The Basilica is open daily; the royal tombs are shown to parties every half-hour; but the attendants hurry visitors through with perfunctory haste, and no adequate time is given to examine the monuments. Therefore, =do not go to St. Denis till after= you have seen the =Renaissance Sculpture= at the Louvre, which will have familiarised you with the style, and will enable you better to grasp their chief points quickly. Also, go =in the morning, on a bright day=: in the late afternoon or on dark days you see hardly anything.] * * * * * Start from the Gare du Nord. About four trains run every hour. There is also a tramway which starts from the Opéra, the Madeleine, or the Place du Châtelet, but the transit is long, and the weary road runs endlessly through squalid suburbs, so that the railway is far preferable. Start early. Take your opera-glasses. From the St. Denis station, take the road directly to the R as far as the modern Parish Church, when a straight street in front of you (a little to the L) leads directly to the Basilica. On the L of the Place in front of the great church is the Hôtel de Ville, on which it is interesting to notice, high up on the front, the ancient royal war-cry of “Montjoye St. Denis!” Turn to the =Basilica=. The =façade=, of the age of Abbot Suger, is very irregular. It consists of two lateral towers, and a central portion, answering to the Nave. Only the south tower is now complete; the other, once crowned by a spire, was struck by lightning in 1837. Observe the inferiority in unity of design to the fine _façade_ of Notre-Dame, the stories of the towers not answering in level to those of the central portion. We have here the same general features of two western towers and three recessed portals; but Notre-Dame has improved upon them with Gothic feeling. The lower arches are round and Romanesque. The upper ones show in many cases an incipient Gothic tendency. The =rose window= has been converted into a clock. On either side of it, in medallions, are the symbols of the four Evangelists. Observe the fine pillars and Romanesque arcade of the one complete tower. Also, the reliefs of kings of Israel and Judah in the blind arcade which caps the third story in both towers. The coarse and ugly battlements which spoil the front are part of the defensive wall of the Abbey, erected during the English wars in the 14th century. Behind them, a little way off, you can see the high and pointed roof of the nave, crowned by the statue of the patron, St. Denis.