Paris: Basilica of Saint Denis

Anne de Bretagne's tomb (with husband Louis XII).

Saturday, May 5, Aaron and I took a train to Paris. The ultimate goal: spend a weekend in Versailles with Jean-Claude (the cousin of both my host-mother in Normandy and my college French teacher) and his fiancée Corinne (congratulations on getting engaged!). First, though, we spent a little time in Paris as Jean-Claude and Corinne had a fitness class in the early afternoon. So Aaron and I took the Metro from Montparnasse (the Paris train station that serves trains coming from western France, i.e., Rennes) to the northern suburb of Saint-Denis. The main attraction in Saint-Denis is the cathedral/basilica where 43 kings of France are buried (plus many queens, royal children, princes, and generals). All but three French kings are buried here, although many of them were exhumed and placed at Saint-Denis long after their death and burial. We were warned by several people that the town itself is pretty rough and dangerous, but it seemed fine from what little we saw. Admittedly, we were there in the middle of the day and the Metro stop is very close to the basilica, so we didn't spend any time wandering the streets.

Anne de Bretagne's transi.

Just part of the gift shop inside the basilica. You can't
really tell, but the whole shop seemed like something
out of New Orleans in a movie.

Anyway, the basilica of Saint-Denis originally dates from the 5th century AD and is dedicated to Saint Denis, the patron saint of France. It became part of a monastery in the 7th century and the church that's there now was built in the 12th century in a grand Gothic style, but unlike other churches we've seen, there's no choir screen and there are no walls between the chapels that surround the front of the church, meaning that light flows into the church unobstructed, making it one of the brightest medieval churches we've been in. We're not sure why Saint-Denis was chosen as the burial site for French kings - if anyone out there knows, help us out and tell us in the comments section! A lot of the tombs are pretty elaborate, especially Louis XII and Anne of Brittany's and Henri II and Catherine de Medici's. In fact, the main reason we went was because I saw a post card way back when during our visit to Nantes that showed the transi of Anne de Bretagne and said I HAD to see that in person. What's a transi? Well, kind of weird. It's part of a tomb (really a big sculptural monument under which someone may or may not be buried). This part of the tomb shows the person's body naked as it is decomposing. The monument also usually includes a sculpture representing the living person in a more prominent and visible spot. Unfortunately, you can't usually get very close to the transis to see them all that well, but I definitely thought the trip was worthwhile.

Some tombs and an example of the light inside the
basilica. Bishop Suger wanted the place to be very
bright, and he succeeded!

Back to the basilica itself. Most of the kings buried there, though, are just scattered bones re-collected after the despoliation of the royal tombs during the French Revolution and buried in the crypt in a big vault. Also in the crypt, you can see the remains of the original 4th-century AD Christian burial ground which I found interesting - Aaron loves REALLY old stuff like that, so it was a good trip for him, too!

Stay tuned for our trip to Versailles with Jean-Claude and Corinne!