Notre Dame Cathedral stands in the heart of Paris, France. Its soaring spires and delicate arches are a continuing
testimony to the innovative religious spirit of the Gothic age. Continuing a trend begun by the Abbot Sugar of St. Denis, Notre Dame was meant to inspire the hearts and spirits of worshippers with its beauty and heavenly qualities. Whereas earlier Romanesque churches had by architectural and defensive necessity been squat, heavy fortress-like affairs, Notre Dame’s early creators made use of tall, thin walls interspersed with many windows and supported by the now iconic flying buttresses to give worshippers the sensation of soaring to sunlit, heavenly realms as they were bathed by ‘heavenly light’ cast by massive stained-glass windows. This soaring quality was in large part intertwined with the school of polyphonic music that was born in the growing cathedral. Notre Dame was built during the rise of the French composers Léonin and Pérotin, and scholars have pointed out the direct parallels between the ornamented, echoing rhythm of this music and the architectural echoes in the cathedral. Like the complex counterpoint of the music that inspired it, Cathedral Notre Dame is a transcendent experience to this day.

In keeping with its atmosphere of heavenly music, Notre Dame is known both for its immense organ and its five enormous bells. The largest of these bells, Emmanuel, is rung daily to mark the hours and church services, and is located in the cathedral’s south tower. In August 1944, Emmanuel rang to tell Parisian citizens of the city’s liberation from Nazi forces. The music of Notre Dame, perhaps even more than its architecture, forms the heartbeat of Paris, marking both time and the services of faith to its surrounding community. While the Cathedral itself has experienced abuse and desecration during revolutions, uprisings, and war, it continues to stand as a testament to the deeply faithful, innovative heart of the Gothic era. To this day, Notre-Dame soars like the music of its bells, transporting those within and around it to a more heavenly place.

Destruction and Restoration at the Cathedral Notre-Dame experienced a period of abuse during the late period of the French Revolution, in which much of its art and religious decoration was desecrated or destroyed. A series of restorations and alterations took place in the nineteenth century under the leadership of Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, who removed much of the remaining ornamentation in the church to return it to its “original” state. During WWII, the cathedrals windows were removed to protect them from possible Nazi bombings. These were then restored at the end of the war. In 1965, master glassworker Jacques Le Chevalier created new stained glass windows to replace the cathedral’s earlier grisaille work.

References:
Notre Dame de Paris Website
Wikipedia

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