Basilica of Saint-Denis in Saint-Denis, France

by Susan Flantzer
© Unofficial Royalty 2022

Basilica of Saint-Denis; Credit – © Susan Flantzer

The Basilica of Saint-Denis, which this writer has visited, is a Roman Catholic church in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis, France. The current Gothic cathedral was built in the 12th century. The Kings of France and their families were buried for centuries at the Basilica of Saint-Denis and it is often referred to as the “royal necropolis of France.” The remains of all but three monarchs of France from the 10th century until 1789 are interred at the Basilica of Saint-Denis. The basilica is named after Saint Denis, a patron saint of France, who became the first Bishop of Paris in the third century. He was decapitated on the hill of Montmartre and is said to have carried his head to the site of the current church, indicating where he wanted to be buried.

Saint Denis holding his head – Notre Dame de Paris; Credit – Wikipedia

A shrine-mausoleum was erected on the site of Saint Denis’ grave in about 313 AD. It was enlarged into a basilica with the addition of tombs and monuments and became a place of pilgrimage during the fifth and sixth centuries. Dagobert, King of the Franks (reigned 628 to 637) re-founded the church as the Abbey of Saint-Denis, a Benedictine monastery, and commissioned a new shrine to house Saint Denis’ remains. Abbot Suger (lived c. 1081 – 1151), a confidant of French kings and Abbot of Saint-Denis from 1122, began work around 1135 to rebuild and enlarge the Abbey of Saint-Denis into the Gothic cathedral we see today.

The interior of the Basilica of St. Denis; Credit – By Rita1234 – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8784509

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Coronations of the Queen of France

The Coronation in Saint-Denis of Marie de Medici by Peter Paul Rubens; Credit – Wikipedia

Not all Queens of France, wives of the Kings of France, were crowned. A queen’s coronation could take place years after her marriage or her husband’s accession to the throne. Queens of France were crowned either together with their husband at Notre-Dame de Reims, or alone at Sainte-Chapelle or the Basilica of Saint-Denis. Marie de Medici, the wife of King Henri IV, was the last of Queen of France to be crowned. She was crowned ten years after her marriage and her husband was assassinated the day after her coronation.

The Queens of France who were crowned at the Basilica of Saint-Denis include the following:

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Destruction and Restoration

Violation of the royal tombs of Saint-Denis by Hubert Robert (Musée Carnavalet, Paris); Credit – https://uk.tourisme93.com/basilica/desecration-of-the-royal-tombs.html

During the French Revolution, the remains of French royals were desecrated and some tombs and effigies were destroyed. By the decree on August 1, 1793, the National Convention ordered: “The tombs and mausoleums of the former kings, mounted in the Church of Saint-Denis, in temples and in other places, across the entire Republic, will be destroyed.”  This occurred systematically from August 1793 – October 1793. The remains of 46 kings, 32 queens, and 63 other royals were thrown into two large pits in the monks’ cemetery adjacent to the Basilica of  Saint-Denis and covered in quicklime and soil. A combination of seventy effigies and tombs were saved because of the efforts of archaeologist Alexandre Lenoir who claimed them as artworks for his Museum of French Monuments.

Crypt where Louis VII, Louis de Lorraine, Louis XVI, Marie-Antoinette, and Louis XVIII are buried at Saint-Denis; Credit – By Fbrandao.1963 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=64407677

Napoleon I, Emperor of the French reopened the Basilica of Saint-Denis in 1806 but left the royal remains in their mass graves. One of the first things King Louis XVIII, a younger brother of the guillotined King Louis XVI, did after the Bourbon Restoration in 1814 was to order a search for the remains of his brother and sister-in-law, King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette. They had been originally been buried in the cemetery at the Madeleine Church and covered with quicklime. The few remains that were found were reburied at the Basilica of Saint-Denis on January 21, 1815, the twenty-second anniversary of King Louis XVI’s execution.

Door leading to the crypt where the desecrated royal remains were re-interred at Saint-Denis. The large plaques on either side of the door are engraved with the names of those who were re-interred; Credit – © Susan Flantzer

In 1817, King Louis XVIII ordered the mass graves adjacent to the Basilica of Saint-Denis to be opened but due to the damage from the quicklime, identification of the remains was impossible. The remains were collected into an ossuary, a site serving as the final resting place of human skeletal remains, in the crypt of the basilica. Large marble plates on either side of the gated door leading to the crypt are engraved with the names of those whose remains are buried in the crypt. The seventy effigies and tombs that Alexandre Lenoir saved were returned to the Basilica of Saint-Denis and are now mostly in their original places.

Some of the effigies rescued and preserved by archaeologist Alexandre Lenoir; Credit – © Susan Flantzer

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The Heart of Louis-Charles, Dauphin of France, son of King Louis XVI

Louis-Charles, Dauphin of France, son of King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette, and sometimes called King Louis XVII, died from tuberculosis on June 8, 1795, at the age of ten while imprisoned at the Temple, the remains of a medieval fortress in Paris. He was buried at the Cimetière Sainte-Marguerite in Paris in a grave without any marker. However, before Louis-Charles was buried, an autopsy was performed. Following the tradition of preserving royal hearts, Louis-Charles’s heart was removed and smuggled out during the autopsy by Dr. Philippe-Jean Pelletan, a royalist, who then preserved the heart in alcohol. After the Bourbon Restoration in 1815, Dr. Pellatan offered the heart to Louis-Charles’ paternal uncle King Louis XVIII but he refused because he could not bring himself to believe that it was the heart of his nephew. Following the July Revolution in 1830, Dr. Pelletan’s son found the heart in the remnants of a looted palace and placed it in the crystal urn where it still resides. After the death of Dr. Pelletan’s son in 1879, Eduard Dumont, a relative of Dr. Pelletan’s wife, took possession of the heart.

Louis-Charles’ heart in the crystal urn; Photo Credit – © Susan Flantzer

In 1895, Carlos, Duke of Madrid, the Legitimist claimant to the French throne, accepted the heart from Eduard Dumont. The heart was kept at Schloss Frohsdorf near Vienna, Austria. Upon the death of his father Carlos, Duke of Madrid in 1909, Jaime, Duke of Madrid, the next Legitimist claimant to the French throne, inherited the heart and gave it to his sister Beatriz.

During World War II, Schloss Frohsdorf suffered damage and the heart was rescued by descendants of Carlos, Duke of Madrid and ultimately came into the possession of his granddaughter Princess Marie des Neiges Massimo. In 1975, the princess offered the heart to the Memorial of Saint-Denis in Paris, the organization that oversees the royal graves at the Basilica of St. Denis. The heart was placed in an underground crypt at the basilica where the remains of French royals that were desecrated during the French Revolution were subsequently interred.

In 2004, DNA tests using mitochondrial DNA proved the heart really did belong to Louis-Charles. Comparison samples were taken from descendants of Marie Antoinette’s sisters, members of the Bourbon-Parma family including Queen Anne of Romania who was born a Princess of Bourbon-Parma, and a strand of Marie Antoinette’s hair. With the approval of the French government, the Legitimists organized a ceremony at the Basilica of St. Denis on June 8, 2004, the 209th anniversary of Louis-Charles’ death. His heart was placed in a niche near the graves of his parents Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette whose remains were transferred to the basilica in 1815.

The resting place of Louis-Charles’ heart; Photo Credit – © Susan Flantzer

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Royal Burials

*Unofficial Royalty article

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_des_personnes_enterr%C3%A9es_dans_la_basilique_Saint-Denis

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Works Cited

  • Basilique cathédrale de Saint-Denis. 2022. Basilique cathédrale de Saint-Denis. [online] Available at: <http://www.saint-denis-basilique.fr/en/> [Accessed 14 March 2022].
  • En.wikipedia.org. 2022. Basilica of Saint-Denis – Wikipedia. [online] Available at: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilica_of_Saint-Denis> [Accessed 14 March 2022].
  • Flantzer, Susan, 2018. French Royal Burial Sites – House of Bourbon, House of Bonaparte, House of Orléans. [online] Unofficial Royalty. Available at: <https://www.unofficialroyalty.com/current-monarchies-article-index/french-royal-index/french-burial-sites-house-of-bourbon-house-of-bonaparte-house-of-orleans/> [Accessed 14 March 2022].
  • Flantzer, Susan, 2019. French Royal Burial Sites – House of Valois. [online] Unofficial Royalty. Available at: <https://www.unofficialroyalty.com/french-royal-burial-sites-house-of-valois/> [Accessed 14 March 2022].
  • Fr.wikipedia.org. 2022. Basilique Saint-Denis — Wikipédia. [online] Available at: <https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilique_Saint-Denis> [Accessed 14 March 2022].
  • Fr.wikipedia.org. 2022. Liste des personnes enterrées dans la basilique Saint-Denis — Wikipédia. [online] Available at: <https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_des_personnes_enterr%C3%A9es_dans_la_basilique_Saint-Denis> [Accessed 14 March 2022].