France Tourist Attractions - Basilica of the Sacré Coeur

Perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament has continued uninterrupted in the Basilica since 1885.

Sacré Coeur on Montmartre

The mosaic of Christ in Majesty in the apse is one of the world's largest.

The doctrine of the Sacred Heart was promulgated by Pope Pius IX in 1856, at the urgent entreaties of the French bishops.

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La Basilique du Sacré Cœur de Montmartre

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Practical Information for the Sacré Coeur

Location: Parvis du Sacré Coeur, 75018 Paris

Metro: Anvers, Abbesses, Château Rouge, Lamarck-Caulaincourt

Buses: 30, 54, 80, 85, Montmartrobus

Phone: 01 42 51 17 02

Admission: Cathedral is free; for the Crypt there is a fee. There is also the Museum and Treasury.

Hours: Basilica: 6:45am-11pm Dome and crypt: 9am-6pm 

Services: Every Sunday : 11 am High mass with the Little Singers of Montmartre - 6 pm and 10:15 pm Last masses. 

Every Friday : 3 pm biblical meditation sung in French. Chaplain at the disposal of all to the right of the entrance

Credits : This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Sacré-Coeur".

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 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. 

Sacré Coeur Church at night

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). 

Sacré Coeur Basilica

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 (a consecrated host which Catholics believe is turned into the body and blood of Jesus Christ during a Mass) has been continually on display in a monstrance above the high altar.