Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris

“ It is from the Bourbon Quay that one of the most beautiful sights imaginable may best be obtained: a sunset over Paris.
The violet-tinted mass of Notre-Dame stands out with its superbly imposing silhouette against the purpled gold of the fiery sky. All the town dies away in a pink dust of light, whilst the broad roofs of the Louvre, the spire of the Sainte-Chapelle, the pepper-box turrets of the Conciergerie, the Saint-Jacques Tower, and the campaniles of the Town Hall, all this landscape alive with history glows in the last rays of the sinking sun. ”

“ Notre-Dame de Paris is not, however, what may be called a finished, defined, classified monument. It is not a Roman church, neither is it a Gothic church. This edifice is not a type. Notre-Dame has not, like the Abbey of Tournus, the solemn and massive squareness, the round and large vault, the glacial nudity, and the majestic simplicity of those buildings which have the circular arch for their generative principle. It is not, like the Cathedral of Bourges, the magnificent product of light, multiform, tufted, bristling, efflorescent Gothic. ”

“ It is with surprise that we realize, stepping out on the tower-roof, that our standing-place is only five floors from the ground; and yet from this modest height, overtopped by the ordinary apartment house of 19 Paris, we find an outlook that is unequalled even by that from Notre-Dame's towers. For, as we come out from the sheltering hood of our stair-way top, the great cathedral itself lies before us, like some beautiful living creature outstretched at rest. ”

“ The men, the architects, the artists of our day.
And if we enter the interior of the edifice, who has overthrown that colossus of Saint Christopher, proverbial for magnitude among statues, as the grand hall of the Palais de Justice was among halls, as the spire of Strasbourg among spires? And those myriads of statues, which peopled all the spaces between the columns of the nave and the choir, kneeling, standing, equestrian, men, women, children, kings, bishops, gendarmes, in stone, in marble, in gold, in silver, in copper, in wax even,—who has brutally swept them away? It is not time. ”

“ In the Middle Ages, when an edifice was complete, there was almost as much of it in the earth as above it. Unless built upon piles, like Notre-Dame, a palace, a fortress, a church, had always a double bottom. In cathedrals, it was, in some sort, another subterranean cathedral, low, dark, mysterious, blind, and mute, under the upper nave which was overflowing with light and reverberating with organs and bells day and night. ”

“ What a peerless jewel it was, this cathedral, still more beautiful than Notre Dame in Paris. More open and lighter, more slender also, with its columns like long reeds, wonderful to be so fragile, and yet to hold firm; a wonder of our French religious art, a masterpiece which the faith of our ancestors had caused to blossom there in its mystic purity, before they came to us from Italy, to materialize and spoil everything, the sensual heaviness of what we have agreed to call the Renaissance.... ”

“ The church of Notre-Dame de Paris is still no doubt, a majestic and sublime edifice. But, beautiful as it has been preserved in growing old, it is difficult not to sigh, not to wax indignant, before the numberless degradations and mutilations which time and men have both caused the venerable monument to suffer, without respect for Charlemagne, who laid its first stone, or for Philip Augustus, who laid the last. ”

“ The Cathedral of Notre Dame is the only Gothic building of note in Paris, and it is by no means equal to the expectations we had been led to form of it. The style of its architecture is not that of the finest Gothic; it has neither the exquisite lightness of ornament which distinguishes the summit of Gloucester Cathedral, nor the fine lancet windows which give so unrivalled a beauty to the interior of Beauvais, nor the richness of roof which covers the tombs of Westminster Abbey. Its character is that of massy greatness ”

“ It is impossible to place our cathedral in that other family of lofty, aerial churches, rich in stained glass and sculpture; of pointed forms and daring attitudes; belonging to the commoners and plain, citizens, as political symbols; free, capricious, lawless, as works of art; the second transformation of architecture, no longer hieroglyphic, unchangeable, sacerdotal, but artistic, progressive, and popular, beginning with the close of the Crusades and ending with Louis XI. Notre Dame at Paris is not of purely Roman race like the former, nor of purely Arab breed like the latter. ”

“ And what we say of the façades, we must also say of the whole church; and what we say of the cathedral church of Paris must be said of all the Christian churches of the Middle Ages. Everything is harmonious which springs from spontaneous, logical, and well-proportioned art. To measure a toe, is to measure the giant.
Let us return to the façade of Notre-Dame as we see it at the present day, when we make a pious pilgrimage to admire the solemn and mighty cathedral, which, as its chroniclers declare, inspires terror. ”

“ Although the first of the 425 steps leading to the summit of the dome is upon the level of the top of the towers of Notre-Dame, the view is not nearly so interesting as from the latter. There is no river winding at our feet, and none of those guardian monsters who gaze at the city from the heights of the cathedral.
The decoration of the interior is now almost completed, and, whether for good or for evil, it is irrevocable. ”

“ Whatever may be the carved and embroidered envelope of a cathedral, one always finds beneath it—in the state of a germ, and of a rudiment at the least—the Roman basilica. It is eternally developed upon the soil according to the same law. There are, invariably, two naves, which intersect in a cross, and whose upper portion, rounded into an apse, forms the choir; there are always the side aisles, for interior processions, for chapels,— a sort of lateral walks or promenades where the principal nave discharges itself through the spaces between the pillars. ”

“ The lover of travel, of variety, of architecture, of fashion, frivolity, or excitement may enjoy himself in Paris to the extent of his desire. There is plenty to occupy the attention of all who wish to enjoy themselves, in a rational and profitable manner, in the mere seeing of sights that every one ought to see. There is the grand old cathedral of Notre Dame, famed in history and story, which has experienced rough usage at the hands of the fierce French mobs of different revolutions, who respect not historical relics, works of art, or even the sepulchres of the dead. ”

“ The Paris of magnificent vistas is at least less fascinating to the artist than the comparatively provincial city of crooked lanes which has gone to make way for a series of lofty and pretentious street fronts and spacious squares.
4
Strange it is that, where so much has been changed, the cathedral church of Notre Dame has remained almost unaltered in outline and general effect. Revolutions have surged round it; monstrous rites have been perpetrated within it; even the hail of shot and shell have left this wonderful Gothic creation poorer only in decorative detail. ”

“ Peasant and prince, crusader and scholar, humanist and mathematician, men of exemplary lives, born rulers and guides, such were the builders of Notre Dame of Paris, and their ability and sincerity live eternally in their work. [82] They gave free wing to the soul in raising their great church, while they cheerfully accepted the human law of working within limits. No cathedral in France shows more clearly the relation between builders and building, more clearly vindicates the ideals of its age. ”

“ Again, it is certain that the archdeacon had been seized with a singular passion for the symbolical door of Notre-Dame, that page of a conjuring book written in stone, by Bishop Guillaume de Paris, who has, no doubt, been damned for having affixed so infernal a frontispiece to the sacred poem chanted by the rest of the edifice. Archdeacon Claude had the credit also of having fathomed the mystery of the colossus of Saint Christopher, and of that lofty, enigmatical statue which then stood at the entrance of the vestibule, and which the people, in derision, called "Monsieur Legris." ”

“ A series of churches exists there within short distances of each other, so superb in all their features that it is impossible to contest their superiority to any corresponding group of buildings. The old Domaine Royale is that in which French art is seen in its perfection. Notre Dame, Paris, is a monument second to nothing in the world; but for completeness in all its parts it would be better to cite the cathedral of Chartres, a short description of which must suffice as an explanation of what French art at its zenith was. ”

“ Might not a mocking grotesque beside an angel be taken as emblem of the external antagonism of the animal and the spirit in man? The choir screen of Notre Dame of Paris is sculptured with the apparitions of the risen Lord, from Easter Day to the Ascension. “If Christ be not risen again, then is our preaching vain.” [83]
The cathedral of Paris during the first centuries of its existence was the setting of many national scenes. Here the kings of France deposited their crown and renewed their vow to be just fathers of their people. Before its altar their newborn heir was blessed. ”

“ It is the kick of the ass at the dying lion. It is the old oak crowning itself, and which, to heap the measure full, is stung, bitten, and gnawed by caterpillars.
How far it is from the epoch when Robert Cenalis, comparing Notre-Dame de Paris to the famous temple of Diana at Ephesus, so much lauded by the ancient pagans, which Erostatus has immortalized, found the Gallic temple “more excellent in length, breadth, height, and structure.” ”

“ The square, dome-crowned building opposite you to the left is the modern Tribunal de Commerce; beyond it leftward lie the Marché-aux-Fleurs and the long line of the Hôtel-Dieu, above which rise the towers and spire of Notre-Dame. In front, to the right, the vast block of buildings broken by towers forms part of the Palais de Justice, the ancient Palace of the French kings, begun by Hugues Capet. ”

“ The old church, all vibrating and sonorous, was in a perpetual joy of bells. One was constantly conscious of the presence of a spirit of noise and caprice, who sang through all those mouths of brass. Now that spirit seemed to have departed; the cathedral seemed gloomy, and gladly remained silent; festivals and funerals had the simple peal, dry and bare, demanded by the ritual, nothing more. ”

“ Every cathedral represents millions. Let the reader now imagine what an investment of funds it would require to rewrite the architectural book; to cause thousands of edifices to swarm once more upon the soil; to return to those epochs when the throng of monuments was such, according to the statement of an eye witness, “that one would have said that the world in shaking itself, had cast off its old garments in order to cover itself with a white vesture of churches.” ”

“ Neither in full sunshine, nor in the twilight, nor when night has finally set in, will it allow its majestic proportions to be overlooked. Mr. Henley has finely spoken of “the high majesty of Paul’s,” but even our own metropolitan cathedral, with its overwhelming dome, is scarcely more predominant than Notre Dame.
5
The geographical position of the Cathedral of Paris is not unlike that anciently possessed by Westminster Abbey, and by that crown of the Fens, Ely Cathedral. We find that Notre Dame dominates an islet of the Seine. ”

“ Fair Paris caught the crimson hue —
Well may I call it fair,
With its pure heaven of softest blue,
Its clear and sunny air—
Soft fell the morning o’er each dome
That rises mid the sky;
And, conscious of the day to come,
Demand their place on high.
⁠7.
Round the Pantheon’s height was wrought
A web of royal red;
A glory as if morning brought
Its homage to the dead.
And Notre Dame’s old gothic towers
Were bathed in roseate bloom,
As Time himself had scattered flowers
Over that mighty tomb. ”

“ It is very necessary that they should be kept in good humor, for when the lower classes of Paris become thoroughly dissatisfied, they are apt to rise in fierce rebellion, and then down go kings, governments, and palaces.
NOTRE DAME CATHEDRAL (FROM THE REAR) .
LUXEMBOURG PALACE.
On the southern side of the river rises a great gilded dome which glistens in the sun, and may be seen from all parts of Paris. This dome belongs to the church attached to the Hotel des Invalides, or hospital for invalid soldiers, and it covers the tomb of Napoleon Bonaparte. ”

“ The occasion for a new structure was the fire of 1218 which partly destroyed the Romanesque cathedral. As its old choir was preserved sufficiently to serve for a while longer, the new cathedral was begun by the nave, not the usual procedure. The nave rose in one supreme effort; from start to finish its plan never deviated. It has been taken as the typical masterpiece. “The façade of Paris, the tower of Chartres, the sculpture of Rheims, the nave of Amiens” is a popular summing up. ”