Paris - Sainte-Chapelle

The Chapelle Basse (Lower Chapel) at Sainte Chapelle was originally for the court servants. Its vaulted roof, only 6.60m/22ft high, is borne on 14 columns set close to the walls.

The Upper Chapel (Chapelle Haute) is the Sainte Chapelle proper. It was dedicated to the Holy Relics and was reserved for the king, the royal family and high dignitaries of the court. The relics - a splinter of the True Cross, a fragment from the crown of thorns and a nail from the Cross - are now preserved in the Treasury of Notre Dame. Visitors entering the chapel are first struck by the brilliance of the light, which seems to cancel out the force of gravity on the masonry. The beautiful vaulting is borne on 14 22m/70ft high buttresses which provide the framework for the windows, 15m/50ft high by 4m/13ft wide. Apart from a low blind arcade decorated with scenes of martyrdom round the base, the chapel has no walls as such. Its great beauty lies in the stained glass, depicting more than 1,000 different Biblical scenes, which fill the Sainte-Chapelle with all the colors of the rainbow. A third of the total area of stained glass (the lower levels) has been faithfully restored; all the rest are original 13th century work. The Late Gothic rose window, depicting scenes from the Apocalypse, dates from the reign of Charles VIII (1493-98). Against the buttresses in the nave are statues of the 12 Apostles, though only half of them are original. In the third bay, on the left, are two recesses for the king and the queen. From his oratory in the 12th bay, on right, Louis IX could hear mass without being seen. In the apse is a small dais under a wooden baldachin, once occupied by the reliquary containing the sacred relics. Two flights of wooden steps lead up to it; the one on the left is original. Only the French king had the key to the reliquary, the contents of which he displayed to the assembled royal household on Good Friday.