A view of the facade of Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral in Paris, on November 29, 2024, five years after the 2019 fire which ravaged the world heritage landmark and toppled its spire.STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN/Reuters
Just before eight on a warm Paris morning, the gallery of kings glittered in the sun. My tour group and I were approaching Notre-Dame Cathedral, and a modest crowd of early-rising tourists and the faithful were gathering on the stone parvis in front of Paris’s most famous building. Twenty-eight generations of the kings of Judea, their likenesses carved in the 19th century, peered out across the square, limestone faces resplendent beneath the multicoloured Rose Window. We passed through the famous central portal and stepped inside.
I had come to see the results of a herculean building project: the massive, costly, improbable effort to put this place back together. In April, 2019, disaster struck the cathedral: a spark from an electrical short set it ablaze, collapsing the spire and the ancient oak timbers of the roof. French President Emmanuel Macron called for it to be restored to its previous state, “more beautiful than before.” Experts doubted the carpentry, metalwork and stonework could be reproduced at all – let alone within Macron’s deadline of five years.
And yet by December it had succeeded. Two-thousand artisans, directed by architect Philippe Villeneuve, have brought the building back. They used medieval-style tools to shape oaks harvested from royal forests into roof beams; they shaped 200 tonnes of lead to replace the delicate ornamental metalwork. And now the cathedral, like the city around it, seemed fully alive. From the entryway the tall, narrow vaults of the nave stretched toward the altar, washed with rainbow hues from the famous stained glass of the rose windows above.
One thing seemed very different: I could see. On a previous visit I remember the cathedral as deeply gloomy. Now a range of well-aimed spotlights washed the columns of local limestone. Brand-new chairs of French oak by Paris designer Ionna Vautrin stood on the old checkerboard floors; a few people took a seat to pray as the rest of us moved softly through the nave. “There is a special feeling about being in Notre-Dame,” Véronique Creissels, the cathedral’s communications director, said softly. “There is something of the soul of France in it.”
It is also a rich repository of nearly a millennium’s worth of Christian art. The choir enclosure is lined with 13th-century depictions of scenes from Christ’s childhood: the three kings march toward the Nativity in richly coloured blue and ochre robes.
'There is a special feeling about being in Notre-Dame,' Véronique Creissels, the cathedral’s communications director, says. 'There is something of the soul of France in it.'THIBAUD MORITZ/AFP/Getty Images
Turn around to the left, and you jump ahead a few centuries to the chapel of Saint-Ferdinand. Funded and built by a wealthy local family, this was totally redecorated during Eugène Viollet-le-Duc’s freewheeling 19th-century restoration of the cathedral. Green-and-white-painted decor dances around a rose-marble tombstone, flanked by riotous flashes of turquoises, oranges, baby blue and bright pink. The boldness of the colours reflects the sensibility of the 1860s. Now the soot has been washed away, and it shines.
Notre Dame de Paris.Julio Piatti/Supplied
Around the cathedral, new multilingual signage points out dozens of elements in the church’s history. The Crown of Thorns, a relic that is reputed to have been worn by Jesus, has a sleek new display case. (It’s on show the first Friday of every month.)
The cathedral’s history is not only one of religion. As Baron Ferdinand De Guilhermy, a 19th-century historian who worked to save the cathedral, wrote, “the history of Notre-Dame is intimately linked to the history of France.” It has been closely linked to the French monarchy since the 12th century. Napoleon was crowned here. The French Revolution hit it hard; those stone kings were toppled by workers who associated them with the monarchy. Notre-Dame was abandoned for 40 years.
Notre Dame is also a rich repository of nearly a millennium’s worth of Christian art.THIBAUD MORITZ/AFP/Getty Images
Then, in the 19th century, Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre-Dame focused attention on it once again, and it became a focus of revived interest in the medieval past. It was at this time that Viollet-le-Duc’s reconstruction gave it a new life, remaking many aspects of the building and adding a new spire.
The new restoration is far more faithful. When Macron called the French nation to put it back in order, the country’s builders responded, including Grégory Philippe. A law-student-turned-mason, he witnessed the cathedral burn that April day: “I was driving with my tools,” says the stonemason, “and when I saw the flame I burst into tears.”
Tourists and visitors walk next to the Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral on Feb. 1.SEBASTIEN DUPUY/AFP/Getty Images
He was among 2,000 artisans who worked to bring the cathedral back using many traditional methods and tools. Philippe’s specialty is working with historic stonework. In Paris, that means a soft, honey-coloured limestone. On the cathedral, he helped to replace and repair delicate sections of ornament on the vast exterior.
A few hours after my tour of Notre-Dame, I was wielding a chisel alongside Philippe and covered in fine, mineral dust. At his back-alley studio in the Marais, Philippe offers two-hour classes that introduce visitors to the art of bas-relief. He gave us book-sized panels of limestone, a choice of stencils and a range of small chisels. “To start, you go gently,” he advised. “To begin we must trace our pattern, and this part takes a lot of patience.” Following the stencil, I chipped thin lines across the face of the stone. The high, metallic chink of the chisel played a calming rhythm. Then, with a larger tool, I knocked away unwanted areas to create a shape through subtraction: a silhouette of Notre-Dame, its Gothic grandeur reflected in my wobbly handiwork. It was thrilling.
More than 2,000 artisans worked to bring the cathedral back using many traditional methods and tools.YANNICK BOSCHAT/Supplied
Later that night, I walked along the Seine with a throng of visitors and scarf-adorned locals. Just as the cathedral came in sight, the lighting turned on, and the tracework on the towers jumped out of the gloom. I remembered what Philippe had told me: “This is the heart of Paris and the heart of France,” he said. “And we put it back.”
If you go
Access to Notre-Dame Cathedral is free. Lineups are long from midday into the evening; to avoid the main line, book a free same-day ticket. Among many hotels within walking distance is the Hôtel Dame des Arts in the Latin Quarter. It offers a spectacular rooftop bar and low-lit chic comfort. Newly renovated guest rooms by designer Raphael Navot includes art from the 20th-century Paris avant-garde and excellent beds. Room from $548.
The writer was a guest of Atout France, which did not review or approve this article before publication.