Last weekend, we made the long ride on line 13 north of town to the Basilica of St. Denis, named for the saint who was bishop of Paris around the year 250. Beheaded on what is today Montmartre, he apparently picked up his head (which continued to preach the gospel) and kept walking for five miles, collapsing finally on the spot of the current cathedral. But whether you buy into this story or not, the true significance of the church in more recent history has been its role as burial site for virtually every French king since Dagobert in the 7th century. During the French revolution, the church was heavily vandalized and the remains of the monarchy thrown into a mass grave. Later, the bones were reinterred in an ossuary in the crypt; today cenotaphs (funereal monuments without remains) are placed throughout the church.

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