6 January 2026. Dan Jones is the only person in the world who would send me a present for Richard II’s 659th birthday. What a friend. What a present.
It’s too good not to share.
So please join me in this occasional series from the construction front-line as we set about BUILDING NOTRE-DAME.
It’s 1208. Just 45 years after the foundations were laid, the unfinished cathedral of Notre-Dame is an imposing presence on the Île de France.
Dramatic events have already taken place within its walls.
In 1186 Geoffrey, duke of Brittany, third son of Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine, is buried in the choir after his sudden death at the age of 27 while visiting – and plotting with – Philippe II of France. Reports say that, at the lavish funeral, Philippe is so stricken with grief that he has to be restrained from throwing himself into the open grave.
In 1190, Geoffrey is joined in death by Philippe’s wife Isabelle. The queen is also buried in the choir, along with the twin baby boys whose birth has killed her.
In 1200, Bishop Eudes de Sully shuts down divine service in his cathedral when Pope Innocent III places France under interdict. Philippe has rejected his second wife, Ingeborg of Denmark, and taken a third without papal permission, and Innocent isn’t happy.
And then in 1208 – before the king’s marital controversy is resolved – Bishop Eudes follows Queen Isabelle and Duke Geoffrey to the grave, becoming the first bishop of Paris to be buried in Notre-Dame. His tomb is placed in the middle of the choir, the stone chest covered by a copper slab on four legs with an image of Eudes himself.
Under his successor, another nobleman-bishop named Pierre de la Chapelle, work quickly continues on the great west façade.
It’s designed with three magnificent portals, all slightly different in dimension, each with a different sculptural subject for its tympanum (the panel between the lintel of the door and the arch above). In the centre is the Last Judgment; on the left, the death and Assumption of the Virgin; on the right, the Annunciation and Nativity of Christ.
But, even as the portals take shape, the masons’ work on the vast space of the nave isn’t done.
In 1225 they build flying buttresses to support its upper storeys. Into the buttresses they carve channels to drain rainwater from the gutters above. The water is funnelled into projecting spouts called ‘gargoyles’ – throats – because the spouts are made in the form of grotesque beasts with open mouths through which the rain falls to the ground.
Above the portals the masons place a Gallery of Kings: twenty-eight statues of the kings of Israel, looking for all the world like the kings of France.
Above the kings, two towers rise higher . . .
. . . and higher.
The rose window at the base of the towers measures more than thirty feet across. Its slender spokes, filled with brilliantly coloured glass, are ingeniously strong and astonishingly beautiful.
The towers themselves – which are 226 feet high, and both (more or less) finished when Bishop Guillaume d’Auvergne dies in 1249 – will house the cathedral bells.
By 1263, a century on from Bishop Maurice’s foundations, his vision has been realised: the structure of the cathedral is complete.
Still, the masons are modernising the church even as they build it. Side-chapels are installed along the sides of the nave, and new windows added to the walls.
In the mid-14th century, decorative pinnacles are added to the uprights of the flying buttresses.
Are finishing touches still finishing touches if the work of repair and renewal continues?
And what happens when a building is no longer renewed, but attacked?
By the 17th and 18th centuries, taste has changed. ‘Gothic’ style is now ‘odious’, ‘ugly’ and ‘ignorant’. Marble, gilt, bronze and whitewash are added to Notre-Dame’s interior; stained glass, sculptures and tombs – including that of Bishop Eudes – are taken away.
Then, in 1789, comes revolution. The new men in power have no use for a house of God. Notre-Dame is confiscated by the state. The fabric of the building is damaged and defaced. Particular venom is reserved for the Gallery of Kings.
The wheel of fortune turns, and by the 1820s the monarchy is restored; but the dilapidated cathedral is in danger of collapse.
In 1831 a young writer named Victor Hugo publishes Notre-Dame de Paris. (The novel appears in English two years later as The Hunchback of Notre-Dame.) His evocation of the medieval cathedral – and his conviction that architecture since then has lost all its life and genius – inspires an extraordinary restoration of Notre-Dame led by another young man, architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc.
In the course of his painstaking work between the 1840s and the 1860s, Viollet-le Duc designs a new ornamental spire in lead-covered wood for the crossing of the transept. Along the sloping struts of the roof around its base, he places copper statues of the twelve apostles.
Eleven of the apostles look out at the city. One, St Thomas, the patron saint of architects and builders, has Viollet-le-Duc’s face, and turns to gaze up at the spire he has made.
In the great fire of 2019, the spire burns.
The greenish copper statues – which, by another turn of fortune’s wheel, have been removed for repair – are saved.
It’s 2026. The apostles are back at their posts, waiting patiently to see what the next nine centuries will bring.
Fantastic! So many interesting details I had no idea of.
Really enjoyed this series. I had no idea there was a Notre Dame LEGO set, love that. Just finished the chapter on Matilda in She-Wolves, and watched the first half hour of the BBC program - fascinating! Looking forward to the Author Fan Travel tour next year. 😊