Oct 15, Part 10 - Approaching St-Denis Basilica

The entrance from the Metro into St-Denis is not spectacular. You have to find your way around a shopping center, but it's not very far. Then you enter the old town square, and that's about as far as you need to go. The first thing that caught my eye was the beautiful and unusual brick work on the Office de Tourisme.

Look left, and you'll see the basilica. The building on the far left of the photo is the town hall. The basilica is a confusion of styles, the front being mostly Norman Romanesque, but the building is more famous because of its contribution to early Gothic architecture. And even more than that, it is known for its amazing tombs, as St. Denis contains the remains of and monuments to about 1,000 years of France's kings and queens. It's worth looking up St. Denis online. There are pages of history, both of the building and of its contents. Although it's situated in a town that offers almost nothing else, the Basilica of St-Denis is one of the most remarkable places I've ever been.

Here is the facade again. It's been much rebuilt and renovated.

Just to the right of the main doors, you take the path alongside the building. The entrance is actually on the south side, and there's a small museum there, too. This is where you begin to see how Gothic the buiding really is.

But first we had a mission: find the bathroom. This portable one beckoned, but did we have the right change? Note that there's a piece of the church situated in this little park just off the main square.

We found the change, but the thing didn't open. These strange portable toilets (when they are working) open like a roll-top can. When you leave, the next person has to wait until the door shuts and the whole inside of the unit turns itself inside out and hoses itself down. I don't remember the actual mechanics, but it's weird. They don't seem to smell, so I guess they work. But this one was broken.

That's the town hall again in the background. The flowers were nice. We headed back to the town square and found a cafe where they let us use the bathrooms. When I asked one of the waiters what else there was to do here besides visit the basilica, he said, actually not very much, and that anyway it wasn't safe for tourists to stray far from the main square. We didn't see dangerous-looking people lurking, but he said he'd seen wallets taken right in front of the tavern, although I've never had any trouble here. The Blue Guide published in 1977 says, "The Basilica of St-Denis stands in the centre of one of the most unattractive and derelict of the northern suburbs of Paris. . . ." Well, no matter. We had one destination now, and that was the church.

Go to Part 11

Oct 15, Part 12 - South Interior of St-Denis Basilica

St. Denis contains the remains of and monuments to about 1,000 years of France's kings and queens.

I'd been waiting to revisit St. Denis Basilica for a long time. What I didn't do is plan for the kind of lighting you get inside a building like this on a cloudy day. The last time I visited, there were incredible colored light patterns cast across the nave and much of the interior. Of course the crypt would be dark anyway. I was using a new camera, and it generally takes much better photos in low light than my last one, so I wasn't sure what to expect. In the future I'd arm myself with a monopod or small tripod and I'd study exposures. So, for instance, the picture above, the main nave, is a bit blurry. Some came out really well, and one I think is exceptional, but this blurry one is the only picture I have of the nave. The church is huge, and this doesn't even show the full length. Here we're looking toward the altar. Just for comparison, here's a look at Notre Dame in Paris. See how different the styling of the pillars is? It would be fun to take time to study both of these churches in more detail, as their time frame is very similar.

Now in the south aisle looking again toward the altar, you can see that the building is somewhat on a split-level plan. We're on the ground floor, and the inner ambulatory, or whatever it's officially called, is up the staircase.

I love vaulting and Gothic columns.

This is the north rose window as seen from the south arm of the transept.

There are a thousand years of kings and queens of France buried or commemorated here. You see these placards immediately on entering the church. Look at the dates. They lived in the 8th and 9th Centuries. After doing my genealogy, I found this segment of the church especially interesting, because I recognized some of the names. Berthe is "Bertha Big Foot," which I read somewhere didn't have to do with the size of her feet, but perhaps she could walk a long distance or something like that. I don't remember the exact meaning, but it's funny how those nicknames don't always mean what they sound like. These are Charlemagne's relatives, so anyone who traces their lineages back to Charlemagne can say hello to their resting ancestors here. If not, it's simply an amazing collection of history. St. Denis feels reverent and so historic at the same time. It's part museum and part church, and I think many people get that feeling. The graves and monuments are so old and have such a place in history, and yet they're displayed in a very matter-of-fact and almost mundane manner. Strange but nice.

They had to pack a lot of memorials and graves into one building, and you find a number of families sleeping side by side here "for eternity," like a crowded dormitory in stone. The labels are usually very good, so if you take the time, you can really see who they are.

This label goes with the photo below.

Antoine de la Haye's memorial engraving is on the wall just to the right as you enter from the south. There were two people sitting there ready to answer questions and keep an eye on things.

Here's another set of plaques for graves and monuments nearby. They show you which person is in which location of the grouping. I could have spent a lot longer photographing and connecting the names. For one reason or another, I didn't. There was a lot to see, and I felt like we still had a long day ahead. Maybe someday I'll make the time. It would be fun.

I used flash on this one. I don't usually like it because it flattens out the subject and I love natural light, but it worked OK here.

This is an amazing composition in stone of Francoise I (d. 1547) and Claude de France (d. 1524). Most of the figures are draped, but this couple is depicted a la Renaissance aesthetics nude and natural, showing them very much as they must have looked in life, including their aging features. It is clearly one of, or in my mind probably THE artistic masterpiece among the sculptures. Obviously, they are also lit for dramatic effect. These are trained lights, not random spill from a window. The tomb was sculpted by Phibert Delorme, Pierre Bontemps, Primaticcio and others.

Here are Claude and Francoise from another angle. I love this photo. It's worth clicking on it to see the bigger version. They are carved on a tall dais so you have to stand on the steps provided to get this view.

Here are Claude and Francois again. I love their feet.

The basilica is filled with less naturalistic but very precious carvings.

Here is the framing for the rose window over the south arm of the transept. When I asked whether it had been taken out for repair, the guide said it had been. When I was here before, there had been a recent heavy wind storm that had done some damage to the stained glass. Between events like that, time, weather, algae and other factors, a building like this must always be a work in progress. When visiting, you also get the impression that being out here in the 'burbs, it may not get the bigger funding it deserves.

This seems to be the window in in the north side again from a slightly different angle.

January 29, 2012: I revisit this post today to take part in the growing blog community Taphophile Tragics. Come honor and enjoy.

If you want to see photos of our entire trip, I've put them in one of my Picasa Web Albums under Paris 2008.

Go to Part 13 of the blog record of our trip.

Oct 15, Part 13 - The crypt of St-Denis Basilica

If I thought I was unprepared to take photos upstairs, I was really unprepared for most of the crypt. Again, I would take a tripod or monopod and read more about how to use the camera settings. Even so, I like quite a few of the pictures from the crypt. The photo above is of the same subject as the photo below. The one above came out black until I tweaked it with PhotoShop, leaving it atmospheric but not very sharp. Louis XVII, King of France and Navarre, is shown in portrait, and the urn below holds some part of his remains. I'm not sure if it's his ashes or heart. Hearts and sometimes other entrails were often kept in jars, especially if the person died some distance from home and of course, it could not all be preserved. I believe that burying the heart on sacred ground was also done on purpose, and sometimes different parts of the body were buried in different places. St. Denis Basilica holds the hearts of a number of monarchs whose bodies were not moved or buried here.

This is another picture of the same tomb. You can see more of it, but the atmosphere is destroyed somewhat and flattened by the flash. The basilica has audio tours, but we didn't take one. Somehow once we got there it seemed that a tour with such details would put us on overload. From my computer miles away and now distant in time, it feels like it would be a fun thing to do if I ever go back and want to take the time.

Here's another ornate monument. I don't remember who the monarch is.

Here is some elegant stained glass from a later era. The basilica was built in stages, and the crypt was extended beyond the size of the original church. They wanted to enlarge the apse, and they needed to build a foundation. This crypt incorporates that foundation, and it was then used for additional tombs and monuments. It's built around the oldest part of the crypt in a horseshoe shape under the ambulatory of the apse.

Pretty and peaceful. Here's another tomb and more leaded glass windows.

The crypt also includes a few educational displays.

This small passage contains the elegant grave slabs of a number of kings and queens. There are some people on a tour.

One area I really like is in the north side of the crypt. Handsome black slabs bear the historical record of French royalty. The first name on the record is Dagobert, who died in 638. The slabs are housed in a stone room something like a huge baking oven. Outside of that cavern are more slabs, below, near a black gate with decorative swirls that leads up to the ground level of the church.

This ends the walk around the outer area of the crypt. If we take those stairs on the left, we'll be on the ground floor again, but I headed back to the central and oldest part of the crypt under the high altar of the church.

This area has not been completely excavated, and was the original crypt for a much smaller original church. Offhand, I don't know what year or century that would have been. There's a visitors' viewing platform where you can observe, but you can't walk around in this ancient part.

Some of the oldest tombs are beyond the grating.

The early architecture is still being pieced together and cut-aways show the viewers what the old building must have been like. The dark mound in front of us is part of a wall made up of very thin slabs of brick or stone.

In several places we can get tantalizing glimpses of a design finished in red-hued paint.

Here we can see some of the carved stone used in an early period. This location may go back to Gallo-Roman days, but I can't say what era these pillars come from. If I do the research, I'll update the blog. This photo is taken just outside the oldest part of the crypt, back on our way out to the more recent part of the building.

And here we are back at the gate with the swirls near the black slabs with the list of kings. You can just see a bit of the stained glass in the upper level. Next we went into the north side of the transept to look at more monuments. Stay tuned!

Go to Part 14