St. Denis

On Saturday we were ready to head out for new territory.  We have wanted to visit St. Denis for some time, but never quite got there.  So today was the day. 

St. Denis is outside of Paris, the traditional burial place for all of the kings and queens of France.  Almost all of them are buried here.  St. Denis was an early saint of Paris, having lost his head right on our neighborhood, and carried it all the way to St. Denis, about 5  miles away.  While at the basilica we read that he had also lost a hand/  We remembered that when a king was crowned, the hand was brought out to give a little more solemnity to the occasion.  So it appears that St. Denis not only lost his head, but he had to carry his head with only one hand all the way to the village of St. Denis, the site of the future church. 

St. Denis is one of the first gothic churches.  For the first time, all three doors open, not just the central door. 

Inside is a cavernous church with great height and wonderful stained glass windows, of which all but one large and five small are reproductions. 

 The rose window was a new element beginning in this basilica. 

 We decided not to pay the $30 or so it would have cost to visit the crypt, figuring that while we could see the crypt of Sr. Denis himself, we would mostly see the tombs of dozens of Merovingian monarchs who don;'t interest us much.  besides, from the main aisles we could see the tombs of Lous XII and Anne of Brittany (whose heart was returned to Nantes in a small gold casket we had seen at the castle there a few years ago),

The tomb of Francois I, the first real king of a united France;

and the tomb of Henry II and Catherine of Medici.  we read that Catherine had had a little work done on her effigy so she is slim and youthful, but we'll never tell. 

Outside, we could study the first flying buttresses.

 After we left the basilica, we noticed a car arrive decorated with flowers and a hank of dried grass, perhaps wheat. 

 A few moments later a bride emerged from the car. 

 There was a lot of sparkle around, including one pair of 7" heels that had Tom transfixed. 

 The tiny attendant appeared to be a little boy of 7 or 8, draped in an African type fabric, carrying a handful of dried grasses like that on the car. 

 The whole crowd -- and there were a lot of them -- headed into the Hotel de Ville (city hall).  We wished them well.