The Ile de la Cité is the island in the Seine River where Paris’ history began.  It was a tribal center even before the Romans established a garrison there.  As the earliest seat of the French monarchy, the island was the obvious choice when King Louis IX wanted to erect the most prestigious religious edifice in his realm.  That was Sainte-Chapelle, or the Holy Chapel, which was added to the old royal palace in 1248.

          Apparently, Louis IX was as credulous as he was pious.  Many medieval Christians shared his belief in the power of relics to cure disease and bestow a wide range of earthly benefits.  The devout king spent half of France’s annual income to purchase Jesus’ purported Crown of Thorns.  He bought other similarly sanctified fragments of wood and bone as well.  These had to be housed in a suitably splendid setting, a chapel that would look like a gigantic, bejeweled reliquary.

          As a result, Sainte-Chapelle’s stained glass windows seem to enclose the visitor in walls of colored light.  The fifteen windows, each fifteen meters in height, contain more than a hundred Biblical scenes.  They are examples of the best High Gothic glass art.   The majority of them are original, a fact that astonished me.  The other windows were replicated over the course of the 18th and 19th Centuries.  Victor Hugo, among other notables,  championed the preservation of Sainte-Chapelle.  Many modern glass restoration techniques were first developed during the lengthy rescue project.

          Sainte-Chapelle has not been a place of worship since the Revolution, when the shrine’s gold, silver and gems were looted and most of the relics lost.  The Crown of Thorns escaped destruction — some might say, miraculously—and now is kept in the Cathedral of Notre Dame. 


       The chapel has 140 pillars, supporting the gilded fan vaulting characteristic of the Rayonnant (Radiant) Gothic style.

I did not intensify the colors in this photograph.  In fact, this picture hardly does justice to the richness of the windows’ hues.

Miri, HL and I took advantage of one of the large mirrors on the chapel’s ground floor for a group picture.

The exterior of the chapel forms a Gothic stone frame for the stained glass and gilding.

Like all the best Gothic churches,
Sainte-Chapelle has its complement of gargoyles.