“The origin of Notre Dame is enveloped in mystery. Whether its first bishop, St. Denis, or Dionysius, was the Areopagite converted by St. Paul’s preaching at Athens, and sent by St. Clement to preach the Gospel to the Parisians, or whether he was another personage of the same name who was sent into Gaul in the third century and martyred during the persecutions under Decius, it is impossible to say, as there is no evidence of any value. Certain it is, however, that the first bishop of Paris bore the name of Denis, and that he suffered martyrdom, with his two companions Rusticus and Eleutherius, on the summit of the hill now called Montmartre. Tradition went so far as to point out the spot where they first gathered their followers together--the crypt of Notre Dame des Champs; also the prison where our Lord appeared to them and strengthened them with His Holy Body and Blood at St. Denis de la Chartre; the place, at St. Denis du Pas, where they suffered their first tortures; and lastly, Montmartre, where they were beheaded. But, with the exception of the latter, all these holy spots have disappeared. So, too, have the crosses which marked the route taken by the Saint, when he carried his head to the place chosen for his burial, at St. Denis. An ancient church covered the remains of the three saints until the present splendid building was erected, in the reign of Dagobert I. Under the Roman dominion, Paris was comprised in the fourth Lyonnaise division, of which Sens was the metropolis. Hence the bishops of Paris acknowledged the Archbishop of Sens as their primate until 1622, when, at the request of Louis XIII., Pope Gregory XV. raised Paris to the see of an archbishopric. The succession has consisted of one hundred and nine bishops and fifteen archbishops, eight of whom have been raised to the dignity of Cardinal. Besides St. Denis six have been venerated as Saints: Marcel, in the fifth century; Germain, in the sixth century; Ceran, Landry, and Agilbert in the seventh, and Hugues in the eighth century.”