averilburystedmunds: Notre Dame de Paris

Notre Dame en feu. April

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; 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 1!63 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 Saint-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 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 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 Petit walked across a tightrope 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.