2015-04-27 Paray-le-Monial, Basilique du Sacré-Cœur, Saône-et-Loire, Bourgogne, France

History
In 973 the Count of Lambert Chalon founded a cloister from 999 was placed by the bishop of Auxerre under the authority of the Abbey of Cluny, which made it to the end of the old regime, a Cluniac priory.
It has no trace of a first church (tenth century). From the beginning of the eleventh century, was built a building that recent excavations conducted by Gilles Rollier, were discovered; this construction is probably finished by the west front (porch and two towers) at the beginning of the twelfth century. New construction, much more ambitious, certainly will not begin before the middle of the twelfth century, and then began building a large apse with ambulatory, which initially encompassed the previous apse. The work progressed very slowly, and were not completed before the start of the fourteenth century (Gothic floor of the main tower, the nineteenth replaced by a Neo-Romanesque pastiche). The final breath of the site was that work was interrupted while less than half of the planned nave was built, which left a building that appears oddly proportioned In the nineteenth century, Paray-le-Monial and its church are one of the busiest places of pilgrimage in France. The purpose of the pilgrimage is the worship of the Sacred Heart, due to the visions of Margaret Mary Alacoque in the second half of the seventeenth century and more the action of the Jesuit Claude La Colombiere.
In 1875 the church was elevated to the rank of Minor Basilica, the papal title given here to honor the town where Jesus asked St. Margaret Mary to make known his message of love.

The church today is a basilica whose nave composed of a central nave and two aisles has a transept with three bays of a single ship, two small towers in the West and a large tower transept . The church has a total length of 63.5 m (including the narthex and part of central chapel chapels) and a width of 22.35 m (without the transept). With 40.50 m compared to the almost square nave (22 m in length to the cross) transept gives the impression of being disproportionate. The central aisle of the nave has a height of 22 m, including the transept tower and the total height of the church is 56 m.
The outside
The exterior of the basilica is characterized by austerity and counting: vast bare walls recall the power of Germanic architecture tenth and eleventh centuries (abbey of Hersfeld and Limburg (an der Haardt-). The berries in tight and small files, have an opening without doorframe, which pushes the windows at the bottom of a dark box. This provision is imitated Cluny III, where they sought to open a huge skylight throughout the vast barrel vault, which made the splay impossible, because it was necessary to strengthen the contrary spaces supports between the bays. The door opens on the left transept is decorated with elegant floral and geometric motifs.
The interior
The nave
The large arches in arch of the nave, in the Burgundian Romanesque style, occupy two-thirds of the rise, the remaining third being held by a blind arcade surmounted by a row of tall windows. It is a provision inspired by the church of Cluny.
As in the huge building that was Cluny III, in each span, three bays, sometimes blind sometimes open on the roof of the side aisles, are topped with three tall windows, identical in size, surrounded by an arcade. One can not help thinking the architectural model of the three doors on each wall of the heavenly Jerusalem, as St. John describes in the Apocalypse, unless either recall the Trinity. Similarly, arcades are three levels, there are three bays in the nave, and three bunk pillars between each span. These pillars are arranged in chiasmus: a series of high pilasters is extended vertically by pilasters spandrels of the arches, and the two superimposed pilasters are clearly separated by the lower pilaster of the tent and the base of one who overcomes. For cons, the two rows of arches are connected by the same pilaster, simply separated into two by the ring of the molding between two floors of arcades.
The different levels are highlighted either by continuous molded cords (under the blind arcade of the second level) or by a cornice supported by corbels (under the high windows).
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