Lila and Rene warned us against an excursion to St Denis as being too hazardous a trip for two ladies. This particular ban lieu had its share of riots and car burnings protesting the unfairness of the French educational system or the like. Mari and I approached the trip with the same sense of adventure and appetite we had approached our excursios when we were twenty.
The Metro was direct from Jussieu to St Denis. We ascended into an large square bright with sun shine. There was an open air market shaded by awnings on one side of the square Marianna shopped for a steamer. There were no bargains, but open air markets have a charm for those of us who do not experience them at home. The occupants of the quarter passed the fabulous church without looking to the left or the right; it was so familiar it had no existence for them. Here for centuries was the burial place of the kings and queens of France. This first of the great “gothic” structures, the chef d’oeuvre of Abbot Suger.
Suger was the rare and perfect combination of brilliance, good taste, great connections an excellent education and an open mind. He had the good fortune to be a class mate of Louis VI, he who married Eleanor of Aquitaine. (Suger approved) and later divorced her, (Suger disapproved). Suger was right but that is a whole different story.
The Abbot took it upon himself to modernize and expand the church at St Denis, already ancient and full of history in the twelfth century, where the sepulchers of the Kings and Queens of France reside.
The theory of the flying buttress was at that moment nascent and Suger saw it as the possibility to allow light to fill the church for the glory of the Divine and rescue it from its dark enclosed Romanesque beginning. As he was very well connected with the aristocracy finding the money for the enterprise was not as difficult as it might have been for a lesser person. The story goes that although he begged for money for the nave and rose window which would have made the church useable, he delayed the restoration of that part of the building until the end fearing the money would dry up once the impressive front of the church was complete.
He understood the physics and applied geometry of the pointed arch with keystone and the flying buttress as the methods by which the weight of the building would rest on an exterior skeleton allowing the interior to be filled with light filtered through stained glass. St Denis was the beginning of what would be the most fabulous works of man ever to be raised to God.
Mari and I completed our visit and enquired about a restaurant for lunch. We found a working class Algerian local. We were welcomed by the maitre d’ and waiter who treated us like royalty. We ate the best Algerian couscous I have ever eaten, covered with lamb gravy. And we were surrounded by happy noisy natives..
