Tea at Trianon: Royal Burials: Basilica of St. Denis

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Tuesday, November 8, 2016

Royal Burials: Basilica of St. Denis

From Royal Central:

The Basilica of St Denis, the burial site of the Kings of France, is located in northern Paris, in the suburb of Saint-Denis. Saint Denis is a Christian martyr and patron saint of France and served as the first bishop of Paris in the third century.

The Basilica dedicated to this famous French saint is an architectural landmark, as the present building is widely considered to be the first church ever built in the Gothic style. Used for centuries as the burial place of the Kings of France and their families, the Basilica fell into disrepair with the French Revolution. The adjoining abbey was demolished in 1792, and only the Basilica proper was left standing, albeit severely damaged. Luckily the many tombs and monuments which adorned the interior had been safely hidden at the start of the Revolution and escaped destruction to be admired to this day.

All but three French kings from the 10^th century to 1789 are buried at St Denis, although in many instances the actual bodies were removed during the French Revolution to be unceremoniously dumped elsewhere, often in mass graves, and nowadays only the empty tombs remain. Napoleon reopened the church in 1806, but it was only in 1817 after the Bourbons were restored to power, that the mass graves were opened and the bones from the royal bodies collected and placed into an ossuary in the crypt of the church.

Among the kings and queens whose remains are buried in the Basilica are Clovis I, the first king of the Franks to unite all the local tribes under one ruler in the 5^th century, Louis XV and his wife Marie Leszczyńska , Louis XIV, the famous ‘Sun King’, and his Queen consort Maria Theresa of Spain, and the last King and Queen, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. (Read more.)