The Honeymoon Blog

 

The Maldives seem to be prime honeymoon territory.

Costa Rica,
Cannot help but notice how frequently beaches 
and seascapes feature in honeymoon images.

Discovered this morning that my youngest grandson’s first wedding anniversary was today, [ 6^th November] memorial to a super occasion whose date had somehow slipped from my memory! I certainly remember the very, very joyous occasion; in fact, as both his brothers have got married as well in the short time since I returned to live in Britain, there have been three delightful weddings of grandsons AND ditto of my eldest grand- daughter too. Not only a succession of lovely and loving events but quite expensive ones too for a doting grandmother! In fact, the grandson mentioned in my aide-memoire above, departs with his bride on Friday week [14^th  November] for the Actual Honeymoon and I would divulge the two, possibly three, destinations if only I could recall them! I know it will be a fortnight in length and is taking place exactly a year after the event, following the fashion for Delayed Honeymoons, a concept which has become increasingly popular during the 21st century. One can see the attraction. Instead of organising the details of the getaway and rushing to pack suitcases amid the wedding-planning pressure, couples can take a breath, recuperate after the wedding chaos, and quietly juggle with possible ideas.

Perhaps Rome?

However, this has all set this ageing mind into belated action, wondering about the concept of ‘the honeymoon’, whence it came and how! I am also reminded that the name, ‘honeymoon’ may also refer to the phase in a couple’s relationship--- whether they are in matrimony or not--- that exists before getting used to everyday life together. “Oh, they’re still in the honeymoon phase” can often be heard.

The custom in Western culture of a newlywed couple going on holiday together originated in early nineteenth century Britain when upper class couples would take a ‘bridal tour’ sometimes accompanied by friends or family, to visit relatives who had not been able to attend the actual wedding. But towards the 1870s, the happy couple began to travel solo. These trips for bridal pairs only, were also attractive to the rich as a convenient and satisfying way to flaunt their wealth and social status.The practice soon spread to the European continent and became known in France as ‘ une voyage a la façon anglaise’, an English-style voyage, from the 1820s on. Honeymoon in the modern sense – a purely celebratory, romantic holiday undertaken by the couple alone – became widespread during la Belle Epoque in the late 1800s as one of the first examples of modern mass tourism and marked the period when the middle class began to aspire to join their upper class neighbours in this expensive celebration. However, according to some sources, the honeymoon is a relic of the much earlier ‘marriage by capture’, based on the practice of the husband going into hiding with his new wife to avoid reprisals from her relatives, with the intention that the woman would be pregnant by the end of the month and discovery would be immaterial! Admittedly, this does rather point to an earlier, more mediaeval, down-to-earth, practice!

Tahiti. Just one place which claims
to be the honeymoon capital of the
world!

Certainly, pre-mediaeval was the custom in Europe to give the newly-weds enough mead to last a month. Traditionally, the mead would have been fermented in honey, and the couple would have been expected to drink it all, a large quantity, during the following month; i.e. within 30 days. It was believed that the Honey Mead, considered an aphrodisiac, would increase the chances of conception. The very name, honeymoon, comes from the phrase, “a moon’s worth of honey mead." There is also an etymological journey! The honeymoon was originally the period following marriage ‘characterized by love and happiness’ as attested since 1546. The word may well allude to “the idea that the first month of marriage is the sweetest,” and originated from a mediaeval custom where newlyweds drank a honey-based mead for a moon cycle to ensure fertility and good fortune.  

Today, the very idea of a honeymoon has a positive meaning, but originally it may have referred to the inevitable waning of love, like a phase of the moon. In 1552, Richard Huloet wrote “

A painting by George Henry Boughton
     The Waning Honeymoon. 1878

Hony moone, a term proverbially applied to such as be newly married, which will not fall out at the first, but th’one loveth the other at the beginning exceedingly, the likelihood of their exceadinge love appearing to aswage, ye which time the vulgar people call the ‘hony mone."

The first recorded use of the word, ‘honeymoon’ to refer to the vacation after the wedding appeared in 1791 in a translation of German folk stories. The first recorded native English use of the word appeared in 1804 by Jacob Shamsian One 2015 scholarly study concluded that going on a honeymoon was associated with a somewhat lower risk of divorce, regardless of how much or how little is spent on the honeymoon itself. However, high spending and/or incurring significant debt on other wedding-related expenses such as engagement rings or wedding ceremonies, is associated with a higher risk of divorce. 

To end on a high note: I have now learned, from Vogue, Oct 23rd, 2023, of the Earlymoon which is apparently, " a rising trend" partly thanks to Pippa Middleton who went, a deux, to St Barts before her wedding though the concept remains 'niche'. No doubt the limitless planning and manoeuvring in anticipation of the Big Day imposes a certain weight on the delights of the Earlymoon. But it does chime with Samuel Johnson's opinion that during the first month after marriage, there is nothing but tenderness and pleasure.

 

 

Even an Earlymoon needs the sea!

P.S. Now discover that one of the earliest known origins of the concept of the honeymoon comes from 5th century Nordic traditions.

 

WW1 Message in a Bottle

The bottle containing both pencilled notes from 2016. 
Discovered on October 9th 2025.

An extraordinary find has just been made on October 9^th.  on Wharton Beach, near Esperance in Western Australia. The Brown family, Deb, Peter and their daughter, Felicity, made the find during one of the family’s regular trips on their quad bikes, to clear the beach of trash. As they were cleaning up the beach, Peter and Felicity spotted the Schweppes-brand old bottle just above the water line, almost waiting to be rescued! Inside the thick glass bottle were two cheerful letters, written in pencil by Privates Malcolm Neville, 27, and William Harley, 37, dated August 15, 1916.

Private Malcolm Neville

Private Neville's letter to his mother

Private Neville's letter
giving his mother's details

 

As extraordinary as the age of the notes is their condition, 106 years later. Though the papers were wet, both letters were still legible when dried out,
so Mrs. Brown began tracking down the soldiers’ families in order to pass them on. She discovered that their troop ship HMAT A70, Ballarat, had left the State capital, Adelaide, on August 12, 1916, on the long journey to the other side of the world where its soldiers would reinforce their battalion, the 48th Australian Infantry Battalion fighting on Europe’s Western Front. Their cheerful notes were scribbled in pencil on that journey. just a few days into their voyage to join the battlefields in France. Private Malcolm Neville, who signed off as "somewhere at sea, August 15th 1916" told his mother, Robertina Neville, that the food on board was “real good with the exception of one meal which we buried at sea!” and that the Ballarat was "Heaving and Balling but we are as happy as Larry. Your loving son”. 

Writing home in WWI.

Mrs Brown located Neville’s great-nephew, Herbie Neville, by searching for the soldier’s name and his hometown, online, as his mother’s address, in Wilkawatt, now a virtual ghost town, had been included in the original note. Herbie Neville said that the experience of having this letter-from-the-past was “unbelievable.”      

Private Harley’s granddaughter, Ann Turner, said that she and the four other surviving grandchildren were “absolutely stunned” by the message. “It really does feel like a miracle, and we do feel very much like our grandfather has reached out to us from the grave,” she said. “I feel very emotional when I see that the other young man had a mother to write to and that his message in the bottle was to his mother, whereas our grandfather had long ago lost his mother, so he just writes to the finder of the bottle.”  Private Harley’s letter said the bottle had been thrown overboard “somewhere in the Bight”, referring to the Great Australian Bight off the country’s southern coast. 

Wharton Beach,  "somewhere in the Bight",
Western Australia

An oceanography professor told ABC [whose story this is] that the bottle may well have been in the water for only a few weeks originally, before it landed at Wharton Beach where it may have lain, buried for over 100 years.

Keeping in touch.

Neville was killed in action a year later at 28. Harley was wounded twice but survived the war, married and had children, dying in Adelaide in 1934 of a cancer his family was sure was caused by his having been gassed by the Germans in the trenches in France.

 

 

Aleksy Navalny June 1976-February 2024

Aleksy Navalny June1976-February 2024

 Alexei Navalny was a Russian lawyer, anti-corruption campaigner and politicia whose activities led to his global recognition as one of, possibly chief among, the domestic critics of Vladimir Putin, Russian President [1999-2008; 2012- ] Navalny suffered a near-fatal poisoning in 2020, was jailed on several occasions and died while imprisoned in an Arctic penal colony. I am currently reading his autobiography which reveals the huge loss to Russia’s fledgling democratic urges and the terrifying nature of Russian politics.

Navalny’s father was a Soviet army officer, and his mother was an economist, so Alexei grew up in a series of garrison towns in the Moscow area. He spent summers with his paternal grandparents in the countryside near Chernobyl, in Ukraine. After the infamous nuclear explosion at Chernobyl in April 1986, his paternal relatives were officially and swiftly evacuated with other residents from the area but not before they had witnessed the attempted cover-up of the disaster by the Soviet authorities. All residents were forced to go out immediately after the explosion into the radioactive fields and plant potatoes as a demonstration of how safe the area was. The long-term results were thousands of deaths and malformed births from close exposure to the radioactive fields.

Alexei attended the People’s Friendship University of Russia in Moscow, graduating with a law degree in 1998. He remained in Moscow, practising law, continuing his studies and earning an economics degree from the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation. In 2000, while still a student, Navalny joined Yabloko a political party promoting liberal democracy in a market economy. In Putin’s early days in power, it had seemed possible that opposition groups might be tolerated though with limited power, in the State Duma, but the unification of pro-Putin parties under the banner of United Russia in 2001 revealed Putin’s intentions to stifle dissent. In 2007, Navalny was expelled from Yabloko after what Alexei claimed were personality clashes with party leader Grigory Yavlinski. Meanwhile, Yabloko asserted that Navalny had damaged the party with “nationalistic activities” including attendance at a far-right march.

Putin meeting Grigory Yavlinski, party leader of
Yabloko, originally Russia's only liberal party.

Denied membership of, and potential protection by, a political party, Navalny began a solo career as a political activist. This was brave, in Russia, and some might say, foolhardy. He had the brilliant idea of using stakeholder activism to target publicly traded state-owned companies and by purchasing a small amount of stock in each company, he gained entry to shareholder meetings. Once there, he could grill corporate officials about inconsistencies in financial reporting and lack of transparency in management and book-keeping. As many of the executives he challenged also happened to be close political allies of Putin, these encounters provided an effective means of expressing dissent in a society where political debate and challenge were 

Navalny family: Yulia, son Zahar and daughter Daria. 

increasingly restricted. In an extension of this shareholder activism, Navalny began to document his activities on a blog that became so popular that the President had to acknowledge the scale of corruption. By then, Putin who was limited to one term as President, had installed a compliant Dmitry Medvedev as President while he unofficially retained the power in decision-making. According to Medvedev himself, about $31 billion annually was being siphoned off from the state procurement system. In December 2010 Navalny launched a whistleblowing website, RosPil, the name using Russian slang for ‘embezzle’ and the site publicised cases in which state contracts appeared to have been awarded corruptly. Navalny invited visitors to post details of suspicious government deals anonymously online for discussion and within one month of its start-up, the site was reportedly getting one million visits a month. Navalny went further, coining the phrase ‘Party of crooks and thieves’ to describe Putin’s United Russia party and this became the popular catchphrase at Russian protests. Russian elections followed one year later in December

United Russia Party Congress

2011 when widespread irregularities were discernible triggering the largest popular demonstrations since the fall of the Soviet Union. Navalny had urged his followers to support any party other than United Russia and, despite ample evidence of vote-rigging, United Russia won less than half the vote. Meanwhile Navalny was jailed for 15 days for participating in an unofficial protest, but his efforts had been noted and when Putin predictably returned to power as President, he immediately moved to clamp down on dissent and Navalny’s home was raided by the police and a criminal investigation on suspicion of corruption was launched against him. Putin introduced harsh new penalties for individuals who participated in unauthorised rallies.
 

Unauthorised protest in Moscow

Within a few months, Navalny declared his candidacy for Mayor of Moscow and the following day he was found guilty of embezzlement in a trial that was widely regarded as having been politically motivated. In response, thousands demonstrated filling the streets in Moscow and he was immediately freed pending the hearing of his appeal. He resumed his Mayoral bid and, denied access to the main television channels, running a Western-style campaign with glossy posters of him and his family posted in the streets and on the Internet. On September 8th, 2013, Putin’s nominee, Sergey Sobyanin won 51% of the vote and Navalny, a respectable 27.2%. After this, Navalny’s activism and attempts to participate in the Russian political system continued and his almost routine incarceration by the Putin administration, would become a recurring event.  For instance, in December 2014 he, and his brother Oleg, both received a three year suspended sentence on fraud charges.2020, he became seriously ill on a flight from Tomsk to Moscow and, fearing for his safety in a Russian hospital, his family had him flown to Berlin where tests confirmed that he had been exposed to Novichok, a lethal complex nerve agent developed by the Soviets. 

Recovering from Novichok

He remained for months in a medically induced coma before recovering during which period, he worked with Bellingcat, the investigative journalism group, to try to uncover the specifics of the Novichok attack. The names of several of the FSB [Federal Security Service] agents were identified and Navalny called one of them, posing as a senior Russian security official. Their lengthy conversation about the attempted assassination was recorded and published with the agent, still assuming he was speaking to a security official,  blaming the plane’s emergency landing in Omsk and the hasty intervention of emergency medical personnel for the failure of the plot. Soon after, on January 17, 2021, Navalny, perhaps recklessly, returned to Russia and was immediately arrested and quickly sentenced to three and a half years in a penal colony. His hunger strike there encouraged his followers to take to the streets in protest and as a result, in June 2021  a Moscow court ruled that any group tied to Navalny would be labelled extremist and denied access to any public office. 

Persecuted by Putin

In 2020, Navalny was campaigning in Siberia for regional elections scheduled for September that year and on August 20^th he was sent to the notorious IK-6  maximum security prison and kept chiefly in solitary confinement. Meanwhile, government response to the many public protests reached draconian levels and any criticism of Russia’s war in Ukraine was criminalised. The list goes on! In March 2022, an emaciated Navalny was found guilty of fraud and contempt of court and sentenced to nine years in a “strict regime penal colony” and denied the right to speak in court. In December 2023, Navalny’s attorneys lost contact with him for three weeks before learning he was in a brutal penal colony in the Arctic Circle where he died two months later, almost certainly from poisoning.

Arrest!

Postscript

I rarely become emotionally involved in any way in whatever I discuss in my blogs but Navalny’s story and particularly, the last months of his fearless and inspiring life pursued by a corrupt regime intent upon the destruction of the one voice it feared, is incredibly moving and sad. His autobiography, Patriot, referred to above, gives a detailed look at his thinking. Patriot is, in fact, part autobiography of his early years plus extracts from his secret prison diaries compiled after his death by his wife, Yulia.

In the Epilogue we discover why he felt the urgent need to return home to Russia when he had no illusions about the murderous intentions of the regime. " I knew from the outset that I would be imprisoned for life- either for the rest of my life or until the end of the life of this regime.” He considers his options and refers lovingly and thankfully to his wife, Yulia Navalnya (who organised the publication of Alexei’s Patriot chiefly from his secret prison diaries), and acknowledges the huge support he continues to receive as a believer, from his faith. “Faith makes life simpler.” He muses that since his return to Russia three years before when he was recovering from the Novichok poisoning, his life has been spent in jail. But “I have my country and my convictions. I don’t want to give up my country and betray it. If your convictions mean something, you must be prepared to stand up for them and make sacrifices if necessary.” 

Unbelievably, it is only slightly more than eighteen months since Navalny died but the Putin regime continues. As Navalny often mused, “Autocracies in the modern world are resilient.”

Last picture, in jail.

 

Navalny at a court hearing in Moscow 2023

 

Notre Dame de Paris

 

Notre Dame brule.  April 2019.

2019. The morning after.

The reasons for my choice of topic today are twofold. First, the disastrous fire of the roof and spire of Notre-Dame in April 2019 when the world held its breath as images of the disastrous flames were broadcast, rampaging through part of perhaps the most iconic building in France, beloved not only by the French, but by millions of us in the Western world. The second reason is simply that I had mentioned to my son earlier in 2025 that I would love to see the renovated Cathedral in its newly restored glory. To my surprise he said that he too would love to see it and he suggested that we could do a short trip together. Delight unbounded on my side, while David, my son, said he would have a look round for accommodation when we had worked out dates. He was as good as his word and frankly, when our little outing materialised, the hotel in Montmartre was perfect, on a small hill generously surrounded by cafes, restaurants, bars and bistros. The Metro, hardly used in fact, was a few minutes’ walk away and Sainte Chapelle and Sacre Coeur not too distant with the newly shining Notre Dame nearby.

Heartbreak as helpless Parisians watch the flames.

Outline of the History of Notre-Dame       

The Rose Window in the North tower

Our visit to Notre-Dame was indeed memorable, both in its physical impact on the beholder and for the desire to know more about this important ecclesiastical structure. Notre-Dame today as a place both for tourists and pilgrims, turned out to be to be the most crowded place ever. We went  in May 2025 and found 1500 people or more within the Cathedral and at least a similar number outside, many queuing hours for entry, estimated on the Notre-Dame website, to involve a two to three hours’ wait; around 12 million people visit the Cathedral each year. But we entered very quickly, having booked, and, despite the huge melee, the extraordinary feeling, on entering, of graceful lines, jewel-like stained glass, curving Gothic  architecture, the immensity of the tall space, all combined to confer a most special sensation on any visitor. Notre-Dame is visually, almost ethereal! The extraordinary beauty and elegance on view belied the destruction of the fire five years before. The restoration in a five-year time span was impressive with the total estimated cost of 830 million covered by in donations pledged worldwide. The actual cost climbed to over 900 million dollars. At the site of the fire in 2019, a visibly emotional President Macron had said, “We will rebuild Notre-Dame because that’s what our history is worthy of. Because that is our deep destiny.”

Interior, Cologne Cathedral

The original Notre Dame spire was a medieval wooden and lead construction built in the mid13th century which was removed due to extensive damage between 1786 and 1792. Its height was approximately 78 metres [265 feet] from church floor to spire which also served as a bell tower. This original spire was later replaced by the spire of Eugene Viollet-le-Duc in the mid 19th century which collapsed during the 2019 fire. There was an intense national debate over whether to replace the building with a modern interpretation or try to rebuild as closely as possible to the original although using modern materials and methods. After much national soul-searching, Macron made the decision in 2020 to rebuild to the mediaeval design, and repair the considerable destruction, restoring the Gothic familiarity within an ambitious five years, and work began immediately to gather a veritable army of hundreds of skilled craftspeople from all over the world. Cologne Cathedral, an acknowledged centre of expertise in stained glass, was immediately involved in rescuing as much of the stained glass as possible. Katrin Wittstadt, Scientific Director of Stained Glass in Cologne cathedral, said that the urgent first problem was contamination from the thick layer of lead dust which must be urgently removed. The close existing relationship between Cologne and Notre-Dame effectively expedited the highly skilled glass restoration work and the windows today remain exquisite.        

Coronation of England's Henry V1 as King of France
in Notre Dame 16 Dec. 1431

 The appalling fire and the subsequent stunning restoration join the eight-hundred-year-old narrative of Notre-Dame which began its extraordinary story in 1163 under Bishop Maurice de Sully when Notre-Dame de Paris slowly emerged, situated on the Ile de la Cite, with completion around 1345. It was built on the site of an earlier basilica and featured Gothic architecture with flying buttresses and stained glass. Churches and cathedrals as early as Notre-Dame could fairly be described almost as illustrated books for most of the population which could not read but which could understand, and be impressed by, stained glass images of miracles and the awesome portrayal of priests and churches.                                                                                                                                  Among the numerous sacred and important events over the centuries to have occurred within Notre Dame, came one of especial importance to British history, on 16 December 1431 when the boy-king, H

1669 Te Deum for Louis X1V

enry V1 of England, was crowned King of France in the Cathedral, the more usual traditional church used for royal coronations, Rheims Cathedral, being inaccessible as it was under French control. Ecclesiastical style in favour changed too, over time, and the Gothic style, de rigueur in earlier centuries, fell out of favour during the Renaissance, and so the beautiful walls of Notre Dame were covered with tapestries in a bid to hide the earlier outmoded Gothic. In 1548 rioting Huguenots damaged some of the cathedral’s statuary, fearing them to be idolatrous. The fountain in Notre Dame’s parvis, [the square in front of the cathedral] was added in 1625, not for the church itself, but to supply nearby Parisians with running water.

Notre Dame 1689

The prestigious Parisian Goldsmiths’ Guild began in 1449 to make regular donations to the Cathedral Chapter [the Governing Body of the Cathedral] and nearly 200 years later, in 1630, the Guild initiated the custom of donating a large altarpiece annually, on the first of May. These works gradually formed a collection known as ‘les grands mays’, with the subject matter of each piece restricted to episodes from the Acts of the Apostles. The creation of each altarpiece was a valuable commission awarded to the most prominent painters and, after 1648, awarded only to members of the Academie Royale. By 1708, 76 such paintings had been submitted when financial stringencies stopped the custom. These works, always kept in Notre Dame, were confiscated in 1793 in France’s revolutionary period, with the majority dispersed among regional museums in France. Those that remained within the cathedral were removed or re-located within the building by nineteenth century restorers. Currently, only 13 of les grands mays remain in Notre Dame although all have been temporarily removed for conservation after the 2019 fire when they suffered considerable water damage.

The Visitation by Jean Jouvenet 1716

There are other art treasures in Notre-Dame. An altarpiece depicting The Visitation painted by Jean Jouvenet in1716 hung in the cathedral with six paintings, commissioned by Canon Antoine de la Ports for Louis XIV, depicting the life of the Virgin Mary, were intended for the choir. At the same time in the first half of the eighteenth century, Charles de la Fosse painted his Adoration of the Magi for the cathedral though it is now in the Louvre. Other art was initiated by the Archbishop of Paris, LouisAntoine de Noailles, who had the roof of Notre-Dame modified in 1726, renovating its framing and removing the gargoyles with lead gutters. He also strengthened the buttresses, galleries, terraces and vaults. In 1756, the Cathedral’s canons decided that the interior was too dark and the mediaeval stained-glass windows, except the rosettes, were removed and replaced with plain white glass. At the same time, Jacques-Germain Soufflot was given the task of adapting the portals at the front of the cathedral to allow processions to enter more easily.

French Revolution and Napoleon

During the Revolutionary period, atheism reigned and
Notre Dame was used as a warehouse for a time and
also became a military barracks.
Re-dedicated to the Cult of Reason in1793,
many ot its treasures
disappeared or were destroyed.

During the French Revolution, the structure of Notre-Dame was damaged, and its religious imagery vandalised while in 1789, Notre-Dame and the rest of the Church’s property in France was seized and declared to be public property.  The cathedral was re-dedicated to the Cult of Reason in 1793, and in 1794, to the Cult of the Supreme Being and during this tumultuous period, many of the treasures of Notre-Dame were either destroyed, damaged or plundered. The 28 statues of biblical kings located in the west façade, mistaken for effigies of French Kings, were beheaded and discarded within and around the building though in a 1977 excavation nearby, many of the heads were found and are now on display at the Musee de Cluny. Statues of the Virgin Mary were replaced by the revolutionary Goddess of Liberty for a period while all the other large statues on the façade, apart from the statue of the Virgin on the portal of the cloister, were destroyed but happily, the great bells of the cathedral escaped being melted down. In effect, many of the statuary adornments of the Cathedral were vandalised and vanished as the French population dramatically turned its back on religion by destroying much of the essence of Notre Dame. Astonishingly, it became a warehouse for the storage of food and for other non-religious items. This destructive period of madness lasted until 1802 when, after the Concordat of 1801, Napoleon Bonaparte was able to restore Notre-Dame to the Catholic Church, effectively on 18th April 1802. He also selected Paris’s new bishop, the powerful Jean-Baptiste de Belloy, who restored the interior of the cathedral.

The Coronation of Napoleon. Jacques-Louis Davide

The Coronation of Napoleon as Emperor of France, 1804

In 1804, Napoleon crowned himself as King of France in Notre-Dame, now back in church ownership. In crowning himself after taking the crown from the hands of the Pope during the ceremony, Napoleon was rejecting the idea of Divine Right but at the same time, exerting a similar absolute power in his own hands. And by declaring himself as monarch, he was rejecting the Republican ideals which he had struggled to establish for so long and effectively betraying the principles of the French Revolution. Meanwhile came the Napoleonic Wars from 1800-1815 which were really a continuation of the French Revolutionary Wars from 1792-1799.  Both combined to produce a prolonged period of almost 23 years of virtually constant warfare in Europe. Small wonder that there was conflict and irrationality within France itself and the prolonged negative effect on Notre-Dame’s structure, both during the wars and the following unsettled decades, was such that it fell into a state of neglect and disrepair so complete that demolition was considered. Eventually, a hero emerged! Victor Hugo, who loved the cathedral, wrote the novel, Notre-Dame de Paris, published in English as The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, in 1831, specifically to publicise the sad state of his beloved Notre Dame. The book was wildly successful and raised a wide awareness of the decaying state of the premier Cathedral of France. At the same time, to general anger, vandals took the opportunity to attack the Cathedral’s sacristy where the priest prepared for service and stored vestments. Rioters destroyed some of the antique stained glass and damaged the Cathedral by setting fire to the archbishop’s palace next door. Amid the general turmoil, progress was slow but in 1844, at last, King Louis Phillipe ordered that the church be restored.

Eugene Viollet-Le-Duc, French Gothic Revival 
architect. Responsible 1845-1865 for the
restoration of Notre Dame.

Public awareness and outrage seemed to loosen the regal money supply, and King Louis VII approved the decision to begin the serious restoration of Notre-Dame. The in-house architect, Etienne-Hippolyte Godde, who had overseen the maintenance of the cathedral during this period, was dismissed and two young architects, Jean-Baptiste Lassus and Eugene Viollet-le-Duc, who had distinguished themselves with the successful restoration of the nearby Sainte-Chapelle, were swiftly appointed [1844]. Within just one year, Viollet-le-Duc had submitted a restoration budget of 3,888,500 francs to the horror of the authorities and this was swiftly reduced to 2,650,000 francs. It was intended to cover the restoration of Notre Dame and the construction of a new sacristy, the latter involving labourers digging expensively, to a depth of nine metres [thirty feet] to establish a firm foundation.  Work began almost immediately but stopped in 1850 when the money ran out, eventually resuming and continuing to a total cost of 12 million francs. Viollet-le-Duc assembled and supervised a huge team of sculptors and glassmakers, working from original drawings and engravings, remaking or adding

Roof statue of St Thomas 
with the face of Viollet le Duc

decorations if he felt they were in the appropriate early style. Master glassmakers, for instance, meticulously copied thirteenth century styles as selected by prominent art historians such as Adolphe Napoleon Didron. One of the notable alterations during this expensive make-over was the building of a taller and more ornate fleche (spire) to replace the thirteenth century original which had been removedin 1786. The decoration around the new spire amusingly included a bronze roof statue of Saint Thomas with a face closely resembling that of Viollet-le-Duc.

Catholic martyrs during la Semaine Sanglante
[Bloody Week] in the Commune 1871.

During the Paris Commune, March-May 1871, all churches and cathedrals were closed two hundred priests including the Archbishop of Paris were taken as hostages and during ‘la Semaine Sanglante’ [Bloody Week] in May, the Communards [rebels] targeted the cathedral intending to burn it down until the arson was halted when the rebels realised that a massive cathedral fire would also burn the nearby Hotel Dieu filled with hundreds of sick patients. [The Commune was a short-lived but bloody revolutionary government that seized power in 1871 during the Franco-Prussian War following the defeat of the French Army. It was a popular government, led by the National Guard, that held power for about two months.]

Notre-Dame During The 20^th Century: An Assorted List.

General de Gaulle 1944.

During the liberation of Paris in August 1944, Notre-Dame suffered some minor damage to the mediaeval glass but chiefly, it survived remarkably intact. On August 26 of that year, General Charles de Gaulle attended a special Mass to celebrate the liberation of the city from the Nazis. In 1963, to mark the 800th anniiversary of the Cathedral, Andre Malraux, the culture minister, ordered the façade to be thoroughly cleaned of the centuries of soot and grime, restoring it to the original off-white colour. On January 19, 1969, vandals placed a North Vietnamese flag at the top of the fleche and sabotaged the stairway leading up to it. In a dramatic operation, Paris Fire Brigade Sergeant Raymond Belle, cut off the offending flag from a helicopter hovering alongside the spire. On December 12, 1970, the Requiem Mass for Charles de Gaulle was held and, incongruously,
the  following year, on 26 June 1971, Philippe Pett walked across a tightrope                                                                                   

Philippe Petit on the tightrope,
26 Jun 1971

strung between Notre-Dame’s two bell towers watched by applauding thousands gathered in the square below. On May 30, 1980, Pope John Paul 11 celebrated Mass on the parvis outside the Cathedral. The Requiem Mass of Francois Mitterrand was held on 11 January 1996, the normal ceremony for French Heads of State.

Grotesques/Gargoyles

The stone masonry of the cathedral’s exterior had deteriorated during the 19^th and 20^th centures due to the increased air pollution in the city, accelerating the erosion of decorations and discolouring the stone. By the late 1980s several gargoyles and turrets had loosened or fallen off and the decision was made to instigate a decade-long programme of renovation, beginning in 1991. Much care was given to retaining the authentic architectural elements of the building and a discreet system of electrical wiring, invisible from below, was also installed on the roof to deter pigeons. The cathedral’s pipe organ was upgraded with a computerised system to control the mechanical connections to the pipes. The West face was cleaned and restored in time for the millennium celebrations in December 1999.

And during the 21^st Century ….

Three new bells, awaiting installation Nov 2024. 
Centre bell is the one rung at the Paris Olympics 2023.

December 2024. The newly-restored Notre Dame.

Notre-Dame’s 21^st century story is marked by both devastation and restoration. In 2013, the set of 19^th century bells at the top of the northern towers of Notre-Dame were melted down and recast into new bronze bells to celebrate the 850^th anniversary of the building. The devastating fire in April 2019, the
cause of which was probably an electrical malfunction in the attic of the spire, damaged the wooden roof and spire and sparked global efforts to rebuild. The subsequent restoration aimed to preserve the historical character of Notre-Dame while incorporating modern techniques for fire prevention, rainwater management and structural support. Its reopening in December 2024, marked by a Mass led by the Pope as  part of a global celebration, symbolises the preservation of cultural heritage and the enduring spirit of restoration. The replenishment of the interiors of the North and the South Towers took a little longer and were opened in September 2025 with shining new staircases, much admired by the French President as he officially declared the towers open to the public. It is estimated that it will take the average visitor 45 minutes to climb to the top of one of the towers from ground floor level.

The golden rooster being hauled aloft in 2024

A new staircase for the South tower.

Le desastre. Avril 2019 [Le Figaro]