The story of this place
When Abbot Suger rebuilt the choir of Saint-Denis and dedicated it in 1144, flooding it with light through pointed arches and vast windows, he inadvertently launched the Gothic style that would sweep Europe. Just as significant is its role as the royal necropolis of France: from the early Middle Ages to 1789, nearly every French king was buried here, their tombs a gallery of recumbent effigies from Dagobert to Louis XVI. During the Revolution, in 1793, the mob desecrated the tombs, exhuming royal remains and flinging them into common pits. Restored in the 19th century, the basilica gathered the scattered effigies back—a stone parliament of the dead monarchy.