Destination: Notre Dame Cathedral — Part 1
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.
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 the 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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Originally published at https://destinationhistorypod.com on November 20, 2022.
