This was my favorite church of the whole trip. It has a long history first as a cemetery in the late years of the Roman Empire. The first Christian church was built on the site in the 5th century.
One of the early kings of what is now France, Dagobert I, built a larger church there in the 7th century, supposedly moved the body of St. Denis (an early bishop of Paris and a patron saint of France) to that church and is the first French king buried there.
In the 10th century, the church became the burial place of all the kings of France and that continued until the 18th century. Some earlier French kings are also buried there.
From an architectural history standpoint, it was the first major church where a big part of it was designed and built in the Gothic style and it marks the change from Romanesque to Gothic architecture. For more details on that, its ecclesiastical history and its importance to the history of France be sure to follow the link above to the Wikipedia article.
When I arrived I didn't notice the proper entrance on the right. I went in the wrong door and discovered the preparations for a rock concert to be held in the church that evening. They were doing sound checks and rehearsing. That certainly affected my experience of visiting the Basilica, and not in a bad way either. The concert was for the benefit of the church and the acoustics were amazing to say the least.
In conflict with that, at a hotel across the plaza shown below, an Egyptian wedding was going on complete with middle-eastern music. Yes folks, Europe is not Disneyland. Real people live there doing the things they do on any given day. Some people seem to get upset by that when they visit. I love it.
As you can see above, the sky was beautifully clear that day and the sun was shining. That definitely affected the stained glass on the inside.
I didn't take pictures of all the sarcophagi, but the first one on the left of the real tourist entrance fascinated me. If you look closely or click on the picture to make it bigger, you can see a representation of the family on top of a structure.
These tombs are in the arch below. Most of the tombs show the people clothed, but not all. In fact you can tell by the king on the right, that some show the people in death as if they were laid out on a slab.
These feet look like the toes were reattached and like the king and queen had very similar toes. I took the picture because Trout's always making fun of my toes.
To the right of that entrance there were several other tombs. What I noticed all throughout the Basilica is that if there is anything at the feet of the person, it is a dog or two for the queens and a lion or two for the kings. I noticed no other animal representations at all.
So here's a queen with 2 dogs. Her king has no animals, but he does have those great pointy shoes from that era.
Here's a king in knight's armor (he was the only one dressed like that) with a lion at his feet.
And here are several tombs together just opposite of where you come in. There are many more than these all around the Basilica, a crypt below, and even more up some stairs in the back of the church.
If you look through the wrought iron in the picture above you can see a bit of the sound and light boards for the concert. Very cool.
