Coming to Paris? You MUST DO THIS

Sainte Chapelle

I had never heard of St. Chapelle in my previous sojourns to Paris. That’s pretty amazing, considering it is one of the most FABULOUS things to see in all of Europe!

       

Commissioned by Louis IX in the year 1239 [NOT A TYPO — 1239!], the windows are almost 50 ft. high.  There are more than 1,330 Old and New Testament figures etched in the gorgeous panes of glass.  It was built to house the king’s religious relics, including Christ’s crown of thorns (reputedly).  But it wasn’t meant to be only a warehouse — it was built to awe, to impress, and to increase his political power.  I wonder if we could build anything like that today! You know, my mind thinks, “Oh, 1239, they were living in grass huts and raising pigs.”  Hard to image the skill and artistry, without the technology. Built in only seven years!  Smart, talented people.

  

The Chapel was severely damaged by the mobs during the French Revolution and was left to decay until the mid 1800s.  Then it suffered damage again during the bombings in 1945 from flying shrapnel and debris.  It has undergone numerous restorations over multiple centuries and most recently reopened in 2015. It took seven years to dismantle the windows into small panels and clean them with lasers.  (Seven years, the time it took to build it originally, 766 years earlier!) Again, amazing.

The royal palace around the chapel has long since disappeared and St. Chapelle is now surrounded by the Palais de Justice. The Conciergerie, where Marie Antoinette was held before her date with the guillotine, is next door.

Interesting side note — One of Louis IX’s most lasting legacies, besides St. Chapelle, was the introduction of presumption of innocence in criminal courts – which didn’t exist until then!

   

We waited 1.5+ hours to get inside.  Go on a bright, sunny day.  It’s absolutely a “DO NOT MISS!”

On a separate note — in the most recent ESL class that I facilitated, we discussed “Weddings – and Who Pays!”  Several people had written paragraphs in English about a wedding that they found interesting.  One man wrote, “The wedding was wonderful and pathetic.”

He had looked up the definition in his French/English dictionary and it said, ‘An event or emotion that is emotionally moving.’  I explained that pathetic always has a negative connotation — the abuse of animals is pathetic. Although the wedding was emotionally moving, it WASN’T pathetic! We all laughed.

Bisous et À bientôt !

And can you believe that SNOW in Atlanta!!!  Shutting down the city!  And 2 degrees (fahrenheit!) in Tulsa…maybe all the rain here “ain’t so bad!”