Palais du Tau, la maison du sacre

Reims

This palace is called the Tau because of its plan in the shape of a T, the Greek letter. It is the archbishop's house, but it is above all, for a few days every thirty years, the king's house. The future sovereign arrives there the day before, spends there the night of vigil and prayer, and it is there that, early in the morning, the bishops of Laon and of Beauvais come to fetch him in his chamber: Charles IX, in 1561, instituted the fiction of the sleeping king whom the bishops wake to a new life. The king reaches the cathedral by a covered gallery, receives there the nine anointings and the insignia, then returns to the palace where the coronation banquet awaits him in the great hall of the Tau. His shirt and his gloves, soiled with the holy chrism, are burned there. The palatine chapel, raised in the years 1215-1235, belongs to the building works of the cathedral; the great hall was remade at the end of the 15th century, the wings on the courtyard by Robert de Cotte between 1688 and 1693. The palace is today the museum of the cathedral: there one sees the statues brought down from the doorways, the tapestries, the talisman of Charlemagne and the reliquary of the Sainte Ampoule completed in 1823, the one that was used for Charles X.

Wikipédia — Palais du Tau ↗

Getting there : Place du Cardinal-Luçon, against the cathedral, twenty minutes on foot from the station of Reims. A national museum managed by the Centre des monuments nationaux: paid entry, weekly closing day and seasonal opening times, enquire before coming. A combined ticket with the towers of the cathedral is possible.

Opening times and access details are given as a guide only: check before you set out.

Ambient sound