Sacré-Cœur crowns Montmartre, the highest natural point in Paris, and its pale domes are visible from far across the city. You climb to reach it, up terraced steps and gardens, and from the forecourt the whole of Paris spreads flat and grey-gold below. Inside, the eye lifts to an immense golden mosaic filling the apse, and to a hush that rarely breaks. Paul Abadie won the commission with a Romano-Byzantine scheme closer in spirit to Venice than to Gothic Paris.
The basilica was voted by the National Assembly in 1873 as an act of expiation — for the defeat by Prussia and for the Commune, which had begun on this very hill. It was paid for coin by coin by public subscription rather than by the state, and it is still argued about in Paris for that reason. Building it took nearly half a century, because the foundations had to be sunk deep into the soft gypsum of the hill before anything could rise; it was consecrated only in 1919. Today the steps are a gathering place at dusk, buskers and students among the pilgrims.