# Sainte-Chapelle audio guide, five stops, free.

Fifteen windows, 670 square metres of glass and 1,113 scenes in it: these five stops take you from the pavement to the rose, and Chiaro can take on any single panel from a photo.

Made by Chiaro. Not affiliated with Sainte-Chapelle. Page: https://chiaro.ai/landmarks/sainte-chapelle/

The door of a law court on the boulevard du Palais is also the door of a thirteenth-century royal chapel, and this Sainte-Chapelle audio guide, five self-guided stops that end under the rose, opens on the pavement outside it. You can play the first stop before you are anywhere near the check, with the spire in sight above the Palais de Justice roofline. Past the security check you face east at the west front and its two porches; the low lower door takes you into the painted lower chapel; the narrow stair in the tower brings you up into the upper chapel, where you stand mid-nave looking at the apse; and the last stop is behind you as you leave, the rose of the Apocalypse over the west door. You never leave the one building: the listening takes about ten minutes, against the hour the monument's own leaflet sets aside for a whole visit.

On 26 September 2026 we went through sainte-chapelle.fr, the site the Centre des monuments nationaux keeps for the chapel, and its own visitor leaflet, with Wikipedia as a second source for the history, and every hour, price and rule here is stored next to the line of theirs that states it. Opening times switch between a summer and a winter timetable on 1 April and 1 October, so look at the monument's page for your date. If the staff on duty in the chapel tell you something different, do as they say, and tell us what changed once you are back out on the boulevard.

## The stops

### 1. The spire above the Palais de Justice

Jean-Baptiste Lassus (1807–1857), with sculpture by Adolphe-Victor Geoffroy-Dechaume (1816–1892) · Built from 1852; the fifth spire since the thirteenth century · Cedar wood, 33 metres tall, rising to 75 metres above the ground · Boulevard du Palais, on the pavement by the visitors' entrance at number 10, looking west over the Palais de Justice roofline

Audio: https://audio.chiaro.ai/landmarks/sainte-chapelle/en/spire-from-boulevard.mp3?v=941078 (118 s)

Look for:
- The Archangel Michael on the roof ridge over the east end, killing a dragon. Eight figures at his feet lay wreaths, and they were modelled on the men who rebuilt the chapel.
- The twelve apostles standing round the base of the spire, with smaller angels higher up where the needle begins. Saint Thomas, holding a set square, has the face of the architect Lassus; Saint Philip has the painter Louis Steinheil's.
- What is missing: flying buttresses. The upper walls stand on plain buttresses, with iron tie-rods under the roof and chains hidden in the windows doing the rest.

Look up over the roofline of the Palais de Justice, the long stone law courts in front of you, and you will find a dark spire of open tracery with a steep grey roof beneath it, bristling with pinnacles. That is as much of the Sainte-Chapelle as the street is allowed. The rest is enclosed inside the courts, which is why the way in runs through the security of a working courthouse.

It makes sense once you know where you are standing. This island was the seat of the kings of France from the tenth century to the fourteenth, and the chapel was built in the middle of their palace as the king's own. Louis the Ninth could walk from his apartments straight into its upper floor along a gallery. Then in 1358 a Paris crowd broke into the palace and murdered the marshals of Champagne and Normandy in front of the young Dauphin, the future Charles the Fifth, and once he was king he moved out, first to the Hôtel Saint-Pol and then to the Louvre and Vincennes. The courts and the prison stayed behind. The palace became the Palais de Justice, and the chapel and the Conciergerie next door are all that is visibly left of the oldest palace of the kings of France.

The spire you are looking at is the fifth on this roof. The second was pictured in the Très Riches Heures of the Duke of Berry; the third burned in 1630; the fourth was pulled down after the Revolution, in 1793. This one went up from 1852 to a design by the architect Jean-Baptiste Lassus, built of cedar wood, thirty-three metres tall, with its tip seventy-five metres above the ground.

Find the twelve apostles standing round its base, and higher up, where the needle begins, smaller angels carrying the instruments of the Passion. The statues came from Geoffroy-Dechaume's workshop, and they follow a medieval custom: Saint Thomas, the one with the set square, was given the face of the architect Lassus, and the painter Louis Steinheil lent his to Saint Philip. And at the east end of the roof the Archangel Michael stands on the ridge, killing a dragon. Round his feet are eight figures laying wreaths, and the men they portray are the workers who rebuilt the chapel.

One more thing before you go in. There are no flying buttresses anywhere on this building. The walls stand on their buttresses alone, and on iron: tie-rods under the roof and chains hidden in the windows, which is what has held the glass up for almost eight hundred years.

### 2. The west front and its two porches

Louis IX's unrecorded master mason; the rose under Charles VIII; portal sculpture recreated by Adolphe-Victor Geoffroy-Dechaume (1816–1892) · 1242–1248; rose about 1485; sculpture restored 1854–1873; porches restored 2021–2023 · Stone porch in two storeys under a flamboyant rose 9 metres wide · The courtyard in front of the west front, just past the security check, facing east at the two porches

Audio: https://audio.chiaro.ai/landmarks/sainte-chapelle/en/west-front.mp3?v=901789 (113 s)

Look for:
- Two doors, one above the other. The low one at ground level was for the palace staff; the one up on the balcony was the king's.
- The balustrade along the foot of the roof, its stone woven with fleurs-de-lis, put there by Charles the Fifth.
- The spirelets on the two stair towers: under each crown of fleurs-de-lis there is a carved crown of thorns.
- The Virgin and Child on the central post of the lower door, Geoffroy-Dechaume's nineteenth-century figure. The lower chapel is hers.

Now you are through the check and standing in the courtyard, facing east, and the chapel is yours from the pavement to the spire. Read it as a building in two storeys, because that is exactly what it is.

At ground level is the low lower porch. That door led into a chapel for the people who worked in the palace. Above it, at balcony height, is a second porch with a second door, and that one was the king's. Only Louis, his family and close friends, and the canons who led the services went in up there, and in the thirteenth century they did not come through this courtyard at all: they crossed an open terrace that connected straight to the palace. The two stair towers on either side of the porch hide the narrow spiral stairs you will soon climb, and they hide the buttresses too.

Nobody wrote down who designed it. The nineteenth century liked to credit Pierre de Montreuil, who worked at Saint-Denis and on Notre-Dame; modern scholars prefer Jean de Chelles or Thomas de Cormont, and one saw the hand of an unknown master mason from Amiens. The monument's own history says simply that the builder is not known precisely, and gives the patron, Louis the Ninth, a large share of the idea. What is recorded is the speed. It went up between 1242 and 1248, in less than seven years, to house a crown of thorns that had cost the king far more than the building.

Now pick out what is not thirteenth century. The great rose in the gable is flamboyant Gothic, all flame-shaped tracery, rebuilt around 1485 under Charles the Eighth. The balustrade at the foot of the roof, woven with fleurs-de-lis, was placed by Charles the Fifth. And most of the sculpture on these porches belongs to Adolphe-Victor Geoffroy-Dechaume, who recreated it between 1854 and 1873 after the Revolution had smashed the originals. His is the Virgin and Child on the central post of the lower door, and his the Christ giving a blessing at the door above, gentle enough that the monument compares it to the Beau Dieu of Amiens. The two porches were restored again between 2021 and 2023.

Last, look up at the stair towers. Under the crowns of fleurs-de-lis on their spirelets there is a carved crown of thorns: the reason for the whole building, written on its front.

### 3. The lower chapel

Louis IX's unrecorded master mason; painted decoration by the restorers under Félix Duban and Jean-Baptiste Lassus · Consecrated 1248; repainted in the restoration of 1840–1863 · Painted stone vaults 6.6 metres high over a central vessel 6 metres wide · Lower chapel, through the lower portal of the west front

Audio: https://audio.chiaro.ai/landmarks/sainte-chapelle/en/lower-chapel.mp3?v=871696 (109 s)

Look for:
- Gold castles on the red columns, gold fleurs-de-lis on the blue: the arms of Blanche of Castile and of her son the king, side by side.
- The small arched struts that jump from each inner column to the outer wall. They push the weight of the vaults outwards, which is the job flying buttresses do elsewhere.
- The apostles painted in medallions in the wall arcade, twelve of them round the chapel.
- The Annunciation above a door at the back on the left: thirteenth-century paint, among the oldest wall paintings in Paris.

Duck in through the lower door and the ceiling comes down to meet you. This chapel is only six and a half metres high, a central aisle six metres wide with a narrow aisle on each side, and every surface is painted: blue vaults sown with gold fleurs-de-lis, red columns stamped with gold castles, capitals picked out in gilt.

This was the church of the palace staff, dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and it is built low and strong because it carries the king's chapel on its back. Look along the side aisles for the thin arched struts that leap from each inner column to the outer wall. The monument's own name for them is étrésillons. They do on the inside what flying buttresses do on the outside of a cathedral, pushing the weight of the vaults out to the buttresses, and behind the paint there is iron reinforcing them as well.

Now the colours. The fleur-de-lis is the king's. The castle, gold on red, is Castile, for his mother, Blanche of Castile, who governed France for him twice, first while he was a boy and again while he was away on crusade. Her arms are scattered through both chapels and through every window upstairs. Mother and son take turns on these columns.

A confession about the paint: it is not medieval. The Seine got in. A flood in the winter of 1689 to 1690 badly damaged these walls, and the thirteenth-century colour faded away over time. What you see is the nineteenth-century restorers' reconstruction, in the blue, red and gold they took to be the colours of the thirteenth century. The windows are theirs too. The original glass on this floor was destroyed by that same flood, and the scenes of the Virgin's life you see now were designed by Louis Steinheil.

One thing did survive. Go to the back of the chapel and look above a door on the left for a painted Annunciation, the angel Gabriel greeting Mary. The door once led into the tower where the royal archives were kept. The painting is thirteenth century, and it is counted among the oldest wall paintings in Paris.

Then find the stairs. The king's chapel is thirty-three steps above your head.

### 4. The upper chapel, facing the apse

Built for Louis IX (1214–1270) by an unrecorded master mason; glass by three unnamed workshops · 1242–1248; restored 1840–1863 · Fifteen windows, 670 square metres of glass, under a vault 20.6 metres high · Upper chapel, up the 33 steps of the tower staircase; stand in the middle of the nave facing east towards the apse

Audio: https://audio.chiaro.ai/landmarks/sainte-chapelle/en/upper-chapel.mp3?v=1422567 (178 s)

Look for:
- The apostles against the pillars, each holding a disc marked with a consecration cross. Saint Peter, with his key, is one of the six originals.
- The central window of the apse, straight ahead behind the tribune: the Passion, from Christ's arrest to Pentecost.
- The carved capitals along the side walls, about a hundred of them and no two with the same plant: thistle, buttercup, hawthorn, vine, holly, rose.
- The raised tribune in the apse, where the great silver shrine holding the Crown of Thorns once stood.

Come out of the stairwell, walk to the middle of the nave and turn to face the apse, the rounded east end. This is the moment the building was designed for. The walls have almost gone. What holds the roof up is a cage of slender stone shafts, and everything between them is glass: fifteen windows, fifteen metres tall in the nave and thirteen in the apse, about six hundred and seventy square metres of it, under a vault that floats 20.6 metres above you.

It is a trick, and a good one. Each of those shafts is really a bundle of seven thin columns, which disguises how thick it is, and two belts of iron chain run round the building behind the glazing bars to hold it together. The nave windows are also slightly taller than the apse windows, which makes the room look longer than its thirty-three metres.

The glass holds 1,113 scenes. The story starts on your left and behind you, in the north window nearest the rose, with Genesis, and runs round the chapel, east along the north wall, across the apse and back along the south wall through Judith, Esther and the Kings, until it reaches the rose again. The apse ahead holds the prophets, Daniel, Ezekiel, Isaiah and the Tree of Jesse, around the central window of the Passion, from Christ's arrest to Pentecost. Do not try to read it all. The monument says so itself: this glass is not necessarily meant to be read, it is meant to be seen. The glaziers kept to red, blue, two greens, two purples and a yellow, which is why from here it all fuses into one violet light. Two-thirds of it is thirteenth century.

That light was built around a crown. In 1239, after two years of negotiation, Louis the Ninth bought the Crown of Thorns from Baldwin the Second, the Latin emperor of Constantinople. With the relics that followed, he paid 135,000 livres tournois, which the monument puts at half the annual income of the kingdom. The chapel itself, glass included, cost 40,000. The relics were shown in a great shrine of silver and gilded copper on the raised tribune in the apse, installed in the 1260s and rebuilt in the nineteenth century. The Revolution melted the shrine down. The Crown of Thorns survived, and went to the treasury of Notre-Dame in 1806.

Now look lower, at the pillars. Twelve apostles stand against them, each holding a disc marked with a cross, the crosses of the chapel's consecration. Six are originals, among them Saint Peter with his key. The hundred or so carved capitals along the walls are all different, thistle and buttercup, hawthorn and vine, holly and rose, and here and there a bird pecking among the leaves. Then look straight up. The vault is painted as a starry sky. This was the king's floor, and when he raised his head he saw heaven.

It very nearly did not last. From 1803 to 1837 this room was an archive store for the law courts. The bottom two metres of glass were taken out to let in working light, and some panes were sold off; eighteen original panels are now in the Musée de Cluny in Paris. The glass was restored from 1846. In 1945 it was varnished against wartime dust and scratches, and the varnish slowly darkened, so between 2008 and 2015 every window was cleaned and given a protective outer layer of glass. The colour you are standing in is what came out from under that varnish.

### 5. The rose of the Apocalypse

Unnamed glaziers working under Charles VIII (reigned 1483–1498) · About 1485; cleaned 2014–2015 · Stained glass in flamboyant stone tracery, 9 metres wide, 87 panels · Upper chapel, west end: turn round from the apse to face the door you came in by

Audio: https://audio.chiaro.ai/landmarks/sainte-chapelle/en/rose-window.mp3?v=869398 (109 s)

Look for:
- The eye of the rose: Christ enthroned, a sword coming from his mouth, with Saint John at his feet.
- Just below it, a white horseman riding out of a dragon's jaws, and a horseman carrying scales, famine.
- The crowned letter K, for Karolus, Charles the Eighth, in one of the lower medallions on the left.
- The change of colour: yellow and green in the rose, where every other window is red and blue.

Before you go down, turn round. You came in underneath it without seeing it: the rose of the Apocalypse, nine metres across, filling the west wall above the door.

It is younger than everything else up here by more than two centuries. The first rose, from the thirteenth century, told the same story, but around 1485, under Charles the Eighth, it was replaced by this one, and the builders chose the style of their own day, flamboyant Gothic, with the stone curling into flames. Charles left his mark on it. Look in the medallions low down on the left for a crowned letter K, for Karolus, his name in Latin.

The colour changed too. Everywhere else in the chapel the glass is red and blue. Here it is yellow and green, because by the fifteenth century glaziers had silver stain, a silver compound that soaks into the glass in the firing, turns it yellow and let them paint shading and fine detail directly onto it. The rose has also aged well. Of its eighty-seven panels, only nine had to be restored in the nineteenth century, and it was cleaned in 2014 and 2015.

Now read the centre. In the eye of the rose Christ sits enthroned with a sword coming from his mouth, and Saint John, whose vision this is, is at his feet. Just below are two of the four horsemen: on the left a white rider bursting out of a dragon's mouth, whom the monument's own account calls death, and on the right a rider holding scales, famine. The placing is deliberate. The end of time is here in the west, facing the Passion in the east window you have just been looking at.

One window more, the last on the south side, to your left as you face the rose. It is the only window in the chapel that tells neither the Old nor the New Testament but the sacredness of the royal dynasty: the relics, from Saint Helena finding the True Cross to their arrival in this building. In one of its medallions two men walk barefoot, carrying the Crown of Thorns on a litter under a veil. They are Louis the Ninth and his brother Robert of Artois. The chapel was consecrated on the twenty-sixth of April 1248, and that August Louis left for the crusade, already in the glass behind him, carrying the crown home.

## Before you go

10, boulevard du Palais, 75001 Paris, in the middle of the Île de la Cité. The chapel stands inside the Palais de Justice, so the way in is the visitors' entrance on the boulevard and a strict security check with X-ray machines; the courtyard in front of the west front is on the far side of it.

RER B or C to Saint-Michel. Métro line 4 to Cité, or lines 1, 7, 11 and 14 to Châtelet. Buses 21, 24, 27, 38, 58, 81, 85 and 96; for security reasons the Palais de Justice stop is sometimes not served.

- Book a time slot before you go, even with a free ticket: the monument asks children, under-25s and museum-pass holders to book too. Arrive at the time on the booking and not before; entry is guaranteed within thirty minutes of your slot, and tickets cannot be exchanged or refunded.
- Leave knives, scissors, glass bottles, aerosols, motorbike helmets, scooters and large bags behind. This is a courthouse: there is no cloakroom, and anything confiscated at the check is not returned. Pushchairs must fold small enough for the X-ray machine and cannot go up to the upper chapel.
- Open 9am to 7pm from 1 April to 30 September and 9am to 5pm from 1 October to 31 March, with last access half an hour before closing; closed on 1 January, 1 May and 25 December.
- At weekends and on public holidays there is no water and no toilet once you are past the security check. A drinking fountain stands on the pavement opposite. A long restoration programme is also under way, so a window bay may be behind scaffolding inside or out; the monument stays open at its usual times.

Official tickets: https://tickets.monuments-nationaux.fr/en-GB/families?site=2035141861660400306

The monument rents its own audioguide on site for a small fee, paid there, in several languages, English among them. A guided tour in French, about forty-five minutes, runs every day at 11am and 3pm when a guide is available, at no extra charge on your ticket, and printed visit documents come in eleven languages. The monument also recommends a stained-glass app made with the support of the Centre des monuments nationaux, which identifies the scenes in the windows. None of that is a narrated walk, and this page is one: five places from the pavement to the rose, each with its full script printed below the player for anyone who would rather read in a chapel than listen.

Official site: https://www.sainte-chapelle.fr/en

## Questions

**Is there a free Sainte-Chapelle audio guide?**

No handset needed: the five stops here run from the boulevard outside to the rose, at no cost, on the phone in your pocket. The monument's own free option is its daily guided tour in French, which costs nothing on top of the ticket; its audioguide is rented on site for a small fee. The windows hold far more than any tour can reach, and the Chiaro app narrates whichever panel you photograph.

**Can I listen to the Sainte-Chapelle audio guide without a ticket?**

The first stop, yes: it is played on the boulevard du Palais pavement, looking at the spire over the courthouse roof. The other four are past the security check and need a ticket and a time slot: 22 euros for an adult from outside the European Economic Area and 16 euros for EEA nationals and residents, or 30 and 23 euros combined with the Conciergerie. Under-18s, and 18 to 25 year-old EU nationals and residents of France, go free but still book a slot.

**How much is the official Sainte-Chapelle audio guide?**

It is a small fee, paid on site, and it comes in several languages, English among them. The monument's guided tour in French is free with your ticket, daily at 11am and 3pm when a guide is available, lasting about forty-five minutes.

**When is the Sainte-Chapelle closed?**

Only three days a year: 1 January, 1 May and 25 December. On every other day you can go in from 9am, until 7pm between 1 April and 30 September and until 5pm between 1 October and 31 March, and the last visitors are let in thirty minutes before that. On the first Sunday of January, February, March, November and December admission costs nothing and no reservation can be made.

**Why is there a security check to visit the Sainte-Chapelle?**

Because the chapel stands inside the Palais de Justice, the Paris law courts, and follows their security rules. The checks are strict and take time, sharp objects however small and all glass containers are refused, and there is nowhere to leave them, so pack as if for a flight. Identity checks by police may also take place around the building.

**Can I reach the upper chapel of the Sainte-Chapelle without the stairs?**

The usual way up is a narrow tower staircase of thirty-three steps, and the same back down. Visitors with mobility problems can go up by lift instead, with a member of staff; ask at the entrance. Admission is free for disabled visitors and one companion, on proof of eligibility.

## Continue in the app

Point Chiaro at anything at the Sainte-Chapelle.

Five stops cannot walk you through 1,113 panels of glass. Aim your phone at a single medallion, a carved capital or a castle in a window border, and Chiaro tells you which book of the Bible it belongs to, who is in it and why it is there, for as long as your neck holds out.

Download Chiaro: https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id6745618830?pt=127817940&ct=sainte-chapelle-md&mt=8