La Sainte-Chapelle (French for The Holy Chapel) is a Gothic chapel on the Ile de la Cité in the heart of Paris, France. It is perhaps the high point of the full tide of the rayonnante period of Gothic architecture. It was planned in 1241, started in 1246 and quickly completed: it was consecrated on April 26, 1248. The patron was the very devout Louis IX of France, who constructed it as a chapel for the royal palace. The palace itself has otherwise utterly disappeared, leaving the Sainte-Chapelle all but surrounded by the Palais de Justice, which carries on a single function of the palace, which was the site of the king's lit de justice where important aristocrats pled their cases before the king.

The Sainte-Chapelle needed suitable relics: Christ's crown of thorns was possibly available. Unlike many devout aristocrats, who swiped relics, the saintly Louis bought his precious relics of the Passion, purchased from the Latin emperor at Constantinople, Baldwin II, for the exorbitant sum of 135,000 livres. The entire chapel, by contrast, cost 40,000 livres to build. A piece of the True Cross was added, and other relics. Thus the building was like a precious reliquary. At the same time, it reveals Louis' political and cultural ambition, with the imperial throne at Constantinople occupied by a mere Count of Flanders and with the Holy Roman Empire in uneasy disarray, to be the central monarch of western Christendom. Just as the Emperor could pass privately from his palace into Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, so now Louis could pass directly from his palace into the Sainte-Chapelle.

The Royal chapel stands squarely upon a lower chapel which served as parish church for all the inhabitants of the palace, which was the seat of government. The king was later granted sainthood by the Roman Catholic Church as Saint Louis. During the French Revolution, the chapel was converted to an administrative office, and the windows were obscured by enormous filing cabinets. The Sainte-Chapelle has been a national historic monument since 1862.

The second most obvious landmark on the island is the Palais de Justice, essentially the modern Supreme Court built in the 18th century. The earliest seat of government from Roman times was in the same place, as was the original Palace from the Gothic period. The remains are to be found in the St. Chapelle Church and the Conciergerie. The St. Chapelle sits inside the newer courtyard of the Palais de Justice. The Conciergerie is a section of the Palais de Justice which was used as a prison in revolutionary times. There is some grim irony in the idea that the Supreme court doled out sentences which would send people to this neighbor or justice--- a waiting room for the guillotine. The French motto Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite (Liberty, Brotherhood, Equality) might have been translated into--- you are all equally capable of being beheaded. This is where Marie Antoinette was jailed for months before they chopped her head off, probably not eating cake.