The Churches of Paris, from Clovis to Charles X — John Shaqi
The Churches of Paris, from Clovis to Charles XBeale, Sophia
History
The Churches of Paris, from Clovis to Charles X
Beale, Sophia
Church buildings -- France -- Paris; Paris (France) -- Buildings, structures, etc.
The most important event of the 13th century connected with the
Sainte-Chapelle was the translation of some of S. Louis' bones from S.
Denis, in which church they had been laid twenty-seven years previously
upon their arrival from Tunis, where the king had died of fever on the
25th August, 1270. Feeling his last moments to have arrived, he caused
his body to be placed upon a bed of ashes, and wearing the habit of the
third order of S. Francis, his noble spirit passed away. He was
embalmed, according to the fashion of the day; or rather, his bones were
relieved of their outer casements, by boiling in wine and water; other
parts of his body, which it is unnecessary to specify, being given by
his son to the King of Sicily, who placed them in the church of
Monreale, Palermo. The young Comte de Nevers had died just before S.
Louis; and Alfonso de Brienne, Comte d'Eu, son of John de Brienne, King
of Jerusalem, and the Chevalier Pierre, the King's chamberlain, had also
succumbed to the unhealthy climate. The funeral procession set out, and
wended its way towards France under the care of S. Louis' son, Philippe
le Hardi. Arriving at Paris, the bodies were placed temporarily in
Notre-Dame on the 21st of May; and the next day, amidst a large
concourse of people, the procession, consisting of clergy, and
religious, started early for S. Denis, Philippe, reverently bearing his
father's bones, walking like the rest. Up through the city they went,
singing and chanting, and taking much the same route as had been
traversed by S. Denis and his companions, after their martyrdom, as
recorded by the old chroniclers. In an engraving by Boulogne a long
procession of monks and knights is seen issuing from the abbey to meet
another coming from Paris, the king and bishops being dressed in that
peculiar high wind-blown drapery common to pictorial art in the 17th and
18th centuries. S. Louis' bones were placed in a stone coffin and
buried in front of the altar of the Holy Trinity, near the resting place
of the bodies of Louis VIII. and Philippe Auguste. Philippe le Hardi's
wife, Isabelle, and Tristan, Comte de Nevers, were placed on the right;
the chevalier Pierre, who, as chamberlain, had the privilege of sleeping
in the King's chamber, was laid at his feet. In 1292, Henri de
Luxembourg caused the relics to be placed in a silver shrine and
conveyed to the Sainte-Chapelle by the Archbishops of Reims and Lyon;
but after some days they were returned to S. Denis, and it was not until
1306 that Philippe le Bel succeeded in his desire of placing the remains
of his grandfather in the chapel which was so dear to him, that he felt
a _malaise_ each time he heard the divine offices elsewhere. The Bull of
canonization was promulgated by Pope Boniface VIII. in 1297, and the
translation of the king's skull followed nine years later, accompanied
by all the picturesque pomp of the 14th century. The reliquary was in
the form of a gold bust of natural size, enriched with precious stones,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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