FOCUS - JUNE 2019 47 ...................... Please turn to page 48 Whenever we visit a locale, be it near or far, we tend to have a special con- nection with some of the uniqueness of the place, albeit the people, buildings, culture or just the simple beauty of the landscape. Such is the case with Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Anyone who has been to the city of love has surely seen this great lady of French Gothic Architecture. The recent fire, which destroyed a large part of the structure, was devastating and no doubt, more of a shock to those who have set foot inside it. Notre Dame de Paris was the brainchild of Bishop Maurice de Sully, and was built in 1160. It took exactly 100 years to build and was, without a doubt, the most spectacular structure in Paris, until the Eiffel Tower was built, more than 600 years later. During the French Revolution in the 1790s, Notre Dame was desecrated, and much of its religious imagery was damaged or destroyed. The masses were trying to separate France’s con- nection with the Catholic Church, and declared Notre Dame not to be a reli- gious building at all. This caused great looting of artifacts and more than two dozen statues were decapitated in con- junction with the beheading of Marie Antoinette. The Cathedral was greatly publi- cized around the world in 1831, when Victor Hugo published his immortal classic, the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Thousands of tourists flocked to the French capital to catch a glimpse of the two bell towers where the story takes place. Set in Paris of 1482, the beautiful gypsy girl, Esmerelda, was loved by several men including the deformed bell-ringer, Quasimodo. She was falsely accused of murder, and just as she was to succumb to the gallows, Quasimodo swept down from the tower and rescued her. The act of valour cost him his life, and so the story remains perhaps one of the most romantic, yet gripping stories ever told. The success of the novel led to a major restoration project in 1844, and 100 years later, the liberation of Par- is was celebrated within Notre Dame. Beginning in 1963, the Cathedral re- ceived a major overhaul, and the entire façade was cleaned of centuries of soot and grime. Another cleaning and resto- ration project was carried out between 1991 and 2000. During construction of Notre Dame, as was the case with many cathedrals in Europe, money was always an is- sue. In an effort to raise more funds, Bishop Maurice de Sully came up with the original idea of placing dozens of statues all around the entire cathedral. He then offered the nobility an opportu- nity to make a sizeable donation, which would have their likeness on the face of JONATHAN VAN BILSEN A side view of the beautiful Notre Dame Cathedral.