Feast of Saint Denis — October 9

The feast of Saint Denis, first bishop of Paris and martyr around 250 AD, falls on 9 October. The basilica built over his tomb north of the city became, under Abbot Suger in the twelfth century, the building historians point to as the birthplace of Gothic architecture — its choir the first to gather ribbed vaults, pointed arches and stained glass into one design. Forty kings and twenty-six queens of France came to be buried beside him.