Because the Hunchback of Notre-Dame was discovered on Quasimodo Sunday – hence his name – people often think that Victor Hugo’s novel<em> Notre-Dame de Paris</em> starts at Easter. Not so; it opens with scenes of carousing and bell-ringing in medieval Paris on the feast of the Epiphany in 1482. The commotion had been caused, as Hugo puts it, by anticipation of “the twin ceremony of Twelfth Night and the Feast of Fools, which had fallen on the same day since time immemorial".
<em>Notre-Dame de Paris</em> therefore makes good Christmastide reading, which is something to look forward to at this stage of Advent: wise men, jesters, rich, poor, food, wine and <em>galettes de rois</em>. Apart from the story of Quasimodo, Esmerelda and Frollo, and themes of good and evil, love and lust, and everything in between, there’s another hero (or perhaps heroine) that comes to the fore: the cathedral itself.
Notre-Dame is to be reopened on 7 December, after five years and hundreds of millions of euros spent restoring it following the fire that nearly destroyed it entirely in 2019. Hugo was clear that the building was the protagonist around which his drama unfolded; it was Hugo, too, who cemented Notre-Dame in the French consciousness, and reminded his countrymen of the treasure in their midst – while lamenting the various indignities it had suffered over the years.
“The church of Notre-Dame de Paris is without doubt, even today, a sublime and majestic building,” he wrote in 1831. “But however much it may have conserved its beauty as it has grown older, it is hard not to regret, not to feel the indignation at the numberless degradations and mutilations which time and men have wrought simultaneously on this venerable monument.”
Hugo’s general theme was that “beside each wrinkle on the face of this old queen of our cathedrals, you will find a scar”. He deplored the absence of Notre-Dame’s flèche – “An architect of taste amputated it (1787) and thought it sufficient to disguise the wound with a large cataplasm looking like the lid of a saucepan” – but lived long enough to see it resurrected by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc during his restoration work from 1845.
I wonder what Hugo would make of the latest restoration of Notre-Dame after the conflagration five years ago, and particularly of some of the wacky plans that were presented before President Macron announced that the flame-licked building would be restored to its previous state. Quasimodo’s bells are ringing again and the statue of Our Lady of Paris has returned; the great cathedral has at last recovered.
The journey has not been without controversy – political and ecclesiastical alike. <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/archdiocese-of-paris-opposes-government-plan-to-charge-admission-to-notre-dame/?swcfpc=1"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">The French government’s attempt to introduce an admission charge was implacably opposed by the Archdiocese of Paris</mark></a>. The government has since fallen with the departure of <em>premier ministre</em> Michel Barnier, just after it was announced that <a href="http://Trump to attend Notre-Dame Cathedral reopening as church bells ring across US"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">Donald Trump would attend the ceremonies</mark></a>. And, of course – this being France – the cathedral authorities have commissioned vestments and silverware in celebration. <em>Bof</em>.
It might have made more of an impact if the newly-restored cathedral – spotlessly clean, which makes it look almost like a pastiche of itself on the Las Vegas Strip – had looked to its own treasures before opening its chequebook. Notre-Dame has a collection of some of the finest liturgical ephemera on the planet; we know this, <a href="https://www.louvre.fr/en/exhibitions-and-events/exhibitions/the-treasury-of-notre-dame-cathedral"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">because it’s all been on display at the Louvre</mark></a>. It is now back in the cathedral sacristy, locked up and ignored.
If the powers-that-be wanted a grand gesture, they could have asked the canons of Strasbourg to lend them their tapestries (above). Made for Notre-Dame in the seventeenth century (they were commissioned by Richelieu), they depict scenes from the life of the Virgin. How apt that would have been in the church of Our Lady of Paris, both in Advent and on the cusp of the Immaculate Conception. How beautiful, too, set against all that bare stone. <em>Mais, non.</em>
The vestments have been made by Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, an <em>haut-couture</em> fashionista-marquis who counts Madonna, Beyoncé and Rihanna among his clients. They have a sub-Matisse feel about them, slightly off-white and covered in what looks like multi-coloured ticker-tape. The only thing that gives them coherence is a large golden cross, which replicates the one standing behind the abandoned high altar at the east end of the choir.
The central altar, meanwhile, looks as though it could topple over at any moment, like one of those bottom-heavy dolls that wobbles back upright again – which is perhaps not ideal for conveying a numinous sense of ineffable permanence. Its silverware is straight out of the 1970s, and within such a spectacular Gothic setting could only have seemed rational to an invincible sense of determination to continue repeating the same experiments in the hope of achieving different results. Optimism or madness; what’s the difference?
At least there is some beauty to be had, if one knows where to look. The fire of 15 April 2019 has recently become the subject of the illuminator Marie Lefèvre’s latest project: a fine page, in the style of a medieval manuscript, depicting the pivotal moment of the fall of the spire – to groans and wails of despair from the crowds gathered on the riverbanks. The idea came to her when she saw Jean-Jacques Annaud’s film <em>Notre-Dame brûle</em> in 2022.
“The burning of Notre-Dame de Paris had a huge impact on me,” she told me. “I’m a Parisian and the cathedral has always fascinated me, ever since I was a child. I regularly walked past Notre-Dame and realised from an early age that this tall, powerful and mysterious building – built by the spirit, strength and faith of thousands of people over several centuries – meant a lot to me. Later, when I was a student, I would often visit it and take refuge there.”
Through her art Lefèvre brings medieval styles and techniques to life. “Notre-Dame de Paris is a symbolically powerful part of our heritage,” she explained, “and I knew that I had to create an illumination to immortalise the fire using this medieval know-how, on parchment.” She began the project by sharing the creative process on her <em>Instagram</em> account, where her photos and videos of the project have been seen by thousands of people around the world. “I did it all by hand”, she said, “and it took me around 550 hours, spread over a year.”
“It’s an illumination for the 21st century, illustrating a key event of our time, but in a 15th-century style and using 15th-century techniques, as a tribute to the Middle Ages, to record this memory on parchment and keep it alive for centuries to come.” Lefèvre’s work powerfully evokes the medieval scriptoria, with their ranks of desks, of whose work so much was destroyed in the <em>Terreur</em>. She is delighted that the project has led people to learn more about the art of illumination: “I’m very happy about that; I hope it continues.”
Hugo might have been less than impressed that more has not been done to restore Notre-Dame to its original form – Viollet-le-Duc only went so far, and mainly outside. “Who replaced the old Gothic altar, and its splendid clutter of shrines and reliquaries,” he spluttered, “with that heavy marble sarcophagus, with its angels’ heads and clouds, which looks like some oddment from the Val-de-Grâce or the Invalides?” That was enough to send me down an antiquarian rabbit-hole: <em><a href="https://sharonkabel.com/post/notre-dame-paris-altar/"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">Nine Centuries of the High Altar and Choir of Notre-Dame-de-Paris</mark></a></em>.
It doesn’t take a great stretch of the imagination to work out what Victor Hugo would make of the new altar, whose predecessor was the only significant item on the floor of the nave to be destroyed by the fall of the burning roof, or its <em>à la mode</em> accoutrements with their projected “noble simplicity”. <em>Chacun à son goût</em>, <em>n’est-ce pas</em>? But of Marie Lefèvre’s manuscript, he would surely have approved in abundance.
<em>Photo: Emmanuel Macron, with the Archbishop of Paris to his right, addressing those involved in the restoration project alongside various other attendees in the interior of the restored Notre-Dame. (Getty Images.)</em>
<strong><strong>A version of this article appears in the special Advent and Christmas 2024 double edition of the <em>Catholic Herald</em>. To subscribe to our award-winning, thought-provoking magazine and have independent, high-calibre, counter-cultural and orthodox Catholic journalism delivered to your door anywhere in the world click <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/subscribe/?swcfpc=1"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">HERE</mark></a></strong></strong>.
