Best Travel And Vacation In France | Basilica of the Sacré Cœur. Vacation time is almost here, do you have planned for this year's holiday in ahir. Paris is one city you can visit interesting, not just the Tower of Pizza or the beauty of the city alone. There are other tourist attractions are very appealing to you visit the Basilica of Sacre Coeur (Sacred Heart). The Basilica of the Sacré Cœur (Sacred Heart) is a Parisian Roman Catholic church and landmark, crowning the butte Montmartre (‘Montmartre hill’), the highest point in Paris.
The nineteenth century church was designed by the architect Paul Abadie (who died in 1884, when only the foundations had been laid) in the Romano-Byzantine architectural style. Its foundation stone was laid in 1875, and was built with the direct involvement of the Third French Republic to mark the foundation of the new French state whose constitutional laws were enacted that year. It also was intended as a public monument to mark the memory of the many French citizens who lost their lives in the Franco-Prussian War and its aftermath, the Commune of 1871.
However it was not completed until 1914 and not officially opened for worship until 1919 after the end of the First World War, which ironically was seen by many French people as revenge for Germany’s¹ defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War. The site is traditionally associated with the beheading of the city’s patron, Saint Denis, in the 3rd century. Legend says that upon being slain, the bishop Denis picked up his severed head and carried it several miles to the north where the city of Saint Denis stands today.
More recently, during the Commune of 1871, hundreds of Communards hid in the chalk mines of the butte Montmartre, and were forever imprisoned inside when the government troops dynamited the exits. The basilica was paid for by national subscription. Its iconography is distinctly nationalistic: the triple-arched portico is surmounted by two bronze equestrian statues of France’s national saints, Joan of Arc and King Saint Louis IX (by H. Lefebvre). Even the great bell, the Savoyarde, has a nationalist program, Savoy having been attached to France as recently as 1860. Cast in Annecy in 1895, it is one of the world’s heaviest bells, at 19 tons.
Sacré Cœur is built of Château-Landon (Seine-et-Marne) stone, a frost-resistant travertine that constantly weathers out its calcite, so that it bleaches with age to a chalky whiteness. Since 1885, when it was partially built, the Blessed Sacrament has been continually on display in a monstrance above the high altar.
