Notre-Dame de Paris

The western facade illuminated at night

Notre-Dame de Paris; French for "Our Lady of Paris"), also known as Notre-Dame Cathedral or simply Notre-Dame, is a historic Catholic cathedral on the eastern half of the Île de la Cité in the fourth arrondissement of Paris, France. The cathedral is widely considered to be one of the finest examples of French Gothic architecture, and it is among the largest and most well-known church buildings in the world.

Quotes

• The church of Notre-Dame de Paris is still no doubt, a majestic and sublime edifice. But, beautiful as it has been preserved in growing old, it is difficult not to sigh, not to wax indignant, before the numberless degradations and mutilations which time and men have both caused the venerable monument to suffer, without respect for Charlemagne, who laid its first stone, or for Philip Augustus, who laid the last.
  On the face of this aged queen of our cathedrals, by the side of a wrinkle, one always finds a scar. Tempus edax, homo edacior; which I should be glad to translate thus: time is blind, man is stupid.
  • Victor Hugo, in The Hunchback of Notre-Dame , Book 3, Ch. 1 : Notre-Dame

• The echoes of our glory and our losses, of our victories and our disasters, have always resounded under those vaults. We have always tolled the bells for our dead, sounded the tocsin of our anger and the carillon of our joys with the bourdon of its towers. Atheists and believers may share there the same memories, for they are France’s memories.
  • André Chamson, in the foreword of "Notre-Dame de Paris 1163–1963: exposition du huitième centenaire organisée par la direction des Archives de France à la Sainte Chapelle, juin–octobre 1963." (Paris: Direction des Archives de France, 1963)

• 'Europe' in anything other than the geographical sense is a wholly artificial construct. It makes no sense at all to lump together Beethoven and Debussy, Voltaire and Burke, Vermeer and Picasso, Notre Dame and St Paul's, boiled beef and bouillabaisse, and portray them as elements of a 'European' musical, philosophical, artistic, architectural or gastronomic reality. If Europe charms us, as it has so often charmed me, it is precisely because of its contrasts and contradictions, not its coherence and continuity.
  • Margaret Thatcher Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World, 2002. p. 328

• Notre-Dame is our history, our literature, part of our psyche, the place of all our great events, our epidemics, our wars, our liberations, the epicenter of our lives...

• Let's be proud, because we built this cathedral more than 800 years ago, we've built it and, throughout the centuries, let it grow and improved it. So I solemnly say tonight: we will rebuild it together
  • Emmanuel Macron, remarks to the press after the fire, evening of 15 April 2019

See also

• The Hunchback of Notre Dame
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame II
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)
• University of Notre Dame