Built as a reliquary to house a precious religion relic – Christ’s Crown of Thorns, which St Louis bought from the Holy Roman Emperor – the Crown forms a decorative motif on some of the columns’ capitals. (The Crown is no longer housed here, having been moved to the treasury of Notre-Dame.) Louis probably got the idea of a chapel which could be accessed from his private quarters from the Holy Roman Emperor’s palace in Constantinople, and the chapel’s original entrance was located on the first floor, connecting directly to the royal apartments.
Like most Gothic buildings, there is little record about who might have designed it, although the name Pierre de Montreuil is sometimes mentioned (he completed Notre-Dame’s façade). One of the chapel’s highlights has to be the magnificent stained-glass windows, which portray over 1,000 religious scenes in a luxurious palette of rich religious hues. The Rose Window was installed later, as a gift from Charles VIII in 1485.
The chapel suffered badly during the Revolution, when its 75-metre (245-foot) steeple was destroyed and the relics removed. Because the Revolutionary authorities though it too dark to be used as an archive, they simply removed a lot of the glass, either selling it or letting it be destroyed. It was restored by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc from 1855 and became a national historic monument in 1862. Despite the ravages of history, nearly two-thirds of the windows are authentic.
Sainte-Chapelle
Opening times: 9.30am–6pm daily Mar–Oct; 9am–5pm daily Nov–Feb
(last admission 30 minutes before closing). Closed 1 Jan, 1 May, 25 Dec
Combined ticket with Conciergerie available.
Tel: 01. 53 40 60 97
Did You Know?
St Louis spent more money on the Crown of Thorns than he did on the chapel he built to house it, more than three times in fact.
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Leave the Sainte-Chapelle by turning left back up the Boulevard du Palais and take a right onto rue de Lutèce. The Marché aux Fleurs will be on your left on Place Louis-Lépine. This charming flower market, one of the last to remain in the city centre, has been located here since 1808. This lively year-round market adds a dash of colour to an otherwise arid area of stone. Its quaint metal pavilions are home to a vast array of flowers, shrubs, plants and trees, whose seasonal colours brighten this part of the city throughout the year. On Sundays there is also a Bird Market (Marché aux Oiseaux) where rare breeds are for sale along with the accessories required to take care of them.
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