Sainte-Chapelle: The Jewel Box of Stained Glass

Why is it significant?

Step into the royal courtyard of the Palais de Justice and gaze up at the soaring Gothic buttresses and slender cedar spire of Sainte-Chapelle.

Key Facts

Open the walk

Step into the royal courtyard of the Palais de Justice and gaze up at the soaring Gothic buttresses and slender cedar spire of Sainte-Chapelle. Consecrated in twelve forty-eight under King Louis the Ninth, known to history as Saint Louis, this royal chapel was built in a lightning-fast six years to serve as a colossal architectural reliquary for Christ's Crown of Thorns.

King Louis purchased the holy relics of the Passion from the bankrupt Latin Emperor of Constantinople for an astronomical sum of one hundred and thirty-five thousand gold livres—more than three times the entire cost of constructing this magnificent chapel! The king walked barefoot in a simple tunic through the streets of Paris carrying the relic case on his shoulders.

Climb the spiraling stone stairs to the upper royal chapel: the stone walls practically dissolve into pure, shimmering light. Fifteen soaring stained-glass lancets, each fifteen meters high, contain over one thousand one hundred biblical scenes rendered in deep cobalt blue and fiery ruby red. Over seventy percent of this glass is authentic thirteenth-century original workmanship.

During the French Revolution, revolutionaries smashed the royal coats of arms and used the chapel as a grain store, yet the magnificent windows miraculously survived intact. Exit toward the Pont Saint-Michel and cross to the Latin Quarter riverbank.