Gothic Urns

Best Place to Visit in Paris – the Basilica of Saint-denis

Just outside the north of Paris in Saint-Denis, is the Basilica of Saint-Denis, final resting place for most of the old French monarchy. Compared to other sites, better known in Paris, not that many tourists visit this church and I suspect, mainly for two reasons: I am too far away to visit (although it is a convenient service on the Paris metro) or they have just never heard of him. It should not too surprised if you find the only one there.

Appointed to the second-century AD bishop of Paris, Saint Denis, who is said to have been beheaded in Montmartre, and then wandered for a while with his head in his hands, and finally died on the spot where now the Basilica of Saint-Denis.

Although there had been a church on the site for centuries, the 12th century began in 1122 Abbott Suger the magnificent church we know today. The result was a façade Romanesque with three arched doorways carved earlier, and the rest of the church is mostly what is considered the first Gothic structure of this scale in any place. This was also the first church to offer a rose window.

The three-story ship is beautifully domed and has stained glass in the top level. Along the outdoor walkways are many tombs of French kings and queens of the past, and these graves are surmounted by striking recumbent effigies of royalty commemorate some real pieces of the Renaissance, but many more recently. (You want your camera for these.)

During the French Revolution celebrating crowds wild opened graves and scattered the royal remains, which were collected and eventually placed in mass graves. These were exhumed and placed in time an ossuary in the crypt. (Take a flashlight, because over this dome, on which are all names that many of the royals to which belong the remains, is not well lit.) Thankfully, many of the tombs were recognized as works of art (by the archaeologist Alexander Lenoir) and preserved from further harm.

The crypt (hundreds of years older than the main church above), with its huge columns supporting low arches, is quite shocking. Down there is the cool black slabs marking the graves of Marie Antoinette and her husband, King Louis XVI, under the statues of them kneeling in prayer in the main church above. You find relatively large spaces provided for that may contain nothing more than an urn for a real heart in marinade. Elsewhere you may see the coffins Roman stone lying haphazardly.

Finally, I just want to say what a fascinating tour stop for this could be. It is one of the sacred And haunted places that make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. No access it would be like not visiting Westminster Abbey, his counterpart in London.

Metro Saint-Denis Basilica.

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I am a lecturer & online entrepreneur. I love reading, writing, travel (particularly in Paris, throughout England, Amsterdam), gardening (which mostly amounts to weeding, I’m afraid), Ebay, Internet, Asian philosophies and religions, marketing, and much more.