Auvers-sur-Oise
At the heart of City Island, the Notre Dame Cathedral has always been one of Paris’s most famous monuments.The Parvis Notre Dame of Paris, also known as Place Jean-Paul, dominates its western façade. Its Gothic construction, begun in 1163 at the instigation of Bishop Maurice de Sully, spanned more than two centuries.
The authorities have classified this emblematic religious site as a Historic Monument and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. For centuries, Notre Dame Cathedral did not always enjoy the prestige it does today. The Basilica of Saint-Denis, where the kings of France were laid to rest, Reims Cathedral, where the kings were crowned, and the Sainte-Chapelle , which housed the Church treasury, were the preferred places of worship of the French.
During the French Revolution, the Notre Dame Cathedral fell victim to numerous acts of vandalism. Rioters looted the monument and destroyed all the statues in the portals except that of the Virgin. They also destroyed 28 statues of the kings of Judea, Mary’s ancestors, thinking they were the kings of France.
The French Revolution threatened to destroy the sanctuary and turned it into a wine warehouse. Parisian citizens transformed the monument into a place of atheist worship nicknamed “The Temple of Reason” in 1793. The Catholic Church regained control on 18 April 1802.
Napoleon Bonaparte chose Notre Dame cathedral as the location of his religious coronation as Emperor of France, on Sunday December 2, 1804.
The success of Victor Hugo’s novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame, published in 1831, alerted Parisians to the richness of its heritage. The overall restoration of the church was entrusted to architect Viollet-le-Duc in 1845.
On April 15, 2019, a mysterious fire partially destroyed the entire cathedral. It will reopen to the public on Sunday December 8, 2024, the feast of the Immaculate Conception.
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