St. Sulpice on the Left Bank of the Seine is a regal 17th Century church, but has never been much of a tourist draw.
After all, it’s not easy competing against Paris’ many crown jewels: the Louvre, the Arc de Triomphe, the Eiffel Tower and Versailles. Just within the neighborhood, the church of St. Germain des Pres is better known.
And unlike Paris’ well-attended showpieces, St. Sulpice shows its age. One of its two towers is wrapped in a protective shroud of scaffolding, a belated refurbishment, but the inside is brown around the edges–like the pages of an old book.
It took a recent book, though, to make St. Sulpice something of a must-see. The church is a centerpiece of “The Da Vinci Code,” the phenomenally popular novel by Dan Brown. The author’s choice of venue has turned this cavernous old church into a favored starting point for tourists who want to see the sites that backdrop one of the most popular mystery novels ever.
“The Da Vinci Code” centers on a frenzied modern-day search for the Holy Grail. It follows the fictitious Harvard professor Robert Langdon, an expert in ancient symbols, and Sophie Neveu, granddaughter of the Louvre’s chief curator.
The two spend a long dark night escaping from a locked Louvre, speeding around the Arc de Triomphe, following the trail of obscure clues Sophie’s grandfather leaves behind when he is murdered in the book’s prologue. Along with his day job at the world’s greatest art museum, Sophie’s grandfather was the leader of a mysterious religious clique that guards its knowledge of the whereabouts of the Holy Grail.
His vocation and avocation apparently bestow upon him the knowledge and good taste to secrete his clues–and even the false leads he creates to confuse his enemies–in some of Europe’s better touring spots: Paris, London, Rome and some rather obscure but scenic churches, temples, villas and chateaus across the continent.
Chateau de Villette, 25 miles northwest of Paris, is one of them. In the book, the 17-bedroom chateau from the 17th Century is home to Leigh Teabing, an eccentric English expatriate who creates his own little England on the grounds of this 185-acre estate. A man of means and of detailed knowledge of ancient religious symbols, he also has the free time to create an intricate evil scheme that is the core of the book’s plot.
The carefully landscaped Chateau de Villette, where filming for the movie version (due in 2006) took place earlier this month, has stopped doing short tours. But it still offers an elaborate six-day tour of Paris “Da Vinci” sites, with five nights at the chateau–for a hefty price (see If You Go).
Author Brown’s eye for detail and unique landmarks have made “The Da Vinci Code” more than just an entrancing mystery novel. It’s an intriguing guidebook too.
Tour companies have taken note. They have built a mini industry of “Da Vinci” tours in Paris, London and other less obvious sites throughout Europe.
The tours are a good way to make the book come back alive, and to discuss the controversies, myths, outright fictions and indelible truths that make the book so compelling.
On the walking “Da Vinci Code” tour through Paris, the St. Sulpice obelisk is a highlight, and a good place to start. On the altar are candlesticks that must be six feet tall, which makes them a bit oversized to serve, as they did in the book, as an easily concealed deadly weapon.
On the floor is a brass line–the “Rose Line” in the book–that serves in life as in the book as a kind of Greenwich on the Seine, a meridian line by which Parisians of the 18th Century set their clocks.
And there, in the transept of the church to the left of the altar, is the piece de resistance: a marble obelisk more than 30 feet tall that once served as a kind of calendar. When the sun’s shadow hits certain symbols carved on the obelisk, it marks the summer and winter solstices.
The point where the “Rose Line” hits the obelisk is precisely where Sophie’s grandfather hid his most important false clue. And the evil assassin in the book is so enraged by this discovery that he lifts one of those big altar candlesticks and takes out his anger on the nun’s noggin.
In many places in the world, the people who live and work in and around St. Sulpice would smell the possibilities, and sooner than one can say “tourist trap,” they would have a host of Made-in-China trinkets to sell at St. Sulpice and every other stop on the “Da Vinci Code” walk.
But this is Paris, and these are the French. Just because a novel holds a spot on best-seller lists for more than two years doesn’t merit it special attention. Not in Paris anyway.
For proof, just look at the small but prominently placed sign that hangs a few steps from where most tourists stop when they admire the St. Sulpice obelisk. The note’s anonymous author assails one of author Brown’s most controversial claims: That St. Sulpice was built on the site of a pagan temple to the god Isis.
“Contrary to fanciful allegations in a recent contemporary novel, this is not the vestige of a pagan temple,” the note reads in French and English. “No mystical notion can be derived from this instrument of astronomy except to acknowledge that God is the master of time.”
The note practically sniffs with Gaulic gall.
Less standoffish sorts will find “The Da Vinci Code” tour enthralling.
Even those who have not read the book–or read it so long ago that the details are as hazy as a sweltering sunrise over the Seine–can enjoy themselves. After all, this is Paris, and a better city for walking has not been built.
The tour I took was organized by Paris Walks, a firm owned by a British couple that focuses its business on themed walks of Paris. Guided tours last about two hours. Several books are available for people who prefer self-guided walking, including one written by Paris Walks co-owner Peter Caine.
The guide on my tour, an American named Brad Newfield, carefully pointed out the “Da Vinci” sites and described how Brown drew his fiction from them. He described some of the historic basis for the novel. And he brightened the walk, too, by remembering to highlight some of the non-“Da Vinci” sites on our tour that the guidebooks missed.
After all, many of “The Da Vinci Code” sites are on the Left Bank of Paris, one of the world’s great touring districts.
It’s nice to know that Catherine Deneuve keeps an apartment across the square, overlooking St. Sulpice. Newfield pointed out the remarkable Delacroix fresco tucked away in a chapel of the church. He directed attention to the Cafe de Flore on Boulevard St. Germain where Picasso, Sartre, Camus and others drank absinthe. It’s just one of many fetching streetside cafes–seats facing out toward the sidewalk in the traditional Paris style–that make the neighborhood of St. Germain such a warm stretch in the sun.
Walking past the tony galleries by the Ecole de Beaux Arts, Newfield mentioned the memorable phrase the French use to describe people who gawk outside shop windows.
“Leche vitrine,” they say. “Window lickers.”
Newfield even stopped long enough outside L’Hotel, the hotel where Oscar Wilde died, to recall the author’s famous last words: “My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has to go.”
Wilde went first. The hotel kept the garish flowered paper for a century after his death in 1900, but replaced it five years ago. A set of Wilde artifacts, including the bill that was left unpaid upon his death, make L’Hotel worth a quick stop, though.
Charming as such observations are, it is “The Da Vinci Code” sites that make the walk unique.
The church of St. Germain des Pres, for example, is a burial site for Merovingian kings–objects of one of the book’s most controversial fictions, that this line of French royalty known as the “Do-Little Kings” descended from a connubial union between Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene.
This is a point when tour groups typically want to know how much of Brown’s book Newfield takes for true, and how much is pure fiction. But Newfield believes such debates spoil the spell of the book and the tour.
Still, some do insist. One client brought Newfield a 30-page computer printout claiming that the Priory of Sion–the secret society that guards the grail against the ultra-conservative Roman Catholic sect Opus Dei–has existed for centuries and is not just Brown’s fiction. And there is some historical evidence to support the claim.
Walking across Pont des Arts, a foot bridge where hundreds of people gather on summer nights for wine-drenched dinners, Newfield points out the spot on the Isle des Cite, just west of the Notre Dame cathedral, where the Grand Master of the Knights Templar was burnt at the stake in 1314. His real-life crime? Believing that Mary Magdalene and Jesus Christ were married.
The Louvre is the chief destination of this particular tour. The murder of the curator that opens the book takes place in the Louvre, and the coded clues that give the book its narrative drive were taken from the artist who painted the Louvre’s most famous possession: the Mona Lisa.
Of course, the Louvre and many of its works are centerpieces of the book. While its collection could be a “Da Vinci Code” tour in itself, the Louvre–one of the world’s largest museums–does not offer one. At least, not yet. Paris Walks, at least, hands out a self-guided tour for those with the energy to take on the Louvre.
My schedule required me to take a private tour. But it seems obvious that part of the fun of taking the walk in a group is the talk that inevitably arises about religious faith, ancient symbols, classic art and Parisian landmarks that come with the tour.
Still, Newfield pointed out, many Catholics regard the book’s theme as anti-religious, and regular churchgoers seem put off by Brown’s ideas. “We don’t get many devout Catholics,” Newfield said. “But that’s OK. We don’t like to have people quarreling on our tours.”
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dgreising@tribune.com
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IF YOU GO
TOUR FACTS
“The Da Vinci Code” is the book that has launched a thousand tours. Mine was organized by Paris Walks, a husband-and-wife outfit owned by Peter and Oriel Caine, whose other walking tours cover such topics as the French revolution, Hemingway’s Paris, Montmartre and the like. Their “Da Vinci Code” tours leave at 10:30 a.m. Wednesdays and Saturdays from the Marillon subway stop near St. Sulpice and last about two hours.
The tours cost 12 euros (about $14.50); reservations are suggested. 011-33-1-48-09-21-40 (the phone number as published has been corrected in this text); ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/parisw alking/pwthome.htm.
I stayed a block away from St. Sulpice at the cozy Hotel la Perle, which offered just-out-the-door access to an assortment of trendy boutiques and sumptuous eateries from bistro to white tablecloth. Rooms start at $190. 14 Rue des Cannettes; 011-33-1-43-29-10-10; www.hotel-paris-laperle.com.
“DA VINCI” OPTIONS
Way up the cost scale is Chateau de Villette, the country estate of nearly 200 acres about 25 miles northwest of Paris where the eccentric Leigh Teabing put together his code-drenched plot. For those with an unquenchable interest in “The Da Vinci Code”–and a nearly bottomless pocketbook–a five-night tour package includes lodging and some meals at Chateau de Villette, tours of all the major “Da Vinci Code” sites in the Paris area, a group session with a historian or other professional, and lunch at the Hotel Ritz.
Prices begin at about $4,640. 415-435-1600; www.frenchvacation.com/daVinciCodeTour.htm.
In London, a three-hour “Da Vinci Code” tour offered by British Tours includes sites from the book, including Fleet Street, King’s College at Oxford, Westminster Abbey and St. James Park, where “the Teacher” eliminates an accomplice. Prices from $150 per person for a party of two to $66 per person for a party of seven. 011-44-207-734-8734; www.britishtours.com/davincicodetours.html.
The grandest tour we could find is a seven-night trip to France, England and Scotland, beginning on Sept. 24 in Paris (three nights) with a curator-led visit to the Louvre.
Other highlights include Chateau de Villette, a train ride to London (two nights) with a visit to Temple Church, where some of the book’s climactic scenes take place, and via train to Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland, a church filled with symbols that figure prominently in the book’s conclusion.
The tour–priced at $2,095, with a $720 single supplement–ends in Edinburgh (two nights). 416-923-2003, ask for Greg; www.skylinkholidays.com.
–David Greising
