that since Saint-Denis was the burial place of French royalty, its destruction would symbolize the end of the monarchy. On the orders of the National Convention, the primary governing body of the Revolution, desecrators and looters destroyed the crypts. They removed the bodies and bones of members of the monarchy and anyone else buried there. The remains were thrown into a pit north of the basilica.
The man who was able to save many funerary sculptures was Alexandra Lenoir. During the Revolution, he was appointed head of the Commission of Monuments. His mission was to protect sculptures and objects of architectural interest removed from churches and noble houses. The recovered art objects were to be collected and exhibited in a museum for all to see. He saved the marble funerary sculptures by declaring them “monuments of architectural interest”.
Although at least one of these thugs kept a souvenir of his horrible work.
In 2008, a mummified head attributed to Henry IV, one of the kings whose bodies were thrown into the common grave, was discovered in the attic of a private home. In 2010, a team of scientists conducted forensic analysis on the well-preserved head and discovered a mole on the nostril, a pierced right ear, and scars from an injury. The markings match those shown in paintings of Henry IV, although some argue that if it were the king, the brain would have been removed. In this head, it is still intact.
The restoration of Saint-Denis
When the monarchy regained the throne in 1816, Lenoir was forced to close the museum and return everything to its rightful owners, including the magnificent sculptures of Saint-Denis.
The egoist to whom we owe the salvation of the Basilica is Napoleon Bonaparte. The building fell into ruin after the Revolution, but in 1806 Napoleon ordered its restoration and declared that it should be the burial place not only of kings, but also of emperors.
While most of the stained glass windows in the church depict religious themes, such as the 12th In the 16th century, Napoleon commissioned a window in the transept to glorify his reconstruction efforts.
Why would France’s first republican leader spend time and money restoring a church? After all, the revolution attempted to separate religion and politics. And the wealth and influence of the church were partly responsible for the people’s disillusionment.
There was a time when people believed that if they were buried near a saint, they had a better chance of going to heaven. While many French people faced death because of their beliefs, Napoleon was moved to act as a sort of insurance policy. Better to rebuild this monument to kings and God, just in case. Napoleon was never buried at Saint-Denis, but the basilica benefited from his doubts. Instead, he rests in grand style at the golden-domed Invalides.
When the monarchy was restored after Napoleon’s exile, Louis XVIII had the bodies buried next to the basilica exhumed. Without modern forensic science, it was impossible to distinguish one person from another. He therefore created an ossuary in the crypt in which he placed all the bones he could find. Their names are inscribed on three large plaques.
There is a garden where the mass grave was dug and the bones dumped. A great place to admire the buttresses supporting the church.
It is a fascinating monument with a lot of atmosphere, and well worth a visit…
Canadian writer Sue Harper spends her winters in Kelowna, British Columbia, and her adopted hometown of Wanaka, New Zealand. In between, she spends as much time as possible in France. She blogs at: www.seniornomad.wordpress.com
