Dark sights in Paris
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A
Basilique de St-Denis
St-Denis Basilica was the burial place for all but a handful of France’s kings and queens from Dagobert I (r 629–39) to Louis XVIII (r 1814–24), constituting one of Europe’s most important collections of funerary sculpture; today the remains of 43 kings and 32 queens repose here. The single-towered basilica, begun around 1136, was the first major structure to be built in the Gothic style, serving as a model for other 12th-century French cathedrals, including the one at Chartres. Features illustrating the transition from Romanesque to Gothic can be seen in the choir and double ambulatory, which are adorned with a number of 12th-century stained-glass windows. The na…
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B
La Conciergerie
The Conciergerie was built as a royal palace in the 14th century for the concierge of the Palais de la Cité, but later lost favour with the kings of France and became a prison and torture chamber. During the Reign of Terror (1793–94) it was used to incarcerate alleged enemies of the Revolution before they were brought before the Revolutionary Tribunal, which met next door in the Palais de Justice. Among the almost 2800 prisoners held in the dungeons here (in various ‘classes’ of cells, no less) before being sent in tumbrels to the guillotine were Queen Marie-Antoinette and, as the Revolution began to turn on its own, the radicals Danton, Robespierre and, finally, the judg…
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