SECTION X
The Basilica of St. Denis and the Monuments of the Kings, Queens and Princes of France.
No historical pilgrimage to Paris would be complete without a visit to the Sanctuary of its protomartyr and the burial-place of its kings. Taking train from the Gare du Nord, either main line or local train-tramway and being arrived at the railway station of the grimy industrial suburb of St. Denis, we cross the canal and continue along the Rue du Chemin de Fer and the Rue de la République, to the Cathedral, architecturally the most important relic of the great age of the early ecclesiastical builders. The west façade before us, completed about 1140 by Abbot Suger, is of profound interest, for here we may behold the round Romanesque arch side by side with the Pointed, and the very first grip of the new Gothic on the heavy Norman architecture it was about to overthrow. The sculptures on the W. portals, however, almost wholly and clumsily renewed, need not detain us long. We enter and descend from the sombre vestibule. As we wait for the verger we revel in the airy and graceful symmetry of the nave and aisles; the beautiful raised choir and lovely apse with its chevets and round of chapels, where structural science and beauty of form are so admirably blended. The choir was so far advanced in 1143 that mass was sung at the high altar during a heavy storm while the incomplete ribs of the new Gothic vaulting swayed over head. In 1219, however, Suger's structure was nearly destroyed by fire and the upper part of the choir, the nave and transepts were afterwards rebuilt in the pure Gothic of the times, the more active reconstruction being effected between 1231 and 1281. A visit to the monuments is unhappily a somewhat mingled experience. Owing to the inscrutable official regulations in force, the best of the mediæval tombs are only seen with difficulty and from a distance that renders any appreciation of their beauty impossible.[237] The monuments are mainly those claimed by Lenoir for his Museum at Paris when the decree of 1792 was promulgated, ordering the "effacement of the proud epitaphs and the destruction of the Mausoleums, that recalled the dread memories of kings": they were restored to their original places so far as possible by Viollet le Duc. The head of St. Denis is said to have been found when his shrine was desecrated and appropriated by the revolutionists, and in the cant of the time was brought back to Paris by "a miracle greater and more authentic than that which conveyed it from Montmartre to St. Denis, a miracle of the regeneration of opinion, registered not in the martyrology but in the annals of reason."
Cathedral of St. Denis.
[View larger image]
![[View larger image]](#1442798708582834499_483-b.jpg.id-7869174979056467105.wrap-0.html.html){kind=link}
We are first led past some mediæval tombs in the N. transept, then by those of the family of St. Louis, which include that of his eldest son, one of the most beautiful creations of thirteenth-century sculpture. Our own Henry III. who attended the funeral is figured among the mourners around the base which are only partially seen from afar. The monument to Louis XII. and his beloved and chère Bretonne, Anne, is next shown. It is in Italian style and was wrought by the Justes, a family of Tourraine sculptors. The Royal effigies are twice rendered: once naked in death under a tabernacle and again kneeling in prayer. Before we ascend the steps leading to the raised ambulatory, we are shown across the choir, and R. of the high altar, the fine thirteenth-century tomb of Dagobert, with some quaint reliefs, impossible to see in detail, illustrating his legend (p. [34]) and a statue of Queen Nantilde also of the thirteenth century. Nor should we omit to note the two rare and beautiful twelfth-century statues, in the style of the Chartres sculpture, of a king and queen on either side of the portal of the N. transept brought from the church of Notre Dame de Corbeil. To our L. is a masterpiece of the French renaissance, the tomb by Lescot and Pilon of Henry II. and Catherine de' Medici, who are represented twice, as in the monument to Louis XII. We ascend the steps to the ambulatory and below, to our L., are summarily shown some important Valois tombs: Philippe de Valois, John II., Charles V. and others, by contemporary sculptors, such as Andrieu Beaunepveu and Pierre de Chelles—all of great interest to the traveller but utterly impossible of appreciation under the cursory glance permitted by the vergers. A second monument to Henry II. and Catherine, with recumbent and draped figures, is next indicated; Catherine is portrayed in her old age and rigid devotion. As we pace round the ambulatory we are shown some remains of twelfth-century stained glass in the choir chapels (that in the Lady Chapel including the figure of Abbot Suger,) and a modern representation of the Oriflamme to the L. of the high altar. Opposite the sacristy is a curious twelfth-century tomb from St. Germain des Prés, with the effigy of Queen Fredegonde outlined in mosaic and copper. We descend to the gloomy old crypt, with the curious Romanesque capitals of its columns, where now lie the remains of the later Bourbons. On returning to the church the tombs of Philip the Bold and Philip the Fair are shown, and to the L. the grandiose monument to Francis I., designed by Delorme, with five kneeling effigies: the king, Claude his queen, and their three children. The fine base reliefs represent the battles of Marignano and Cerisole. Then follows the beautiful urn executed by Pierre Bontemps, to contain the heart of the gran re Francesco. In conclusion, we are permitted to see the tombs of Louis of Orleans and of Valentine of Milan, early fifteenth-century, by a Milanese artist; and Charles of Etampes, an excellent work of the middle of the fourteenth-century. Before returning to Paris we should not omit to walk round the basilica and examine the sculptures of the portal of the N. transept, which have suffered less from iconoclasts and restorers.
Map of Paris.