The desecration of the tombs, 1793

The decree and the lead

Both motives must be held together, because accounts that retain only one of them lie by omission. The first is political: the Convention wants to physically erase the tombs of a monarchy it has just abolished, and Saint-Denis is the most visible site of this in France. The second is material and perfectly prosaic: the royal coffins are made of lead, the Republic is at war, and lead is used to make bullets. The official motive recorded is the latter. Eleven centuries of burials opened for metal.

What happens, concretely

They open. They separate the metal from the bodies. And they throw the remains into two mass graves dug to the north of the church, with lime to hasten decomposition. The bodies of sovereigns whose tombs, just a few metres away, staged the eternity of the dynasty—this is precisely what the transis proclaimed, and no one would have imagined that the staging would become literal. On the transis, see the page on the gisants.

The monuments, however, are not all destroyed. This is why one can still see Dagobert, Louis XII and Anne of Brittany, Francis I, Henry II, and Charles V today. Some of the tombs are dismantled, scattered, and stored away, and will return later; what is lost for good are the bodies.

1817: Louis XVIII has the graves reopened

Twenty-four years later, the Restoration wants to make amends. Louis XVIII has the remains from the two graves recovered. The problem is immediate and insoluble: there is no way to tell which bone belongs to whom. The lime has done its work, the bodies were mixed when placed in the grave, and no method of the time can resolve this. The decision is therefore made to deposit the entire mixed collection in an ossuary in the crypt, behind a plaque bearing the list of sovereigns. This is still the current state, described on the crypt page.

The two remains that are exceptions

Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette were not in the tombs of Saint-Denis in 1793: guillotined, they had been buried in the Madeleine cemetery. In January 1815, their remains were sought, found, and brought back here. Louis XVIII had two funerary praying statues erected for them, works by Edme Gaulle and Pierre Petitot. These are therefore the only two sovereigns whose exact resting place is known for certain. Details on their page.

The recurring question of Marie-Antoinette’s head is settled here: it was buried with the body at the Madeleine and transferred with it. Nothing is lost. See her page.

Louis XIV and the legend of the heart

Louis XIV, buried here in 1715, is among the bodies destroyed in 1793. There is no tomb of Louis XIV to see. However, a persistent story circulates: his heart, removed and kept separately, was allegedly sold to a painter who turned it into a brown pigment, then swallowed by an English collector. This is an unverifiable anecdote. I recount it only because it is often asked about, never as a fact: it remains a legend until someone produces evidence. Details are on the Louis XIV page.

After 1817

The 19th century continued to remodel the building. It was also the century that cost it its second tower: weakened by storms, including that of June 1845, the north tower and its spire were dismantled stone by stone between 1846 and 1847 by the architect François Debret. It has never been rebuilt — until the current project, described on La Fabrique de la Flèche and on why only one tower.

Come and see what remains of it

Reminder: what you’re booking above is entry to the royal necropolis. The nave, however, remains open without a ticket, as in any church in the diocese.

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