With La Basilique royale de Saint-Denis the distinguished art historian Jean-Michel Leniaud returns to a building that he last explored in his 1996 Saint-Denis de 1760 à nos jours. This study, though, is less a single thesis than a collection of beautifully-illustrated stand-alone essays. Readers who overcome their irritation at the multiple repetitions which ensue are in for a treat. This is a piece of real detective work which is also a morality tale and a wonderful insight into modern French history. As the burial place for French monarchs from the tenth century onwards, Saint Denis was an obvious focus for the destructive power of the revolution. Here, Leniaud tells the story of what happened after Napoleon's 1806 decision to restore the church. Initially conceived as a memorial to the emperor, it became a shrine to the restored Bourbons and then a monument to France itself. At the same time it was a laboratory for the development of neo-Gothic architecture. The man who oversaw this transformation is the hero of this book, the architect François Debret. Now almost forgotten, his massive work of restoration is recreated here effectively for the first time, and Debret himself staunchly defended against the attacks of his successor, the far more famous – and, it seems, far more slippery – Eugène Viollet-le-Duc. Recapturing a lost moment in the history of Saint-Denis and raising vital questions about the nature of church restoration more generally, this is a book which deserves a readership far wider than its title might suggest.