click the images The cathedral: the necropolis of the kings of France. Associated since king Dagobert with French monarchy, the old abbey church of Saint-Denis is at the same time a testimony of the beginnings of the Gothic style and a true museum of the funerary sculpture in the Middle Ages and during the Renaissance. Towards 475, Sainte Genevieve transformed the tomb of Saint Denis into place of pilgrimage. The king mérovingien Dagobert made build a new richly equipped church where he was made bury himself, thus, he has founded towards 630 the double tradition of the royal Treasury and the necropolis royal (in fact from 996 with Hugues Capet). Only the kings were authorized to be buried there, but certain servants also rested there, such as Du Guesclin. The basilica is built on the site of the cemetery in which Saint Denis (d. 250 C.E.), the first bishop of Paris, was buried. The Abbey of Saint-Denis has been closely associated with the French monarchy since time of the Merovingian kings of France. The first monarch of France to be buried at Saint-Denis is Dagobert (628-638 C.E.) who is considered the founder of the monastery that was there. Dagobert's decision also marked the first time that a French king had been buried near the remains of martyred saints. By the time of Abbot Suger (abbot from 1122-1151 C.E.) the monastery at the site had become one of the most powerful in the Kingdom. Most of Suger's predecessors were politically astute men who were able to have influence with the monarchs. Suger himself was advisor to two kings (Louis VI and Louis VII) and regent of the realm during the second Crusade. It is Abbot Suger who is responsible for the construction of the basilica that doubles as the necropolis of the kings of France. About 1140, the Suger abbot made rebuild the abbey church to accommodate the many pilgrims. Work lasted only 8 years, thanks to the control of Suger and with the assistance brought by the faithful ones. New techniques - Gothic's of construction of the vaults in intersecting ribs and chorus of big size (completed in 1281), influenced the construction of other Gothic cathedrals like Chartres or Meaux. Upon reaching the transepts, the full glory of Abbot Suger's architectural vision was made manifest. The chancel is flanked by a pair of rose windows (which date to about 1170). The north rose window is consecrated to the Rod of Jesse. Some of this window is still original and some is a 19th century reconstruction. It is interesting to note that this window served as the inspiration for a window in Chartes' Cathedral. The southern window is dedicated to "God the Father" surrounded by angels, the signs of the zodiac, and the labors of the months. However, the rose windows are secondary to the magnificence of the stained glass windows that envelop the chancel! Sadly, however, little of the original glass remains today. One can only imagine what the windows and their play of light would have been like. Some of the windows are lost to time, others to war and the Revolution. Windows that Suger commissioned, one depicting the story of Charlemagne, and the other the First Crusade, have disappeared. Much of the glass seen today is of 19th century origin from the restoration work commissioned by Napoleon. The abbey was an important intellectual center at the Middle Ages: its monks were charged to write the Large Chronicles of France. During almost a millennium the funeral of the king took place there, during the famous (Le roi est mort, vive le roi) "the King is death, the King lives", guarantees monarchical perenniality. The royal badges necessary to the sacred of Rheims were deposited there (crown, sword, sceptre etc.) Almost all the queens of France were crowned there. Between the 14th and the 18th century, the bodies were deposited in Saint-Denis, but the entrails and the hearts were preserved in various convents of Paris. The revolution fell down on the abbey as on all the religious monuments symbols of old oppression; the abbey was transformed into temple of the Reason, then in store with fodder and artillery deposit. The statues were mutilated or destroyed, the royal bodies thrown in a common grave (the tombs are thus empty today). 49 lying out of bronze or copper (as well as a great part of the Treasury) was molten for the revolutionary needs. The archaeologist Alexandre Lenoir transferred the most invaluable tombs to the museum from the French Monuments which it had just created (in Chaillot today). In 1802 the abbey, very degraded, was opened with the rain and the wind. Napoleon decided in 1806 to return it to the clergy and to make the burial of the new dynasty of it. But the restoration of the 19è century also left traces... From 1830 to 1846, the Debret architect employs too heavy stones for the northern arrow (on the left)... that it should be cut down (what unbalances the frontage today). Viollet-le-Duque takes the changing and reconstitutes the building rather accurately, while working there until 1879. Raised with the row of cathedral in 1966, the old basilica accommodates from now on a bishop. The visit: one finds today still 79 sculptures. About 1260, Saint Louis makes carry out the lying one carved of all its predecessors: the faces of Dagobert, Charles Martel, Pépin the Brief are symbolic systems. It is only with the 14th century that a preoccupation with a resemblance appears, the more so as the kings make from now on carry out their tomb of their alive. With the Rebirth, the mausoleums, very worked, are built on two levels: on the higher floor, the king and the queen reign in costume of pageantry. On the lower floor, they are naked and fixed in the stiffness of death. Catherine de Médicis did not want any and ordered a statue where the sleep replaced death: one can see two works. The crypt: of Romance style, it was restored by Viollet-Le-Duque (Big Top on the vegetable subjects). . The flagstone of the central chapel covers the tomb of Louis XVI, Marie-Antoinette. In the northern transept, a common grave collected, in 1817, the remainders of the 800 kings, queens and princes of blood who had been driven out the tomb by the Revolution