The Monmouth inquirer., 1926-03-11
ST. DENIS, FRANCES
WESTMINSTER ABBEY
Resting Place of Most of
French Royalty.

mill Of the days news the name of st.
Denis, a little French city just outside
the northern gates Of Paris. Resi-
dents of the island of st. Denis. which
is In the river opposite the city of st.
Denis, and those along the river bank.
were forced to flee to higher ground,
some of them taking refuge in the city
barracks.
"Outwardly st. Denis is one of the
says bulletin from the Washington
I'd. C.) headquarters Of the National
Geographic society Most travellers
on the Nord railway from England or
Belgium, who catch only fleeing
glimpse of smoking chimneys and rail-
road yards from the car windows, are
content to let a glance suffice.
"St. Denis, however, merits more of
the worlds attention. the bulletin
continues. "Paradoxically this busy
little industrial center of today is one
of the mother cities of art, as well as
the final resting place of most of the
royalty of France. Although little
visited in comparison to Versailles,
Fontainebleau or the chateau coun-
try, st. Denis has church that was
among the first churches to embrace
the Gothic style of architecture, con-
sidered by some critics the greatest
single advance in temple building
since Greek and Roman days.
'Within the church, or, more proper
i Ixr %ho Doe;Iioo ~ Dapfc t.
liable museum of French sepulcher
sculpture, marble efigies of thirty
generations of kings, and queens, and
other nobility of France. In fact from
the tombs of ST. Denis the names for
an almost complete Who's Who OF
ancient and medieval France could be
copied. Marie Antoinette, Due de
Berry. Catherine de Medici Louis
XIV, Louis XVI, Louis Kill and host
of other Louis, Anne of Brittany,
Marie Teresse. Henri II, and scores of
others sleep their last sleep here in
obscurity, but a few miles from the
scenes of their former power and
grandeur.
Legend of ST. Denis.
eft is into the we'll of legendary lore
that one must dip to find anything of
the city's early history According to
legend ST Denis, the first bishop of
Paris, suffered martyrdom on Mont
martre in Paris about the year 270,
and walked with his head in his hands
TO the site of the present Basilica Of
/ st. Denis. On the initiative of st.
Genevieve the clergy of Paris built
chapel over his grave two centuries
later.
"The place soon became mecca for
religious pilgrims from all parts of
France. ST. Denis witnessed deluges
of people in the Middle ages, which
caused her far more concern than
those of water today In the Twelfth
century Able Sugar reports that he
saw worshipers crushed to death by
the crowds pressing in behind them.
1t was obvious that the small chapel
first erected was inadequate. When
Sugar came into power he enlarged
the crypt and above it built a choir,
with tall slender columns supporting
the intersecting arches of the vault.
although the new style of building
was not invented at St Denis, it had
never been very seriously considered
| by former builders because it was not
believed possible to support heavy
! roofs without heavy, massive walls.
Pilgrim reports of the success of the
venture at St Denis resulted, for
| time, in wholesale transformations of
| churches from sturdy Romanesque
| into airy Gothic The Gothic style is
being employed today in the new ca
thedrals at Washington and at New
York.
"Many personages and highlights of
world history have been intimately as
ISOLATED with the Basilica of st. Denis.
One of the popes, Stephen III took
refuge here from the Lombards.
Charlemagne, founder of the Holy
Roman empire. was anointed by the
same pope during his residency at St
Denis. Joan of Arc dedicated her
armor on its altar Here Napoleon
was married to Archduchess Marie
Louise. Once it was sacked by the
English. During the French Revolu-
ton, however, it suffered most.
Mark Twain's Impressions.
Mark Twain found the sculpture of
st. Denis particularly impressive, so
impressive, In fact that he placed
Charlemagne's tomb here, although
the saint is really buried at AK. 1T
seemed curious he wrote, to be
standing face to face. as it were, with
old Dagobert l, and Clovis, and
Charlemagne, those vague colossal
heroes, those shadows, those myths of
thousand years ago touched
their dust-covered faces with my fin
ger, but Dagobert was deader than the
sixteen centuries that have passed
over him. Clovis slept well after his
labor for Christ, and old Charlemagne
went on dreaming of his paladins, of
bloody Roncesvalles, and gave no heed
to me-
"The present city of st. Denis is
linkad with Paris nv railroad high