Saint Denis Royal Basilica is famous for the first Gothic structure in the world and the cemetery of kings, where most of the kings and queens of France since the tomes of Clovis I were buried. The Abbey of Saint-Denis was founded by King Dagobert in the 7th Century. However, construction of the present-day Gothic structure began in 1136 by Abbot Suger, but was not completed until the end of the 13th Century. Suger, at nine years of age, was sent to the Abbey of Saint-Denis to study and became abbot there in 1122, until his death in 1155.

The Basilica of Saint Denis is a famous burial site of the French monarchs, known also as the Royal Necropolis of France. Almost all the kings of France were buried here: forty-two kings, thirty-two queens, sixty-three princes and princesses, as well as ten great men of the kingdom. However, the beautiful tombs inside the Basilica are now empty. During the French Revolution, the tombs were sacked and the bones were thrown into a pit in the yard of the church, making it impossible to identify which bones belonged to whom. The tombs were then moved to the Museum of French Monuments and returned to the basilica in 1816. The bones were returned in 1817 as well, but were placed in a communal burial place within the crypt, marked with engraved name plates. The tombs that were commissioned after 1285 were built in the Renaissance style and the likenesses of the deceased were made from death masks.

The 13th-century basilica has been called the Lucerna (Lantern) because of its brightness, and because it stands out with its fasciculated pillars, which are made of bundles of small columns. Abbot Suger, from 1135 to 1144, rebuilt the two ends of the building. The choir and chapel create a flood of light for the church’s Gothic art, thanks to the split bays in each chapel.

In 1806, Napoléon commissioned a restoration of the basilica’s edifice. In fact, rehabilitation of the basilica continued throughout the 19th Century under the watchful eyes of architects Debret and Viollet-le-Duc (famous for his work on Marie Antoinette. Also King Louis VII, who had been buried at the Abbey at Saint-Pont, safe from the revolutionaries, was brought to St Denis.

Some of the members of the royal families of France buried in the Basilique royale de Saint-Denis include: Clovis I (465-511), Childebert I (496-558), Fredegonde (wife of Chilperic I of Neustria), Dagobert I (603-639), Clovis II (635-657), Charles Martel, Pippin the Younger (714-768) and his wife Berthe (726-783), Carloman (866-884), Francis I of France, Henry II of France and Catherine de Medici, Francis II of France, Louis XVI of France and Marie Antoinette.