Milford chronicle. [volume] (Milford, Del.) 1878-1974, 1907-01-25
q SAD OLD CHURCH.
Fine Interior Of 81. Deaia Cathedral
Now virtually a Museum.

J. ENC AnNEEAUE OA SAs AAeAAA AAA -4GAAEAal
Now virtually "a Museum.
When plsc, ana street ia front are
empty. S. Eeus carries OIL lis fallen
fortunes win something OF dignity.
Eat as ! last saw it, on spring day,
when the new cOnscripts of the year
had gathered just outside dancing,
singing, buying big paper rosettes, not
one with a thought OF Il glance to fling
% it, the church struck me as being
only IA the way, useless, out of gear
Eth the new life that had grown up
about il. preserved entirely from sense
Of duty
The % interior, so like and so IN
like Westminster Abbey, has virtually
become a museum. The royal tOmbs,
reached by that picturesque wide stair
way to the ambulatOry, suggest in
their neat rows 50 many specimens,
/ labeled and catalOgued. One cannot
see without emotion tombs like that
OF the good King DagObert-great, too,
though best remembered for the af-
fair Of the breeches in the sOng-of
Louis MI. Henry H., Francis l., with
Anill DttlAst IA Sui uIGSs VI the ldSL
of the BOurbons. with their bitter
memories BUT to follow the sacristan
as he Grones out the story learned by
heart and repeated until his very voice
betrays his boredom with the whole
business of royalty, alive or dead, is
TO see in St Denis nothing save the
show place for tourists.
A,I tI,ie, * tho cb,,,.oI, &I,ot NOT or,ov,
Notre Dame can outrival in the sancti-
ty or splendOr of its past its site che
sen by the holy man who was first
bishop, first martyr, first saint of Paris
the building founded by Ste. Gene
We've, whose first chapel over his grave
grew eventually into the church of
which the Able Sugar made the first
experiment with the pointed arch on
so large a scale-the first great Gothic
church; St. Denis, the shrine of the
Oriflamb of France, the Louvre or
Versailles of dead royalty.
And so it remains, only a Louvre or /
a Versailles, shaken by the storms of |
liberty, equality and fraternity. Pa /
triots of 1893 had no more use for
uN'lAA AON dAlN III It's lOAuU llltAlA Nv liz
royalty in its palaces. And after pa
triotism has been down among the
tombs rummaging," had played ball
with the skeletons of kings, having to
stop to hold its nose when that worst
Of old enemies, Louis XIV, appeared,
a relapse into loyalty before
the embalmed body of that old favorite,
Henry ", after royal bones and royal
ashes had been dumped into one I'M
royal common grave, after royal tombs
had been broken and royal statues mu-
tilated, there was not much left of st.
Denis. But defaced, roOfess, a haunt
Of birds of prey. it was at least an
eloquent monument to the hatred of
The third estate for kings and priests.
After the tombs, or so much of them
rs could be. were brought back by
Louis XVIII. after new noses and
lands and draperies were found for the
Door dishOnOred effigies, after the
building was rooted in, its walls mend
ID and everything generally put to
lights by interchangeable Violet lie Due, I
st. Denis was doomed to awake no
ceiling stronger than curiosity in the s
ourist 1t is the irony of fate that l
Oyalty. dead forever in France, should
est not in the capital nor in the cathe- {
Iral, but in the parish church-to this S
ank has st. Denis been degraded-of a S
,usy industrial suburb, the headquar- '
ers of anarchists. where the people 7
Who killed it are too busy to remember, '
ouch less to resent. the presence of its |
Omb among them. /
There may be other places of interest i
n the suburb of ST. Denis. l never
)oked for them. l am content with
ny last impression of it-with wide
Teets of dull shops and electric trans,
nth groups of cOnscripts, with gaunt
lctOries. with chimneys belching
moke and with the sad old church, the
ist resting place Of the royalty France
lcrifced a century ago that just such
busy Industrial town might live and
Magazine.