117 Paris, France, Saint Pierre de Montmartre: a wimple of abbesses?
117 Paris, France. Saint Pierre de Montmartre
The second oldest parish church in Paris. Built in the twelfth century and
renovated a few times since. Architecture is mostly Romanesque with a bit of primitive
Gothic. During the French Revolution, the church was transformed into a « Temple
of reason » in that short period in which some of the revolutionaries
thought they could replace the Christian religion with something new (you can’t
accuse them of not being ambitious – they also instituted the decimal day,
divided into ten hours).
From 1794 to 1840 there was an optical telegraph on the roof – a Chappe
telegraph. This was really useful, until the electric telegraph got to France in
1845.
Inside you can see vivid coloured stained glass from the 1950s, and cast metal bas
relief on the doors, of a series of Bible scenes. Nice wooden pulpit and beautiful
altar table. There is also a statue of a
bishop saint carrying own head (remember
we have a technical term for this kind of saint – cephalopore !)
A bunch of abbesses are buried here (what is the collective nouns for abbesses? A wimple of abbesses?)
