Notre Dame Cathedral

ParisFrance
Written By Chantelle Bryant

Travel through time and discover just what it takes to survive revolutions, wars and the destruction of fires

Notre Dame has weathered the years and surprisingly still stands tall and remains the symbol of the city that grew up around it for many today.

Part 1

In the beginning

What’s interesting about churches is that they’re generally a collection of architectural styles, mainly because churches last forever and they need to be fixed, rebuilt, and changed to meet the needs of differing times. Which means that without even moving locations, a church can be built and continuously rebuilt and still be solid in its foundations. And that is what we see in the Cathedral of Notre Dame in the heart of Paris.

There are a couple names it goes by, Notre Dame de Paris, Notre-Dame Cathedral, but I think for our purposes today we’ll refer to it as ‘Notre-Dame’ or ‘the Cathedral’.

Now Notre Dame is quite possibly one of the most famous Gothic cathedrals you will come across, and to many a Parisian, it is more than an 850 year old landmark, it is actually the very heart of their city. Quite literally, right at the start the city that would become what we know as Paris today grew up around Notre Dame, which sits on an island in the middle of the River Seine.

Sitting proudly on the Île de la Cité, the name of the island, within the 4th arrondissement of Paris, arrondissements are kind of like suburbs in Paris, it might surprise you to learn that Notre Dame is actually built on top of the ruins of churches that came before it, albeit much smaller ones. But what’s quite interesting, is that even before these early churches, it’s believed that an even earlier temple dedicated to Jupiter claimed this prime spot. Despite the spots Gallo-Roman roots, today Notre Dame is dedicated to the Virgin Mary, with a translation of Notre Dame de Paris giving it away.

The original version of Notre Dame was built in the 12th century, and considering the technology they had in the Middle Ages, to have a building that not only still stands today, but to have been able to build one so tall is just a testament to this technological and architectural feat.

Being built so far away in the past, means that Notre Dame has not gotten through life without some changes. The Cathedral was modified in the 18th century, before being restored in the 19th century, and is being restored this very day. But throughout all that time, Notre Dame has stood as a symbol of faith and worship, particularly for those of the Christian and Catholic faith.

Now let’s quickly duck back all the way to the 300’s. Admittedly Paris looks very different than it does today, mainly because it doesn’t quite exist. But all that is about to change. King Clovis, not King of France because France wasn’t a country yet, but King of the Franks, he appears in the 4th century on this island, Île de la Cité, in the middle of a river, the River Seine, and he says ‘this spot will be my capital and it shall be named Paris’. It probably wasn’t named Paris, but let’s just say it was for this story’s sake.

So Clovis has established the capital of his Frankish Kingdom, and he has also converted to Christianity, happy days for him. As Christianity’s importance grew, the early city of Paris all of a sudden found itself being quite the influencer.

Everyone wants a bit of early Paris, so much so that the island fills up pretty bloody quick, so bridges are needed off our little island onto the mainland where new neighbourhoods are growing and expanding.

It was then in the 6th century, that our first rendition of a cathedral appears. The Saint-Etienne cathedral, or Saint Stephen for those who don’t speak French. And the place was so popular that many a pope dropped by and stayed for quite a while. And through excavations that were carried out in the 19th century, during the restoration work, we now know for certain that the original Saint-Etienne Cathedral was located in the square right in front of Notre Dame today. Those excavations revealed remains of mosaics and parts of columns, which proved the existence of a religious building.

And it wasn’t just Saint Etienne who stood on the island, there was also a large water tank, very useful, not far from the early cathedral, as well as an old chapel that was reserved for the Bishop of Paris where the choir stands today, and on the eastern tip of the island you also would have found a couple extra buildings for the use of the diocese.

Now if we jump to the 12th century, specifically 1163, we can see Pope Alexander III celebrating Easter in Paris by laying the first stone of the cathedral that would become Notre Dame.

With Notre Dame now under construction, the architectural style of the Gothic starts to develop. With its main key concept being to bring light into the church through the use of stained glass, pointed arches, ribbed vaults and all that good stuff, that while they may seem old and traditional today were actually quite impressive new techniques being developed.

If we jump ahead slightly to the 13th century, we see that Paris has doubled in size and in 1239, Saint Louis comes back from a trip to Jerusalem with some special cargo. He carries relics of the Passion of Christ which he places in the cathedral as a safe place for them to live. Therefore making Notre Dame a ‘high place of worship’.

As we head into the Renaissance, the gothic architectural style kind of goes out of fashion, and people aren’t as taken with Notre Dame as they once were.

The 18th century wasn’t kind to Notre Dame, with Catholic worship being banned in Paris in 1793, Notre Dame was kind of left to its own fate and subjected to looting and vandalism, including the west façade, where 28 Kings of Judea, which had been there since 1230, were pulled down and decapitated because the people thought they were French Kings. Now that’s quite the misunderstanding.

Now at the start of the 1800s, Notre Dame was actually up for sale, no one really wanted it, so a merchant who was looking at the place as a source of good quality building materials was circling. But when Napoleon Bonaparte came to power he said, ‘Nope, you’re not selling that’, and then demanded that the place be redecorated so that he could be coronated as Emperor, which he did in 1804. So you could say that Napoleon saved Notre Dame from being torn down.

And then because of the trials of the Revolution, Notre Dame did look as if it was standing on her last legs. And it was Victor Hugo and his very popular novel that saved Notre Dame this time with the Cathedral being fully restored in the 19th century, but we’ll get to that in a little bit. First we need to see how the thing was built.

Building the Cathedral

Construction from start to finish for Notre Dame is roughly about 200 years, that’s a lot of building, then you have changes and modifications made in the 18th century, before a pretty major restoration project to bring the place back up to the snuff in the 19th century. So quite a busy place construction wise if you think about it.

So how did we get from a smallish Saint-Etienne Cathedral to a massive Notre Dame Cathedral. Well we know from 19th century excavations that Notre Dame isn’t built exactly over where Saint-Etienne stood, and this is because when the construction of Notre Dame began, those doing the constructing realised that the bigger the building the more space you need to store materials, so Maurice de Sully, a Bishop at the time, decides that Saint-Etienne is going to have to go so that there’s more room for the pieces of wood and stone that will very soon make up Notre Dame. And the recently freed up space is promptly used as a place to put things together before it’s then turned into the forecourt, which actually works out well today with all the tourists lining up to get into the place.

The stone that was stored in the empty space left by Saint-Etienne is freestone quarried from the old suburbs of Paris, and we know from our Catacombs episode that quarries were pretty popular around Paris.

The quarried stone is a mix of limestone. The soft limestone was used indoors and the hard limestone was naturally used for the exterior spots like facades, sculptures and pillars. And then of course we have the wood for the interior of the roof frame, which will become a bit more important a bit later on.

Now the forecourt of Notre-Dame isn’t just a nice place to stand in line. It is actually kilometre zero. Which marks the point where fourteen routes radiate out from Paris and extend throughout the rest of France. And of course, thanks to the 19th century excavations, there is also access to an archaeological crypt in the space as well.

Let’s now get stuck into the nitty gritty of Notre Dame’s construction. There were 5 major construction phases, starting all the way back in 1163, and continuing right up until the present day.

The first phase was the initial construction which took place throughout the 12th and 13thcenturies. So we already know that the first stone was laid in 1163, marking the start of the main construction. And the whole idea behind Notre Dame and the surrounding area by the prominent bishop, Maurice de Sully, would then become known as ‘Gothic Art’ by those living in the 16th century. So quite the lasting legacy.

Throughout the rest of the 1100s we have the construction of the main building. The Choir, ambulatories, the initial bays of the nave, along with the aisles. Then as we head into the early 1200s, we have the main façade with its famous portals, which we’ll dig into later on. Then work on the main façade really hits a stride with the towers being built, the windows being put in, terraces being constructed and flying buttresses to hold it all up.

While phase 1 was a flurry of construction and activity, they really didn’t slow down in phase 2, where they focused on making the place useful and looking pretty. For the rest of the 13th century, modifications are made to the north façade and its rose window, with roughly the same happening to the south. At the start of the 14th century we’ve got more flying buttresses going in, and the chapel and choir being finalised.

With the main construction of Notre Dame finally complete, you would think we would leave it there. But that is not the case. As we get into the 17th century, architectural tastes have changed throughout the Renaissance and people no longer enjoy the look of Gothic architecture, so Notre Dame, who is covered in the stuff, kind of got left behind a little. Which bring us to the 3rd phase of Notre Dame’s very exciting life. Louis XIII really wanted to bring Notre Dame back into the limelight and so he decided that changes needed to be made, so that the Cathedral appealed a little more to changing modern tastes.

So throughout the 18th century, modifications were made first under the reign of Louis XIV and then his son, Louis XV, finished them off. And then of course Louis XVI couldn’t be left out and he had his own changes and modifications made, namely lighting the place up a little as he thought it was just a bit too dark for him and the entrance widened to allow a much bigger procession through.

But by the 19th century, Notre Dame really wasn’t in public favour. Everyone kind of avoided the area and the whole cathedral fell into some serious disrepair and if the place was going to survive a seriously major restoration was needed. Which brings us to the 4th phase of Notre Dame’s life. It was old mate, Victor Hugo, who kicked things off. His very famous novel The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, you may have seen the Disney film, sounded the alarm as to the poor state of the place and he renewed the interest in the public for having a gorgeous building continue to take pride of place in their city for many a century to come.

And so a competition was held to determine the best people to restore Notre Dame in 1843. Jean-Baptiste Lassus and Eugene Viollet-le-Duc were the lucky winners and they wasted no time in getting started with their work beginning the following year. But a little while in, so 1857, Lassus died. You might be thinking that’s not too bad, there’s two of them Eugene will get it done. Well, my destination historian friend, you would be right. But he would do a lot more than that. And it has proven to be quite the controversy. But we’ll get into that juicy bit of drama in just a moment, first we need to discover the rest of the phases of construction.

Now Viollet-le-Duc must have done a fairly decent job, because the place wasn’t really touched in terms of extra modifications throughout the 20th century, mainly just maintenance, but that doesn’t really count.

So now it’s the 1990s and the Cathedral has really been left to its own devices for about 150 years. But time and weather and the dreaded pollution has really taken its toll on the stone used for the exterior, meaning that some deep cleaning, and probably some stone repair, was needed. So we now find ourselves in phase 5, which will take us right up to today.

Apart from some standard cleaning in the ‘90s, not a whole lot was done until 2018, the French Government decided that a second major renovation was to take place. Parts of the Cathedral turned out to not be in a good way, and it was critical that these parts be fixed and restored before it got any worse. And it did get worse.

As we well know a fire broke out on the 15th April in 2019 that proved to be devastating. We’ll get more into the extend of the damage and the effort to rebuild towards the end of our second episode on the Notre Dame Cathedral, but for now the fire caused quite extensive damage to the roof, including that tall spire, and to the interior. Luckily though, despite what you might think, the French are tough stock, and have vowed to rebuild, specifically before the Olympic Games are due to be held in Paris in 2024, now that is quite the ambitious target, especially when you factor in delays due to the ever-present coronavirus.

So now, let’s take a quick step back, and have a look at Notre Dame as a whole. Like most other French cathedrals that you’ll come across, Notre Dame is laid out in a Latin cross shape with the main façade pointing west-north-west. And the place isn’t small at all, with space for about 9000 people, and that’s including 1500 up in the stands.

And its length measures in at 127 metres, at its widest point it’s 40 metres and then from the ground to the ceiling is 22 metres, now that’s a fair way up. And this height did not disappoint in the middle ages. For quite a while it was actually the largest religious building in the Western World. So it’s definitely been fairly important since the very beginning.

Now the original architect of Notre Dame is unknown to us today. And it is not surprising that the architect, who

designed a building of exceptional dimensions

remains anonymous. Usually these guys aren’t really mentioned in the literature, because it’s the one, usually an important person, who commissioned the work who gets all the glory. But we do know who the master masons were for Phase 2 of the cathedral’s construction. There were three of them, Jean de Chelles, Pierre de Montreuil and Pierre de Chelles, and each of them did a pretty good job, despite the confusing use of names.

So Jean de Chelles was our initial master builder, we know this because of an inscription in the south transept at the time of his death in 1258. But he saw the construction of the north transept, and the start of the south transept, including the Saint-Etienne portal. Jean was one who loved some fancy windows so he had large bay windows placed into the walls to add some much needed natural light.

After Jean we have Pierre de Montreuil, who had some innovative approaches. He largely focused on the cathedral, putting up the massive pillars that in turn support the ribs of the roof. He also made some improvements including enlarging the nave and aisles for a bit more space. Pierre was also a fan of windows and it was he who added the stained glass above the side aisles, giving way to the emergence of a clear gothic style of the Cathedral.

After he died we have the second Pierre, Pierre de Chelles, who is related to Jean de Chelles, we’re just not that confident on how. Some refer to him as Jean’s son, other’s as his nephew, so pick which one you prefer. So second Pierre worked on a fair bit, we see him constructing the chapels of the apse, and then sorting out some of the flying buttresses. He sorted out some sculpting in the choir and built the roof screen, which is the partition between the chancel and nave and I’m told is quite ornate. Now obviously second Pierre didn’t see the place finished, that was oversaw by other architects after his death, like Jean Ravy and Jean le Bouteiller. Seems Jean and Pierre were popular names in France in the middle ages.

And there we have it, an original religious monument built to a standard and height never before seen in the world at the time. But things are about to change, and the original Notre Dame looks a little different to the Notre Dame that we know and recognise today, even without the hole in the roof.

Restoring the Cathedral – the first time

As we already know Notre Dame has gone through quite a few changes throughout the years, with the first big modifications taking place in the 18th century, and the first big restoration happening in the 19th century.

Unfortunately for the Cathedral, most of the work done in the 18th century wasn’t at its best for very long, because we know that during the French Revolution the place was badly treated and then left to degrade.

Robert de Cotte was the main architect for the 18th century modifications, appointed by Louis XIV himself, de Cotte remained as architect when Louis XV took over as well, and it was probably a decent idea as de Cotte is recognised today as

one of the most brilliant representatives of 18th century French architecture.

So probably not a bad bloke to have running everything. He handled the gables and bell towers on the south side of the building, sorted out the flying buttresses, galleries and terraces, set about renovating the roof and shoring up the drainage system. He also reorganised the choir by opening a vault, creating a new high altar, complete with crucifix and candlesticks, brought marble in for the columns and closed off the choir with wrought iron gates. Beautiful.

While most of de Cotte’s work happened at the start of the century, by the middle of the 18th century, it was decided that the cathedral was just too dark, so the walls were naturally whitewashed, and they also replaced the stained glass windows that were put in in the 13th century with white glass. Luckily for us here in the future though, they left the great rose windows alone.

So along comes the French Revolution. By the time we get to 1793, worshipping as a god-fearing Catholic is frowned upon in Paris and banned. So naturally Notre-Dame is subsequently looted and vandalised, and turned into a warehouse for what I’m sure was some tasty French wine.

A couple years later in 1801, Catholic worship is reinstated in churches, and Notre-Dame is once again named a Cathedral. Happy Days.

Not really, the revolutionaries really did a number on Notre-Dame and the whole place is threatening to collapse. So much so that the 13th century spire was removed because of the threat it posed to those on the street if it decided to fall. So the poor place is in a pretty sorry state, literally on the brink of collapse. But Napoleon says, ‘not before my coronation she won’t’. And so in 1804, the interior of Notre-Dame was made to look very fancy with silk and velvet everywhere, as well as a portico made of wood and cardboard, to mask the clear structural issues with this very large building.

So we’re now well into the 19th century, and Notre-Dame by some miracle (see what I did there?) is still standing, but is properly on the brink. Clearly nothing short of a major restoration is needed at this point. But no one really seems all that interested in whether the Cathedral stays or goes.

And then along comes Victor Hugo. Hugo wrote his book The Hunchback of Notre-Dame reinvigorating the people’s love of the Cathedral and sounding the alarm of how much care the place was in need of. And thank god he did, because at one point the Parisian authorities were contemplating tearing the whole place down.

Notre Dame really has a whole lot to thank Hugo for. If his novel hadn’t been the roaring success it was, Notre Dame would never have become the national icon we know today, and it would never have been restored to the extent that it was.

It was in 1842, that the Minister of Justice and Religious Affairs announced a major restoration project of the Cathedral. Two years later Jean-Baptist Lassus and Eugene Viollet-le-Duc are announced as the architects to take on the momentous task.

Jean was an expert in restoring medieval architecture, Eugene had already restored many medieval landmarks around France. They came to the project with a wealth of knowledge under their belts. Unfortunately for him, and some might say for us, Lassus died in 1857, leaving the restoration of Notre Dame firmly in the hands of Viollet-le-Duc, who’s idea of restoration was adding structural changes to make it look more like a Gothic cathedral should look, not necessarily what it looked like before the Revolution decimated it. Which caused a bit of drama we’ll get onto in a moment.

But Viollet-le-Duc did make the place look pretty bloody good. He recreated the gallery of the Kings that had erroneously been destroyed by anti-monarchists, he added new decorative elements like grotesques, gargoyles and flying buttresses, restored the portals, restored the southern rose window, reorganised the choir, inserted more windows and, probably most impressively, added a new spire.

Now while these changes and additions made by Viollet-le-Duc are well-known today, at the time, and sometimes even still today, Viollet-le-Duc is criticised by his choices to add and change Notre-Dame the way he did. He didn’t exactly keep within the lines of a restoration.

Issues with the first restoration

The 19th century restoration was probably the most important restoration project at the time, and possibly the biggest. But Viollet-le-Duc didn’t exactly make things easy on himself, with many, or most, of his decisions drawing criticisms of his work and his choices.

Whilst working on Notre-Dame, Viollet-le-Duc was stuck a little. He decided that while Notre-Dame was a gothic cathedral, if you stepped back and really looked at it, it didn’t really look true Gothic. He figured it could definitely be more Gothic. And to him it also didn’t really look very medieval. Which was a bit weird considering it was designed and built in the medieval ages. So Viollet-le-Duc needed to find a way to make Notre Dame look like a gothic cathedral made in the medieval ages. And his compromises and, more concerningly, interpretations of what medieval gothic architecture looks like is why his work is quite controversial.

You see, rather than restoring Notre Dame to how it looked before the Revolution, making sure it wouldn’t fall over anytime soon and giving it a good clean, Viollet-le-Duc decided to add bits here and there, to make it look more like what he thought a medieval gothic cathedral should look like, not necessarily what was authentic medieval gothic. And this is what the issue is.

Ironically, the extra work Viollet-le-Duc did in restoring Notre Dame has in a way defined medieval gothic architecture. Which is a roundabout way of saying ‘the place looks good’. You can even see Viollet-le-Duc’s philosophy and reasoning on the restoration of Notre Dame in his collected observations titled Dictionary of French Architecture from the 11th to 14th century. While the title isn’t particularly exciting, knowing that there was some method behind his madness, and he wasn’t just adding things all willy nilly, does somehow make it all feel a little bit okay.

Interior architecture

So why don’t we pop inside have a little look around. Notre Dame has everything you can expect your standard church to have, a choir and apse, a transept, a nave flanked by aisles and a chapel. Pretty standard so far. But what isn’t standard is the Gothic influence throughout. The ceiling soars pretty bloody high and the columns accentuate the height vertically and with those high windows added by old mate Viollet-le-Duc the whole place is bathed in light.

While we’re looking up, let’s talk a little about ‘the forest’ or the framework that holds up the roof. Before it was destroyed in the 2019 fire, this complex structure of beams were from the 13th century, making it one of the oldest structures in Paris.

It’s been referred to as ‘the forest’ because each of the beams came from a different tree, so a literal forest was felled to get enough wood that was strong enough and long enough to create the roof structure. And bloody hell is it impressive. In the nave its 100 metres long and 13 metres wide and in the smaller transept it’s bloody big at 40 metres long and 10 metres wide. So nothing to turn your nose up at.

The lead roof rests on this framework of wood, traditionally churches would usually have flat clay tiles, but Paris doesn’t really have any sourceable clay so they pivoted and made the roof out of lead.

Back down on ground level, let’s have a chat about the nave. This is the place where the faithful can come and sit, listen to sermons or have some quiet time in the vast cathedral. The nave itself consists of 10 bays, with a pillar between each of the spaces. Above the first two bays are the towers and this area also serves as a transition from the outside world.

The Grand Organ, which can be found just as you walk into the nave, is supposedly the largest organ in all of France. And with roughly 8000 pipes, 5 keyboards and pedals, 109 stops and standing at almost 10 metres it sounds like they may be right. Thankfully this magnificent organ largely survived the 2019 fire with just a little bit of water damage in a couple of the pipes. But the whole organ does need a good old clean, because the poor thing was just covered in lead dust from the collapsed roof. So in December of 2020 the whole organ was taken apart and taken away for restoration at an undisclosed location so as not to encourage any sort of funny business. Now the cleaning isn’t the end, oh no, once it’s clean it needs to be put back together and then tuned before it will sound any good. But something that’s pretty exciting, is that once the current restoration is finished, the Grand Organ will be sounding the best it ever has, and probably better than anyone will have heard it sound before.

Notre Dame isn’t just bathed in beautiful natural light, it’s also got some coloured light filtering in through its three massive rose windows. These are circular in shape and are a classic Gothic feature, with a web of stone holding beautifully stained pieces of glass.

The South Rose Window was given to Notre Dame by King of France Saint Louis IX and built in 1260. It isn’t small at 13 metres across with its frame being 19 metres high. The South Rose has 84 panels laid out in a pattern of 4 circles, featuring scenes from the Last Judgement. Where naturally Christ is in the centre surrounded by angels, wise men and virgins. There are saints, bishops, apostles, deacons, knights and martyrs, each sitting in a spot in one of the 4 circles.

The two bottom corners of the square frame that the circle sits within also have some windows. On one side is the descent into hell, along with the temptation of Adam and Eve, on the other, the resurrection of Christ accompanied by Peter, Paul, John and of course Magdalene.

One issue though with stained glass windows is keeping the colours, colour doesn’t particularly like sunlight, and that’s what these windows are bathed in every day. So in the 18th century, Cardinal de Noailles paid for the window to be reconstructed and had his coat of arms put in the centre for his troubles. Obviously this isn’t exactly standard practice, but when Viollet-le-Duc has the chance to change things up in the 19th century, he actually chose to leave it the way it is. A peculiar choice.

If we pop round to the other side, we’ll see the North Rose Window, conveniently sitting directly opposite the South Rose Window. In fact it was actually the North window that came first, being built about a decade earlier than the one to the South in 1250. And it’s actually the only window to have most of the original 13th century glass still intact today. This rose window pays homage to Mary and the Christ Child, with 32 kings and 16 prophets, previously seen in the Old Testament, surrounding them.

Now if we pop round to the front of Notre Dame we’ll see the last of our rose windows. The West Rose Window is the smallest and oldest of the three being originally built all the way back in 1225, though unfortunately none of its glass is original. Again here the Madonna and Child sit centre stage, with the 12 tribes of Israel surrounding them. The upper half of the window show the virtues and the vices of Paris, interesting design choice, and the lower half shows the 12 signs of the zodiac, another interesting design choice. But there you go.

Not only does Notre Dame have these three massive stained glass rose windows, it also has your standard glass windows along its walls. There’s so many of them that they cover almost a 1000 square metres of wall. These windows were added to get some more light into a dark and dreary place, transforming it into a bright and airy space. And it’s these windows that showcase a masterpiece in Gothic art, each depicting many a religious scene or story.

Now as we wander around you’ll notice that along either side of the nave, there are two aisles. These aisles serve as a way for the faithful to get around the Cathedral. It’s also next to these aisles that 29 chapels were added in the 13th century when the place was slightly enlarged.

These chapels are interesting because they were often consecrated by wealthy families as a memory of their deceased relatives in the Middle Ages. What’s weird, is that in order to get a chapel in your name, the family needed to create a foundation and give some money to the chaplain, so in the 14th century foundations were popping up all over the place, with more and more chapels added. And each chapel had an altar, a lamp, and some statues or paintings which would naturally show some appropriate saint or relevant decoration. Sadly a lot of these were properly destroyed during the French Revolution, with nothing but drawings surviving of what the place once looked like.

The High Altar of Notre Dame is like the cathedral itself dedicated to the Virgin Mary and has been since the 12th century. It was Louis XIII who decided to build a brand new high altar as a sign of devotion to the Virgin Mary in 1637, by modifying the choir. While he was at it he had a decently large painting commissioned with naturally showed himself with the sceptre and crown of France. But things didn’t really go as planed, with Louis XIII dead it fell to Louis XIV to get things going, and he didn’t even see it as a priority until towards the end of his reign when he got Robert de Cotte to work on it between 1708 and 1725.

And so in 1723, the white marble Pieta was brought into the cathedral, sculpted to perfection by Nicolas Coustou. In the sculpting, Coustou has the dead Christ resting in his mother’s lap, with two angels surrounding them. And this description of the altar I think captures it all pretty well:

The deep drapes that catch the light and the ecstatic attitude of the Virgin expressing her emotion, underline the baroque character of this sculpture.

On the base, you can see a bas-relief with gilded bronze, which I’m told somehow represents the cross. And then on top you have a monstrance, six candlesticks and a crucifix. And naturally there are six bronze statues of angels standing either side of the high later, ready with the instruments of the crucifixion. I guess in case another one is in order. And of course we can’t forget the people who can be thanked for this altar in the first place, Louis XIII and Louis XIV, statues of them are placed on either side of the altar. The XIII is kneeling giving his royal crown to Mary out of devotion, and the XIV has his hand resting on his chest, supposedly ‘imploring’ the Virgin.

Finally we move onto the stalls. The stalls are basically wooden seats for sitting, specifically for sitting of the canons during a service. You can see them on either side of the choir and they’re pretty elaborate. They’ve got high-backs, that have illustrations of the life of the Virgin Mary in bas-relief. And then between each stall there are some nice decorations of foliage, in case you wanted to feel as if you were outside.

There were originally 114 wooden stalls made in the 18th century, sadly only 78 of those remain today. And you guessed it, we have the Revolution to thank for this destruction. Luckily old mate, Viollet-le-Duc, was around in the 19th century to partially rebuild them.

 

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Part 2

Exterior architecture

If you’ve read Part 1 of our Notre Dame deep dive, you would already know that the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris is a masterpiece of Gothic architecture, and is world renowned for this.

And the gothic architecture is no more apparent than in its exterior. A stone building balancing structural forces to stay upright, what more could you need? And the fact that this building was built in the Middle Ages is a testament to the architects of the time and the techniques they employed with such mastery.

Naturally, as a religious building, Notre Dame is built in the shape of a Latin cross, and has four main facades. The western façade, the bottom of the cross, is the main entrance and the one you would enter through should you ever wish to visit Notre Dame. Then you have the north and south facades, they’re the arms of the cross or the transept. And then the eastern façade is a rounded apse at the top of the cross. Which is actually probably a decent place to start as we begin our walk around of this terrific cathedral.

Notre Dame’s construction actually started with the apse, making it the oldest part of the building. You’ll recognise it from the outside because of this semicircular shape and flying buttresses that look as if they’re holding the thing up. They were actually added by Jean Ravy in the 14th century when he replaced some of the buttresses lining the choir.

Speaking of flying buttresses, the one’s at Notre Dame are valued for the architectural feat they are. The fact that they do their job exceptionally well while still being so tall and thin is something amazing. Naturally, part of their function is to support the wall their leaning against from the weight of the roof, but the one’s at Notre Dame have a dual function. They also help rainwater drain away from the side of the wall. Pretty great use of what you already have.

Speaking of rainwater, Notre Dame also employs the use of gargoyles. Prominent in the Disney film The Hunchback of Notre Dame, the gargoyles are decorative elements that serve a very practical purpose. Just like the flying buttresses, they prevent rainwater from running down the stone and eroding it over time.

Placed at the end of the gutters, they stick out a little way to ensure that the rainwater runs freely down to the ground and not against the wall. Designed at the same time as the cathedral’s main architecture, they too had to be in line with the Gothic theme and so are naturally in the form of scary and fantastical animals.

Let’s now wander around to the south side of the cathedral and have a look at the Saint-Etienne portal, or the door dedicated to Saint Etienne. Some of might be thinking, ‘why Saint Stephen?’ or ‘why Saint Etienne?’ if you’re French. This bloke was chosen because he was the first Christian martyr, so I guess they had to honour him somehow, and why not a door?

Between the two doors that make up the Saint Etienne portal, you’ll find what else but a statue of the Saint. On either side of the doors you’ll also find statues, this time of the apostles. These guys were also replaced in the 19th century after having gone missing during the Revolution.

The space immediately above the doors is known as the tympanum, which in the case of Etienne’s portal tells the story of his life in bas-relief. It’s split up into three levels, the bottom level shows Etienne preaching Christianity and being brought before the judge. Things don’t work out too well for Etienne in the middle level as he is depicted being stoned and then entombed. Then in the top level he is being blessed by Christ and surrounded by the ever present angels.

Moving up from there, you’ll see a triple arch above the door, this is decorated with 21 sculptures of martyrs. Then even further up you’ll be able to see the exterior side of the south rose window we spoke about last episode.

Let’s now wander over to the other side and have a look at the north façade. Pretty similar to the one on the south end, with a statue of the Virgin and Child standing in the space between the two doors. While this statue survived the ravages of the Revolution, the Child did not, and had to be replaced. Same too for the six statues of the wisemen either side of the doors.

Sitting in the space just above the doors, the lower half of the tympanum, there are four scenes depicting the childhood of Christ. While the upper half represents the Theophilus miracle, which, if like me, you have never heard of this miracle, here’s a quick recap.

So Theophilus is a young clerk who is jealous of the bishop, who knows what for. He, Theophilus, who lives below the poverty line has decided to supplant the bishop and live in bishoppy luxury, so he makes a deal with the devil and sells his soul in return for humiliating the bishop. The bishop is thus humiliated, but Theophilus then realises he actually likes his soul and doesn’t want the devil to have it. So stuck in a pretty rough spot he implores the Virgin Mary to help. She does so and through magic cancels Theophilus’ deal with the devil. Then of course Theophilus repents because he’s so grateful. And he lives happily ever after, even if things didn’t exactly work out for the bishop, or the devil.

Alright, now let’s head round to the western façade, this is the side you would enter the Cathedral as a tourist, and with the number of tourists coming to see Notre Dame each year, good thing it’s got three entrances. The western façade is actually bloody massive and probably the side you think of when you think of Notre Dame. It is pretty iconic, with its three portals and two towers housing the famous bells.

Let’s start at the bottom and work our way up into the heavens, shall we?

So along the lower part of the façade you’ll find the three portals. On the left is the Portal of the Virgin, by the name I’m sure you can figure out that we have yet another thing, this time a door, dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Much like the north portal, a statue of the Virgin and Child is also taking pride of place in the space between the doors, but this time they are in the action of trampling a serpent, which in this case represents Satan. On the left of the doors are a representation of the four seasons and on the right a representation of the four ages of life, but don’t ask me what they are specifically. The tympanum above the doors is also split into three sections. The bottom part shows prophets and the Kings of Israel holding small boxes, with the Ark of the Covenant, which represents Mary, in the centre. The middle part shows the death of Mary, she’s surrounded by Jesus and his apostles, with angels lifting her shroud to heaven. At the top, Mary is in heaven, and is being crowned as the Queen of Heaven by an angel as she sits beside her son. And directly above, in the four arches of the portal, you can see angels, kings and prophets who make up the heavenly court.

Now over on the right we have the Saint Anne Portal. The Saint Anne portal was made first, believed to be around 1200, and so is the oldest. This portal is dedicated to Saint Anne, who was the mother of Mary and depicts the childhood of Christ. In fact, you might notice that the style of this portal is a little different to the other two, and that’s because some bits were from the old Saint Etienne Cathedral which were saved and added to this portal. So it definitely has a more Romanesque style.

Between the two doors we have Saint Marcel, who, it turns out, was the bishop of Paris in the 4th century. The statues either side of the doors represent kings and queens and what not.

Then in the lower part of the tympanum, we have the marriage of Joachim and Anne, Mary’s parents and therefore Jesus’ grandparents, and the marriage of Mary and Joseph, Jesus’ parents. And the upper part is all about the life of Christ, you’ve got the Annunciation, or when the angel Gabriel announced to Mary she was going to have a kid; there’s the Visitation to Mary, where Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, stops by Mary’s for a cup of tea; the Nativity, or Jesus being born in a barn; and the Epiphany, which for you and me might be a revelation or having a bright idea, but in this context it’s the three Kings standing around admiring the baby Jesus.

And finally, in the middle is the Portal of the Last Judgement. Three guesses for what this one’s all about. That’s right its all about the judgement that God passes down when you die. So basically it’s God deciding your qualifications on getting into heaven.

In between the two doors, we have Christ himself this time, standing on a plinth presumably in the middle of a teaching. Either side of the doors are six statues this time, one of each of the apostles. Much like the other statues, these were also destroyed in the Revolution and had to be replaced.

So up above the doors we have three sections. The lower section shows the dead rising from their graves. The dead are actually quite diverse in this decoration, you’ve got a pope, women, a king, warriors and an African man. In the middle section stands the Archangel Michael weighing the souls of those wanting to get into heaven, and you’ve got two cheeky demons trying to tip the scales in their favour. Of course the ones who pass this test are led to heaven and paradise, while the ones who don’t are chained and led to hell. And up the top we have Christ seated in all his glory and showing off his crucifixion wounds. One side you have angels holding the instruments of the crucifixion, and on the other a kneeling Mary and Saint John.

And as seen in the other portals, the celestial court can be found in the arches above the doors. So you’ve got your angels, patriarchs, prophets, theologians, martyrs and virgins all represented.

So why so much decoration for some simple doors? Well remembering that Notre Dame was built in the Middle Ages, when literacy wasn’t exactly what it is today, meant that these sculptures of biblical figures was another way of telling the stories of the gospel and history of Christians to the faithful, but through pictures.

Alright, we’re still not finished with this western façade. Above the three portals there is a horizontal band called the Gallery of the Kings. We spoke briefly about the issues this band had throughout the French Revolution, but the band holds 28 statues. Each representing the 28 generations of the Kings of Judea, those who preceded Christ.

But the illiterate of the 18th century, didn’t quite understand the difference. They heard ‘king’ and naturally associated them with the oppressive monarchy they knew, and destroyed the statues believing them to be representations of French Kings. So I guess the whole pictures telling stories thing didn’t always work out. And then we also already know that they were restored during the big restoration of the 19th century. What’s hilarious about this, is that 21 of the original statues’ heads were found in 1977, when restoration work was being done in the 9th arrondissement, so clearly someone thought they were worth keeping, and you can see these heads on exhibit at the National Museum of the Middle Ages. Fascinatingly, these originally heads have traces of colour, proving that, at least part of the 13th century cathedral was painted.

Just above the Gallery of the Kings is a small terrace with an open balustrade that stands in front of the Gallery of the Virgin. Now while not as wide as the Gallery of the Kings with just three figures, there are two angels on either side of a statue of the Virgin, it’s actually the rose window in the centre that catches your eye. And our mate, Viollet-le-Duc added statues of Adam and Eve in the middle of the windows either side of the Rose.

Moving further up, it’s hard not to notice the two square towers that rise up out of the façade. Each reaching 69 metres in height, you can walk up to top if you’re willing to tackle 422 stairs. Each of the four sides of the towers have two high arched bays, with those gargoyles we talked about earlier part of the decoration. If you do tackle the ridiculous number of stairs you will be welcomed with stunning views over Paris, and it’s actually the height of the towers that allowed the people of Paris to orient themselves, even if they were far away from the centre of the city. During the initial construction in the 13th century, spires were meant to sit on top of each of the towers, but for whatever reason they were never built.

Now if you take a close look at the space between the two towers you will see some odd creatures sitting atop the balustrade. But they’re not gargoyles, so what is their purpose? Well these guys are called grotesques, and they’re not gargoyles, as they don’t have any practical use, they are purely decoration. Designed and added by none other than Viollet-le-Duc himself, if you look close enough you’ll be able to count 54. And also unlike the gargoyles, these guys are in shapes you would recognise. You’ve got a pelican, a dragon, the Stryge, which is the most famous one of all, and a Cerberus, or the three-headed dog.

Alright enough about the statues, let’s get stuck into the famous bells of Notre Dame. There are 12 bells, each made of bronze, with the ‘bourbon’ being the oldest and largest. Each of the bells has a first name that pays homage to an important figure in the Cathedral’s life.

The bells take up residence in the two towers above the Western façade. With the largest bell sitting in the tower to the south, and it is rung for special occasions like Christmas, Easter, Pentecost and All Saints’ Day, and you can’t forget about the death or the election of the Pope. And in the north tower, you’ve got four bells that are rung daily, giving the time to Parisians.

Each bell is recast surprisingly regularly, and has to be done with extreme precision to ensure the correct tone. Since 1769, Notre Dame has had 20 bells come and go. But like most of Notre Dame though, the bells weren’t spared the French Revolution. All apart from the ‘Bourdon’, were broken apart and melted down, with the only surviving bell being returned to its tower by Napoleon in 1802. Thankfully though, the bells all survived the 2019 fire and remain in their towers, although they were cleaned so that they would be rung to mark the first anniversary of the fire in 2020.

While we will learn about the fate of the spire in a little bit, let’s find out about its origins. At 96 metres in height, the spire was just another architectural feat in a building of architectural feats. Now while seeing the spire topple during the 2019 fire was a bit traumatic, it actually wasn’t Notre Dame’s original spire. From last episode we know that that one was removed in the 18th century because of the risk it posed to those on the ground if it fell. But of course, our mate, Viollet-le-Duc decided to replace the deconstructed spire in the 19th century, and while the OG spire held bells, this second edition spire would be purely ornamental.

Being made of 500 tons of wood and covered in 250 tons of lead meant that it really didn’t stand much of chance up against the intense heat of the fire, leading the frame to collapse. But the spire wasn’t sitting up there all alone. Screwed to the base of spire were yet more statues, who represented the 12 apostles and 4 evangelists. And every spire needs a top, Notre Dame’s spire was topped with a rooster sculpture, which is supposedly the symbol of France. Thankfully though, part of the 2019 restoration work was to repair the spire, and that meant removing the statues for their own restoration work and so these were safely tucked away from the devastation of the fire.

Relics

Now what does every church see as a symbol of legitimacy? That’s an easy one. Relics. And good grief does Notre Dame claim to have the jackpot. The Cathedral is home to a literal treasury of religious objects and liturgical elements, to the point that at the end of the 18th century, it was said to have one of the most valuable treasuries in all of Europe, but of course it all went walkabout during the French Revolution. And then in 1801, thanks to donations from popes and sovereigns, there was an effort to bring the old collection back together. But today we’re just going to cover the most exciting pieces.

So in 1239, Saint Louis, who at the time was going by Louis IX, brought back a handful of relics, reportedly from Christ’s crucifixion, from Jerusalem to be housed at Notre Dame. And in this haul was the crown of thorns, a piece of the cross and a nail from the cross. So how did Louis IX find this very significant and supposedly expensive treasure? Well, while we can safely presume that the relics all had an origin story based in Jerusalem, it’s believed that between the 7th and 10th centuries they were transferred over to Constantinople to keep them safe from looters. Where in 1238, Baudouin II de Courtenay, the Latin emperor of Byzantium, found them in his possession. Needing a little bit of cash, the Emperor went around his palace and found a couple things to sell off. With Louis IX now having bought the supposed crown of thorns.

Back in Paris, Louis then went ahead and had the Saint-Chapelle reliquary built to house these precious objects. After being moved around a bit due to the Revolution, they found themselves back in Notre Dame’s treasury in 1806.

The crown, of course, is considered the most precious. And according to the wishes of Louis IX, is keep in the back until Easter comes around. I suppose that’s fitting. The crown itself is made up of 21cm rushes held into a circular shape by gold thread. Naturally everyone wanted a piece of this crown, so over the centuries, bits of thorn have been taken off and handed out as gifts, so don’t expect a fully thorned crown. Since 1896, the crown has been housed in a crystal and golden tube, obviously for protection.

Now the fragment of wood that is supposedly from the crucifixion cross was rescued from the reliquary during the French Revolution. So whether this is actually a piece of the cross or a piece of the reliquary, I guess is up for debate. But probably not with the true believers. Again the fragment of wood finds itself housed snuggly in a protective crystal case.

Now the nail, which is a whopping 9cm, came from the treasure of the Holy Sepulchre. So way back in 799, its said that the Patriarch of Jerusalem gave it over to Emperor Charlemagne with a couple of other relics. And then a later on, King Charles II took it from Aix-la-Chapelle, where it had ended up, and gave it as a gift to the Abbey of St Denis. Then again, during the French Revolution the nail was miraculously saved together with the fragment of wood and today it too is kept in a crystal tube.

So some exciting things to check out if you head on over to the reliquary of Notre Dame.

Standing in modern times

As we know, Notre Dame has been around for a fair bit of time. So it’s seen a lot.

Back in 1905, Notre Dame became the possession of the French State after the Law of Separation of Church and State was confirmed. It was around this time that we get some 20th century modifications. Like the white glass added in the 18th century was swapped out for some stained glass. And in 1989, Jean Touret, a respected sculptor, added a new and contemporary altar to the transept. And then of course another deep cleaning of the exterior stones, that pollution cakes on quick.

Now after the French Revolution, everyone looked around and saw how monuments weren’t exactly treated with the greatest respect. So it was decided that a list of monuments to be preserved would be drawn up. And in 1837, the Commission of Historical Monuments, was created with the aim of registering and classifying the buildings they wanted to keep around. But it wasn’t until 1862 that the first list was created by the City of Paris, and of course Notre Dame was included.

In 1944, the bells were used to signal a significant moment in the history of Paris when they were rung on the 25th August for the liberation of Paris from the Nazis.

1991 was an exciting time as UNESCO had finally declared Notre Dame a World Heritage Site. They even said:

[This] architectural masterpiece [constitutes] a definite reference in the diffusion of Gothic architecture.

Thanks to our mate, Viollet-le-Duc, of course it does.

And 2013 was an even more exciting time, as Notre Dame celebrated its 850th birthday. For the grand event, the Great Organ was renovated along with some new and improved lighting options.

And then, not too long ago in 2018, Notre Dame officially became the most visited site in all of France, counting roughly 13 million visitors each year, that’s around 30 000 a day. Of course our numbers aren’t super exact. Have you ever tried to count to 30 000? It’s difficult.

Restoring the Cathedral – the second time

Okay so we know that the last major restoration Notre Dame went through was in the 19th century under the capable and interesting hands of Viollet-le-Duc, but since then pollution and time have not been kind to the Cathedral. And so another restoration was decided.

The plan was to clean the whole of the exterior of the building, again, but more importantly to address the structural issues that were the result of weather, pollution, and stone of inferior quality being used in the last restoration. If left unattended, Notre Dame would most likely start to go downhill pretty fast. So the French Government set to work to address these critical issues, and a project to do just that was launched in 2018.

But as we know, things don’t always turn out the way we planned.

The fire

It was 2019, on the 15th April, that those in the streets of Paris started to notice smoke rising up out of Notre Dame. Smoke quickly turned into quite significant flames. After drawing quite a crowd, there was a collective gasp as the spire buckled under the weight of melting lead and charred wood and the roof of the great Notre Dame collapsed.

The 15th April 2019 certainly was a traumatic day, especially for those in and around Notre Dame. The cause of the fire, it turned out, was a simple one. The construction site they had set up for the second big restoration of Notre Dame had allowed a small spark to come to life. With the forest of oak framework holding up the roof happily catching light, it took just 90 minutes for the thing to give way.

Amazingly, the whole roof itself did not collapse, it was actually the weight of the collapsing spire that broke through the roof creating three gaping holes. Now I’m sure I don’t have to say it. But isn’t this just a testament to the architectural ingenuity of the forest framework, that even in the face of a catastrophic fire the whole thing still held. Honestly, it boggles the mind.

But with three big holes in it, the whole structure was compromised, so modern day engineers ran around frantically installing supports to keep the whole place standing. After this was sorted, the only thing that was of deep concern was the fact that the holes in the roof now left the whole Cathedral open to the elements. And knowing how the harder limestone exterior handles the elements, spoiler: not good, it was a pretty big anxiety as to how the softer limestone used for the interior would go if left for too long.

Amazingly, the response to save Notre Dame was swift. 400 firefighters heeded the call to save the grand building. And thank goodness they did, it was because of them that the bell towers, rose windows and the main structure in general is still with us. Not to mention the human chain the firefighters formed to save the priceless relics and works of art.

Hit by the emotion of it all, the former Mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë said this about what happened:

It’s an inestimable loss … Notre-Dame de Paris has to live. We must not resign ourselves to this … this is the heritage of all humanity.

And with the plucky spirit of the French, it was conclusively decided that another restoration and reconstruction would take place to restore Notre Dame to its previous state once before. Luckily we don’t have a modern-day Viollet-le-Duc deciding what that state was, with the general consensus being it will be restored back to the way it was before the fire, but continuing on with the restoration work that was initially planned, and a bit extra, like fixing the roof and building a new spire.

What’s a bit devastating though is the damage that the interior did have to endure. The water the firefighters used to fight the fire, became a necessary evil when it soaked the interior, and then of course the rainwater from the holes in the roof. But before they could do anything to make the place watertight again, the work on removing 40 000 burnt and melted scaffolding needed to be done, which only delayed the fix and extended the damage.

Luckily though, Notre Dame is admired the world over, and almost immediately large sums of money started being donated from everywhere to get the place back in tip top shape.

So with the influx of cash, attention turned to getting the place rebuilt. Emmanuel Macron, who you’ll recognise as the French President, made a declaration that the place would be fixed to a point where it can be open to the public by 2024, in time for the Olympic Games, set to take place in Paris. Now that is quite the timeline. Even with extra renovating and restoring being able to continue after 2024, to have the place in a position that the public can safely walk in and around is a pretty massive job to do in five years. It’s a big ask. And what’s even more shocking is they’re still sticking to this 2024 deadline even in the face of a pandemic.

The initial assessments and report of the damage and what needed to happen to get Notre Dame back to normal proved to indeed be long. We know the spire and a large portion of the roof was no more, the walls of the nave, choir and transepts had severe water damage and structurally they weren’t exactly sound either. The north bell tower was still standing and seemed to be okay despite some charring, thankfully with no damage to the priceless bells.

So what needs to happen now that we know the extent of the damage? We head into the Safety Phase. In mid 2019 works started on making Notre Dame safe so that the restoration could begin … again.

Mainly what happened was a tarp was put over the roof, making the place waterproof once again, fortification of the gables was needed to protect the rose windows and keep them in good shape. As well as fortification of the pillars holding up the ceiling above the nave. The flying buttresses, weakened in the fire also needed some reinforcing, as well as protection of the gargoyles, grostesques and other sculptural and decorative elements to keep them safe while work carried on. Then the melted and twisted scaffolding that was in use before the fire, needed to be removed to make room for unmelted and straight scaffolding. And most importantly lead decontamination needed to take place of the whole building, to ensure a safe work environment. Which was quite the task, seeing as the lead from the melted roof just got into every single nook and cranny.

And with all that done, we are ready for another go at a major restoration.

Restoring the Cathedral – the third time

Thanks to Covid the restoration was put on a three month mandatory pause, which meant that by the 8th June 2020 they were back in there and getting stuff done.

By the 9th July, the Chief Architects of Historical Monuments had come up with the official restoration plan and took this time to present it to the National Commission for Heritage and Architecture, who are the ones who handle all the important restoration projects in France. Thankfully there are no Viollet-le-Duc’s here as they’ve promised to:

…respect the previously existing structure of the cathedral and to restore the monument to its last complete, coherent and known state.

So funny enough it will be Viollet-le-Duc’s 19th century spire thats rebuilt exactly, even going so far as to use the original materials. But the report doesn’t stop there, is goes a step further and says:

…these restoration measures will ensure the authenticity, harmony and coherence of this masterpiece of Gothic architecture.

With a couple extra pandemic delays thrown in for good measure, the last of the burned scaffolding was removed towards the end of November. Which meant that work could finally get started on the interior of the Cathedral, while they build up scaffolding, this time on the outside of Notre Dame, so that reconstruction efforts can happen out there as well, like helping the buttresses to carry the weight of the walls.

The Grand Organ, which we’ve already talked about was dismantled and removed in early December of 2021 and is due to be reassembled back in Notre dame in April 2024, so cutting it mighty fine to the Olympics.

With the Safety Phase completed by the end of 2021, 2022’s focus is on rebuilding the Cathedral, with cleaning the interior taking precedence. And it’s true, you just can’t work in a messy environment.

In order to get the roof back up and being a roof, 1000 oak trees from 200 French forests were chosen in early 2021 to be harvested. It’s these lucky trees who get to hold up the roof of Notre Dame and stand tall and proud as the Cathedral’s new spire. So from September 2021 to January 2022, 42 sawmills throughout France were put to work meticulously processing the quite large amount of trees. Just eight of the 1000 oak trees picked, each over 20 metres tall, will be the chosen few to make up the spire. It was in the middle of 2022 that the new spire began its assembly, and you can expect to see the complete spire grace the roof of Notre Dame once more sometime throughout 2023, if there are no more setbacks.

Of course work on reconstructing the roof is currently underway, but it’s tricky business because it needs 26 timber frames to prevent the original parts of the roof from collapsing further.

Thanks to pollution the exterior of Notre Dame was in a pretty bad way even before the fire. For the moment though, the main focus is on the interior of the Cathedral so that it can be opened back up to the public by the set due date. Because of this, the only work on the exterior so far has been the bracing of the flying buttresses. It’s most likely that it’s this restoration work on the exterior that will be ongoing after the 2024 deadline.

Visiting the cathedral today

If you were to visit Notre Dame before the 2019 fire, you would have been one of about 13 million, you would have been able to marvel at the exterior and take in the interior. Since the fire, the Cathedral and the surrounding area has been closed to the public while work on consolidating and reconstructing Notre Dame continues. Though you can still marvel at the exterior, you’ll just have to do it at a bit of a distance.

When it is open, Notre Dame is an operating church with services just like any other. It’s just this one also has tourists wandering around. So if you’re in the area, make sure to stop by and see how the progress is coming along. And then make sure to revisit once it’s back and open to see the place probably in the cleanest state it’s ever been in.

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Chantelle Bryant
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