 | Paris and northern France |  |
37. St. Denis.
Chemin de fer du Nord, station in the Place Roubaix (Pl., red 10);
trains every hour to St. Denis in 11 min. A recently completed line
(Service circulaire de la gare du Nord à la gare de l'Ouest) runs to St. Denis,
Epinay, Enghien (p. 195) and Ermont, returning to Paris by Sannois, Argenteuil,
Colombes and Asnières (p. 168). Tickets for this agreeable circuit, which
may be broken at any of the stations, 1 fr. 80 c., 1 fr. 35 c., and 1 fr.
Omnibuses which start every half hour from the suburb of La Chapelle
(Barrière de St. Denis), situated to the E. of Montmartre, convey passengers
to St. Denis in half-an-hour; others start from Les Batignolles (Barrière de
Clichy), to the W. of Montmartre, and proceed to St. Denis by St. Ouen
in 50 min.; fares 30—50 c., "correspondances" see p. 23. In the château
at St. Ouen in 1814 Louis XVIII. before entering Paris signed the proclamation
by which the "Charte" was promised to the country. He afterwards
presented the château to Madame du Cayla, who in 1856 bequeathed
it to the city, on condition that a monument should be erected to the
memory of Louis XVIII. The bequest was, however, declined.
In the vicinity are extensive Glacières, establishments where in winter
the production of ice is facilitated by artificial means.
A visit to Montmartre and its cemetery may be conveniently combined
with an excursion to St. Denis, if the stranger have an entire day at
his disposal.
The station at St. Denis is ¾ M. distant from the abbey-church. The
town is reached by the principal street. The new and still unfinished
Gothic church rises to the l. Near the station are several small restaurants.
St. Denis, which contains a population of about 16,000, is
indebted for its celebrity to its ancient abbey-church, which the
monarchs of France have chosen for their burial-place. The
edifice is at present undergoing complete restoration and is only
partially accessible. It is one of the finest monuments of French
Gothic and replete with the most interesting historical associations.
About the year 250 a chapel was erected here in honour of
St. Dionysius (St. Denis) the Areopagite, who suffered martyrdom
on Montmartre (mons martyrum).
Dagobert I., king of Austrasia, and subsequently of the whole
of France, here founded a Benedictine Abbey, and about the year
630 commenced the construction of a new church. During a long
series of years masses for his soul were celebrated by the monks
on Jan. 19th, the anniversary of his death.
A new edifice was erected on the same spot by Pepin in
754 and completed by Charlemagne in 775. No trace of either
of these ancient structures exists at the present day.
Suger (d. 1152), the celebrated abbot of St. Denis, the adviser
of Louis VI. and Louis VII. and administrator of the kingdom
during the absence of the latter in the Holy Land, demolished
the church and caused a more handsome edifice to be
erected on the site, which was consecrated in 1144. The portal and
a portion of the towers of the present day belong to that period.
A century later the church was partially destroyed by lightning
and was restored in 1234—1284 by St. Louis. During subsequent
ages it underwent numerous alterations, but under Louis
Philippe was judiciously restored in the original style.
During the first revolution the sacred edifice, once so rich in
relics and sacred ornaments, was entirely pillaged and desecrated,
and converted successively into a "temple of reason", a depôt of
artillery and a salt-magazine. In accordance with the sacrilegious
spirit of the day the name of St. Denis was abolished and the
town called Franciade. The building being in a dilapidated and
dangerous condition, it was afterwards proposed to demolish it
entirely and convert the site into a public market-place. From
this fate, however, it was rescued by Napoleon I., who by a decree
of Feb. 19th, 1806, caused the edifice to be repaired and restored
to its sacred uses.
In 1837 the N. tower was destroyed by lightning and, although
partially re-erected, was subsequently found to be in so defective
a condition that it was entirely pulled down.
The façade of the church contains three receding portals
adorned with numerous sculptures. Those of the central portal
represent the Last Judgment; at the sides the Wise and Foolish
Virgins. The S. portal contains a representation of the martyrdom
of St. Denis; on either side of the entrance are curious
sculptures of the occupations peculiar to each month of the year.
The N. portal belongs to the period of the restoration.
A very limited portion of the interior of the church is accessible
to visitors, who are conducted by the verger (1 fr.) through
a narrow passage to the choir. A sufficient survey, however, is
thus obtained of the noble proportions of the church and its
numerous monuments. A decree of 1859 provided that the
of her emperors, and an entire restoration of the church was
commenced. The style of the 12th cent. is most carefully adhered
to, and the pavement of the aisles has been lowered to
its original level. The church is cruciform; length 332½,
breadth 114 ft.
The Stained Glass of the windows is almost exclusively
modern; the two wheel-windows, especially that on the S. side
with the genealogy of Christ, merit particular attention. Those
of the galleries above contain a perplexing multitude of portraits,
saints, church-fathers, popes, kings and queens, abbots etc. In
the large windows of the nave are 55 large figures of kings and
queens from Clovis and Clotilde to Philip the Bold and Isabella
of Arragon; in the N. transept events from the crusades and the
life of St. Louis; in the S. transept the restoration of St. Denis
by Napoleon, interment of Louis XVIII., the visit of Louis
Philippe to the church and armorial bearings; in the choir the
history of St. Denis. All of these are destined to undergo a
careful renovation.
During the spring of 1867 divine service was performed in
a portion of the aisle, termed the Chœur d'Hiver. The altar-piece,
representing the martyrdom of St. Denis, is by Casp. de Crayer,
a pupil of Rubens. At the entrance the tombstone of the abbot
Antoine de la Haye (d. 1550).
An exhaustive enumeration of the monuments in the church
cannot be given until the restoration is completed. The places
assigned to them after the Revolution have been entirely changed,
as every endeavour is made to restore the edifice to its original
condition. Among the most interesting may be mentioned those
of Dagobert (d. 638) and his queen Nantilde, probably dating
from the 13th cent. The three singular reliefs of the former
represent the delivery of the monarch's soul from purgatory,
through the intervention of St. Denis, St. Martin and St. Maurice,
and his reception into heaven.
The N. transept contains the lofty monument of Louis XII.
(d. 1515) and his queen Anne of Bretagne, designed in 1527 by
Paolo Poncio. The king and queen are represented in a recumbent
posture on the sarcophagus, which is surrounded by twelve
arches, richly decorated and supported by graceful pilasters, beneath
which are statues of the twelve apostles. The pedestal is
adorned with reliefs representing the entry of Louis XII. into
Milan (1499), his passage of the Genoese mountains (1507), the
victory over the Venetians at Agnadello (1509) and their final
submission.
The adjoining monument of Henry II. (d. 1599) and Catherine
de Medicis, executed by Germain Pilon, is of similar design;
the recumbent effigy of the queen and the drapery deserve
works.
The S. transept contains the monument of Francis I. (d. 1547)
and his queen Claude, the most sumptuous of these three of
the 16th cent., designed by Delorme and executed by several
eminent sculptors of that period. The basement is adorned with
numerous reliefs of scenes from the battles of Marignano (1515)
and Cérisoles (1544).
Another historically interesting tomb is that of "Noble homme
Messire Bertrand du Guesclin, comte de Longueville et Connestable
de France" (d. 1380), one of France's most heroic warriors in
her contests with England. In the left eye is indicated the
wound which the constable received in battle. The tomb of
his companion in arms, the Constable Louis de Sancerre (d. 1402)
is in the same chapel.
The Sacristy is adorned with ten modern paintings bearing
reference to the history of the abbey: Monsiau, Coronation of
Marie de Médicis; *Gros, Charles V. and Francis I. visiting the
abbey; Menjaud, Death of Louis VI.; Guérin, Philip III. presents
the abbey with the relics of St. Louis; Barbier, St. Louis receiving
the Oriflamme, the sacred banner of France formerly preserved
in the church; Landon, St. Louis restoring the burial
vaults; Meynier, Charlemagne at the consecration of the church;
Garnier, Obsequies of king Dagobert; Monsiau, Preaching of
St. Denis; Heim, Discovery of the remains of the kings in 1817.
The sacristan, if desired, also shows the treasury of the church,
containing valuable ecclesiastical robes and utensils. A suit of
armour preserved here is alleged to have belonged to Joan
of Arc.
At the High-Altar, on April 1st, 1810, the nuptials of Napoleon
with the Archduchess Marie Louise were solemnized, and
on the same spot, in 1593, Henry IV. was received into the pale
of the Roman Catholic church.
The four stone slabs in front of the raised choir mark the
entrance to the Crypt, which has been restored at the instance
of the emperor. Its history is replete with vicissitudes. The
vaults, which since the time of Dagobert (d. 638) had served
as a burial-place for the royal family of France, extended as far
as the W. side of the crypt only. When the last vacant space
was filled after the death of the Infanta Maria Theresa (d. 1683),
consort of Louis XIV., that monarch directed the vaults to be
extended and a burial-place to be constructed for the Bourbons.
This was accomplished by an encroachment on the crypt.
But few members of this family here found a resting-place
when the revolution broke out. "La main puissante de la
République doit effacer impitoyablement ces épitaphes superbes et
were the words used by Barrère before the Convention on
July 31st, 1793, and a commission was accordingly formed to
carry out this sacrilegious proposition. The Convention was also
influenced by the consideration that the government was in want
of ammunition, and therefore decreed that the metal thus obtained
should be employed in casting guns and bullets.
By a singular coincidence the work of desecration was commenced
on Oct. 12th, 1793, the precise day on which, exactly
one century before, Louis XIV. had caused the demolition of the
ancient tombs of the emperors at Spires. Hentz, the agent employed
by the Convention, was moreover a namesake of the superintendent
of the work of destruction at Spires. The remains of
Louis XIV. himself were among the first which were desinterred,
and a few days later those of Louis XV. "Mercredi le 16 Octobre
à onze heures du matin, dans le moment où la reine Marie Antoinette
d'Autriche, femme de Louis XVI., eut la tête tranchée,
on enleva le cercueil de Louis XV. mort le 10 Mai 1774" is the
testimony of an eye-witness. In order the more speedily to accomplish
the work, the wall of the crypt was broken through and
the bodies of the illustrious dead, among others those of Dagobert
and his queen Nanthilde, Louis X., Charles V., Charles VI.,
Louis XIII. etc., conveyed to trenches ("fosses communes") dug
in the adjacent Cimetière de Valois.
These atrocities were completed an Oct. 25th, but even with
these the sacrilegious Convention does not appear to have been
satisfied. The eye-witness of their proceedings already mentioned
goes on to relate: "Quelques jours après, les ouvriers avec le
commissaire aux plombs ont été au couvent des Carmélites faire
l'extraction du cercueil de Madame Louise de France, fille de
Louis XV, morte le 23 déc. 1787, âgée de 50 ans et environ six mois.
Ils l'ont apporté dans le cimetière et le corps a été déposé dans la
fosse commune; il était tout entier, mais en pleine putréfaction;
ses habits de carmélite étaient très-bien conservés".
On the restoration of the abbey in 1806, Napoleon decreed
that the crypt should be employed as a place of sepulture for
himself and his successors. Only one member of his family,
however, was here interred, the young Napoléon Charles, the son
of his brother Louis. The coffin was afterwards conveyed to
St. Leu, near Senlis, and there re-interred with the remains of
Charles Buonaparte, who died at Montpellier in 1783. The church
of St. Leu has been redecorated by the present emperor and adorned
with a monument to his mother Queen Hortense, to whose
memory a service is annually performed.
Louis XVIII. in 1817 caused the remains of his ancestors, as
well as those of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette who had been
interred in the churchyard of the Madeleine, to be re-interred in
assassinated in Feb., 1820, and several of his children were the
last of the Bourbons here interred. Charles X. died and was
interred at Gœrz in Austria in 1836. Louis Philippe had destined
the ancient château of Dreux for his family burial-place, but was
buried at Weybridge in England, where he died in Aug., 1850.
Napoleon III. has revived the plan of his great ancestor and
by a decree of Jan. 1859 destined this to be the resting place
of the French emperors. The crypt has in consequence been
entirely remodelled; the former monuments have been removed
and some of them placed in the church above. Until farther
notice the crypt is not accessible to the public.
In 1817, when the Abbey recovered its ancient privileges, Louis XVIII.
directed all the monuments which had been rescued in 1793 and had been
preserved with many from other churches in the Musée des Petits Augustins
(Ecole des Beaux Arts, p. 150) to be brought back to St. Denis.
A flight of steps formerly descended from the N. aisle to the crypt.
The numerous figures and a few monuments, none of them dating earlier
than the 13th cent., have been arranged as far as possible in chronological
order.
The first four halls contain the monuments (32) of the Merovingians
and Carlovingians, from Clovis the Great, king of the Salic Franks (d. 511),
to Carlman (d. 771), king of Austrasia. (Charlemagne was by his own
wish interred at Aix-la-Chapelle instead of here; see p. 248.)
Then Hugh Capet (d. 996) and his descendants (34), down to Charles IV.
(d. 1328). Near the former are several sarcophagi, obscurely placed, containing
the remains which were re-exhumed in 1817 (see p. 193).
In the first semicircular space are the *sarcophagi of the two young
princes, Philippe, the brother, and Louis, the son of St. Louis, both of
whom died in the early part of the 13th cent. They formerly reposed in
the Abbey of Royaumont. Adjacent are two magnificent commemorative
stones, adorned with gold and colours, recording the victory gained by
Philip Augustus over the German emperor Otto IV. at Bouvines in Flanders
in 1215.
Napoleon I. caused the new entrance to the crypt to be transferred
to the spot where the aperture had been made in 1793 in order to remove
the coffins. Louis XVIII. directed this to be re-closed and replaced by a
Chapelle Expiatoire, gaudily painted and containing four marble tablets
with the names of all the members of the royal family here interred, as
well as of the abbots and other celebrated personages. Opposite to it is
the entrance of the vault constructed by Louis XIV.
The House of Valois begins with Philip VI. (1350) and terminates with
Henry III., who was assassinated by the Dominican Jacques Clément
in 1589. There were formerly 47 monuments here, the finest of which is
that of *Duke Louis of Orleans, second son of Charles V. (d. 1380), and
his consort Valentine, duchess of Milan, the work of Italian artists of the
16th cent. in the Renaissance style. A marble vase contains the heart of
Francis I. (d. 1547).
The House of Bourbon commences with Henry IV., who in 1593 was
here received into the pale of the Rom. Cath. church and was assassinated
by Ravaillac in 1610. It consists of 15 monuments placed in the halls of
the S. outlet of the crypt, most of them being fragments from other tombs,
often clumsily put together; also kneeling statues of Louis XVI. and his
consort, destined for a different site, and groups from the monuments of
the Duc de Berri and Louis XVIII.
The Tower, 190 ft. in height, is ascended by a staircase to
which a door in the S. portal leads. The summit commands a
Montmorency; S.E. the village of Aubervillers-les-Vertus with its
fort, and contiguous to it the Canal de St. Denis which in the
vicinity unites with the Seine and in connection with the Canal
St. Martin cuts off the wide curve which the river describes
between the Pont d'Austerlitz and St. Denis. To the S. lies Paris
in which the most conspicuous objects are the Pantheon, Montmartre,
Dôme des Invalides and Arc de l'Etoile. To the S.W.
is situated the village of St. Ouen (p. 189), beyond which rises
the fortification of Mont Valérien.
The extensive buildings which adjoin the abbey-church of
St. Denis were erected by Louis XV. on the site of the monastery.
Subsequently to 1815 the Educational Establishment
for sisters and daughters of members of the Legion of Honour,
founded by Napoleon in 1801 and originally established in the
château of Ecouen, 6 M. to the N. of St. Denis, was transferred
to this secularized monastery. This "Maison Impériale d'Education
de la Légion d'Honneur" is fitted up for the reception of
upwards of 500 pupils, who enjoy educational advantages of the
most superior description. Their dress is entirely black and the
discipline partakes of an almost military character. Admission
may be procured by applying to the Grand Chancellor of the
Legion who resides in Paris, Rue de Lille 64.
Enghien-les-Bains, a small watering-place possessing a sulphureous
spring, a park and a lake, is reached by the trains of
the Northern line in 12 min. from St. Denis. The grounds afford
delightful promenades and are a favourite holiday resort of the
Parisians.
On an eminence to the right, surrounded with fruit-trees, is
situated Montmorency, another popular place of summer resort.
It is well known from having once been the residence of Rousseau,
who spent two years (1756 - 1758) in the house termed
"l'Ermitage de Jean Jacques Rousseau", and there wrote his
Nouvelle Heloïse. This habitation, which was originally a hermitage,
was fitted up for the use of the philosopher by the Countess
d'Epinay, in order to prevent his return to Geneva. During the
revolution the Hermitage became national property and was for a
short period occupied by Robespierre, who spent a night in it
three days previous to his execution (July 28th, 1794). In 1798
the Hermitage was purchased by the eminent composer Grétry,
who died here in 1813. His heart was interred in the garden,
where a monument was erected to his memory, but in consequence
of a law-suit was afterwards conveyed to Liège, his native
place. To this the inscription alludes: "Grétry, ton génie est
partout, mais ton cœur n'est qu'ici. Les Liégois n'en ont enlevé
que la poussière".
The Hermitage (access sometimes denied) has recently been
much altered and no longer contains reminiscences of Rousseau.
The garden, however, retains its former aspect. A stone bears
the inscription: "Ici J. J. Rousseau aimait à se reposer". The
laurel near it is said to have been planted by him.
An omnibus runs in 20 min. from the station of Enghien-lesBains
to Montmorency (fare 50 c.). Passengers desirous of visiting
the Hermitage quit the omnibus a short distance before Montmorency
is reached and enter the Rue Grétry. The Hermitage is
a small, red house near the extremity of the street, to the garden
of which strangers are generally admitted, on ringing at the
gate and applying for permission.
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