The Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Paris

The Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Paris is a Roman Catholic church and minor basilica, dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. A popular landmark and the second most visited monument in Paris, the basilica stands at the summit of the butte Montmartre, the highest point in the city. Basilica is above all a religious (Catholic) building, shown by its perpetual adoration of the Holy Eucharist since 1885, and is also seen as a double monument, political and cultural, both a national penance for the defeat of France in the 1870 Franco-Prussian War and for the socialist Paris Commune of 1871 crowning its most rebellious neighborhood, and an embodiment of conservative moral order, publicly dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which was an increasingly popular devotion since the visions of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque.