The Basilica of Saint-Denis – A History of the French Royal Burial Site

by Susan Flantzer
© Unofficial Royalty 2019

Basilica of Saint-Denis; Credit – © Susan Flantzer

The Basilica of Saint-Denis in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis is the burial place of the Kings of France with nearly every king from the 10th to the 18th centuries being buried there, as well as many from previous centuries. The current Gothic cathedral was built in the 12th century. 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

The church that was built on the site of Saint-Denis’ grave 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 into the Gothic cathedral we see today.

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 Saint-Denis.

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.

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

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 Saint-Denis on January 21, 1815, the twenty-second anniversary of Louis XVI’s execution.

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

In 1817, King Louis XVIII ordered the mass graves adjacent to 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 Saint-Denis and are now mostly in their original places.

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

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

In 2004, the mummified heart of Louis-Charles, Dauphin of France, son of King Louis XVI, and sometimes called King Louis XVII, was placed in a sealed niche by the graves of his parents. Louis-Charles died in 1795 of tuberculosis at the age of ten while imprisoned.

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