Visiting Saint-Denis...

[fajrdrako]

Once upon a time, when the Romans were martyring Christians, the Romans tried to get rid of a troublesome Parisian bishop named Denis by chopping his head off. It might have worked with most people, but Bishop Denis was more stubborn than most. He picked his head up off the ground and stalked off with it, walking with it as far as the nearby

Comments

[msilverstar]

St. Denis is the birthplace of Gothic architecture! Good photos :-D

[fajrdrako]

Glad you liked them. It's a beautiful place - so much history in one spot.

[darthhellokitty]

Oooh, I love these pictures! The tombs especially are wonderful.

St Denis is clearly the patron saint of BAMFs. :-)

[fajrdrako]

I loved the tombs. I loved Saint-Denis. It was like meeting all those long-gone kings I've read about - including the Merovingian kings and their queens, like Fredegonde. I couldn't find Bathildis, though.

[darthhellokitty]

That's how I felt in Westminster Abbey in London, and in Pere-Lachaise in Paris - people I'd heard of all my life.

[fajrdrako]

It's very exciting to see physical connections to people you know, even if you only know them from the pages of history books.

[silverwhistle]

I've 2 lovely picture-books on Saint-Denis (have never been, and at this rate am never likely to):
François Olivier Rousseau & Patricia Canino, Corps de Pierre: Gisants de la Basilique de Saint-Denis
and
Alain Erlande-Brandenburg, L'Eglise Abbatiale de Saint-Denis: vol. 2 Les Tombeaux Royaux.
I love the Renissance cadaver tombs. I want to give Queen Claude a cuddle: poor little girl, she looks so fragile and wasted (unsurprisingly - she died in her eighth childbirth at the age of only 24, having been pretty much continually pregnant since she was 15). And Henri II and Catherine de Medici look frankly post-coital.

A pity there's no Louis XIII effigy (and never was): he was the last reasonably good-looking one.

They also have Léon de Lusignan of Armenia (originally in the Church of the Celestines in Paris), and that swine Charles d'Anjou (originally in the Church of the Jacobins in Paris) who killed our Conrad's last descendants… Quite a lot of the effigies have been moved from other churches (some of which were destroyed) in Paris.

[fajrdrako]

There was an 'unknown princess' I felt most moved by; a sweet-looking young woman who in her lifetime was a princess but who has been entirely forgotten and lost in time.

I'm sure the implication with Henri and Catherine is not accidental.

I noticed Leon of Armenia and got quite excited. Explained to my long-suffering friend why I was thrilled to see a Lusignan. She seemed to believe it.

Really, I was somewhat surprised how many of those effigies remain.

[silverwhistle]

There was an 'unknown princess' I felt most moved by

I'll have to see if she's in the books!

Really, I was somewhat surprised how many of those effigies remain.

It's interesting how many have been brought from other places. I hadn't realised until I read some of the details in the books.

[fajrdrako]

I covet those books!

[coalboy]

Quite a lot of major churches look lopsided because of unmatching towers, or only one tower. Toledo, for one.

[fajrdrako]

Makes it interesting. I don't think I've ever seen it in North America.

[coalboy]

No, we're too new & build too fast.

[fajrdrako]

And without as much imagination, I think.