Monument and Myth∗

ABSTRACT The Basilica of Sacré-Coeur, which strategically and symbolically dominates the northern skyline of Paris, has a strange and tortured history. Conceived of in the course of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, its construction was seen by many as an act of penitence for the moral decadence of the Second Empire of Napoleon III as well as for the supposed excesses of the Paris Commune of 1871. The cult of the Sacred Heart and the movement to build a Basilica for its glorification drew much of its support from ultraconservative Catholics as well as from those espousing the cause of monarchist restoration. Legislation pushed through at the height of the political reaction which followed the Commune turned the construction of the Basilica into a national project. This legislation permitted those in command of the project to select the heights of Montmartre as a site for its construction. The Basilica was thus built upon the very spot where some of the most significant opening and closing events of the Paris Commune occurred. In the years that followed the laying of the foundation stone in 1875, the predominantly republican population of Paris sought to stop what they perceived as a manifestation of reactionary monarchism from being erected in their midst. They all but succeeded, in 1882, in emasculating the whole project. The Basilica, finally completed and consecrated in 1919, was for many years seen as a provocation to civil war and to this day is still interpreted as a political symbol.