About Notre-Dame
Notre-Dame de Paris is the soul of the French nation, a masterpiece of French Gothic architecture anchored on the Île de la Cité. With its flying buttresses, rose windows, and gargoyles, it has watched over Paris since the Middle Ages. Even scarred by the tragic fire of 2019, it stands resilient, a testament to the endurance of faith and art. It is Point Zero, the center from which all distances in France are measured.
From above, the cathedral looks like a great stone ship floating in the Seine. Values of the cross-shaped roof (currently being restored) and the flying buttresses appearing like the ribs of a skeleton are clear. It sits at the absolute geographic and historical center of Paris, on the island where the city was founded. The plaza in front offers breathing room in the dense medieval street plan.
Notre-Dame is the Hunchback's bells, the light filtering through 13th-century stained glass, and the smell of incense and old stone. It is a survivor of revolutions and wars. As it rises from the ashes of the fire, it has become a symbol of hope and rebirth. It remains the beating heart of Paris, majestic and beloved.
The cathedral's most dramatic rescue happened long before the 2019 fire: in 1793, during the Reign of Terror, revolutionary mobs pulled down 28 of the statues of the Kings of Judah from the west façade, mistaking them for French monarchs, and the building was rededicated as a Temple of Reason with the goddess of Liberty enthroned on the altar. The relics were saved by a devout mason who buried them in his back garden on rue de la Chaussée-d'Antin, where they were rediscovered by workmen in 1977 during the construction of an underground car park, half-buried in perfect condition. The heads are now displayed at the Musée de Cluny, less than a kilometre south of the cathedral, and each one still bears the pockmarks of the revolutionary chisels that separated them from their bodies.