In a richly layered and beautifully illustrated narrative, Raymond Jonas tells the fascinating and surprisingly little-known story of the Sacre-Coeur, or Sacred Heart. The highest point in Paris and a celebrated tourist destination, the white-domed basilica of Sacre-Coeur on Montmartre is a key monument both to French Catholicism and to French national identity. Jonas masterfully reconstructs the history of the devotion responsible for the basilica, beginning with the apparition of the Sacred Heart to Marguerite Marie Alacoque in the seventeenth century, through the French Revolution and its aftermath, to the construction of the monumental church that has loomed over Paris since the end of the nineteenth century. Jonas focuses on key moments in the development of the cult: the founding apparition, its invocation during the plague of Marseilles, its adaptation as a royalist symbol during the French Revolution, and its elevation to a central position in Catholic devotional and political life in the crisis surrounding the Franco-Prussian War. He draws on a wealth of archival sources to produce a learned yet accessible narrative that encompasses a remarkable sweep of French politics, history, architecture, and art.

雷蒙·琼纳斯（Raymond Jonas），先后获法国巴黎大学、美国加州大学伯克利分校博士学位，任教于美国西雅图华盛顿大学，现为该校历史系教授。其研究领域为现代法国史，关注法国大革命及其余波、巴黎城市史、反革命的政治文化、圣心崇拜及其艺术等。著有《法国乡村的工业与政治：1870至1914年间伊泽尔省的农民》（Industry and Politics in Rural France：Peasants of the Isere，1870-1914）及《法兰西与圣心崇拜》等。