The Amazing Abbey Church of Saint-Denis-Paris
An Out-of-the-Way Landmark Interests History-Loving Tourists
Jun 24, 2009
Before entering the church renowned for its architecture, visitors can view a media presentation of the archeological finds and history of the area in an adjacent information center. Built on the site of a Gallo-Roman cemetery, remnants of that ancient graveyard are still visible in portions of the crypt.
The film also narrates the story of the church's many renovations through the centuries.
Early History of the Abbey Church
St. Denis, the first bishop of Paris, was buried near the old Roman cemetery in 250 A.D. So many pilgrims gathered at his grave to pray, it prompted the clergy to build a church on the site. For centuries,, the abbey church was the seat of power for French monarchs. Monks at the abbey kept historical chronicles, as well as the coronation regalia and vestments for the royal families. French royalty designated the church as their ceremonial place. Charles Martel was buried there in 741. Pepin’s coronation ceremony took place in the Abby in 754.
Everything changed with the political unrest leading up to the French Revolution. In 1781, Prior Dom Malaret of Saint Denis ordered that the royal tombs be moved. In spite of efforts to protect the church and the royal graves, many people wanted to do away with all reminders of the monarchy. They vandalized St. Denis
For many years, the salvaged contents of the Abbey remained with Alexandre Lenor who planned to display them in his Museum of French Monuments. However, Napoleon I, renewed the Abby, and in 1867, he restored the burial places of the kings to the church. All but three of the kings of France are buried there. Today their elaborate tombs and historic statuary are on display in the church.
Saint-Denis makes History in the 21st Century
As recently as June 8, 2004, the Abbey Church of Staint-Denis was the setting for the final ceremony for a member of the royal family devastated by the French Revolution. On that day, the heart of Louis XVII, the boy king, who died in the Paris prison was laid to rest near the tombs of his parents, Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI.
The journey of the heart to its final resting place at Saint-Denis unfolded in a strange sequence of events.
- Dr. Pelletan, the young king’s physician, was in the prison cell when the boy died. The doctor secretly took the heart of the dead child.
- One of Dr. Pelletan’s assistants stole the heart, but later returned it to the physician.
- When the monarchy came to power again in 1815, Dr. Pelletan took the heart to Louis XVIII, who would not accept it . Many believed that the boy who died in the prison was not truly the king. They thought the king escaped and another boy had been put in his place.
- Before his death, Dr. Pelletan gave the heart to the Archbishop of Paris, who kept it in a glass vial in his palace. When thieves entered the Archbishop’s palace, the glass vial containing the heart broke, and the thieves left without it.
- Hearing of the events at the Archbishop’s residence, Dr. Pelletan’s son went to the palace, found the heart, and kept it until his death.
- When Dr. Pelletan’s son died, the heart became the property of the descendents of the royal family until 1975. In that year, it was kept at the memorial of France at Saint-Denis. All this while, no one was certain that the heart was really that of Louis-Charles, the boy who became king while he was in prison during the French Revolution.
- Finally, in the year 2000, scientists matched DNA from a lock of Marie Antoinette’s hair with tissue sample from the heart. They proved that the heart was truly that of the boy who died in the prison cell, Louis XVII, the king of France.
On June 8, 2004, in a special ceremony held at Saint-Denis, a ten-year-old distant relative of the royal family carried a crystal urn containing the heart of the boy king to the crypt of the church. There it now rests near the remains of Marie Antoinette and Louis the XVI, his parents. The Abbey Church of Saint-Denis remains the guardian of much of France's history.
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