FedorIt’s morning in Paris as I sip my coffee in a cafe on the Ile Saint-Louis, directly across the Notre Dame Cathedral, listening to the gentle symphony of the Cathedral’s famous bells.
For some reason, at that time, I remembered a song from Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame:
“Morning in Paris, the city awakes
To the bells of Notre Dame!
The fisherman fishes, the baker-man bakes
To the bells of Notre Dame!”
How many countless people, throughout the history of Paris, have lived their lives to the songs of those bold yet gentle bells?
The famous Cathedral has stood witness to centuries of history, its famous gargoyles casting a watchful eye over the events that shaped Paris and allowed it to become the cultural center it is today. I wonder what unknown mysteries of the past these creatures keep locked away inside. And Paris is loaded with history!
Everything from the Crusades and the Templars, the Musketeers, The French Revolution, The Belle Epoque, a World War, the 1920’s artistic extravaganza, another World War, the New Wave – all the events that took place under the gaze of those bells – centuries upon centuries of lifetimes. The list of France’s cultural booms could go on forever, and so many of these moments happened under the magical song of Notre Dame’s iconic bells.
I remembered climbing the tower and seeing the magnificent view for the first time. I was looking down at history, as those stone creatures do every day. Those gargoyles continue to stand vigilant above the city, but the rest of the Cathedral did not survive its long and tumultuous lifetime unscathed, as other statues were not so lucky to escape the violent extremes of history.
And at some point in its history, it barely survived.
During the bloody chaos of the French Revolution, the Notre Dame was converted to house Robespierre’s Cult of Reason (later the Cult of The Supreme Being) and most of its treasures were destroyed or stolen, as revolutionaries looted the cathedral. They tore down the spire and cut off the heads of the statues on the western facade. The inept King Louis wasn’t the only one to lose his head.
The heads were lost for about two centuries and were only discovered in 1977. They are currently on display at the Musee de Cluny (not King Louis’ head…).
After the Revolution, parts of the Cathedral were so badly damaged, that total demolition was seriously considered. But even without demolition, ongoing repairs were done in a negligible way – stained glass panels, for example, were replaced with simple glass ones “to let more light in”. Renovations were conducted based on the supervisors’ imagination, not according to the original medieval style of the building.
It was Victor Hugo who, in a way, led a crusade to save the Cathedral and fought to preserve Paris’s medieval architecture. His paper War to the Demolishers started the movement and his novel Notre-Dame de Paris, full of details and large descriptions of the Cathedral, completed the task.
Miraculously during all the chaos the great bells of Notre Dame escaped being melted down or tossed off the top of the towers, a fate suffered by the Cathedral of Christ the Savior during the Russian Revolution. The cathedral kept its voice as Paris continued to wake up to the majestic ring of those famous bells. The beating heart of this great city.
The largest of ten bells, Emmanuel, weighs over thirteen tons and has been ringing in the hour during important ceremonial events since 1681 from its home in the south tower. It always rings first, a few seconds before the rest and definitely has a monumental sound to it.
As I finished up my coffee and the bells finished their song I sat for a moment, to take in the atmosphere. I thought about all the people who lived their lives to the bells of Notre Dame and how many were influenced by them in some way, an infinite amount of untold stories, moments lost in time. The theme song of history.
Our monuments bear witness to some of our history’s greatest secrets. How many unknown mysteries does Notre Dame keep within its walls? What wonders of time have been witnessed by this great cathedral? It’s too bad these monuments cannot speak, but some, at least, can sing.
