St. CHAPELLE BY DAY AND NIGHT

St. Chapelle was consecrated in 1248 after just five years of construction!  Unbelievable.  It was built by Louis IX to house his personal collection of holy relics, including that “original” crown of thorns that he paid a mint for – more than three times what the chapel cost.  He certainly got his money’s worth on the latter.  He was aiming for a light and delicate look, and he got a bejeweled masterpiece.

I don’t know whether it’s the time of year or what, but the light was difficult within the chapel.  It only illuminated the end and one side (and that partially shaded by the adjacent Law Courts building), with virtually nothing on the other side.  And, the full sun coming in blitzed the colors, making photography difficult.  There, my excuses have been sown.  It is known for its gorgeous blue shades of stained glass, supported by slender columns that give the appearance of near total glass walls.  Stunning.

First of all, there’s the queue to get in.  For anyone concerned, as we foolishly were before leaving home, about meeting Paris expectations as to dress, just take a look at the tourists in this line.  One need not worry about dressing up for everyday in Paris.  Jeans are everywhere.  Sure, there are plenty of stylish folk, but they are vastly outnumbered by the regular Joes (and Jacques).

Once in the chapel, you actually are in the lower chamber, where the servants and common folk worshipped.  The starry (actually, they’re fleur-de-lys) blue sky ceiling is not shabby, but nothing like the light show above.

Finished here, we climbed some very narrow circular stone steps and emerged into the upper chapel.  You can see why I was dismayed about getting any good photos.  Way too much light contrast depending upon the angle of the sun and the shadows from the adjacent buildings.

It was impossible to get a decent overall shot, so I just concentrated on getting a few windows at a time.  But the above photo will give you, I hope, a feeling for the total glass feeling of the place.  Here are some of the individual portions of the windows.

There are 1,113 scenes depicted in the 15 stained glass windows, and they tell the story of mankind from Genesis through to the resurrection.  They actually read in order, left to right and bottom to top, around the chapel.  There is a lot of mayhem depicted in stained glass.  I could only get a good angle on the lowest ones, but here are some of the individual story panes.  There are swordsmen on horses slashing away, guys getting their heads lopped off, Christ bound and flayed, Christ getting his crown of thorns, as well as gentler scenes.  It is just mind blowing to think these were created in such a short span of time, and have endured for nearly 800 years.

Statues of the apostles line the nave, but only five of them are originals from the mid-1200’s.  This one is typical.

The ceiling of the upper chapel repeats the fleur-de-lys sky of the lower one, but has the benefit of the soaring columns and glowing windows to set it off.

OK, that was St. Chapelle by day.  We went back at 6:30 for our 7:00 concert, and had to go through an airport-like security check, complete with xray machine.  I didn’t snap any photos.  The gendarmes looked plenty serious.  Funny we had to do this for the concert, but thousands go through the chapel during the day without so much as a glance.  The program was by the Orchestre, Les Violons de France, a string quartet together with a soprano soloist.  They did Mozart’s “A Little Night Music,”  Schubert-Gounod’s “Ave Maria,” and “La Chanson de Solveig” from Peer Gynt.  OK, I’m not hot on soprano soloists, and this one was no exception no matter how beautiful her singing probably was (Loni thought she was great).  But the strings were ethereal.  Maybe it was the setting.  It felt entirely different from when we were there in the daytime.  In the waning light outside, you could actually see the entire place glow, better than in the daytime.  By the time the concert started, every seat was filled, except for two.  More on that later. 

The acoustics were perfect.  No echoing whatsoever, and the strings could play soft or loud with excellent clarity.  At least to my plebian ears.  A fantastic venue.  I couldn’t, of course, use a flash, and even holding the camera up to get a shot was intrusive, so I waited until breaks, then took what I could get.

As we were waiting for the concert to start, and the chapel was filling up, I couldn’t believe my luck.  Loni sat on the aisle so that she could see better.  In front of her was a short grandmother.  In front of her were her two small grandchildren.  She had piled their stuff on the seat next to grandma, in front of me, so I had a perfect view.  A woman with BIG HAIR sat in the seat to the right of the empty one in front of me.  To her right was another empty seat, the only two I could see.  Exactly ONE MINUTE before the start of the concert, some chump comes down the aisle looking for closer seats.  As he comes back up the aisle, the BIG HAIR lady motions to the seat to her right.  He says no, he needs two.  Well, grandma springs into action, moves the coats, and BIG hair moves over smack in front of me.  All the while, the guy is protesting for them not to make a fuss for him.  Then he goes back up the aisle, and never comes back.  Lights dim.  Concert starts.  While the lady on my right was  ecstatic with her now-clear view, I wanted to go find the chump and kill him on the spot, cause this is what I now faced:

The photos I took above were by holding the camera over in front of Loni and shooting blind.  The moral of this tale is never, never, never start smirking about your good luck.  It won’t last.

Big hair notwithstanding, this was a magical evening.  The stunningly beautiful setting and the exquisite music (soprano excepted, for me anyway) made for a memory that will last.