Saint Sulpice
Labels :
French Prime Meridian,
Paris 6,
Saint Sulpice
The Saint Sulpice church is situated on the east side of Place Saint Sulpice, not far from the Luxembourg Gardens. The place as such is quite nice and in the middle you find a fountain, created by Ludovico Visconti in 1844, just renovated.
Saint Sulpice is the second biggest church in Paris – after Notre Dame. The present church which replaced an older one from the 13th century was mostly completed in 1732 (the facade a few decades later). (Half of the church facade is under renovation, so I show only the other half.)
From the interior you can note a beautiful pulpit, the Chapel of the Madonna (statue by Pigalle) and some wall paintings by Delacroix (too dark to be correctly photographed). 
The church is known for its organ, which is supposed to be one of the best in the world, created by Arisitide Cavaillé-Coll in 1862, but still with a lot of material from its original construction in 1781. Cavaillé-Coll is considered as one of the world’s best organ builders ever. The church has also always employed top class organists (and composers). The organ is frequently used for concerts and recordings.
The church is also known for its gnomon (from 1749). It was requested as part of the original church construction. The purpose was to determine the time of equinoxes (and hence of Easter). A meridian brass band crosses the floor and ends up on the gnomon, a marble obelisk. The sunlight comes in through a small lens on the opposite side of the church. The fact that this was also used for different scientific experiences may have saved it from destruction during the Revolution (when the church temporarily became a “Temple of Victory”).
The church was made even more famous thanks to the "Da Vinci Code". I have already in a previous post indicated that the “French Prime Meridian” and this Saint Sulpice meridian have nothing to do with each other. The church is situated some hundred meters from the “French Prime Meridian” (referred to as the “Rose Line” by Dan Brown). Furthermore, relating to the "Da Vinci Code": The church does not stand on the place of an old pagan temple and the symbolic “PS” you can find in the church refer to St. Pierre and to St. Sulpice and not the invented “Priory of Sion”.
Some of these pictures can as usual be found on my photo blog.
Saint Sulpice is the second biggest church in Paris – after Notre Dame. The present church which replaced an older one from the 13th century was mostly completed in 1732 (the facade a few decades later). (Half of the church facade is under renovation, so I show only the other half.)
From the interior you can note a beautiful pulpit, the Chapel of the Madonna (statue by Pigalle) and some wall paintings by Delacroix (too dark to be correctly photographed). The church is known for its organ, which is supposed to be one of the best in the world, created by Arisitide Cavaillé-Coll in 1862, but still with a lot of material from its original construction in 1781. Cavaillé-Coll is considered as one of the world’s best organ builders ever. The church has also always employed top class organists (and composers). The organ is frequently used for concerts and recordings.The church is also known for its gnomon (from 1749). It was requested as part of the original church construction. The purpose was to determine the time of equinoxes (and hence of Easter). A meridian brass band crosses the floor and ends up on the gnomon, a marble obelisk. The sunlight comes in through a small lens on the opposite side of the church. The fact that this was also used for different scientific experiences may have saved it from destruction during the Revolution (when the church temporarily became a “Temple of Victory”).
The church was made even more famous thanks to the "Da Vinci Code". I have already in a previous post indicated that the “French Prime Meridian” and this Saint Sulpice meridian have nothing to do with each other. The church is situated some hundred meters from the “French Prime Meridian” (referred to as the “Rose Line” by Dan Brown). Furthermore, relating to the "Da Vinci Code": The church does not stand on the place of an old pagan temple and the symbolic “PS” you can find in the church refer to St. Pierre and to St. Sulpice and not the invented “Priory of Sion”.Some of these pictures can as usual be found on my photo blog.
I have not found a clear explanation for the choice of the place of the Observatoire. It’s interesting to see that it’s exactly in the axe of the then already exisiting Palais de Luxembourg, built on the initiative of Marie de Medici (Henry IV’s widow), who was much interested in astrology. You find the same north-south axe around the Invalides, built at the same period as the Observatoire.
The “Da Vinci Code” refers to this axe, the “Rose Line”. Actually the French meridian passes well the Louvre, but not exactly where the pyramid is, whereas the St. Sulpice church is well out of the axe.
To find the trace of the axe, the “Da Vinci Code” refers to the 135 “Arago plates”, 12 cm (= 4,7 inches, - the meter is not yet adapted all over) bronze disks which were placed along the axe in 1994. You still find most of them along the streets – but some have disappeared; nice pieces of collection.(Arago was a 19th century French astronomer and politician.) 
The axe is in Paris also visualised in the park just behind the Observatoire and by the so called “mires”, one at Montmartre (north) and one in the Montsouris Park (south). You can read that they were erected in 1806 during the reign of….- the name of Napoleon has disappeared.
The meter was “invented” by the French Academy of Sciences in 1793, based on researches made at the Observatory, as being one ten-millionth of the length of the meridian. (Nowadays it’s equal to the distance traveled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299 792 458 of a second or something similar!)
