Ile de la Cité

Steve's legs were really feeling yesterday's walk-a-thon, so I went off on my own to visit Saint-Chapelle, Notre-Dame, and whatever else caught my fancy in the oldest part of Paris.

I went straight to Sainte-Chapelle and arrived a few minutes before it opened, but there was already a line with maybe 25 people in it. About 15 minutes after opening I was through security (it's right next to a courthouse, in fact the very courthouse where people were sentenced to be guillotined... more on that in a minute) and on my way inside. First you enter a lower chapel where "regular" people worshiped. My favorite thing about it was the paint; as strange as it still seems to me, many of the Gothic churches we love to visit used to have painted interiors instead of the clean gray stone we see today.

Then I headed up a tight spiral staircase to the most beautiful stained glass I have ever seen, by a long shot:

The pictures don't do it justice at all... just go visit if you're ever in Paris. But don't be like me and forget that it's a chapel and expect something much bigger, oops. But the detail work is just incredible, especially considering it was constructed in the 1200s! You can't really see in the pictures, but the Biblical characters all have expressive faces, too.

Then I went next door to La Conciergerie, which was a prison that was part of Louis IX's Palais de la Cité complex. Today it houses court-related offices and a museum about the French revolution. You enter into La Salle des Gens d'Armes, or the Hall of the Guards, which dates from the 13th century like Sainte-Chapelle:

I breezed through the rest of the museum, but it was interesting that the cell that had housed Marie-Antoinette before her execution has been turned into a chapel. Another room showed the 2700+ names of those who had been held at the Conciergerie and later executed during the Reign of Terror, including, in the midst of a regular, alphabetized list, Louis XVI, Marie-Antoinette, and Robespierre. Vive la revolution...? Oh, let's not forget the guillotine blade:

Lovely.

From there I wound my way to Notre-Dame, where I took a million pictures of the façade, maybe because it's so iconic and I couldn't believe I was actually there?

 

To be honest, the interior was pretty underwhelming, considering other churches I've seen. It was packed, and after the stained glass of Sainte-Chapelle, it wasn't too exciting. Except for how hiiiiiigh that ceiling is.

Until a choir started singing unexpectedly (to me, anyway) at 11 a.m.! All of a sudden I heard chant coming from somewhere, and thought it was a recording until I saw them lining up in front of the altar. They sang a variety of pieces, from Lauridsen's (I think) "O nata lux" to Tippett's "Steal Away" to Mozart's "Laudate Dominum" with a soloist that looked much younger than her voice sounded... Overall it was beautiful. Not perfect, but the historian in me gets overwhelmed hearing music in a place where there's been singing for centuries.

The sculptures along the back of the choir were impressive... this one is scenes after Jesus' resurrection.

Back outside, I gawked for a while at the portals over the doors. I particularly enjoyed the Judgement Day scene complete with demons ushering souls to hell:

Again, the detail just amazes me.

On my way home to meet Steve for lunch, I stopped by Saint-Séverin in the Latin Quarter, which mostly dates from the 1489-1520ish. A small congregation was in the middle of mass, so I didn't fully explore, but I'd like to go back.

I meandered home, we went out for a three-course lunch that was affordable and delicious, stopped at Shakespeare and Company, and walked to La Schola Cantorum and then Steve's meeting. He's going to be busy during this program, but we both think he's going to really enjoy it.

Definitely time to get some rest, especially since I'm getting up early to go to Versailles tomorrow (hooray!), and the cold that has been threatening since we left KC is finally here (boo!). Maybe I'll finally stop sneezing in my sleep!