Holy Ghost: Basilique Cathédrale de Saint Denis

Saint-Denis was one determined bishop or so goes the legend. Instead of collapsing in a bloody heap after his head was lopped off in Montmartre, he gathered it up and ambled off to another little village (the current St-Denis) to expire. Thus began the locale’s star turn as a necropolis. Not surprisingly St-Denis is now the patron saint of headaches! In the 5thC Saint-Geneviève built a church over St-Denis’ tomb. In the 7thC, the king with the best name ever, Dagobert, built a royal monastery on the site and was later entombed here. Forty-two kings, 32 queens and 63 princes and princesses now reside with him in stony silence in the Basilique Cathédrale de Saint Denis. My favourites among them: Louis the Fat, Charles the Bald, Pepin the Short, Charles the Simple, Philip the Fortunate, Louis the Quarrelsome, Robert the Pious, Charles the Hammer, Bertha Bigfoot, Joan the Lame, Catherine de Medicis and Marie Antoinette (aka Madame Deficit with her much burnished bosoms). Despite the magnificence of the cathedral’s right royal funerary sculptures, flying buttresses and stained-glass rose window, tourists are relatively few. St-Denis is a gritty, not so glossy side of Paris; heavily Muslim, predominantly poor with high unemployment rates. That spells ‘no-go’ to some and sure it’s not without its problems but there’s a vibrancy and vibe here; especially during the summer-long La Fabrique à Rêves (free concerts, balls, exhibitions, theatre, open air cinema) and throughout the year on market days (Sundays in particular) when stalls spill untidily from the covered Marché de Saint Denis, one of the largest in Paris, and curl out into the tiny streets. Women in fluid robes and headdress flit between garish carpets stalls and mint tea sellers as Indian dress-makers and North African spice sellers jostle for custom next to sugary pastries and Halal meats, and corn sellers flick grilled cobs in front of shops stocked high with luminous abayas and tunics. The royals would turn in their graves if they could – but it’s even crowded in there. During the Revolution, workers were instructed to toss the bodies into two pits where they remained until Emperor N. reopened the church in 1806. All blueblood bones apparently look alike so they were all bundled into an ossuary in the crypt; marble plates tacked up outside to mark the names of the monarchs. The ornate statues upstairs bear witness to how they once gracefully reposed.