 |
| Under the auspices of Bishop
de Sully, the construction began in 1160 and was completed around 1345. During the
construction many events occurred such as in 1297, the King Louis IX was canonized as St.
Louis, and in 1304, Philip the Fair celebrated his military victory by riding his horse up
and down the aisles in the Notre Dame. By the 17th century, it was very fashionable to
loathe the Notre Dame. In the
eighteenth century, alot of the medieval glass was removed simply to make the building
lighter, and medieval fittings and furniture were often replaced by those in later styles.
For some time, the French revolutionary government held propaganda shows in the building. Yet, it was in 1802, when Napoleon ruled France that he reintroduced Catholicism with a solemn ceremony in the newly rechristened cathedral. Here is where he crowned himself emperor. |
 |
 |
| Notre-Dame is now viewed as one of the key defining examples of the style which was to become known as Ile-de-France Gothic, by the early nineteenth century few Parisians valued their medieval past very highly. Interest in the medieval building was largely rekindled by Victor Hugo's novel Notre-Dame de Paris. For twenty years, Viollet-le-Duc worked at Notre-Dame, adding the spire, consolidating the fabric and replacing missing or defaced sculptures. |
 |
 |
| Interior, the immediately striking feature, if you can ignore the noise and movement, is the dramatic contrast between the darkness of the nave and the light falling on the first clustered pillars of the choir, placing an emphasis on the special nature of the sanctuary. Nearly two-thirds glass, it is the end walls of the transepts that admit all this light as well as the two magnificent rose windows colored in imperial purple. These, the vaulting, the soaring shafts reaching to the springs of the vaults, are all definite Gothic elements, yet, inside as well as outside, there remains a strong sense of Romanesque in the stout round pillars of the nave and the general sense of four-squareness. |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Before leaving, a walk round
to the public garden at the east end for a view of the flying buttresses supporting the
choir, and then along the riverside under the south transept, where you can sit in
springtime under the cherry blossom. And in front of the cathedral, in the square separating Notre Dame from Haussmann's police Headquarters, is what appears to be and smells like the entrance to an underground toilet. In fact, it is a very well-displayed and interesting museum, the crypte archeologique, in which are revealed the remains of the church which predated the cathedral, as well as streets and houses of the Cite dating as far back as the Roman era. |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Built in 1656 for a rich arms
merchant, this magnificent townhouse was sold in 168 to the Duke of Lauzun, whose name it
still bears. In 1842, its new owner, Jerome Pichon, bibliophile and friend of
artists, received the literary bohemia of the time. The poet Charles Baudelaire wrote most of his anthology of poems entitled "less Fleurs du Mai" in a room on the 3rd floor of the building. He met the writer Alexandre Dumas and the painter Delacroix here. The writer Theophile Gautier, the Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke and the German composer Richard Wagner all lived here too. Owned by the city of Paris, which holds receptions here, the Hotel de Lauzun is the only one open to the public to have preserved its original decor. |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
We find ourselves in the St
Michelle district, one we recognize from several years ago which has our favorite hotel
room, in the Hotel Parc Saint Severin. We occupied the penthouse floor for a
week several years ago. It's here that I was reading from the news online about the
O.J. slow speed chase outloud to Janet. She refused to believe me. This
is a great hotel suite with a wrap around terrace on three sides. From here one can
see many great monuments:
And of course, one is right in the heart of Saint German, Saint Michel, Quartier Latin The "intellectual" and new fashion district ! And at half the price of the Ritz, a real bargain. |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
