9 months to Paris, day 282

There is a Basilique to the north of Paris.  The majority of people go to Paris and see the typical tourist items.  The Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, the Sacre Couer, Notre Dame, and Montmartre.   After all, these are the attractions most advertised, and recommended.  However, there is a Basilique in the Parisian Suburb of St. Denis.

This Basilique is on the end of metro line 13, to the north of Paris.  This large imposing edifice is home to 90%  of the Kings and Queens of France.  The area itself is blue collar, and not one which would bring the term tourist friendly to mind.  But, oh, once you come up from the Metro Station, though a small pedestrian area with the largest Carrefour market that I have ever seen, and you find this Gothic Church, any reservations you had about coming here are long gone.

You watch the short film in the visitor center, buy your self a ticket in the churchyard,  you push those enormous wooden doors open, and suddenly you are enveloped by this massive church that was built in the 12th Century.  You look towards the Nave, and the sun is streaming though stained glass windows, and even if there is not a religious bone in your body, you feel humbled.  The smell is a bit of incense that had been burned, a bit of dust, and the ever present Parisian smell of age.  You stand in awe.  There is no other way to say it, but awe.

You start to walk around.  You see Louis XVI and his Austrian wife, Marie Antoinette's crypt. You see Henri II and Catherine de Medici's. The sculpturing is of such magnitude that you can see the embroidery that would have been on Catherine's dress.  You stand there and wonder at the amount of time that it must have taken to produce this. Before you know it, you have spent several hours in this house.  You read of people that existed before your homeland was even a thought in anyone's mind. You wonder what these people have died from. You wonder at the unmarked tomb featuring the likeness of a beautiful woman.  Who was she? Why is there no mention of her name?

This is the Paris, the France that sucks me in.  The history buff in me wants to know about these people. I want to know how this church survived all these years, though two World Wars.  I want to know what the sculpture on the outside of the building means.  You walk a bit more, and resign yourself to what you have been able to see.  You leave, pushing that door open one more time. You walk back to the Metro Station, and wait for the train.  You arrive back in Paris, and you walk past Notre Dame, on the Ile de Cite.  The tourists are there in throngs.  The beggars are following them.  You push through the crowd and you want to scream to them, "You are in the wrong church!" "Come with me and let me show you where history is sleeping!"  But alas, you just walk on, over the Pont St. Louis, in the fading light of the day. Humbled.