Paris - Sainte-Chapelle

The Sainte-Chapelle ("Holy Chapel") was part of the Palais de la Cité, residence of the French Royals between 10th and 14th century. The chapel was built, to house Louis IX's vast collection of relics, including the Crown of Thorns, the Image of Edessa and the point of the "Holy Lance" - and many more prominent relics.

Begun around 1239 and consecrated in 1248, the Sainte-Chapelle is considered among the highest achievements of the Gothic architecture.

The Sainte-Chapelle and the Conciergerie are the last remaining structures of the former Palais de la Cité. After the Royals moved out, the buildings were used for the administration. Between 1793 and 1795 the offices of the "Tribunal révolutionnaire" were here. In the Conciergerie, then a prison, Marie Antoinette, Danton, de Robespierre waited to ascend the scaffold.

Today the buildings around the Sainte-Chapelle form the "Palais de Justice".

The chapel, once a huge reliquary for Louis IX's collection, was under renovation. Saint Louis (aka Louis IX) had purchased the "Passion Relics" from Baldwin II, unfortunate emperor of the Latin Empire of Constantinople, for 135,000 livres. The money was actually paid to the Venetians, to whom the relics had been pawned. As this did not solve the financial straits completly fro Baldwin II, he later pawned his only son to the Venetians.

The relics arrived in Paris in August 1239, - and some of them are now in the treasury of nearby Notre-Dame Cathedral.

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