Kings and Horses

In the Basilica of Saint Denis rest 43 kings, 32 queens, and 60 princes and princesses.

All but five of all the French kings in history, in fact. But don’t ask me who these are in our featured photo, because I forgot, and frankly nobody seems to know for sure where their bodies are. During the worst part of the French Revolution some mob came here and tore open all of the crypts and threw all the remains outside in a ditch. They felt a common grave was all they deserved. Later, I think it was 1817, efforts were made to dig up all the bones, figure out whose they might be, and put them all in a small vault off to the side, with long lists of names. It was extremely claustrophobic in there. Most people look at all of the carved figures that have been restored more or less in their rightful places and don’t worry about the remains.

This hallowed place is now in the ‘hood, just north of Paris. I was surprised at how many people were there visiting on a random Monday. It was not a place that was recommended to stay–as someone posted “feral gangs of Africans roam the streets” –but I was more concerned about it just being depressing for my last day in France. So I found a nice place in a western suburb about an hour’s drive from Saint-Denis, and traversed the northern banlieues and back again in Skoda. It was a bit insane, but only a couple of times did I find myself in a situation so ridiculous that I could only cower and think “Please don’t hit me, please don’t hit me,” as I inched across intersections with traffic coming from four or five sides, no traffic circle, no sensible lines, lanes, or signs. It helped that I was getting pretty used to driving a 5-speed manual one-handed while holding my phone in the other hand.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First I went down to the oldest crypt, where St. Denis himself was first buried in the year 250. There is a hole near the front where he was, and my shadow is, but now his remains rest upstairs in a very elaborate golden thing that is oddly small. Perhaps just his skull, or big toe is left. Catholics cannot get enough of that kind of thing. I find it nauseating. I wonder if that is bred into me, as the descendant of Huguenots, Anabaptists, and English dissenters. The Wars of Religion live on.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Speaking of bits of old corpses, the actual heart of Marie-Antoinette’s and Louis XVI’s last son is here. He was called The Dauphin, because that is what the heir to the throne was traditionally called, and he was never officially crowned. But after his dad was executed he was basically the legal king of France, though just a boy. He was taken from his mother and treated horrifically and then disappeared. For many years pretenders would show up and say they were The Dauphin. Many years later, his last doctor divulged that when the boy Louis died, he had taken his heart and saved it, as you do. In the year 2000, they got a piece of Marie-Antoinette’s hair from relics in Austria, and did DNA tests on the heart, and determined that it was indeed Louis XVII’s heart, as they call him in the crypt. Perhaps they didn’t want any more pretenders claiming descent from him, and rallying the French around the Bourbons again, to resurrect their country from the morass of self-doubt in which it flounders. That odd-looking bit of dried beef is the heart in a crystal jar, I guess. Above it there is a bas relief of a boy in profile, with long hair. What man would be king at that point? I saw a tableau of statues of Marie-Antoinette and Louis XVI, next to a faded Oriflamme, the pennant of royalty that was raised at the front of the army as the king went into battle.

 

 

 

I wonder at the notion of kings, and how they were seen as the embodiment of the people as a whole. Whose care and well-being was entrusted to them. People here miss that. In a conversation about our governments, a Frenchman told me that “The government is supposed to take care of you!” But now, who is to blame if it doesn’t? Craven members of Parliament and flash-in-the-pan Prime Ministers?

You have to be a special person to set yourself up for that kind of blame, and the masterminds of the French Revolution managed to discourage the continuance of that family tradition pretty thoroughly. Is it true that only megalomaniacs are willing to take that blame? Psychopathy has replaced duty, then. Duty means less when a people are not related, sorry to say.

The old things left of French history are very nice, but I admit that they are looking a bit worn and even shabby. I don’t know if that is deliberate suppression of their culture, the result of mass tourism, or a European fatigue. I can’t imagine what to do, though. Almost everything made since the last world war looks worse by the decade.

I toured about the main floor to see who else was identifiable. There was our friend François I’s crypt, difficult to see due to the elaborate structure around it. Right by an entrance was that of Pépin le Bref, (Pépin the Short, and it was a very short statue) the founder of the Carolingian dynasty. Around 800 this culminated in Charlemagne, one king who is not buried here. Then I was ready to go.

Out in the square in front of the basilica were some restaurants, and I found a table in the sun and stretched out until the chill left my bones. I saw many Africans indeed, but they didn’t look feral to me.

 

Maisons-Laffitte, where my hotel is, is very pleasant and comfortable and full of families. It is known above all however, for equestrian sports. Horses and kings are closely identified in Indo-European culture, if you haven’t noticed the countless equestrian statues in all the older parts of the West. It’s always a man on a horse, unless it depicts someone of legend, then its a man (or woman) in a chariot drawn by horses. Having time to investigate the reputation of this faubourg,  I was determined to see an actual horse, and not just the pictures all over my hotel, such as on the elevator doors.

First I walked by the Château Laffitte, a premier example of the work of Mansard,  he of the mansard roof, and the premier architect of the 1600s. Much of its landscaped park is now leafy neighborhoods.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I found a modern playground with lots of kids, then a bridge to an island in the Seine–for this chateau, and the town built around it, is on a loop of the Seine river, downstream from Paris. On the island people were playing basketball and practicing archery. Down the river I saw the racecourse for horse racing, and some young women practicing their lessons in jumping.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the neighborhoods of the old park, the narrow streets radiate out like sunbursts from circles, and there are five or six stables full of horses at the farthest end, mixed amongst the houses and condos. The girls were walking their horses in the streets after I’d headed back. I walked down and went in the gates of one of the stables, and saw horses across the arena sticking their heads out of their stalls.

 

 

There was nobody around, but suddenly this little guy showed up, grabbed a stick, and made me throw it for him over and over. After no humans appeared, I told him I had to go, and then a burst of whinnying came from the horses. I saw a man with a cart full of hay coming down one side of the barns, but felt too shy to ask if I could come in and take a close up of one of the horses. The young women and their horses were pretty, but the Oriflamme of Jeanne d’Arc is faded indeed. I don’t believe the new Pope, or his Church, is going to be able to bring it back.

I said goodbye to my little playmate and headed back to the hotel.